Cooking Class: Traditional American Food

On Sunday, September 25th, my eleventh grade students, some of my ninth grade students, and Irina Petrovna, the Head of the Middle School English Program, joined me at my home to learn how to cook some traditional American food.

Our main course was pulled pork cooked in a slow-cooker with homemade barbecue sauce. We served the meat on these homemade buns.

We ate it with a coleslaw made from shredded carrots, shredded white cabbage, diced red onion, fresh lemon juice, plain yogurt, dried cranberries, salt and pepper.

We also had a Caesar salad made with a low-fat yogurt-based dressing and homemade parmesan baguette croutons. To make the croutons we chopped up a baguette, having removed the ends. We then tossed the bread some olive oil, put them in a pan, sprinkled them with parmesan and freshly-ground black pepper, and baked them until crisp. We added freshly-grated parmesan cheese, kalamata olives and grilled chicken to the salads as desired.

For dessert we made the most amazing chocolate brownies and an apple and pear crisp. The leftover crisp was a hit in the teachers' room the next day!

Students practiced zesting, juicing, grating, dicing, chopping, whisking and even whipping chocolate over a bain marie. We spent over two hours preparing the food, and then we watched the movie "Soul Surfer" while we waited for dinner to be ready.

"Soul Surfer" is based on the actual story of Bethany Hamilton, an American surfer from Hawaii who was attacked by a shark seven years ago when she was thirteen. Even though she lost her left arm, she went on to become a world champion surfer and is an inspiration to people all over the world. Earlier in the week we had practiced word formation for the ЕГЭ exam by reading about her, and we had even done some listening comprehension ЕГЭ practice by comparing televised interviews with her to the article we had read. As a result, we were able to analyze how Hamilton's actual story differs from the movie and why the directors chose to do so.

The afternoon was a wonderful success; we're already thinking about what we'll cook next time, and we already have a movie picked out for November...

Mrs. Smith

Helpful Vocabulary for Essay Writing

The eleventh graders are working hard to prepare for the ЕГЭ English exam at the end of the year.

Hey, students! This website is a fantastic resource for helpful vocabulary and phrases to strengthen your writing!

I also recommend checking out dictionary.com and thesaurus.com to help you with your vocabulary. Both sites are free!

Imagine by John Lennon

Having finished Lois Lowry's The Giver, we're taking a look at a utopian world... Here's another take on the song, sung by the cast of the hit US television show "Glee." In this episode the choir from a school for the hearing impaired joins the school's show choir club, and they're inspired by their deaf counterparts.

Listening Comprehension: Homelessness

Becky Blanton is a writer, photographer and former journalist who found herself homeless, but bounced back to tell her story and inspire others.

Homelessness in America

This week in the ninth grade we're looking at the question of homelessness in America. Through articles from the New York Times, local newspapers, clips from CNN and youtube, students will gain multiple perspectives on causes and solutions.

We will also be learning about Liz Murray, the remarkable young woman who grew up homeless in a family with drug-addicted parents—yet threw herself into her public school education, eventually attending Harvard on a full scholarship (and graduating with honors). Here are links to her talking about her memoirs and the charity she helped to found:

Here are links to the movie that was made about her life:

Here is another story on CNN about young African American teenage boy in a similar situation:

Bearing Witness: Holocaust Testimony

We're reading Art Spiegelman's The Complete Maus in the eleventh grade. These two graphic novels are the non-fiction account of Spiegelman's listening to his father, Vladek Spiegelman, as he bears witness to what he lived through during the Holocaust.

You can read about Maus here.

We are examining Holocaust in a variety of forms: poetry; documentary; historical literature; first-person written testimony; video testimony; theatrical drama; children's literature; art; music; and memorials.

We will be reading psychological theory on bearing witness by Yale professor, survivor and psychologist Dori Laub while we finish Maus and also watch testimony from the Yale Fortunoff Holocaust Video Archive.

"The Red Badge of Courage"

We just finished reading Stephen Crane's novel and are now examining his treatment of the Civil War. Just how did a a man in his twenties who never actually participated in the war come up with such details about the "realities" of battle and the interior monologue of a new soldier?

We'll be looking at a variety of historical sources to find parallels between the novel and actual events.

Here is a quick "Fact Sheet" with an overview of the war.

Here you can view Ken Burns' award-winning documentary on the Civil War. (The video, however, isn't very clear when viewed in full-screen mode). HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

Here is the site from the Smithsonian Museum's 150 Years Commemorative Exhibit about the Civil War. Check out the eyewitness accounts, letters and discussions about the actual terrain where battles were fought.

Here are images, including photos, paintings and actual objects from the Civil War from the National Portrait Gallery at the Smithsonian Musem.

Here is the Smithsonian site about Civil War Studies. Take an online tour!

Here are photographs from the war with helpful historical descriptions.

These sites are quite helpful:

Eyewitness to History: The Civil War

American Civil War Resource Center

A Week in the Civil War

Conformity

In conjunction with our reading of Lois Lowry's The Giver, we're discussing conformity in the eighth grade. This week we'll be looking at the famous Yale Milgram experiment. Click on this link to watch an informative 10-minute overview of Milgram's work.

Here is the original experiment:

Robert Frost

We're reading poetry by Frost in the eleventh grade. (Hmm... As I write this, I just learned that the fourth-grade native-speaker English students have been reading him, too!) Here's an excellent link to read his poems online—and a short biography. The comments following each poem are quite interesting, too!

Here's an American college student's interpretation of "The Road Less Traveled":

Here is Frost himself reading "The Road Less Traveled":