300 intermediate and high
school teachers attend
Discovery
Institute conference at CSI
In teacher Concetta Aliotta's classes at Susan
Wagner High School, poetry does not concern itself solely with epic
wars and star-crossed lovers.
It's also about students' lives.
The English teacher challenges students to write
about places they would like to visit, their greatest fears and
their complex relationships with siblings in an "auto-bio poem." The
poem is the first part of an autobiography assignment.
"A writing project like this will at least get
[students] to practice their writing, to make sense of it," Ms.
Aliotta told colleagues yesterday at the Discovery Institute at the
College of Staten Island's second annual interdisciplinary
conference.
The all-day conference, "Meeting the Challenge: The
Discovery Institute and New York City's Educational Initiative,"
drew more than 300 new intermediate and high school teachers to the
college's Willowbrook campus. Fellow teachers and college professors
presented workshops on everything from teaching the transmission of
contagious diseases to helping students answer questions based on
documents.
Ms. Aliotta shared her "ABC Autobiography Project"
in a workshop, co-headlined by Robert Boyd, another English teacher
at Susan Wagner. He presented a project that encourages students to
analyze a poem in its historical context and create a work of art
reflecting the interpretation.
Workshop participant Kristine Barella, a first-year
teacher at Laurie Intermediate School, New Springville, said she can
envision trying a Robert Frost or Edgar Allan Poe piece with younger
students.
"It's a good way to get kids involved in poetry,"
she said.
The conference's keynote address was delivered by
John Garvey, director of collaborative programs for the City
University of New York (CUNY) Office of Academic Affairs.
He encouraged new teachers to consider the
opportunities that can come out of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's
school system overhaul, which will create 10 kindergarten through
12th-grade regional administrations, including Division 7, a Staten
Island/Brooklyn district.
"If we are guided by our doubts, it's doubtful that
we will be as good as we can and should be," he said.
Garvey said he hoped the collaborative method of
teachers learning from each other and students could be extended
beyond curriculum and into the broader areas of school design and
operation.
Directed by Dr. Leonard Ciaccio and Dr. James
Sanders, the Discovery Institute runs numerous programs linking the
higher education community and the city's primary and secondary
schools, including College Now, an initiative that allows high
school students to take college courses in their home schools and on
campus.
