Category Archives: Michelle Koski

Art and Literature in Real Life

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Art and Literature in Real Life

Kate and I collaborated on English I outside reading during the Fall Semester–Book Folder Reports.
As part of the assignment students created a marketing tool for each book they read–this was a colored folder that was decorated with cover art and included information on the book characters, plot and read-alikes.
For the cover art, students could print out or reproduce the cover on the book they read or they could create their own unique cover.
One student, Eunice Casa, was really attracted to this aspect of the assignment and came up with a unique cover for the book: Eliza and Her Monsters by Francesca Zapia.
Original Bookcover
Even better than that, after the assignment was completed, Eunice continued to work on her art and eventually came up with a new version which she posted to Instagram (tagging the author).
Eunice with her Book Folder Project and the revised artwork post on Instagram.
Last week, Eunice came bouncing into the library with Kate to tell us that the author had seen her post and commented how much she “loved it”. This week Eunice came bouncing in again to tell us that the author had even re-posted Eunice’s artwork on her own account.
This intersection of art, literature and real life really made this student come alive this is why we do what we do. To have our students come alive–to further their studies on their own after being sparked by something in our classrooms.

“Have I told you, I love my job”

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“Have I told you, I love my job” another teacher whispered to me as we watched  Chiana Lee get up on stage and give the “Director’s Welcoming” at the Thursday 11/16 performance of The Outsiders. This statement really made me stop and think–and you know what I had to agree. I do love my job.

At a time of year when usually all you hear is the complaining of “When will Christmas Break” get here, I took the time to reflect on my experiences working with the students during The Outsiders. I feel so fortunate that I get to be employed using both of my college degrees. During the morning, I am the Librarian–able to use my Master’s degree and share my love of stories and the written work. After school, I am the Costume, Hair & Make Up Designer –sharing my love of clothing and design (the reason I went to college–BA in Theatre Arts).

I love roaming the Theatre as the show gets ready to go, seeing our students putting into practice what they have learned in the classroom and through observation.

New to Make-Up Crew. Wriley and Alex observe Malena and Nadya applying their make up.

Ted joined us as a “newbie” in High School Musical–now he is on his 3rd show.

It is especially wonderful when students jump out of their comfort zones and try something new–such as the baseball players who took part in The Outsiders. One student’s mom, told me more than once how much her son loves Company–that now “he comes home smiling”. And now that he has baseball practice and can’t do Company–his mom tell me how much he misses it and how much he wished he could do both.

Joe was recruited for The Outsiders and now he is back for Little Shop.

And isn’t that what we ultimately want? Students who are invested in their learning, that want to be there and give it their all?

Several students like to say they “Live at the Theatre”, but remarkable most have good school/life/theater balance.

Cast & Crew of The Outisders–This is our Company family.

Now with Little Shop on it way–as I move around the theater and work with students building the Audrey II puppets, rehearsing musical numbers and generally having a really good time with each other. I am reminded again–how much I really do love my job.

Making a small space work

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“Organized Chaos” is a term that can often be used to describe my Costume & Fashion Class.

At the end of the first Unit, my students rotate through a machine sewing project.

With 18 students and only 4 machines, this often means that students are working on several different projects at one time.

Today there were students sewing on machines, designing patterns, cutting fabric and still other were working on a online assignment on Schoology.

 

 

Genre–What?: Creating a more Student-Centered Library

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Our Library has gone through several transformations since the January.

First, the Fiction was broken out into 10 subject-based genres. These topics were decided on based on student request of books for their outside reading in English.

Genre Fiction: Realistic (orange) & Made Me Cry (blue)

Genre Fiction: Touch of Magic & Historical

Now fiction books are sorted into Faith, Mystery/Suspense, Horror/Thriller, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Touch of Magic, Romance/Relationships, Historical, Literary Classics, Realistic & AWW/Made me Cry.

Second, the library physical space was reorganized. Eliminating the rows of computers and adding more chairs to the existing tables encouraging more student interactions.

Third, new furniture was ordered and finally arrived (this week!). The taller bistro/cafe tables are a big hit in the library and the perfect height for helping students with their work.

Finally, the books are moving again as we begin to make cross-curricular and interdisciplinary connections between non-fiction and fiction topics. One example is in 940.53 (World War II) memoirs and first-person accounts of the Holocaust, Japanese Interment or life as a solider are paired with novels on the same topics. This necessitated adding new stickers to the books so our students could clearly determine if the book they picked up is non-fiction or fiction.

Soon additional sections that will appear in the non-fiction are Books based on Shakespeare and Serious/Terminal illnesses (think John Greene’s The Fault in Our Stars).

Chaos in the Library

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This week we have been having Frosh English classes into the library for a short library orientation and to choose their outside reading book.

During third period on Wednesday, as the students swarmed the stacks,  I became overwhelmed with answering questions and checking out books. Mary Beth Dittrich who was working at a table during her prep started to help students locate books and answer questions.

Thanks to her several students found the books they wanted and also had an interesting conversation along the way.

In the end, over 50 books were checked out to students for their outside reading enjoyment and our shelves have more space. Which the interns like–it is easier to re-shelve the books.

Publishing on Kindle (Using Whispercast)

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This summer we had great success sending out Kindle books to all the English teachers and Frosh English classes using Whispercast.

I decided to try to take the 2 readers we publish in house and convert them to a format that would allow readers to annotate them in Kindle.

After several failures in getting my Word document to insert Chapter Titles/Auto Table of Contents using styles. I found a guid on the Kindle Self-Publish page that actually made sense and worked!

I was excited to send out the Frosh Reader to Kate and Tiz and all their students. They can open it in their Kindle App (it actually is already there–sent by Whispercast) and highlight, bookmark, and take notes, just like any other Kindle book.

However, it wasn’t a complete success as while the Table of Contents is hyperlinked throughout the book so a reader can navigate to a chapter from the Table of Contents, it does not appear in the Kindle menu bar.

I will keep working on this–by next year–I might have figured it out.

Students Teaching Students

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This is what I love to see in my classes: students helping and instructing their classmates.

In Graphic Publications, a graduate from the class of 2017 returned for a week to help the new editors settle in. It was great to have Sam in class working with the yearbook editors, Lauren and Grace while I worked on lessons with all the new students.

Im my Costume & Fashion Design class, I had 2 students who joined class after the first, so they needed to do a little catch up. Classmates taught them the skills they needed (separating thread & threading a needle) to catch up on the assignments.