9th Grade House

Overview: What is the "House"?

The House program is based on nationwide research that has shown that creating smaller learning communities within schools leads to greater student success. This means more attention for each student in a smaller high school group. Much of this success is due to the support and personalization that students receive when they have teachers in various subjects working together to teach them what they need to know.

For freshmen, the first year of school is a very transitional one with many new expectations. Teams of teachers and students working together can focus on making school connections and can support one another in the process. The final goal is success for all of our students.

Along with The Source web site, our House can boost the ability to better track students as they make their way through three core classes of their freshmen year. Students get to know one another well and teachers can adjust teaching strategies and collaborate to provide a setting that works best for each unique group.

Academics: Striving for Seamlessness & Consistency

Course expectations, late work policies, classroom rules and requirements are standardized for the House students. This creates consistency and a seamless transition through half of their day as they settle in to the rigor and new challenges of high school. It is important that students share the same understanding of what is expect of them as a participant in the House program. Effort is made so that when they leave the courses at the end of the year, in addition to subject requirements, all House students also will be able to do all of these things:

• Maintain an academic calendar; utilize a personal method of organization for daily use.
• Show mastery in certain tasks or skills - '06-07 House students will master 100 spelling words and geographic placement of thirty-two countries.
• Create and maintain a finished portfolio.
• Demonstrate competency in two oral presentations.
• Create an annotated bibliography.
• Complete and individual research project.

Additionally, students are expected to bring the same supplies to all three House courses each day - paper, pens, a composition book, and a three-ring binder.

Professional Writer Comes to Chief Sealth

This fall (2007), ninth grade students in James MacDonald’s language arts classes are working with writer and performance artist Christa Bell. Christa comes to Chief Sealth through Writers in the Schools, an award winning program of Seattle Arts & Lectures that focuses on improving students’ writing skills.

Christa is working with these classes once a week, helping students to create, present, and receive feedback on their creative writing. At the end of the semester, students will have the chance to present their stories, poems, and memoirs to the school community in the form of an anthology, reading, or special project.

In its thirteen-year history, Writer in the Schools (WITS) has inspired interest and excellence in writing for elementary, middle and high schools students, as well as provided teachers with new ideas and skills for teaching writing. This year, WITS is partnering with twenty-four public schools, providing teachers with professional development scholarships to the Puget Sound Writing Project at the University of Washington, books for school and classroom libraries, visits from nationally- or internationally-known authors, and complimentary tickets to the Seattle Arts & Lectures literary lecture series. WITS also produces an annual city-wide anthology of student writing.

Writer Christa Bell is a National Poetry Slam (NPS) Champion, National Public Radio alumna and internationally touring artist. A graduate of San Francisco State University with a degree in Creative Writing, Bell has studied in France and lived in east Africa. She is the author of three collections of poetry, two spoken word CD’s and the creatrix of the one-woman phenomenon, “CoochieMagik: A SpokenWord Musical Comedy.” Christa is member of the Brooklyn, NY based performance arts collective, D Underbelly. She has shared stages with political and creative luminiaries such as Angela Y. Davis, Saul Williams, Muta Baruka, Ursula Rucker, Bill Frisell and many others.

If you would like to know more about Christa or the WITS program, please visit Seattle Arts & Lectures’ website at www.lectures.org , or contact Jaime Curl, WITS Director, at jaime@lectures.org.