Drama.Berlinwall.org

September 30th: Deadline for summer, junior year candids, and the junior prom

November 4th: Deadline for baby pictures

November 25th: Deadline for

Incoming freshmen and their parents are encouraged to attend the freshman orientation program at BHS on Friday, August 22, starting at 1:00 PM in the Gibney Gymnasium. Freshmen students will receive their schedules, locker assignments and get a tour of the building. Current students will act as guides and assist the incoming freshmen in finding their rooms, and will help to fill out the school emergency card information.

We are experiencing a technical problem with the science site. To access the summer reading information for the science department key in the following link.
http://science.berlinwall.org/summerreading

Attached to this post are the Social Studies Department summer reading assignments.

Attention Parents and Student Body: Students will be receiving their schedules for the 2008-2009 school year during a homeroom period on Tuesday, June 17th. If students have any questions concerning their schedules they may see their counselors during the week of exams to finalize any changes. There will be NO changes made AFTER June 23rd. Thank you BHS School Counseling Department

Berlin High School English Department

Accelerated/Honors Program

Required Summer Reading Titles for 2008

One important component of the accelerated/honors program is required summer reading. All accelerated/honors students will read three or four (depending on grade level) teacher-selected summer reading books per year and take a test on the three or four books at the start of the school year. Students who achieve success (85% or above, average of all tests) on the summer reading tests will be welcomed into the accelerated/honors section; it is suggested strongly that students who score below 85 on the summer reading tests reconsider their decision to take the accelerated/honors course.

Click here for a PDF of this document.

Going into English 9 Accelerated:

1. The Time Machine – H. G. Wells

2. Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens

3. I am the Cheese – Robert Cormier

Going into English 10 Accelerated:

1. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen

2. The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini

3. Nickel and Dimed – Barbara Ehrenreich

Going into American Studies Accelerated:

Students must read:

1. The Kentucky Cycle, Robert Schenkkan

2. My Antonia, Willa Cather

3. How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, Julia Alvarez

American Studies students must also choose one of the following:

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou

Growing Up, Russell Baker

The Woman Warrior, Maxine Hong Kingston

Hunger of Memory, Richard Rodriguez

On Gold Mountain, Lisa See

Going into Junior Honors English:

1. Babbitt – Sinclair Lewis

2. Snow Falling on Cedars – David Guterson

3. The Glass Menagerie – Tennessee Williams

4. The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath

Going into Accelerated Humanities:

1. Sophie's World - Jostein Gaarder (Required Reading, subject to summer reading test)

2. The City of Joy - Dominique Lapierre (Suggested, Optional Reading)

Going into Advanced Placement Senior English:

1. The Stranger – Albert Camus

2. Othello – William Shakespeare

3. Three Tall Women – Edward Albee

4. Siddhartha – Hermann Hesse

Per Board of Education policy, an alternate reading selection is provided to students if parents/guardians find a reading selection objectionable. An alternate selection is provided once parents/guardians complete a challenged text form, available from the high school principal.

Justifications for Accelerated/Honors Summer Reading Pieces, Grades 9-12

Four Objectives of Grade Nine Accelerated English

To recognize the characteristics of literary genres

To define and use literary terminology correctly

To evaluate, interpret, and analyze literary works

To develop an increased enjoyment of reading

Wells. The Time Machine

Thematic connections to course curriculum: include individual integrity, love/dependency, and a cautionary perspective on science’s role in human development.

Rationale for book’s selection: This is a Nineteenth Century science fiction novel. As such, it represents an early version of a genre very popular with our students. Its bleak Darwinian future includes important cross curricular connections to science. This novel is set in late Victorian England, so its context can be a problem for young readers. Also, Wells’ vision includes disturbing parallels to our own society and what it may become.

Cormier. I Am the Cheese

Thematic connections to course curriculum: include family relationships and responsibilities, internal vs. objective reality, self invention, and the quest for factual truth.

Rationale for book’s selection: This novel explores, through narrative and hyperbole, the same essential concerns important to our students. The protagonist’s quest for truth leads him through encounters with personifications of each of his greatest anxieties. This novel questions the sincerity of basic human relationships, including parental love, friendship, sexuality, and trustworthiness of supposedly benevolent authority.

