Gabby, 7th grade
CA Experience - Clubs - Poetry and Hip-hop - Service Learning - Athletics
“At CA, you’ll explore subjects and participate in experiences that will probably be new to you. You’ll consider different perspectives and be challenged to get out of your comfort zone, to take risks.”
“Scuba really helped me get out of my comfort zone… The more and more I do it the more and more I fall in love with it.”
“I love poetry because it can show you a new perspective. I spent weeks workshopping my poem for the Poetry & Hip-hop Showcase before performing it for the whole school. I wrote about myself, about everything that makes me, me.”
Poetry and Hip-hop Showcase
In the spring, students in the seventh grade take to the Berger Hall theater stage for the annual Poetry and Hip-Hop Showcase. Amidst thumping beats and the appreciative snaps of their peers, students rock the mike, spitting original raps and passionate spoken word poetry that tackles everything from climate change to bullying, self- discovery to mental health.
The event marks the much- anticipated culmination of a weeks-long interdisciplinary language arts project designed to engage students through self- expression in the thorny social issues they tackle in the classroom and their own lives. Using rap and poetry, students created odes to the unsung and underappreciated, love letters to themselves, and lyrical PSAs about pressing global issues.
“In the seventh grade, we focus a lot on social justice issues, using the framework of educate, advocate, act,” explains former seventh- grade teacher and project co-lead Matt Koerner. “This project represents the advocacy piece. We’re teaching students how to raise their voices to speak out, whether for themselves, those who can’t, or on issues that matter to them.
Overcoming my fear of public speaking, sharing a part of myself, and hearing the applause of my teachers and classmates—THAT felt amazing.
Service learning is awesome! It’s such a cool way to take what we’re learning in class and see how it applies to the real world—and it’s fun, too!
Service learning at CA
Maggie Grant - Director of Service Learning
“It’s a really supportive community. No matter how good you are. No matter if you are on the bench or on the field, everyone is always cheering you on!”
