WUMS QSA students put hours of time and energy into a program they developed called, "Live Your Life". Big goal: To increase empathy and promote positive social interaction in our middle school by helping people get to know each other’s stories. They led a presentation each day during Connections Time this week to address tough topics with group activities. Students in the 7th and 8th grade were mixed into 7 different groups. They also designed and made buttons and a resource brochure. The Woodstock Inn supported our group by helping with the costs of white carnation flowers that were offered at the end of an assembly presentation to students. Three other important middle school QSA members were absent for the group picture.
This week, the library has hosted Middle School advisories and High School English, Spanish and French classes. And, on Friday, there was an Easter egg hunt!
The next Young Adult Diverse Books Book Club pick is We Deserve Monuments by Jas Hammonds and the next Faculty/Staff Book Club pick is The Fury by Alex Michaelides. Stop by to pick up your copy!
Please remember to return your overdue books, renew books you need more time to read and check out some new spring reads.
Last week, Woodstock Union High School’s CRAFT Program welcomed 5 exchange students from Ingolstadt, Germany visiting for the 2nd leg of the very first CRAFT exchange. For some, it was their first time ever in the US, for all it was their first time in Vermont. A few of them had already embarked on journeys to Boston or New York City, but they found life in Vermont starkly different to life in the city. For a week they stayed with their host families and got to learn the ins and outs of the town and the state!
For some background, a few weeks ago five of our very own CRAFT students went to their school in Ingolstadt, Germany to learn about their culture and what the agricultural aspect of their country is. They stayed with their host family in Germany and our students hosted them here. Some of them grew up watching American pop culture television or even listening to American music. While doing so, they built up stereotypes about the country in their heads, most acknowledging that when they came to Vermont those stereotypes evaporated and were proven wrong. One of the biggest stereotypes that they all agreed upon was the food. “There is a German stereotype about the US that we only eat burgers and fries and fast food.” noted by Elisa. She had been to Boston recently and ate quite a bit of fast food because it was cheaper. Here she talked about how it was different because of all of the access to vegetables and fresh produce. There isn't a lot of that in Boston.
Along with the fresh fruits and vegetables, another aspect of Vermont that they got to enjoy and something it’s kind of known for, is nature. They live in a city of 150,000 people in Germany and here in Vermont we take nature for granted sometimes. Elisa commented on how fresh the air was here, and the privacy aspect as well. When speaking on the essence of Vermont they all agreed that it had a really “romantic feeling to it.”
All of them really liked the lifestyle that we live here as Vermonters. In the city there's a lot of hustle and bustle and here it's very calming, peaceful and “real nature.” Of course you can't forget the cute houses too!
This week the German exchange students got to experience nature first hand. Some of their activities for the week were skiing at Killington , exploring the national park and Billings Farm in town and seeing firsthand where our food comes from. They visited Vermont Farmstead Cheese and got to make some of their own cheese. They got to go to the King Farm and the Richardson farm to participate in the quintessential/classic Vermont experience of sugaring! Last but definitely not least, they got to plant some seeds in the wonderful greenhouses here at the high school!
Regarding some of their experiences in nature, Patrick said, “Nature for me personally, was the best part, skiing in the mountains was awesome.” Most of the exchange students hadn’t been skiing before so they were really excited about being able to try something new in the beautiful mountains of Vermont.
When inquired about why they wanted to come on the trip, they spoke on the fact that learning about new cultures was incredibly important to them. Patrick commented that every time he learns about a new culture it adds more to his own beliefs and his own perspectives on life. Amelie agreed and remarked on talking to someone who's really familiar with the town, she really enjoys being around people who know the town well and the culture.
Something that really struck me that they said was about how we get used to our surroundings so easily. Them being from a city, they appreciated the nature here much more than you and I do on a daily basis. “You don’t realize what you have because you see it every day.” (Amelie).
Overall, our students and the German students had an amazing experience and got to learn a lot from each other and their countries! It is super exciting being able to connect with someone from another country and everyone had such a good time. Thank you to all the teachers, parents and students who made the German students feel welcome!!
The Modern and Classical Language Department is thrilled to announce that the following students were recently recognized for creative excellence in the Annual Poster Contest sponsored by the Vermont Organization of Classics and Language Educators (VOCALE, formerly the VFLA).
Clara Burkholder earned 1st Place in the High School division.
