LEF PROUDLY ANNOUNCES OUR
2007 SUMMER FELLOWS

Thirteen teachers from Lexington Public Schools have received mini-grants of up to $4,000 to attend conferences and workshops and participate in research programs. These educational opportunities will enhance their teaching and enliven their classrooms.

Here’s what LEF Summer Fellows will be studying:

Patricia Cascio, Jacqueline Kagey, Mary Ellen LaCroix
Literacy Specialists
Hastings Elementary School

These Hastings Literacy Specialists will be spending time this summer learning EmPOWER, a systematic approach to teach expository writing. EmPOWER helps teachers mentor students in all stages of the writing process using a specific routine and set of strategies that build on one another. As they work with teachers previously trained in the program, these specialists have observed critical benefits: student progress, a common vernacular, and broad applicability across grades and content areas.

Susan London
Music Specialist
Fiske Elementary School

Susan London’s students have benefited from her initial training in 1993 in the Orff method, which teaches elements of music that are less abstract when a child actively engages in creating and performing music. London uses hands-on methods to teach the concepts of steady beat, rhythm, and melodic shape. To lead her students toward more advanced skills, including harmony, improvising, and composing, London will be attending an Orff Level II class at Bridgewater State College. “The Orff technique will help me structure lessons that are dynamic and multifaceted, simultaneously including singing, instrument playing, movement and improvisation,” explained London.

Martha Rogers
Music Specialist
Bowman Elementary School

Exposing students to a diverse musical palette broadens their own tastes, and Bowman Music Specialist Martha Rogers sees her students become “empowered” when they create jazz or blues when they play. To incorporate these musical styles more fully into her teaching, Rogers will enhance her keyboard, vocal and percussion skills through lessons and a jazz workshop with Paul Barringer, a highly regarded musician and educator. She will also conduct a workshop for her fellow music colleagues and share her experience and materials.

Suzanne Melo
Fourth-Grade Teacher
Bowman Elementary School

To develop curriculum for a fourth-grade Mesoamerica social studies unit, Suzanne Melo will be attending a three-week study program in Mexico entitled Mesoamerica in the Classroom. “Through my own experiential learning and living with a Mexican host family,” says Melo, “I will be able to create interdisciplinary lessons which utilize multiple intelligences, moving beyond text-based lessons.” In addition, Melo will gather artifacts from Mexico such as papel picado, the traditional art of decorative cut paper banners, to create a materials kit for classrooms.

Douglas Tran and John Hunt
Spanish Teachers
Clarke Middle School

While attending advanced conversational courses at the Academia Hispano Americano in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico this summer, John Hunt and Douglas Tran will improve their Spanish fluency and gain knowledge on how to help students speak more like natives and minimize their American accents. In addition, Hunt will study Mexican art, music and folklore, while Tran will attend a seminar on Mexican law, religions, education and government. These experiences will enhance the Clarke Spanish curriculum with units on Mexican culture and the judicial system.

Anne Chavez
Spanish Teacher
Lexington High School

For LHS students who have yet to study a foreign language, an opportunity to learn Spanish language and culture through social studies will now be available. This summer, Anne Chavez will prepare to teach a pilot LHS course through a month-long live-in experience and university graduate course work at the Universidad de Costa Rica. Chavez hopes “to gain insight into the daily life & culture of my host family and develop a heightened appreciation of the culture of this important region” through the classes, History of Latin America and Teaching Spanish Language and Culture.

Heidemarie Floerke
German and English Teacher
Lexington High School

Watching films is just one component of the Film in Instruction course that Heidemarie Floerke will be attending at the Goethe Institute Berlin this summer. The course also integrates the country’s cultural and political history and offers the rare opportunity to learn from her host family and fellow German teachers from around the world. Floerke is confident she will “learn to use film not as the focal point of instruction, but as a tool to support the curriculum and to reach out to various visual learners in the classroom.”

Annie Zeybekoglu
Visual Arts Teacher
Lexington High School

As a visual arts instructor, Annie Zeybekoglu uses the art and visual iconography of different cultures as a resource and influence for design projects. This summer, she will travel to Ghana on a Primary Source Art and Culture Study Tour to help her create an interdisciplinary curriculum unit on the West African/American slave trade. Art and World History students will benefit from her experiences and learn how aspects of Ghanaian culture endured through the richly symbolic textile designs of the African slave.

Karen Girondel
French Teacher
Lexington High School

To prepare her students for the in-depth literary analysis that is expected on the French AP exam and in college courses, Karen Girondel will be attending the Advanced Placement Summer Institute in French Literature at LaSalle University in Philadelphia. The course will assist Girondel in teaching three new literary works that the College Board has added to the 2008 AP required reading list. Said Girondel, “This fellowship will allow me to share best practices with French Literature colleagues from around the country during a week of intensive literary study.”

Nathan Johnson
English Teacher
Lexington High School

For six weeks this summer, Nathan Johnson will become a student at The Bread Loaf School of English at Middlebury College. The graduate level course in playwriting will help him discover the many ways to explore this dramatic form. This experience will be particularly useful in two classes he teaches at LHS Contemporary Literature and Art of Film. "My work in the playwriting class will enable me to construct better dialogue assignments and approach the difficult task of creating believable dialogue with greater confidence and skill," said Johnson.