Drama, Discovery and Learning

PO Box 1092
New York, NY 10025
ph: 917-284-5786
jtoomer@dramadiscoveryandlearning.com

Nationbuilders Collegiate Charter Academy for Service and Leadership

The Nationbuilders Philosophy and Programs

The Nationbuilders School is a small, professional learning community that encourages all students to achieve academic excellence with a strong literacy foundation and to develop their innate gifts for, and to practice skills in, effective leadership. The latter is done with a sequence of leadership-building activities in ninth through twelfth grades. Both literacy and leadership proficiencies are guided by measureable criteria with ongoing performance assessment based on standards-based quarterly benchmarks. Our small class size of 25 students and literacy focus across the curriculum supports our double purposes of engagement and empowerment for all students. Our target enrollment is a minimum of 100 students per grade and after four years does not exceed 410 students for the entire school population that includes a majority of English Language Learners and at-risk students.

In meeting the literacy needs of all students, Nationbuilders High School schedules additional ELA and literature courses for struggling readers, English Language Learners (ELL), and Special Education students by providing block scheduling, a Bridge class with ESL curricula, differentiated instruction and classroom libraries for the freshman classes.

Teachers and guidance counselor meet weekly to discuss and address students’ progress or deficiencies. All teachers receive staff development on how to integrate reading and writing activities into their subjects. The emphasis is on standards-based literacy instruction, inquiry, instructional technology, differentiated instruction with measurable criteria and student-centered cooperative learning. Bilingual teachers provide additional instructional support in core subject areas.

Through our service leadership courses, our school aims to equip teenagers with tools for problem-solving, critical thinking, community-building and embracing social responsibility as concerned citizens in the life of our country and the world. The Nationbuilders Collegiate Charter Academy engages students in thinking processes that challenge them in the higher order thinking skills, particularly application, evaluation and synthesis. It further involves young people in creative strategies for visioning their future, bridging intergenerational gaps, and utilizing modern technologies to empower them to become leaders.

Teachers and counselors meet regularly with students in one-to-one conferences to provide instruction and guidance on meeting quarterly standards-based benchmarks in English, math, science, and history. .

Initial diagnostic assessments in September produce data from the web-based assessment technology of the Scantron Performance Series. Teachers use this data to plan and to implement accelerated instruction to address students’ areas of need in reading, writing and math. Midyear, in January, students take their second web-based diagnostic assessment to assess their ability to achieve targeted learning objectives in Reading and Math previously identified in the first assessment. End-year assessments include the Scantron Performance Series, final exams and, in some classes, state Regents exams.

The school’s program helps students with group strategies and communication skills that build sustainable bonds in the school and larger community. A concrete example is they learn how to lead from observing and interacting with adult mentors in our “Trailblazer Mentoring Component”—a combination of face to face meetings and virtual events utilizing technology and the web to connect students with adult leaders in their fields.

For first year students, the “Nationbuilders Fundamentals” class is offered as an elective. Other elective courses, like the 9^th grade “Language of Discourse” and “Strength in Community,”, encourage public speaking, develop writing skills, and integrate history curricula. Inclusion classes provide differentiated instruction to address varying levels of readiness and types of learning styles.

An extended day program offers additional time for credit-recovery courses and enrichment programs.

Our planning team includes leaders in education, the arts, and finance. They are Jeanette Toomer, English teacher, trainer and founder, Drama, Discovery and Learning, LLC; Sheila McDaniel, Deputy Director, Finance and Administration, Studio Museum in Harlem; Carolyn A. Butts, Publisher, African Voices LiteraryMagazine; Gus Hinkson, math and technology teacher, Loyan Mensah, Finance, Morgan Stanley; Andrene Bonner, high school English teacher and Arts Administrator; John S. Gonnella, Finance, Morgan Stanley; Dr. Nia Irene Mensah, physical therapist; Caroline Goodwine, special education teaching assistant.

