quest press - Long Beach Unified School District

QUEST (kwest), n. 1. One of two Long Beach
Unified School District GATE Magnet Programs.
2. An adventure; a journey. 3. The home of
award-winning scholars and teachers.
June, 200 8
Vol ume 1, Issue 1
Q UEST P RESS
R.A. Millikan High School, Long Beach, California
Senior Swimmer On
An Olympic “QUEST”
Z
Ram fact: Passionate
about classical
languages? Millikan is
home to only the Italian
teacher in LBUSD.
That’s amore!
Inside This Issue
By Don Keller, Millikan Co-Principal
Anyone who has seen Isaac Howell swim
knows he has a special talent. His talent has
earned him a full scholarship as a studentathlete to UC Berkeley in the fall. He chose
Cal over a number of schools, including
Arizona State, Harvard, Yale, and Columbia.
Looking over this list of schools would lead
one to think Isaac is a good pupil, and he is!
He is a QUEST senior with a “weighted”
grade point average of 4.1. He selected Cal
for its location, opportunities, and the
general campus environment. This CIF
champion plans to concentrate on fine arts
with a possible career in architecture, art,
and design.
Vertical AP Teams include College Professor, Millikan Teachers
and Counselors
3
The Class of Your Life: Design Your Own Senior Project
4
AP Economics Students Lauded At Summit
2
Millikan Music Programs Ace National Event 6
whopping sixteen seconds! Considering that
one of the records was set in 1976, these are
impressive accomplishments.
Isaac is setting his sights on national and
international competition. He’ll attempt to
qualify for the Olympic trials this June in
Omaha and then on to the nationals at the
U.S. Open in Minneapolis in August. Isaac
was a CIF All-American last year; he
established U.S. senior and junior national
qualifying times. Isaac attributes his
successes to his former coach and trainer,
Kevin Perry, who passed away recently.
Isaac started swimming at age ten. His
achievements: in the 200 freestyle, he
broke the record by six seconds and in the
500 freestyle he beat the record by a
Go to page 2 for a poetic
Our Class QUESTS:
on Millikan swim.
John Dunster, Isaac’s Millikan
swimming
an athlete of this caliber
Adventures in coach
Rigorsaid,
and“Having
Relevance
on your team is a wonderful occurrence for
coach.”
By Katie any
Hickox,
QUEST PRESS Editor
Imagine if a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in explanatory reporting taught
your English and history classes one day. Picture yourself onstage as a
member of a Shakespearean Theater Company. Design your own literary
field trip.
QUEST English teachers differentiate their instruction using a variety of
GATE strategies in the high school setting. Using novelty tools such as
Please see Class QUESTs on page 4
Page 2
Ode To Millikan Swim
QUEST Press
butterfly,
backstroke,
By Kayla Hammond, QUEST Freshman
breaststroke,
free...
Sun’s waking smile
beaming through missed heavens
cannot awake us
alarm buzzing,
singing,
or burrrrring-ing,
stirs us from deep slumber
sleepy eyed,
zombie like,
out the door,
into the car
we're in this together,
we are a team,
rising before the sun
leaving as it sets,
We are determined,
we are the Millikan High School Swim Team
and together...
we are strong.
Kayla Hammond is a member of the water polo and
swim teams. An honor roll student at QUEST, Kayla
came to Millikan from Stanford Middle School.
no traffic
always green lights
when it's still dark outside
AP Economics Students Win Awards at International
Summit
By Kenneth Pickens, QUEST Senior
shivering,
waiting,
barely whispering,
hello or good morning,
in a picturesque suit
by a chlorine filled pool
dreading to get in
jump,
leap,
dive,
splash!
cold water,
awakens,
revives,
energizes
lap after lap
Millikan High School students rocked the Regional International
Economic Summit at the University of Southern California
recently. The IES is an event that allows students to simulate
trade negotiations that occur world-wide. It helps students
understand the challenges faced by third world countries and the
advantages in trade held by wealthy countries.
Sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Los Angeles, the event
features high school teams representing different countries. The
teams, comprised of more than 8,000 students, aim to improve
their living standards for their assigned countries.
Millikan’s two teams represented Germany and Uganda. Germany
won recognition for their trade statement. Uganda won the
costume category.
“Our costume was very old-school Ugandan style, with a twist of
new-school Ugandan tribal wear,” said Brian Cacha, a student
member of the team.
The trip’s organizer was Dr. Satinder Hawkins, an AP Economics
and AP Psychology teacher, who earned her doctoral degree at a
joint UCLA-UCI program. She is a two-time “Teacher of the Year”
winner and holds National Board Certification.
Pickens is an editor of the Corydon, Millikan’s student newspaper.
QUEST Press
How to Earn a 5.0 GPA: Counselors,
Teachers Build “Bridge” To AP
By Pamela Cathcart, AP Coordinator
Advanced Placement classes have become
a near requirement for the most competitive
colleges, the experts say. Millikan starts
preparing AP students for success in their courses
early and with support from experts in their
disciplines.
