Forget the Picture, They'll Take the Thousand Words

Liz Driehaus, left, and Kelsey Lee

Blogger's Note: The following was provided by the Pottsgrove School District.

Two students representing Pottsgrove High School recently won highest honors in this year's WordWright Challenge, a competition for American high school students requiring close reading and analysis of many different kinds of prose and poetry.

In the year's second meet, held in December, junior Liz Driehaus, who earned a near-perfect score, placed second among the 88 highest-scoring eleventh graders in the country.

At the same time, Kelsey Lee, who also earned a near perfect score, placed among the 99th highest scoring twelfth graders in the country.

More than 69,000 students from 47 states entered the meet, so that's pretty good.

Teacher Todd Kelly oversaw the students' participation.

The premise behind the WordWright challenge is that attentive reading and sensitivity to language are among the most important skills students acquire in school.

The text students must analyze for WordWright can range from short fiction by Eudora Welty or JOhn Updike to poetry as old as Shakespeare's or as recent as Margaret Atwood's, to essays, such as classics by E.B. White, or as current as a Time Magazine essay by James Poniewozik.

Though the texts vary widely in voice, subject, tone and length, they have one thing in common -- style.

All use language skillfully to use language and shades of meaning not always apparent to students on a first or casual reading. Like the questions of the verbal SAT tests, the questions posed in the WordWright Challenge, ask students both to recognize the emotional and/or rational logic of a piece of writing and to notice the ways in which a writer's style shapes and shades his meaning.

Because the WordWright Challenge is a classroom activity and not a college-entrance exam however, it can be a learning experience and not just a high hurdle.

After completing a challenge, classes are encouraged to talk about the texts and and the answers to the multiple choice questions, and are also given additional topics for open-ended discussion and/or written response.

The texts for the WordWright Challenge this year were an Op-Ed piece from The New York Times for 9th and 10th graders, and an excerpt from a novel by Anthony Trollope for 11th and 12th graders.

The students will compete in two more WordWright meets in the coming months. Medals and certificates will be awarded in June to those who achieve, and or improve the most in the course of the year.

These Trojans Are Invading Greece! (With Your Help)

Trojans! Let's get revenge for that sneaky horse trick, and send 

some of our own to Greece to wreak our revenge ... or at least

to learn something. To the Bingo Tables!

So as all of us who know our Homer know, the Greeks arrived on the shores of Troy bent on destruction and, after a few years of posturing and fighting, they slipped in the front door inside a horse.

Well, the Pottstown Trojans want their revenge.

So, they're invading Greece, but they can only do it with your help.

Pottstown High School students enrolled in either Advanced Placement U.S. Government and Politics or Advanced Placement Calculus classes are planning a trip to the place where democracy and mathematics got their start -- in ancient Greece.

But since the robotics team has not yet invented a time machine, they can't go to ancient Greece, but have to be satisfied with modern Greece.

The trip is in April, but more money needs to be raised to give these students, many of whom have never been out of the country or, for that matter, on an airplane, the experience of a lifetime.

Although they have already collected more than $4,000 in donations, more is needed and one way you can help is by showing up on Saturday, Feb. 8 at the high school cafeteria for a Bingo fundraiser.

There's something in it for you -- more than $4,000 in gift certificates, gift baskets and other prizes -- as well as the knowledge that you helped to broaden the horizons of students who are doing some of the best work in the district.

Contact information is listed in the flyer above.

Understanding Obamacare

Confused about Obamacare?

Who isn't?

But you can get some help this evening from experts from several area health providers will be on hand at the Pottstown Regional Public Library to answer questions and lend a hand.

Certified Application Counselors from VNA-Community Services, Personal Navigator Program and Community Health and Dental Care will be holding an information session and enrollment event on the Affordable Care Act on from 4 to 7 p.m. in the library's community room.

No registration is required.

Individual enrollment assistance is also available to all Montgomery County residents by calling the Personal Navigator Program at 1-800-591-8234.

Being a Better Father

A Musical Inter-County Interlude at Pottstown High School

Student musicians from 11 different middle schools and junior high schools took to the stage at
Pottstown High School Saturday night for the 58th Annual Inter-County Band Festival.

This is a wonderful tradition, in my view, that brings musicians from all the area school districts together to play and learn together, and to appreciate each other's skills.

A total of 16 different musical performances were made, including five by the jazz band and 11 by the joint concert band.

Because battery life is not eternal, your humble videographer did not record each performance, but rather went for a sampling.

The first is "Dies Irae," a portion of Guieseppe Verdi's "Requiem Mass," composed in 1874 in honor of the poet Alessandro Manzoni.

This piece was directed by Michael Agatone of Boyertown Junior High School East.



Next up is "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," which, as you no doubt have guessed, is a medley of songs from that landmark album by The Beatles.

This performance was directed by Paul DiRenzo of Perkiomen Valley Middle School East.



The Inter-County Jazz Band, directed by Brian Leonard of Arcola Intermediate School, played five pieces.

The first, "Jumpin' At the Woodside," by County Basie, which is posted here.



Unfortunately, in an attempt to preserve my i-Phone battery, I chose not to record the next piece they played, "Little Sunflower" by Freddie Hubbard, which was just excellent.

But I'm afraid you won't hear it here. What you will here next is "Libertango," a sharp Latin-themed piece by Astor Piazzolla. Enjoy.



The next performance I chose to record is a long one, more than seven minutes and is dedicated to the memory of Martin Luther King Jr., whose birthday we celebrated earlier this month.

The title"Until Justice Rolls Down Like Waters," which is from The Bible, Book of Amos, and was a favorite intonation of King's and appears in several of this speeches.

This performance was directed by William Bonnell from Phoenixville Area Middle School.



And finally, we bring you a performance of "Washington Post March," one of John Phillip Sousa's most famous.

It was directed by this year's host director, Benjamin C. Hayes from Pottstown Middle School.