Dickens. Oliver Twist

Thematic connections to course curriculum: include family relationships and responsibilities, friendship/ loyalty, self invention.

Rationale for book’s selection: An important emphasis of Nine Accelerated English is the study of genres.

Oliver Twist is a densely plotted novel with vivid characterizations. It explores important themes relevant to our students’ own lives. It coordinates well with A Separate Peace, which we will read in the school year. The class may read Dickens’ Great Expectations, as well. This novel includes some archaic social attitudes, especially concerning race, women, and children. There is significant verbal and physical violence in this novel. An abusive extra-marital relationship culminating in a brutal murder is central to the plot.

Grade 10 Justifications

Hosseini, Khalid: The Kite Runner

• Thematic connection to course curriculum:
• In reading The Kite Runner, tenth graders analyze several of the themes focused on throughout the course of the academic year. Some examples of these themes include: redemption, outcasts, family values and relationship dynamics, and various forms of prejudice (sexism, classism, ethnocentrism).
• Rationale for book’s selection:
• There are numerous reasons why everyone, students included, should read this piece of literature. The specific lessons that The Kite Runner conveys include: diversity (text features characters from modern day Afghanistan), multiculturalism, redemptive subject matter easily relatable to the lives of all students, and history (specifically Afghani politics from the 1970’s through modern, Taliban run times). All of these lessons are connected to the literary choices that students will read throughout the academic year. For example, Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck develops the similar themes of friendship, loyalty and difficult choices with catastrophic consequences, and The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger develops similar themes of being an outcast and redemption. This novel does include one specific scene within its pages that is graphic in nature. However, the events of this scene are critical to understanding the conflicts, lessons and themes developed in the story.

Austen, Jane: Pride and Prejudice

• Thematic connection to course curriculum:

Pride and Prejudice deals with issues of class and an individual’s place in society and within a family. The novel also explores the dynamics of relationships, a key theme of grade 10 reading selections. In addition, there are numerous internal and external conflicts, two of the central literary terms/concepts present in the grade 10 curriculum.

• Rationale for book’s selection:

The novel provides a foray into a discussion of “What is good literature?” and represents the classic Victorian novel within the tenth grade curriculum. Students will understand what characteristics can make a piece of literature “classic”. Pride and Prejudice presents a piece worthy of structural analysis in terms of plot elements, relevant symbolism, and dialogue. The novel presents gender role stereotypes that are not uncommon in the literature of the period.

Ehrenreich, Barbara: Nickel and Dimed

• Thematic connection to course curriculum:

Nickel and Dimed deals with issues of race, class, and gender, all of which are central to the grade 10 curriculum. The piece can be connected readily to pieces as divergent as To Kill a Mockingbird and Anthem.

• Rationale for book’s selection:

Nickel and Dimed presents some views of economic realities in present-day America. The text is relevant because of the current nature of the ideas presented; students will be quite familiar with the businesses and occupations that are referenced throughout the work. As a work of nonfiction, Nickel and Dimed ties in perfectly with the school- and department-wide goal of reading nonfiction pieces for information. There are a few examples of coarse language contained within the book as the author presents excerpts of inter

2008 Junior Honors English Summer Reading

Lewis. Babbit

Thematic connections to course curriculum include the loss of family values/structure, materialism, personal goals for success, sense of community.

Rationale for the book’s selection: The novel compares well with The Great Gatsby, showing the early twentieth century with its emphasis on material growth and the destruction of traditional family values. The novel focuses on George Babbitt, the scion of a mid-western family, and his attempts to maintain his credibility while experiencing many setbacks including familial problems, the loss of a valued friend, and the deterioration of his own sense of self.

Gutterson. Snow Falling on Cedars

Thematic connections to course curriculum include prejudicial treatment of minorities, the impact of war on society, and the efficacy of the judicial system.

Rationale for book’s selection: The novel explores the discriminatory treatment of a minority segment of the American populace. It compares well with such literary works as A Lesson Before Dying and “A Raisin in the Sun”. While the focus of the novel is on societal and judicial injustice, the plot also reveals the growth of a personal relationship between a young man and woman from two disparate segments of society.

Williams. “A Glass Menagerie”

Thematic connections to the course curriculum include the changes from a patriarchal to a matriarchal society, isolation, living with disabilities, and coping with societal pressures to conform.

