US Blazer Buzz 28 Jan
This week's highlight: Actor Workshop
For the past few weeks, students in the Acting Workshop elective have been getting in touch with their emotional sides through several different acting exercises - all in preparation for their first scenes up close and personal with the camera. While memorizing lines and developing their characters' "needs" for each scene, the students have also been busy constructing a memory bank of emotions. By exploring their own pasts, they've been working on bookmarking emotional events that they could later recall when their scene required that particular emotion. Even those students new to acting have done a fantastic job of getting out of their comfort zones and allowing themselves to be vulnerable while preparing to be on camera. Recently, Richard Clark Jr., founder of the local production company New Daydream Films, and Ryen W Thomas, graduate of NC School of the Arts and writer and director, visited class to share what they look for in actors and to explain the audition process.
Contributed by Jordon Burton
US Blazer Buzz 21 Jan
This week's highlight: Game Theory
Discrete math students are studying game theory, or the theory of competition. One of the aspects of this unit is the concept of a "truel": a three person duel. This sort of standoff is present in many action movies and television shows. To illustrate this concept the students each had a ruler and had to compete in a "truel" with two other classmates. On the count of three, they put their rulers up and then documented the results. They then each calculated their own record of winning and the probability of each outcome.
Contributed by Colin McGuire
US Blazer Buzz 14 Jan
This week's highlight: Quadrilaterals and Relosophy
Our ninth graders study geometry and ancient world history during their math and social studies classes. During world history class, they recently completed a study of ancient religions and cultures, learning about their philosophies and beliefs. Throughout the centuries, patterns involving color and shape have been present in clothing, household items, art, and architecture. Religious groups often have iconic symbols and images that are sacred to them. In geometry, the class is in the midst of a study of quadrilaterals and properties of special quads such as rectangles, trapezoids, and rhombii. The students have started a project to connect these two studies. They are tasked with creating an image made up only of quadrilaterals that represents a group's relosophy or belief. The image could be used as a cover to a sacred book. The ninth graders are precisely forming special quadrilaterals that have exact requirements for their angle, side, or diagonal relationships that also represent the culture. Students have chosen pyramids, crosses, Stars of David ( ✡), written characters such as the Hindu Om (ॐ) symbol, and typical scenes of religious life. The finished projects will be on display in the classroom to remind students through the rest of the year of both of these studies.
Contributed by Dr. Stutzman
US Blazer Buzz 7 Jan
This week's highlight: 9th Service
The ninth grade service learning class studies food and the environment. Just before the holiday break, the students joined volunteers from Society of St. Andrew to glean produce at Barbee Farm. Gleaning is an activity where farmers open their fields after their main harvest for organizations to gather the remaining produce. Society of St. Andrew helps coordinate farmers and gleaners from charities so that the gleaned produce makes its way to food banks, soup kitchens, homeless shelter, and families in need.
Our ninth graders spent the bulk of their morning pulling carrots from a field that Barbee Farm planted specifically for gleaners. They dug them from the soil, pulled off their greens, and bagged them. Students helped complete the gleaning of several long rows of collard greens. They capped off the morning boxing sweet potatoes that had previously been harvested.
It is estimated that Woodlawn students and volunteers gleaned about 3,000 pounds of carrots and 2,000 pounds of collards and bagged 2,000 pounds of sweet potatoes. That is a lot of food for local families to have on Christmas Day!
US Blazer Buzz 17 Dec
This week's highlight: 10th Grade Service Class's "Itty Bitty Book Drive"
In their service class this year, the 10th grade is focusing on issues in education, learning about the history of schools in the United States as well as about some major issues schools face today. The class recently visited The Learning Collaborative in Charlotte, a preschool program for at-risk youth--much like Head Start. When the holiday season rolled around, the tenth grade decided to put together a book drive to donate to TLC. They've named it the "Itty Bitty Book Drive"--presumably for the size of the students, not the size of the books! So far, there have been boxes set up throughout the Woodlawn community, and there's been a hefty set of donations to the drive, from classics such as Scuffy the Tugboat and an illustrated The Jungle Book to more recent pieces, like Dora Saves Mermaid Kingdom!
Each student in the tenth grade has been eager to help the Itty Bitty Book Drive run smoothly, and The Learning Collaborative has already extended their appreciation for the thoughtful gift of literature for the holidays. 10th grade service is looking forward to returning there in January to help kick off the center's read-a-thon.
Contributed by Kyle Tilley
