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Weekly News
1/26-1/30/26
This week, English 9 students finish their independent reading of Angie Thomas’ 2017 novel The Hate U Give. After discussing the novel as a whole, we will plan, draft, and polish a literary analysis essay to delve into the complexities of the theme. Practicing MLA format and using textual evidence to support an arguable thesis statement are also parts of this thinking/writing process. We will continue our discussion of creative writing as activism as we connect the work of Dickens to Thomas, and in the coming weeks, Orwell.
Students in English 10-11 have been learning about the historical-cultural significance of romantic poets writing in response to the Age of Reason/Rationalism and the Industrial Revolution. Students have discussed that the industrial revolution was a time when there were many innovations in manufacturing and travel, and that there were both positive and negative consequences related to these rather extreme changes. The daily lives of many individuals became vastly different. Individuality, for example, was more difficult to maintain if hundreds of workers were on a single assembly line. Students have also learned that the lack of governmental oversight of this time allowed businesses to exploit their workers by taking away their rights, exposing them to hazardous health conditions, and paying them low wages. To make connections between past and present the following questions guide the students through the unit: How does this background—and these concepts—apply to our world today? What would a romantic poet write about today? What would concern them? Where would they seek out beauty, the imagination, or emotional resonance? What would scare them or delight them? These questions have led to in-depth discussions and writing concerning AI, climate change, and social media.
English 12 are reading and discussing William Shakespeare’s Tragedy of Hamlet. A guiding question is What makes us human? This query has been a throughline in our study of the essay/memoir, The Odyssey, contemporary poetry, and The Canterbury Tales. We will also compare the concept of Humanism in 17th century England to our own understanding of artificial intelligence & humanism today. Where in the history of language and literature can we notice a cultural stagnation, and where/when do we find the arts flourishing? Why? How?
Students in creative writing have been exploring poet Joyelle McSweeney’s concept of hyperdiction, the purposeful amplification of language. McSweeney argues that every individual in the world has access to a distinct bank of language informed by unique experiences, places, people, culture, etc., which means that no two voices are ever exactly the same. Students began their work with hyperdiction by building glossaries of words, phrases, and images associated with their own interests and their hometowns. Students then read and discussed Yusef Komunyakaa’s “Venus’ Flytraps,” a poem in which the speaker is the poet as a five-year-old boy. The students are now working on drafts of poems in which they speak from a specific age of their choice, using their hyperdiction glossaries to make the language as rich and unique as possible.
Students in mythology just wrapped up the unit on Celtic mythology and are beginning to learn about Japanese mythology. We’ll learn about Shintoism and kami and the Japanese mythological creation story.
Upper and middle school students in music are working on learning guitar trios and quartets! We’re learning “Lean On Me”, “Here Comes the Sun” and “Bridge Over Troubled Water.”
1/20-1/23/26
Visual Arts
We have a brand new addition to the art studio…we now have our very own life-size skeleton (all 203 bones) to assemble and use for anatomy and figure drawing. Honors Art III has been working on in depth anatomy studies with charcoal, pen, and graphite. Be on the lookout for some creative “art of anatomy” in the upcoming weeks.
Yearbook students have been hard at work photographing a variety of school events to ensure our book is filled with all of our special moments. When you see them with a camera, be sure to give them your best BEAR grin!
Art I has been hard at work on researching contemporary artists, learning how to analyze and describe works of art. They will be culminating their investigation with an “in the style of” piece of art.
Our Art II students have spent time focused on observational drawing and still life. They have been experimenting with charcoal and graphite, working with tortillons, blending stumps, and kneaded erasers with the emphasis on value scales in their drawings.
Working on “identity in 3D” MS Foundations students have been crafting personal symbols as part of their high relief clay tiles. We will be bisque firing and then glazing and firing once again.
1/12-1/16/26
Students took on multiple challenges across subject areas in the sciences this week! In Biology, students dove into DNA and protein synthesis. They modeled DNA replication with colored paperclips, visualizing Chargaff’s rule and the anti-parallel nature of DNA. This allowed students to grasp how replication happens differently on each side of the helix, what okazaki fragments are, and all the different enzymes that allow this process to occur. Once DNA was mastered, we then ventured into transcription and translation. To master these concepts, students became the different enzymes and molecules and put on a little play! While silly, they learned that the multi-step process requires cooperation and acuity.
Chemistry class took on a new challenge, Dimensional Analysis, also known as Stoichiometry. The use of the mole was an abstract concept at first. However, as the week progressed, students began to apply it like second nature! In the lab, we experimented with the mol as a measure of concentration with kool-aid and sugar. Instead of being given a recipe, students were given molarity and grams. This forced them to use dimensional analysis to properly mix ingredients!
Neuroscience students also embarked on a major area of cognitive science- language. We looked at research studies over the last 40 years and ventured into the interesting world of neuroimaging technology. Students learned all the different components of language, and where in the brain these components are stored, processed and produced.
1/5- 1/9/26
We have been busy in upper school math this week after coming back from the break!
In Honors Precalculus we have been reviewing our skills with exponential and logarithmic functions and using these to answer real world problems. We are using regression techniques to determine equations of best fit to model data, then using the models to make predictions. After an assessment this week we will be moving into trigonometry.
In Honors Calculus students are honing their skills for finding the derivatives of trigonometric functions. Coming up next will be finding derivatives of logarithmic and natural exponential growth functions and then implicit differentiation. After that, students will get to put all of their differentiation skills to use in application problems in the fields of physics, economics and optimization.
In Introduction to College Algebra students are mastering finding solutions (aka roots, zeros, x-intercepts) to quadratic equations through 5 different means. However, if they choose to, they can always rely on the quadratic formula, which they are repeating several times a day over the course of several days, so it stays with them for a long, long time. Forever, perhaps!
This week in Algebra I, students focused on reviewing key concepts in preparation for their test on Thursday. We revisited how to identify domain and range, determining whether a relation is a function, and analyzing and modeling real-world graphs. Students also practiced graphing functions using tables, evaluating functions for given inputs, and finding zeros of a function both graphically and algebraically. To round out the review, we spent time working with arithmetic sequences and recognizing patterns in growth and change. The week was all about strengthening foundational skills and building confidence as students demonstrate what they’ve learned so far.
In Carter’s section of Intro to College Algebra, students sharpened their algebraic toolkit by reviewing how to simplify monomials using the product, power, and quotient rules, along with zero and negative exponent rules. From there, we moved into operations with polynomials, practicing how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide expressions. This led naturally into our exploration of polynomial functions, where students learned how to graph polynomials by identifying key features such as relative maximums and minimums, as well as intervals of increase and decrease. These skills are helping students better understand how algebraic expressions connect to the behavior of graphs and real-world models.
Upcoming Events
Friday, March 20
Juniors take ACT, Contact Lauren Dean, ldean@ngfs.org with questions.
Friday, April 10
SAT for Juniors, Contact Lauren Dean, ldean@ngfs.org with questions.