AP—or Advanced Placement—classes are
university-level courses offered in high school
that can help students earn college credit before
they ever apply to a college or university. Many
Millikan grads enter college with enough credits
to be at sophomore standing within their very
first year. This saves them—and
parents—thousands of dollars in tuition.
AP teachers work hard to make their classes
engaging and relevant. Before students set foot
in an AP class, “vertical” teams of teachers help to
prepare the students for the rigor of the course.
Once students are in an AP class, many teachers
offer mock AP exams on campus to give students
practice and feedback before the real exams.
Study sessions and tutoring hours are also
available to students throughout the year.
AP World History teachers hosted Professor
Tim Keirn, a lecturer on global world history at Cal
State Long Beach, for in-class lectures. The
professor, an author of AP Modern World tests,
also offered tips on essays and test-taking.
Teachers include pre-AP strategies within
their curriculum, particularly in ninth and tenth
grades, to prepare students for the rigor of AP
coursework. For example, some ninth grade
QUEST English students this year wrote a
“process,” or modeled essay based on a released
question from the AP Language and Composition
Exam. The teacher used a literary analysis
Ram Fact: John Jacobson, Millikan’s AP Computer Science
teacher, was named a recipient of the 2008 College Board AP
Fellows Scholarship. The $1,000.00 award will fund
registration fees and additional costs to attend an AP Summer
Institute workshop in Computer Science at Carnegie Melon
University in Pennsylvania.
Page 3
Ram fact: Want to go to Stanford, Cornell, UCLA, UC
Berkeley, or George Washington University? Many QUEST
graduates and their teachers have attended rigorous
universities and earned advanced degrees. Four of
Millikan’s teachers have earned the nation’s highest
honor: National Board Certification. Go Rams!
acronym recommended by the College Board, the
organization that writes and administers AP tests.
AP classes can also raise grade-point averages
because more weight is given to AP grades than
regular classes. Some students graduate from
Millikan with 5.0 grade point averages.
Every spring, counselors held individual
conferences with students to prepare their
schedules for the next year. Counselors share short
course descriptions written by each AP teacher in
order for students to make informed decisions about
committing to AP classes. Millikan students are also
required to sign in with their new AP teachers
during the first week of June. This gives them a
chance to meet, to ask questions, and to clarify any
summer homework that might be required.
To further prepare students to transition into
AP classes, Millikan offers a Summer Bridge program
each year to give students a head start. At Millikan,
the program is called “Bridge the GAP” and it will
be offered again in August.
Currently California is 8th in the nation with
the largest percentage of graduating seniors scoring
three or better on an AP exam.
AP Exam takers
US
MHS
White
33.2%
33%
Latino
30.1%
42%
Asian
23.3%
11%
Black
3.7%
8%
Millikan’s AP program continues to expand
each year and is keeping pace with the rest of the
state and nation in offering opportunities for
students to challenge themselves with rigorous
coursework in order to reap their advantageous
rewards.
Pamela Cathcart chairs the English Department, is AP
Coordinator, and advises The Corydon, Millikan’s school
newspaper.
Page 4
QUEST Press
Classroom QUESTS from page 1
extension menus and real-life products, the teachers give
the students a voice in developing their work and
QUEST freshmen learn research skills using Sandra Kaplan’s content
experience with how their learning connects beyond the
imperative icons, depth and complexity icons, and “keys.” Mr. Poerschke, a
classroom.
QUEST English teacher and award-winning soccer coach, has the students
design alternative products in addition to their traditional research reports.
“Extension menus are especially valuable when students
“test out” of specific skills such as grammar and
Mr. Lind, Senior Project teacher, says individual projects at the underclass
vocabulary,” says Pamela Cathcart, AP Coordinator and
level train students to design their own class senior year. “There is so much
an AP English Language and Composition Teacher.
responsibility on the individual in the senior class that teaching them work
Ms. Cathcart uses extension menus, or lists of projects
habits, work process, discipline and responsibility become the most important
that students can choose, for enrichment and for
skills at the lower level,” Lind says.
students who score 90 percent or above on certain tests.
Photo on page one: QUEST Freshmen Paige Cunningham, Olivia La Salle, Jeryn
“Some students have gone to see professional plays for
Sampson, and Michelle Simonek enjoying a board game they designed using 50
the first time in their lives, too, because of an
Greek and Latin root words. The game combines classical vocabulary with literary
enrichment project,” Cathcart notes. “They realize that
elements such as plot.
local theater tickets are not much more than the cinema,
yet the experience is on a much higher level.”
Cathcart teamed up with me offer QUEST English and
history students a one-day seminar on the modern
implications of journalism from the progressive era in
American history.
Chris Knap, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and a
journalism instructor at Cal State Long Beach, taught
the “Modern Day Muckrakers” class. His Millikan
seminar linked the work of progressive American
writers such as Upton Sinclair and Ida Tarbell with
recent prize-winning reporting on issues such as
immigration, crime, and foreclosures. Knap is my
husband and the investigative editor for the Orange
County Register.
