From the January 10, 2008 issue of The Cape Codder
Cape Cod Lighthouse Charter School News
Books across the seminars
ORLEANS - One of the most popular and distinctive aspects of the Cape Cod Lighthouse Charter School academic year is the seminar program in which students have the opportunity to choose a class on a topic beyond the regular curriculum. These classes are offered each term covering an amazing range of topics reflective of the interests, passions and extracurricular expertise of the teachers. This term, the teaching staff decided to bring literature into the students' lives in a dynamic way. All the seminar offerings are inspired by a book (or two or three).
While jumping off from a literary inspiration, a few of the 14 classes offered will resemble a traditional language arts class. In "Ads, Ads, Everywhere!" led by math teacher Liz Moore and language arts teacher Kathryn Wilkinson, students will use excerpts from "How the Media Shapes Your World and The Way You Live In It" to explore their daily interaction with advertising, marketing and media. Students will put what they learn into action, producing their own commercials, and scientifically analyzing marketing strategies.
Young naturalists will be inspired by two choices: In "Capturing Thoreau's Cape Cod," taught by sixth-grade teacher Josh Stewart, students will use the classic as a travel guide as they leave campus to explore the places described by Thoreau and take photographs that they will print with the assistance of professional photographer Bob Korn. "My Family and Other Animals," the charming memoir of Gerald Durrell's' childhood years on Corfu, will lead students in Pia MacKenzie's seminar to discovery of Corfu, Greek language and culture and the art of memoir as well as to research into the species he mentions and exploration of equivalent habit/species connections on Cape Cod.
Other students will be mounting the musical "Bye Bye Birdie!"; learning about how cultures clash in "Son of Morning Star" by Evan S. Cornell; questioning an impossible dream with "Don Quixote de La Mancha"; exploring Chinese culture and mother/daughter relationships through "The Joy Luck Club" by Amy Tan; or accompanying hobbits and dwarfs on their adventures in Middle Earth through the pages of Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings."
Seminars that will also use literature to promote action include "Painting Hemingway's Old Man and the Sea," an opportunity to find ways in which images and words can inspire each other; "Random Acts of Fulghum," where philosophy will be acted on in daily life; and In the "Knowledge, Compassion, Action" seminar, based on Dr. Jeffrey Sachs' "The End of Poverty" and the works of Jane Goodall and Tracy Kidder. Students will work with the charter school's sister school in Tanzania as well as design a service project culminating in participation in the International Day of Peace at the United Nations next September.
One seminar that offers an exception to the rule, but is all about books is "Library 2.0" in which students will explore new ways to think about and use libraries. Working with Brewster Ladies' Library staff, students will create possible library services, select books for readers their age, and create videos for public service announcements.