Rationale for the book’s selection: The play focuses on an individual who is not a mainstream member of society. The protagonist, Laura, can be compared with many characters from American Literature, Hester Prynne, Bartleby, and Esther Greenwood, among others. The plot unfolds in a most straightforward fashion, using realistic dialogue and human response.

Plath. The Bell Jar

Thematic connections to course curriculum include alienation and loneliness, the search for personal fulfillment, family pressure, and the need to conform.

Rationale for book’s selection: The novel focuses on a personal search for fulfillment against a background of conformity. Esther Greenwood can readily be compared to other female protagonists in American Literature, such as Antonia Shimerda, Daisy Buchanan, and Hester Prynne. Esther attempts to cope with chronic depression and the impact that such depression can have on a young woman’s development as a functional member of society.

2008 AP English Summer Reading

Three Statements from the course’s AP/UConn Audit Description

1. AP Honors English is a seminar in writing about some of the world’s best literature.”
2. “Readings will include selections from various genres.”
3. “We will learn about important movements in literature… .”
   

Albee. Three Tall Women

Thematic connections to course curriculum include family relationships and responsibilities, temporal relativity, self invention, existentialism.

Rationale for book’s selection: This is a representative post modern drama by an important American playwright. AN important goal in this course is to experience, understand, and relate a breadth of literature to experiences, including to other readings. This play presents a grotesquely dysfunctional family whose search for, and eventual recognition of, what’s meaningful is far from that to which we would hope our students aspire. Rude language is found in the play and the text includes references to an extramarital relationship. We consider this play in a group which also includes Waiting for Godot, Bonny Barbara Allen, and Porphyria’s Lover.

Camus. The Stranger

Thematic connections to course curriculum include family relationships and responsibilities, temporal relativity, self invention, existentialism.

Rationale for book’s selection: This is a representative modernist novel. As a French text, it helps satisfy the course’s emphasis on world literature. It is an important example of existential writing. The central character’s isolation from his world is often seen as a metaphor for the individual’s lonely place in modern Western society. The plot of the novel includes a murder within the text; traditional religious and social assumptions are rejected by the central character. We will consider this novel in a group which also includes Chekhov short stories and Dover Beach.

Hesse. Siddhartha

Thematic connections to course curriculum include family relationships and responsibilities, temporal relativity, self invention, and the quest for spiritual truth.

Rationale for the book’s selection: This novel brings into fictional focus Western philosophers’ search for meaning in Eastern spirituality. As a German text, it helps satisfy the course’s emphasis on world literature. Its Indian sources are the same as those which inspired, a century earlier, American Transcendentalists to intellectualize the Romantic Movement. The eponymous hero seeks his life’s meaning in a variety of representative venues, including friendship, religion, sensual gratification, asceticism, and commerce. His eventual discovery of truth as an individual matter is at the expense of nothing else – all options are available, and the fitting choice for him is one of service and reflection. This novel’s plot includes uncritically portrayed episodes of lust and greed. We will consider this novel in a group which also includes Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Sonnet 116, and Barbie Doll.

Shakespeare. Othello

Thematic connections to course curriculum include the outsider’s situation, family relationships and responsibilities, racist preconceptions, self invention.

Rationale for the book’s selection: This is one of Shakespeare’s most well known and influential works. Our consideration will focus on its dramatic aspects, as well as on the powerful portrayal of xenophobic vitriol, and its effect on love. This play includes profane language, father-daughter hostility, and a slew of stabbings. Murder, suicide and off-stage torture are prominent as well. We will consider this play in a group which also includes Cry the Beloved Country, To an Athlete Dying Young, and Cinquains for Rocky.

Academic English Summer Reading – 2008

 Summer Reading Goals -  

Berlin High School students will:

• appreciate literature outside of the classroom in preparation for becoming lifelong readers;
• practice identifying, selecting, and evaluating books that are appropriate for their age- and grade-level;
• respond to their reading in a written format

Summer reading is required for all students for the summer of 2008. 

Directions:

1.       Select and read two books this summer.  Selected books can be fiction or non-fiction, and they must be appropriate for your age and grade level.  If you so choose, take notes on your books to help you remember details later on.

2.       Complete the summer reading form for each book.  These forms must also be signed by a parent/guardian.  Successful completion of the summer reading form will count for a course grade. 

