2news In Flight
wingspan • february 25, 2011
Unplugged (continued from Page 1)
Victory Dance
Musical Fame set for March
• The FFA Hunter Safety Shooting Team will be participating in the district shooting competition at the Polk County Gun Club on March 19. The competition will determine if the team qualifies for the state shooting competition. • AI Club is currently planning the annual WHHS Talent Show for March 24 at 6:30 p.m. in the auditorium. • S.A.V.E. Club is currently collecting old batteries, light bulbs and cell phones for recycling. • Pride and Jr. Civitan members will be selling boxes of food, “Boxes for the Hungry,” for needy families through the end of the school year. Boxes can be purchased for $5 from Denise Cope in the library. • Foreign Language Club will celebrate Mardi Gras on March 8 with food and games after school. • Appalachian Strings and orchestra members recently auditioned for the Western Regional AllState Orchestra. Junior Kelly Meinhold was named first violin repertory and freshman Malory Carnes was recognized with viola honors.
At the Mr. WHHS pageant in December, Chase McIntyre, Jonathan Crewe, Adam Steurer and William Bayless perform the opening dance number to Jingle Bell Rock along with the rest of the WHHS contestants. Steurer was crowned Mr. WHHS for the second consecutive year. Other competition categories included swim wear, evening wear, talent and physical competitions. “My favorite part of the competition, besides winning, was the evening wear portion,” said Steurer. “I wore tight leather pants and a tie and gave the judges flowers. I was pretty confident that I would win again this year, but the competition was pretty good.”
Change in exit standards (continued from Page 1) indicator of “college readiness” and that scores in each maybe even repeat the whole class again.” The Graduation Project requires seniors to write a of the subtests correspond to skills in entry-level college six to eight-page research paper, work with a mentor for courses in the fields it tests. “The ACT offers a series of assessments beginning in at least 15 hours, and learn a skill and produce a “product” of their choosing. At the end of the project, seniors the eighth grade to give parents and students indicators and information about if the student present their project to a jury of three is on track to be college ready,” Revis or four community members. I personally said. “In the eighth grade, it’s called “I see it as just a really good way for ‘Explore,’ and then you take another aslearned a lot from students to take a lot of the skills and sessment in ninth or 10th grade called techniques and research that they have my senior project. ‘Access.’ These tests can tell if a student done over their high school career or I worked at a is showing progress and if they are colpre-high school career and put them lege ready. The proposal is to give the together in one project and one final soup kitchen and I ACT to all juniors, and if students don’t presentation, one final product,” Revis never would have demonstrate that college readiness said. “I see it as a culminating activity really gotten so standard — whatever that’s going to and event to demonstrate writing, rebe — then they’re going to be required search, talking, thinking and commuinto it if I hadn’t to go to a summer program between nication skills.” done my senior the junior and senior years to get them “I learned a lot from my senior ready to demonstrate that collegeproject,” senior Caiti Cremer said. “I project. ready proficiency.” worked at a soup kitchen and I never Caiti Cremer In the face of the current state budwould have really gotten so into it if I senior get crisis, however, the proposal may hadn’t done my senior project. I saw never be implemented, Revis said. that other people also got very involved Another change in school policy is that students will in theirs. I gained more leadership skills because I had to no longer have the chance to make up a failing grade on organize people at the soup kitchen and teach them.” The SBE has discussed making the ACT, a standard- their transcripts. Under the changes, students may make ized test for high school achievement and college admis- up a course credit by completing a credit-recovery program, but the the F they originally earned in the class will sions produced by ACT, Inc., a graduation requirement. The ACT assessment measures general educational not be removed from their transcript, Revis said. “It’s vacillated here throughout my career about development and the capability of high school students to complete college-level work. It tests English, math- whether it stays and always has to show on the transcript ematics, reading and science, and it now includes an op- or whether it can be replaced,” Revis said. “It has only tional writing test to measure skill in planning and writ- been in the last five or six years that you could replace a ing. The ACT website states that ACT scores provide an grade.”
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Photo by Chelsea Blanton
• The Columbia Scholastic Press Association has named the 2010 Westwind a Crown Award finalist. A total of 73 yearbooks from across the nation will receive either Gold or Silver Crowns at a ceremony in New York City on March 18. In addition, the National Scholastic Press Association has named the 2010 Westwind a Pacemaker finalist. The Pacemaker awards will be presented at the NSPA convention in Anaheim, Calif., in April.
Photo by Haley Glatzer
• The Fine Arts Department has announced that the spring musical, Fame, will be run March 31 through April 2. Tickets, which will be on sale the nights of the show, will be $5 for students and $8 for adults.
fore the giant snowstorm, and while I was there I listened to her tell me stories from when she and my grandpa were teens. After the experience I definitely realized that the world values technology too much.” Junior Savanna Edwards said she benefited by spending the time studying and writing letters. “I had the SAT coming up,” Edwards said. “During the project I studied a lot more than I would have because I wasn’t preoccupied with electronics. I also wrote letters. My grandpa said the letter he received made his year because I was the first grandkid to write him one.” Junior Brad Baker also used his time in new ways. “For Christmas I got a bunch of furniture, like a dresser and an end table,” Baker said. “So during the project I spent a lot of my time building those, and I also started to read a couple of books. I really enjoyed the project; it’s definitely something I would do again.” Some students had different reactions. Junior Cody Shipman felt he wouldn’t ever want to repeat the experiment. “I’m a Facebook junkie,” Shipman said. “It was definitely hard not getting online and checking to see what my friends were up to. I did cheat once and got on. I wouldn’t want to do the project again, but maybe if it was nicer weather and we weren’t snowed in I would.” One requirement of the project was to write daily entries in a journal. In addition, Seneker asked students to grade themselves using the honor system on how well they “unplugged” from electronics. “I cheated once,” Anderson said. “I watched TV on the last day, so I gave myself a low A. Not being able to talk to any of my friends was tough, but I ended up writing 27 pages in my journal.” In one of Seneker’s two classes, only two of the 20 students were able to avoid technology completely. Some students said it was difficult when everyone else in their house was using electronics. Other students, such as Edwards, had the help of their parents. “The hardest part of the project was giving up texting,” Edwards said. “I definitely missed my cell phone the most, but my parents helped by encouraging me and watching me to make sure I didn’t cheat.”
Reading Buddies Freshman Trevor Coe, above, is one of the students from Teresa Davis’s English I class who wrote, illustrated and read their own books to the kindergarteners at Mills River Elementary School in January. “The book I wrote was about a kid learning to ride a bike,” Coe said. English I is an exit standard classes required for graduation.