Fall 2011 Intensives Offer Students Real World Experiences Near and Far

From Advanced Acting to Honors Chemistry, from the Gates Mills Campus to the Island School in The Bahamas, the three weeks between Thanksgiving and Winter breaks found Hawken Upper School students in Intensives, the unit of collaborative, experiential learning that immerses students and teachers in an in-depth study of a single subject. Made possible by the Upper School’s unique schedule, this format is designed to enhance understanding by giving students the opportunity for full focus study outside traditional classroom walls. Now in its second year, Intensives use hallmark activities including fieldwork, research, excursions and presentations in order to achieve a more memorable learning experience.

 

For some students, this fall’s offerings were almost life changing. For all, they led to a deeper understanding of their selected topics of study.

 

The Intensive course curriculum spans all departments, including the humanities, languages, mathematics, visual and performing arts and sciences. Spring Intensives will begin in May for Upper School students. Below are descriptions of the Fall Intensive offerings, along with student/parent feedback for selected 2011 courses.

 

Designed to show students their abilities are only limited by their commitment and creativity, student actors staged, memorized, polished and performed Moises Kaufman and Tectonic Theater Project’s controversial exploration of the human condition, The Laramie Project. “It was wonderful by any standard, but that Mike, Ken and the kids were able to put this together in three weeks is extraordinary,” said one performance attendee.

 

Read about this intensive through student comments at the Hawken Laramie Project blog.

 

How do you make a film? How do you develop an idea into a storyboard or script? What emotion do you want to elicit from your viewer? These and other questions were answered as students collaborated on film creation. Students viewed and analyzed short films, learned about cinematic terminology and developed an understanding of the roles and responsibilities of each filmmaking facet.

 

Students studied non-Western musical genres and practices through analysis, discussion and live performances. Focusing mainly on West Africa, India, Latin America and Asia, the class explored the main cultural and artistic expressions of metropolises around the globe. In-class discussions covered topics such as religion, philosophy, language patterns, cultural history and traditional customs. Students studied different aspects of the social and cultural contexts that shape music and discussed styles such as hip hop, punk, reggaeton, mariachi, nor-tec, roots music, samba, electronic dance music and how each relates to its environment. The class also visited important Cleveland music venues such as the Cleveland Agora, House of Blues, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

 

On the final day of this Intensive, the English 10 Biomedical Humanities course hosted the New York band Savoir Adore, led by Paul Hammer and Deidre Muro. Hammer and Muro were formally trained as acoustic musicians in the classical and jazz genres, then met as they both were beginning to experiment more and more with electronic media. Reaching back and reaching forward in their craft, Savoir Adore were the perfect fit for a course in which Hawken students read about the witches of Macbeth, the clones of Brave New World and the robots of Bicentennial Man.

 

English 11 offered readings in American literature from the colonial period to the present, arranged thematically and with special attention to the twentieth century. Students also spent time reading poetry, non-fiction, short stories, and drama. One parent said this about the course, “I want to relate that as worried as my son was about the amount of reading that would be required, and whether they would be sitting around reading or discussing reading most of the time, he has been thrilled with the range of learning modalities employed. The manner Ms. Gray taught the course used a variety of sources for developing critical understandings of narrative art, including books and film. The assignments were inspired and offered students a range of ways to satisfy them. This approach really connected with my son.”

 

“My Intensive was one of the hardest and most rewarding teaching experiences I've ever had, in part because of the great kids I had in my class," notes instructor Cris Harris. "The students created a blog for their works. It includes links to almost two hundred essays ranging from interview transcripts, to meditations on the perfect cannoli in Little Italy, to visits to the chemo ward at UH. You'll also see links to explorations of an idea relating to the University Circle area. Check out Miles' Bloomenkranz' hilarious portrait of L'Albatross, where he spent four nights interviewing staff and bussing tables, or Rebecca Bernstein's slightly icy series on forgotten things in University Circle.”

 

This senior Intensive explored the condition of homelessness, with a primary focus on Cleveland, along with its causes, complications, and community responses. Course activities included problem-based learning, service learning, reading, writing, interviewing, discussion and presentation. Teams of 2 to 3 students worked on-site during the three-week period at service agencies such as Transitional Housing Inc., Family Promise, North Point Transitional Housing, and The Men’s Shelter at 2100 Lakeside. On the last day of the course, teams presented a “Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness” based on the students’ personal class experiences and statistical research.

 

This course was for students with an active interest and proficiency in history. Students traveled to Charleston, South Carolina, where they toured the city, two plantations, the Old Slave Mart, historic houses, and Fort Sumter. Students also learned from a Gullah Tour, a Civil War Walking Tour, an 18th and 19th century music concert, and visits to local churches and synagogues. Click here for student essays on the informative three-day history trip.

 

This interdisciplinary urban studies course examined the role of community development in urban renewal, with a focus on several Cleveland neighborhoods. Students explored how civic engagement, public policy and advocacy, housing and business development, social services, the arts, schools and alternative land use are woven together to create sustainable, livable neighborhoods and a creative city. The class also participated in a discussion “the urban-suburban divide and what we can do about it” hosted by The Civic Commons. You can read and contribute to the conversation here.

 

Modern World History examined Imperialism, the World Wars, the Cold War and the Post-Cold War era to gain insight into the social, political, and economic developments of the modern era. Field trips to the Cleveland Cultural Gardens, Shiva Vishnu Hindu Temple, the Islamic Center, and Severance Hall exposed students to the rich variety of cultures in modern world history. A World War I Veterans project and family history research project presented opportunities for students to practice researching historical records to tell a story. Students visited the Maltz Museum and examined the Nuremberg trials to gain an appreciation for how World War II shaped the modern world. The Intensive ended with an independent research project that included writing, presenting and creating work about a change in the 20th century. The creative works ranged from ballad performances to impressive sculptures and pieces of poetry.

