I am thrilled to share that five of our GHS students were recently invited to the TED Talks headquarters in New York City this November to participate in a special TED Ed Weekend with students from all over the world.  Wait!  How did that happen? 

Let me explain.

First, some background: The TED-ed team (that's TED's education team) started a program three years ago inviting educators from all over the world to participate in a special program in which the TED-ed organizers would connect and support educator's innovative ideas for teaching.  Educators were asked to submit an application and complete an interview.  Out of over 1,000 applicants, I was selected along with 29 other teachers from the United States, Argentina, South Korea, Kenya, Poland, and the United Arab Emirates to be a part of the TED Innovative Educators program (we call ourselves the TIE fighters ;) ).  Over the past couple of years, we have worked with the TED-Ed team to help build a community and a space where students' voices are heard.  The TED-ed community is one that firmly believes that some of our best ideas, those that will change our world, come from our youth, and so the TIE program is about going back into our schools (Grandville, in my case) and helping give students a platform for their stories, creations, and discoveries. 

Last year when my sophomores were studying revolutionary speeches in American history, we also wrote our own revolutionary speeches.  What ideas do we have that will change our world? We used materials and ideas from the TED Ed Clubs to help us further develop our talks. Students had an opportunity to have their talks video recorded and shared with the TED online community, and seven of our students did.  After submitting their talks, our group was invited to participate in the upcoming summit with students from all over the world who have done the exact same thing.  Together, we will have an opportunity to explore how to further share our ideas and make sure that the voices of our youth are being heard.

So in November, we are headed to New York City.  But, we could use your help!  We need help covering the cost of our trip.  Here's where you can lend a hand - our DonorsChoose project.

​We would love your support!

And just like that we're off!

Our 2018-19 school year is off to a great start! We've spent our first two day getting to know one another and learning about the resources available to support your student's learning.  I wanted to take a moment to share some of those resources with you.

First, you will find much of the information and handouts for our English class shared on this website - msward.org.  We use this site to share out what we are working on in class.  You can subscribe to this class newsletter using the link in the menu to the right of this  page in order to hear more about what we are doing and what we are looking forward to this semester. You will also find our daily agenda linked to our "class links" page.  At the beginning of each week, students have access to a digital and printed copy of our weekly schedule which outlines what we are working on in class that day as well as what students should be working on outside of class. This information is also posted to our Google Classroom space, which is an online portal used by students to access all our assignments, due dates, and handouts.

Parents and students and students can easily keep track of their progress in our class by signing up for email updates through our Infinite Campus portal. Additionally, both students and parents can sign up for our daily homework text message reminder.  

Ms. Ward's students and their parents can sign up to receive a daily text message of our homework by clicking on the appropriate class below:

• 10th grade Honors American Literature
• 10th grade Composition Through American Literature
• Independent Novel Study
• Ms. Ward's Seminar 

Unfortunately, I am unable to attend our upcoming Back to School Night on Wednesday, August 22nd.  However, if you have any questions or would like to set up a time to meet, please do not hesitate to ask!

I'm looking forward to a wonderful semester of learning with your student!

--Ms. Jen Ward

Our Independent Novel Studies students have been blogging about reading a "banned" book.  We've not only learned about banned books from our reading, but we've also spent time doing some research and discussing our reactions to the ideas of challenging and removing books from public libraries.  In the coming weeks, we'll be presenting our research and reflections to our school librarians, township librarians, teachers, administrators, and hopefully even a couple of school board members.  In the meantime, we would love your feedback on our reading!  Please hover over the images below to find links to our blogs.  We would love to read and respond to your comments.

Click HERE for f ull- sized image.

Click HERE for full-sized image.

Although it hasn't felt like it with our recent streak of hot weather, fall is under way.  We are already seven weeks into our first semester at Grandville High Sschool, and we have spent a good chunk of that time talking about some amazing books!

We were very fortunate a few weeks ago to have our Donors Choose project funded for 24 high-interest, diverse novels.  We've added copies Eleanor and Park, Every Day, Solo, and one of our favorite new reads -  Angie Thomas's The Hate U Give. Have you read this book yet? If not, we have nine copies, and we're happy to loan you a copy, especially if you will join us in our digital space to discuss the story.  

In our Independent Novel Study classes, we've also had the pleasure of hearing from our favorite teachers, administrators, and Grandville KDL youth librarians about their favorite books.  We spent the month of September sharing all those books that have touched our lives.  In addition to each student sharing through our book talks, we heard from GHS's own Mr. Tower, Mr. Kennedy, Ms. Schoch, Mr. Lancto, Mrs. Ernst, among others.  We also welcomed Ms. Lawrence and Ms. McMullin from Grandville's Kent District Library branch to join us in class on Friday, September 29th.  They shared with us so many of the wonderful resources offered by our township library as well as some their favorite new reads.