In Ms. Abbate’s Shakespearean Theater Companies,
QUEST Seniors: Design Your Own Class
By Aislinn Reid, QUEST Sophomore
Millikan High School’s QUEST students strutted,
strummed, articulated, and demonstrated into the
evening hours one night recently. The event was the
celebrated Senior Project Night, in which the
graduating QUEST students had the opportunity to
share with the community and the school, a special
project which many had worked on all year long.
students design their own setting, costumes, scripts –
even lighting.
“Acting companies allow students to really enjoy
Shakespeare the way it was meant to be shared, through
live performance,” notes Abbate, who holds National
Board Certification. “It is also a method to get
students to apply their knowledge of character, setting,
and scene design in dramatic literature by creating their
own interpretations.”
QUEST, which stands for Questioning, Understanding,
Engaging, - Success through Technology, has been
attracting highly motivated, college bound students for
over a decade. In their last year of high school, each
member of the QUEST program secures a mentor or
advisor, and “investigates” some skill, theory, or
project that interests them.
Please turn to “Seniors,” page 5
QUEST Press
Seniors, from page 4
The projects were divided into several different
categories: Performing Arts/Community Service;
Fine Arts/Fashion/Food and Publishing; Movies;
Science and Engineering; Home Improvement
and I Built It Projects. The variety was
astounding, ranging from Costa Rican Cuisine to
Native Californian plant diversity.
Ben Levin’s display presented the novel he
wrote, called A Light Shines in the Darkness. In
the same room, Leigh Cranton displayed her
handiwork in woodcarving. It was evident that
she spent a great deal of time perfecting a time
honored craft, as she exhibited exquisitely
carved picture frames and flowers.
Outside in the quad area, Kristell Yap spent
time with the curious explaining her
“Overshadow” techniques in Pediatrics, and
backing up her descriptions with various books,
medical items, and illustrative pictures. Claire
Pelonis stood behind her shamrock decorated
display board, awaiting her turn to dance on the
stage. The difficulty of Irish Dancing became
quite evident, as the dancer must keep the
upper part of their body perfectly stiff as the
dance is performed.
The Millikan Library served to screen several
films produced by students. Although, most
were artistic or documentary pieces, some of
the projects focused on certain aspects of the
movies, like film editing. Probably, the most
noticed project was Ryan Sontag’s solar
powered canoe. Constructed with the help of
former Millikan Science teacher Woody
Williams, the orange canoe had a huge Millikan
decal.
Aislinn Reid came to Millikan from Cubberley
School.
Page 5
Millikan’s Music Man
by Don Keller, Millikan Co-Principal
John Harvey is Millikan’s choral music
teacher. He has built his program into one of
the premier programs in the area through a
great deal of determination, vision, talent,
and hard work. He grew up in the Long Beach
school system, attending Cubberly, DeMille,
and Millikan. He is a baritone who
participated in glee clubs and school music
programs throughout his life, starting as a
soprano. While a student at Millikan, he
participated in three musicals (Brigadoon,
Carousel, and Music Man). His college
experience started at LBCC and then
continued at Fullerton State and Pepperdine,
where he received his Master’s Degree in
Music. He was inspired to teach through a
wonderful group of professors at Fullerton
State.
John started his teaching career at Hill but
spent the next 15 years or so at Hughes. He
came to Millikan approximately eight years
ago following Mary Brewer. One of his goals
has been to increase the number of pupils
participating in the choral music program,
something he has successfully accomplished.
Millikan choral students are constantly asked
to perform at district functions including the
Most Inspirational Student Awards and
Principal for a Day programs. Another
highlight was Millikan students’ participation
in the Virginia trip last year, the highest
number representing any single high school in
Long Beach! His Chamber Choir competed in
San Francisco at a prestigious competition
fielding the best choirs in California. They
were among the top three groups chosen to
perform at the end of the event.
John said, “I’m always so impressed with the
high maturity level of Millikan students. They
are willing to work so hard and care so much.”
They certainly reflect the characteristics of
their teacher.
Millikan QUEST Program Contacts
Millikan Musicians Win National Accolades
School Phone: (562) 425-7441
The Heritage Festival is a national festival which
holds consistent standards of judging across
America. Three Milllikan instrumental music
groups traveled to Las Vegas the weekend of
April 11th to compete in the Heritage Festival.
The Millikan Jazz Band, under the direction of
professional musician Tom Mitter, earned a Gold
rating, the highest award given. For the first
time, two Millikan students earned the Maestro
Award for outstanding performances. The
Symphonic Winds earned the Gold rating and the
Millikan Orchestra earned a Gold rating plus the
coveted Adjudicators Award for the most
Outstanding Orchestra. Bonnie Annes credited
her pupils and parent chaperones with
conducting themselves throughout the
competition with class and distinction.
Shawn Abbate, Lead Teacher:
[email protected]
Pamela Cathcart, Advanced
Placement Coordinator,
[email protected]
Jessica Mullen, QUEST
Counselor,
[email protected]
Katie Hickox, QUEST Press
Editor
[email protected]
We’re on the Web!
Visit us at:
lbschools.net/millikan
R.A. Millikan High School
2800 Snowden Avenue
Long Beach, CA 90815