The library at the heart of the school

Battle of the Books season began for the fourth grade this morning in the Joukowsky Family Library

 

Students got the official 2019 list of titles to read in preparation for this year's battle.

 

In April, students will be placed on teams with their peers from Wheeler, Lincoln School, Hamilton and St. Michael's School, to answer questions based on the books in an evening of thrilling, friendly competition.

 

As part of this morning's "pitch off", students watched Spike Lee's short film on Mo'ne Davis.
embedded below, linked here

 

Remember My Name, the memoir she wrote at age thirteen, is on this year's Battle list.

 

At the end of the film, Mo'ne reads a letter that begins "Dear United States of America" and is signed "Your daughter". 

 

After class today, one fourth grade group returned to the classroom to write their own letters to America.

 

Their heartfelt messages - some brief, some lengthy and illustrated with charts - touched on topics ranging from simple gratitude to critiques of America's relationship with Vietnam and Puerto Rico.

 

Seventh graders would especially appreciate one student's ironic treatment of Columbus's "discovery" of America, informed, no doubt, by the third grade's study of the colonization of North America.

 

 

From the book list to the video to the memoir, and from today's personal writing project to April's intramural battle, the ideas students encounter in the Joukowsky Family Library transcend media and work their way into every day's learning at the Gordon School.