In our tenth grade honors American Literature class, affectionately known as HAmLit, we just wrapped up our first unit, an introduction to some of our foundational American writers.  Throughout the month of September, we delved into some classics of American literature.  Each student has selected a classic American text to read as an independent reading novel. Students are reading The Scarlet Letter, The Awakening, The Red Badge of Courage, Native Son, Huckleberry Finn, among so many others.  We're  looking forward to discussing these texts in the coming weeks.  

Parents and family members - we would love for you to join us in our reading journeys!  If you have book recommendations or would be interested in joining us for one of our many discussion days, please let me know. We would love to have you join us!

Happy Homecoming Week!
-Ms. Ward

I hope that you have had a wonderful summer break so far.  I have spent the last month camping, going to concerts, hanging out with friends and family, and of course - reading!  I'm excited to hear about what you've been doing and what you've been reading this summer. And I'm looking for a few book recommendations.  I'm nearly finished with The Hate U Give and looking for my next book to read.  If you've read any great books this summer, let us know by posting a link HERE or by sharing recommendations on social media using #IoniaReads. 

Don't forget that as an honors English student, you have at least two books to read this summer. The first is a book of your choice, and the second book must be one from our required reading list (see below). I would highly recommend checking out your local library's website. If you have a library card, you can easily check out books digitally to read on your e-reader or phone. You'll want to come to class the first week with your summer reading summaries completed.

• 1984 by Orwell
  
• Antigone by Sophocles
  
• Don Quixote by Cervantes    
  
• Frankenstein by Shelley
  
• Life of Pi by Martel
  
• Man in the Iron Mask by Dumas
  
• The Things They Carried by O’Brien

I'm looking forward to meeting you in a little over a month. In the meantime, enjoy your summer and happy reading!


Ms. Ward
​
 Summer Reading for 10th grade IHS Students
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If you are scheduled to take 10th grade honors English at IHS next fall, you'll have me as your teacher!  I'm looking forward to meeting you.  

To prepare for our class, you will want to complete the summer reading assignment below.

What an amazing month we have had in our honors tenth grade English classes, as well as in our Public Speaking, Journalism 2, and Yearbook courses.  Here are just some of the highlights of this past month:

​On February 1st, University of Michigan at Flint professor Dr. Chris Kowal came to speak with our Public Speaking students about the significance of nonverbal communication.  Dr. Kowal is an expert on how nonverbal communication, specifically micro-expressions, can influence the emotions of others.

Throughout his presentation, we learned about everything from how to give a proper handshake to the influence of eye contact.  It was a highly interactive and highly entertaining presentation!

On February 7, our Journalism 2 class learned from MLive and Grand Rapids Press environmental reporter Garret Ellison.  He shared with us how he first got into journalism and about his internship and early experiences in the newsroom.  His great advice for aspiring journalists is to take whatever job is given you as it is an opportunity to learn more about the craft and connect with those in the business.  

Some of our students have taken this to heart and have applied for journalism internships in our area.  In fact, one of our Bulldog Beat editors-in-chief, senior Bryce Nummer, will join the Ionia Sentinel Standard staff this week!

And speaking of the Ionia Sentinel Standard, news desk director Darcy Meade joined us in class on February 10th to share her advise and learn more about our journalism program.  Darcy is no stranger to IHS.  We've had her in to share with our class in the past, and she has written many wonderful articles about our students. We love having her join our journalism courses.

During February, we collected over 150 book recommendations from our students and staff. Now, during the month of March, students and staff are invited to vote for their favorite books, helping us narrow down books to the elite eight, and then to the final four. Then, during the last week of March the showdown between the top two books begins. 

And the best part, students can win signed copies of books by voting! Each time that you participate in a daily vote, you are entered to win a signed copy of a book.  We have signed books from so many different authors to give away!  

Each day the challenge will go live at 7:30 am and close at 2:30 pm.  We'll email the winning voters each day at 2:30 and tweet out the daily winning book.

The books change each day. So follow along on social media using #IoniaReads or check out our display by room 204! 

We've used Twitter to connect with authors and the founder of StoryCorps this week, 10th grade students are working on amazing multi-genre literature projects.  There just isn't enough space to share all the awesome things that are happening in room 204 recently. 

If you want a closer peek into our classroom, be sure to follow us on Twitter at @wardsworldihs.  We'd love to hear from you1