This Was the Week That Was

Guest author Jennifer Miller spent two days on campus in English classes Tuesday and Wednesday. She shared excerpts from her new coming-of-age novel entitled The Year of the Gadfly, a funny and spooky novel set in a prep school much like CA. She also led the students through some creative writing activities and encouraged them to develop their writer’s voices. I have posted two Miller-related links on the Links section of the US portal if you would like more information or a good holiday book idea.

‘Twas very cold and wet at the semi-final field hockey game on Tuesday. Thankfully we prevailed 2-1 in overtime, defeating hockey rival Cherry Creek. Senior Ali Clarke did her best Michael Jordan imitation and played through a fever, then scored the winning goal with 31 seconds left in OT. The championship games takes place on Monday night at All-City Stadium in Denver. Our top-ranked Mustangs will be playing no. 3 seed Palmer Ridge at 7:00 pm. Meanwhile, the men’s soccer team will be starting playoff rounds this weekend and the women’s volleyball team hosts the metro League tournament.

Next weekend please come out and support local theatre as the Fine and Performing Arts department presents November, a political satire by David Mamet. The show takes place in the Basement Theatre (always a great venue) on November 2 and 3 at 7:00 pm. What a perfect show for this season, especially given Colorado’s “battleground state” status!

Next week we will be giving an assessment to the freshmen during their study hall blocks. It is called the College and Work Readiness Assessment, and it is a relatively new test that our students are taking annually in their 9th and 12th grade years. The purpose of the CWRA is to measure students’ abilities as problem solvers. Developed by the Council for Aid to Education, the CWRA is designed to “help your school learn how well your students are learning how to think critically, reason analytically, solve problems, and write well. You will also be participating in an ongoing national project building a database of information about teaching higher order skills to prepare students for college, and for life.”Every student is given a complex scenario that needs to be solved creatively, accounting for a number of variables as they write their responses.