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Re-enacting a scene from "The Crucible"
Davida Amkraut - Language Arts Drama is in the air in the middle school’s language arts classes. Each grade is engrossed in play reading. Acting out of scenes and watching them come to life has become part of these students' daily routine. Making choices as directors, set designers, and costume designers are centers of class discussions during this trimester. The sixth graders are reading Lorraine Hansberry’s Raisin in the Sun and learning of this family’s struggle to survive. Romeo and Juliet is being read and analyzed in the seventh grade, and the eighth graders are reading Arthur Miller’s powerful The Crucible. Each student is questioning, responding, and pondering the words of these three great playwrights.
Cheryl Birkner Mack - Judaic Studies
I teach Tanach [Hebrew Bible] to 6th, 7th, and 8th graders. While we don’t disregard the stories and laws of the bible — our main focus is
· skill in biblical analysis, · recognizing biblical grammar and other unique biblical forms, · looking at traditional commentaries, and understanding the values and lessons we learn from the text. I also teach Mishna (the first part of the Talmud) to each of the classes. My focus here is Studying tanach (Bible) · understanding the relationship of oral law [i.e., oral Torah] to the written text, · learning the first stage in the development of rabbinic law, · learning skills in translating Aramaic to Hebrew, and · understanding the structure and form of rabbinic Hebrew and the Mishna.
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