Writing Tips for Teachers

Recommended by Jeanette Toomer

Model first for students the writing technique or strategy that you are teaching them.

You can do this by either writing it as a model during the mini-lesson before the work period, or distribute copies of a it (for example, a summary) and read it aloud with the the students showing how it captures the main idea, key words, topics and important details.

In your mini-lesson use underlining or circling to teach students how to mark important facts, reasons, examples or details that they use as textual evidence when they write about the article or textbook passage.

Writing takes practice. Have students keep an observation journal or “Writer’s Notebook”.

Incorporate “Exit Writes” or “Quick Writes” so they can summarize

and/or write opinions about what they’ve learned in a lesson.
Example of Exit Writes: (Debriefing Tool)
What is one thing I learned today that I’d like to remember?
Why is summarizing a helpful writing skill?
Make writing a group activity.

Have students work together in small groups and have each

student write a paragraph in a five-paragraph essay. Then
they read it aloud with their partners. Have them share with another
group.

Writing takes practice and more practice!

Writing is a craft. To become good at it takes practice.
Incorporate a writing activity in each lesson. Praise their efforts!

Have students use graphic organizers or charts to help them learn

how to prewrite in order to develop ideas for writing assignments.

Teach the writing process. Take students through the four steps-prewrite, draft, revise, and publish--to create a finished, publishable essay or story.

Trouble the Waters

By Jeanette Toomer

This is a riveting award-winning documentary of devastation and emotional trauma of Hurricane Katrina in August 2005. Filmed by Katrina survivors and novice filmmakers this film captures the damaging effects of Katrina on a black family and community in New Orleans.

Recently, I had the opportunity to view this compelling documentary at BAAD Theater in the Bronx. It disturbed me that so many people, predominantly black citizens, had to struggle to survive in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina flooding New Orleans.

DDL maintains a blog at dramadiscoveryand learning.com/blog.html. Feel free to write in your response to queries or entries.

Join NCTE in Celebrating Literacy Education Advocacy Month

The NCTE Literacy Education Advocacy Calendarlists possibilities, from sharing NCTE positions with your colleagues to visiting your state lawmakers while they're home in April to taking part in NCTE's Advocacy Day in Washington, D.C., on April 23.

Using NCTE's 2009 Legislative Platform to Influence Literacy Education
by Kent Williamson, NCTE Executive Director

If there was any doubt that change was in the air on Capitol Hill shortly after the inauguration ceremonies, those doubts were blown away in the first hours of meetings between the NCTE Government Relations Platform Writing Team and key legislative staffers on January 29. After three days of meetings and careful drafting to zero in on the issues where Council action can prove influential, the 2009 Legislative Platformwas ready.

Platform Highlights: The thrust of our platform is to encourage Congress to take a comprehensive approach to supporting literacy learning. It is grounded in the need to provide every student with the kinds of rich learning challenges that will imbue them with the critical communicative and analytic abilities referenced in our definition of 21st century literacies. To accomplish this, it sets out ambitious literacy education reform criteria for Congress and other federal authorities in the areas of

assessment;
an inclusive definition of scientifically valid research;
writing and reading as equal, interdependent components of literacy development;
support for English Language Learners and the youngest literacy learners (those under age five); and
job-embedded professional development.

Making it Happen: With these powerful goals established, there are three primary pillars to our government relations strategy this year:

1. Work with allied literacy groups to put together a bill (either as a component of reform of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act or as a free-standing measure) that funds comprehensive literacy planning at the state and district levels.
2. Inform our members and their departments/districts of how the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding (stimulus monies) and other sources of federal support can be used to access NCTE resources and other high quality teacher learning materials.
3. Build broad support for a congressional measure to establish October 20, 2009 as the National Day on Writing.

For more information on the National Council of Teachers of English literacy education platform and activities, visit their website at ncte.org. Their annual conference is scheduled for mid-November in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

PO Box 1092
New York, NY 10025
ph: 917-284-5786
jtoomer@dramadiscoveryandlearning.com