3.       Turn in the summer reading forms to your English teacher during the first week of school.  Seniors who do not have English during the first semester will turn in their forms to the Main Office.

4.       Answer the summer reading essay question on the first unit test taken in your English class:

--Describe the most important conflict in each book that you have read. 

--Connect these conflicts to important conflicts seen in the first unit you have studied in English this year. 

--Be prepared to make reference to and elaborate upon at least three specific scenes/examples from each book.   

Seniors who do not have an English class in the first semester will answer summer reading essay questions during the first two weeks of school.

Resources:

1.       Ask your current teachers for suggestions.

2.       Ask the Library/Media Specialist, Mrs. Elliott, for suggestions.

3.       Visit Peck Library.

4.       Visit bookstores such as Borders or Barnes and Noble.

5.       Consult the following websites:

http://newcanaanlibrary.org/teens/school_reading_lists.htm 

http://www.tomahawks.org/home/summerreading/

http://www.madison.k12.ct.us/publications/2007_9-12_Summer_Reading.pdf 

http://www.trumbullps.org/reading/ths06.pdf

http://pdfs.voya.com/VO/YA2/VOYA200602BestHighSchool.pdf 

http://www.alan-ya.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=category&sectionid=1&id=14&Itemid=27

http://www.amazon.com

http://www.barnesandnoble.com

Forms are available here. 

Renovations to the BHS Track are underway. The track will be closed to the public during this time. For updates on the progress and pictures of the construction, go to the BHS Boys Track Site - Track Renovation page. http://sports.berlinwall.org/boystrack/trackrenovation BHS Track Renovation Page

The Berlin High Drama club proudly presents its second annual Underclassmen Shakespearean Project. It will be held tonight - Thursday June 5 at 6:00 in the senior courtyard. It's just $5 to see three different Shakespeare plays directed by three different students. Come and see all they've accomplished and share some laughs!

The Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions Center is once again offering an SAT Preparatory Program for students at Berlin High School. The program will be offered here at Berlin HS this summer during the month of July 2008. This program will help students prepare for the October 2008 SATs. For information please call: 860-236-6851

The following are the dates for the program:

Session # Date Time
1 Tuesday 7/15 10am - 2:30pm
2 Thursday 7/17 10am - 12:30pm
3 Tuesday 7/22 10am - 12:30pm
4 Thursday 7/24 10am - 12:30pm
5 Tuesday 7/29 10am - 2pm
1 Thursday 7/31 10am - 12:30pm
2 Tuesday 8/05 10am - 12:30pm
3 Thursday 8/07 10am - 2pm
4 Tuesday 8/12 10am - 12:30pm
5 Thursday 8/14 10am - 12:30pm
6 Tuesday 8/19 10am - 2pm
7 Thursday 8/21 10am - 12:30pm

The senior class outing will take place this Monday June 2nd. Seniors attending this trip should meet in the BHS auditorium at 7 a.m on Monday. They will be leaving the building shortly before 8:00 for High Meadow Resort and returning to the school by 4:00, unless otherwise specified. Students should bring their bathing suits (which should be kept appropriate) and a towel if they'd like to go swimming. Although there will be a place where students may leave their belongings, they should be careful not to bring anything too valuable.There will be activities at the resort that have a fee, such as horseback riding, so students may want to have some pocket money. If you have any questions regarding this trip, please contact Ruth Kidwell at rkidwell@berlinschools.org

Per Mr. Synnott:

Exams:  Seniors will take exams for Periods 6 & 7 on Wed., June 18th (as all other grades).  Exams 1-5 for seniors are given at the discretion of the teacher before the 18th.

Rehearsal:  Rehearsal is 10 a.m. on Thursday, June 19th.
Caps & gowns pickup is between 1:00 & 2:30 same day.  All accountabilities must be cleared up before this day, or seniors must bring cash/check.  There will be more info regarding these accountabilities in the near future.

The class of 2008 proudly presents "The Pink Panther Strikes Again" this Thursday, Friday, and Saturday at 7:00 p.m. in the BHS auditorium. Tickets are $10 and just $5 for all Berlin High seniors. Come and enjoy the show!

High School Status -

From Michael Cicchetti , Superintendent of Schools:

[District News]