Ms. Farese

Congratulations to Lucy Svirsky

with

"Chucking the Torch"!

She is our winner!

Torch Speeches were turned in on June 6th!

6 Finalists were chosen.

The 6 finalists were (in no particular order)

Eleanor Powell with "A Letter from the Ghost of Graduation Future"

Kleah Cenolli with "540 Days of Respect at RAMS"

Jason Stokes with "Moving On"

Owen Bulmer with "Surviving Middle School"

Lucy Svirsky with "Chucking the Torch"

Camryn Rankin with "Passing the Torch with Confidence"

One child, one teacher, one pen, and one book can change the world.

-Malala Yousafzai

Dear Families of Farese English Students,

We are almost there! We have read. We have talked. We have remembered. We have honored. Now we must act. Choosing to participate is the last step of this scope and sequence. The unique part of this unit, Stronger than Hate, is that it all comes back to us. We can choose the path. So I challenge you to PARTICIPATE!

Do something kind for another!

Volunteer for a #180DaysToInspireRespect

Register for the Stronger Than Hate challenge.

The world needs you to play big! Take up space and show the world that RAMS is Stronger than hate.

Lisa Farese

@TeacherFarese on Twitter

Dear Families of Farese English Students,

In our classroom we are excited to begin utilizing a new Internet educational resource called IWitness. This site features videotaped life stories of more than 1,500 survivors and witnesses to genocide, which are from the archive of the USC Shoah Foundation – The Institute for Visual History and Education.

IWitness has enormous educational potential for our students. Viewing these testimonies adds an essential human dimension to the study of history and it has applications across many disciplines. By exposing students to a multitude of voices and experiences, it builds their understanding of complex historical events and fosters a more thoughtful historical perspective.

Additionally, IWitness contains user-friendly tools that allow students to participate further in their own learning. By utilizing the video testimonies and the tools that are available to develop and potentially share multimedia projects, students are enabled to demonstrate their knowledge and skills and to participate in a discussion with both their peers and educators. Hopefully, constructing and discussing their own projects will result in a new or invigorated awareness of the power they have within to create and sustain the change they wish to see in the world.

I encourage you to familiarize yourself with the IWitness site, which may be found at http://iwitness.usc.edu. Given the nature of the content, both in Night by Elie Wiesel and the content shared on this site, students may experience strong emotional responses as a result of the testimonies and grapple with difficult questions. Therefore, it is essential that your child has ample opportunity both in and out of class to process what he/she is learning and/or feeling as a result of using the IWitness site. I urge you to initiate a dialogue with your child, and if questions or concerns arise as a result, please do not hesitate to contact me.

I am also asking that each student consider doing an act of kindness (say something nice to another or oneself) or an activity to reset their learning-brain (coloring, drawing, meditating) before moving away from the material we use in class as we read Night by Elie Wiesel and approach a unit meant to teach that #allstoriesmatter.

Unquestionably, these are transformational times in education, and I am energized by the possibilities that IWitness presents to us as members of a learning community.

Sincerely,

Lisa Farese

@TeacherFarese on Twitter