 

This course examined the paradigm of the heroic journey as described in psychology, literature, music, current events, film and personal narratives. With the ideas of Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell serving as the cornerstone of the course, students heard stories from people who experienced significant events such as a life threatening medical diagnosis, a trauma, or overcoming an addiction. Students also experienced EFT, meditation, walking a labyrinth, drawing a mandala and participating in a tai chi class for the elderly. The course culminated with a final project where each student told a story of his journey or that of a loved one.

 

The U.S. History Intensive examined political, economic, social and cultural forces from 1929 to the present. Highlights of the three weeks included a trip to Montefiore to interview residents about the Great Depression, a trip to Villa Serena to interview WWII combat veterans, and a visit with Marine Corps Vietnam War veteran David Ritchie at Judson South Franklin Circle. Additional highlights were a visit to the Rock Hall to investigate 1960s protest music, a walkthrough of the NASA exhibit at the Great Lakes Science Center, the opportunity to sit and talk with local Civil Rights scholar and activist Mittie I. Jordan at the Gries Center, and a field trip to the Islamic Center of Cleveland. Students read a significant amount of historical material, wrote a paper, took multiple tests and even did a mini-project on 1980s music as a reflection of its era.

 

Students worked on perfecting the foundations of the French language while acquiring more complex grammatical and communication skills through reading, speaking, listening, and writing strategies. The class was conducted entirely in French and included a variety of meaningful activities that encouraged interaction with others in the target language. The Fall Intensive included a variety of off campus excursions focusing on French civilization through the lens of French art, music, poetry, and food.

 

In this course taught entirely in Spanish, students enhanced and refined oral and written skills by visiting the Urban Community School to teach Spanish to first and second graders. They also visited the Buhrer Dual Language School to observe an eighth grade math class, and filmed public service announcements in Spanish for Esperanza, a non-profit organization that helps Hispanic students in the Cleveland area.

 

During the Advanced Math Intensive, students engaged in a variety of mathematical activities and projects while completing their study of trigonometry and analytic geometry. As part of a financial literacy unit, students spent a day at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame learning about financial decisions faced by rock bands. Students also did research and prepared a presentation for a Pi/e debate for several math faculty and their peers.

 

In addition to reviewing and expanding on the material of Algebra 1, this course looked at numerous functions such as linear, quadratic including complex numbers, polynomial, exponential, logarithmic, rational, and square root. The Intensive utilized collaborative learning, as well as alternative types of assessments, in the study of Algebra 2 topics.

 

This study of probability and game theory, a specific branch of mathematics that focuses on rigorously analyzing competitive behavior, is an excellent way for students to apply math to real-world situations. This fall, students investigated a variety of topics including coalition building, bargaining, voting patterns, sports, and gambling. Students also learned about classic game theory scenarios such as Prisoner’s Dilemma and Chicken and applied them in discussions of the Cuban Missile Crisis and current counter-terrorism methods from a game theoretical perspective.

 

This past fall, Hawken inaugurated the Freshman Seminar program, a new component of the Humanities 9 course. Six Freshman Seminars were offered for humanities credit during the Fall Intensive, each co-taught by a humanities teacher and a teacher from another discipline. Although the topics ranged widely, each seminar connected to the Humanities 9 course themes and essential questions and focused on reading, writing, research and presentation skills. Each also allowed for meaningful connections with the city of Cleveland. The courses concluded with an evening of presentation and sharing called the Freshman Seminar Forum, which took place at Hawken’s Gries Center in University Circle.

This course was designed to be the equivalent of a college introductory biology course taken by first year biology majors. The two main goals were to help students develop a conceptual framework for modern biology and to gain an appreciation of science as a process. Students practiced finding and using patterns in collected data to solve scientific problems, learned how to read and critique papers written by biology scientists, and learned how to use various types of biological instrumentation and scientific methodologies.

 

This interdisciplinary course examined how ethics, politics and economics shape our environment. Environmental Science gives students the chance to take a different look at the world around them. Instead of looking at how the world functions and behaves, students learn how human impact alters "normal" functions and system behaviors that have been formed over millions of years by evolution. One parent commented that the course, which was held at The Island School in The Bahamas, “changed my child’s understanding of the environment in lasting ways.” You can read about the student experience in this blog, and in this engaging essay by Upper School Science Chair Jon Asbornsen.

 

Honors Chemistry students followed two threads simultaneously. For half of each day, their focus was on the more abstract or conceptual side of chemistry covered by topics such as atomic theory, bonding, and molecular structure. During the balance of each day, they studied math rich topics like stoichiometry, kinetics, equilibrium and acid-base behaviors that lend themselves more easily to lab investigations. This parallel structure offered a variety of challenges to the students as well as opportunities for deeper learning from the two thread cross-connections. There was a lighter side as well, including a daily class newsletter, the “AtNo;” a chemical murder mystery (Doc Smith was killed, not for the first time), and student-led Mole Day, when students performed exciting chemical demonstrations for one another.

 

What does it mean to be a good "food citizen?" What does a good (healthful and nutritious), clean (produced sustainably and with sensitivity to the environment) and fair (produced with respect for social justice) food system look like? What can we do to move our community toward that vision? Students in this problem-based, interdisciplinary course studied the history of food and traditional models of food production, processing, distribution and consumption. They then traced the rise of the current industrialized food system and looked at alternative models practiced currently in our region and elsewhere. The class spent time in the kitchen cooking fresh, local and traditional food and visited the Cuyahoga Valley, an urban farm and various farmers markets.