Myra McNaughton earned 3rd Place in the High School division.
Isla Segal earned 2nd place in the Middle School division.
Jackson Fellows earned 3rd place in the Digital Category
(Open to all grades!).
All students received certificates and copies of their posters as notecards. Their original posters have been framed and will be hung near the MAC Language classrooms.
Above (Students preparing to roll out empanada dough)
On Tuesday, March 19th, both of Maestra Megyesi’s Spanish III classes went to room 18, where they prepared and cooked Chilean-style empanadas de pino. Prompted by the class's food and culture unit, they first watched a video on how to make these beef-filled empanadas. The class then discussed the food and cooking vocabulary they observed in the video before getting to work. Different groups of students worked on various jobs within the kitchen. While Maestra worked on making the empanada dough, other students chopped and cooked onions, and another seasoned and cooked the ground beef. Once the dough was finished, other students rolled it out and cut out the circles used to make the empanadas. After everything was prepped, each student had a chance to fill and fold an empanada, either by hand or by using an empanada press. To make the empanadas de pino more traditional, students had the option to add olives and raisins to the beef and onion filling. (Written by TA Aubrey Seman!)
Link to the video watched in class.
CRAFT students have learned a lot about enduring unpredictability this maple sugaring season. Food and Forest Systems and Stewardship Action Project students installed 32 taps and collected over 230 gallons of sap, but only produced 4.5 gallons of Amber Rich syrup, as the sugar content was super low this year, hovering between 1-1.5%. Our season ended two weeks earlier than usual. However, students still had a great time learning about density, grading, filtering, wood splitting, sugar content and weather. Our school was one of 13 participating in a state-wide pilot project around data collection during the sugaring season.
In recent government classes, students seriously took on their roles as Supreme Court Justices as they heard oral arguments in the case Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972). With "order" on one side, and "freedom" on the other, the case explored whether an Amish family could remove their children from high school for religious reasons.
On Thursday, February 15, the Young Adult Diverse Books Book Club took Last Night at the Telegraph Club to Boston! Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo is this year's Vermont Reads book. It is a queer love story that takes place in the 1950s in San Francisco's Chinatown. The Young Adult Diverse Books Book Club wanted to learn more about Lily's Chinese American cultural identity and the group experienced that through a food walking tour in Chinatown and the Lunar New Year celebration at the Museum of Fine Arts.
In response to a question about her favorite part of the trip, Sequoia Barbour stated, "While I enjoyed everything on the trip, my favorite part was probably the walking tour. I really enjoyed being able to try a lot of new things that I wouldn't normally get the chance to. My favorite foods we got to try were the egg custard tarts, the barbeque pork bao buns, the noodle dish at dim sum, and the scallion pancake." As we walked the winding streets of Chinatown, we were led by expert tour guide and food critic, Jacqueline Church. She taught us the history of Boston's Chinatown and shared the Chinese American experience in Chinatown with us through Chinese food, art and culture.
Commenting on connections they made between the book and the food walking tour, Luca Morris stated, "Walking into one of the shops--I think it was either the Chinese medicine shop or the Chinese barbeque shop--I saw a poster for a candidate in a Chinatown pageant, which reminded me of Shirley from the book and her campaign for Miss Chinatown. Also, I saw some foods in the shops or at the dim sum lunch that I remembered reading about in the book. For example, BBQ pork filled steamed buns."
After the food walking tour of Chinatown, we went to the Museum of Fine Arts for the Lunar New Year celebration where we saw a dragon dance for the Year of the Dragon, a Tai Chi demonstration, students participated in Chinese brush painting of bamboo and we saw a lion dance. Pivotal scenes in Last Night at the Telegraph Club take place during the Lunar New Year Celebration and these demonstrations and activities gave students the opportunity to be immersed in those traditions.
The Young Adult Diverse Books Book Club would like to thank the Vermont Humanities Council for the Project Grant that made this trip possible.
To read more about the YADB Book Club's trip to Boston including a day at the Boston Public Library and to see more photos, please click here for the From the Library newsletter.
Poetic Hearts held on for the delayed Woodstock Poetry Out Loud contest, originally scheduled for Valentine’s Day. With tectonic efforts, fifteen of the initially scheduled eighteen competitors were able to recite their self-selected poems if not live, in person, than via Zoom from The Boston Public Library. Luca Morris kicked matters off from Boston with Rosin Kelly’s “Oranges,” noting the ways in which the selection of such a fruit, its peeling and eating, is akin to understanding love -- self love, or otherwise. Poems often contain such truths, and Maggie Knox’s recitation of “Dust” (Dorianne Laux) was one such reminder that when someone (“Someone”?) sheds some light on truth, that truth is something to wake up for and to get up for.
In an uncanny way, junior Finn Farrell’s recitation of “What Kind of Times Are These” (Adrienne Rich) with “our country moving closer to its own truth and dread,/its own ways of making people disappear” held resonance with several other students’ selections of contemporary poems for our time. From Boston,and capturing 5th place overall, sophomore Mimi Kanda-Olmstead recited Palestinian poet Rafaat Alareer’s (1979-2023) “If I Must Die,” concluding, “If I must die/ Let it bring hope/Let it be a tale”. Freshman Lylah Zeitlin came away with third place overall with her recitation of “the world is about to end and my grandparents are in love” (Kara Jackson), sending out the haunting question, mid-way through the poem, “will i go taking somebody’s hand, my skin becoming their skin?” To be sure, getting to a truth is hard to do without questions, and sometimes the truth hangs in the air, known but unsaid, unwrit, just after the question. Sophomore Quinn Eckler’s recitation (4th overall) of Kai Conradi’s poem “son/daughter” was one such example, concluding: “Will I be allowed to come back to earth/ and be your son?” In some ways, this 2024 recitation contest came together as a conversation between students via poets’ voices and truths. “If’s” and “questions” mark our 21st century time, so equally interesting was the question sophomore Priscilla Richardson (6th place overall) brought to Robert Frost’s mid-twentieth seeming declarative: “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -- I took the one less traveled by…” The way Priscilla delivered Frost’s poem suggested the buried question is in the stutter’s uncertainty, as well as in the way the final stanza begins, “with a sigh”.
Ultimately, the hotly contested top two recitations went to sophomore Agnes Kardashian with Edward Hirsch’s “Poor Angels” (151 points) and senior William Obbard with Weldon Kees’ “The Coming of the Plague” (149 points). William held his audience, baited, with his dramatic recitation about “strange worms crawling… Queer fungi sprouting… the swarms of frogs swollen and hideous,/ Hundreds upon hundreds, sitting on each other,/ Huddled together, silent, ominous” -- nature’s response to all of the humans’ and countries’ “miscarriages,” “quarrels,” and “jealousies” -- a plague on all of us. With “Poor Angels,” Agnes took her audience to experience the dichotomy of a “strange, unlikely tethering” between a soul, “ecstatic,” “married” to a body, “glum” and sunken. One was reminded of Whitman’s point about the flesh and the soul -- “lack one, lack both” (these two must stick together in order to live)-- yet “Poor Angels” explores that “quarreling” within the self that happens when the soul “dreams of a small fire of stars” while simultaneously, in the same experience, “the body stares into an empty night sheen, a hollow-eyed darkness.” Building to a tangible compassion, Agnes led her audience to Hirsch’s final plea for those souls and bodies: “don’t separate yet. Let what rises live with what descends.” Agnes will represent Woodstock Vermont’s regional Poetry Out Loud competition on March 7th at The Barre Opera House, reciting a pre-twentieth century poem “Early Affection” by George Moses Horton and her signature piece, “Poor Angels'' by Edward Hirsch. In addition to “The Coming of the Plague,” first alternate William Obbard will prepare Dennis O’Driscoll’s “Tomorrow”. Our school champion. Agnes Kardashion, will compete with region two schools: Sharon Academy, Bellows Free Academy, Fairfax, Arlington Memorial High School, Brattleboro Union High School, Williamstown High School, Stratton Mountain School, Bellows Free Academy, St. Albans, Harwood Union High School, Burr and Burton Academy, Lyndon Institute. The top five recitations of two poems in region two will move on to compete with the top five recitations from region one, on March 14th, at The Flynn in Burlington. Good Luck, Agnes!
An extra special round of thanks go out to our 2024 Poetry Out Loud judges -- Garon Smail, Beth Hayslett, Kat Robbins and Tim Brennan, along with accuracy judge, Erin Hanrahan, prompter, Sarah Hagge, and the dynamic scoring team, Heather Vonada and Andy Smith.
Complete contest results are available at the library circulation desk.