Solstice Wins CSPA Gold Again!

The 2014-2015 edition of Solstice, Hinsdale Central's art and literary magazine, was selected for top honors from Columbia Scholastic Press Association, receiving a "Gold Medal."  Thousands of magazines are submitted to CSPA from across the country, and, continuing the medal-winning traditional of the past few years, the staff of Solstice was honored to be among the few magazines to earn Gold.  Congratulations to last year's staff; design editors Nicholas Lucaccioni, Erin Bruns, and Connie Sarantos; literary editor Elizaveta Mangutov; and faculty sponsors Pat Potokar and Jim DiDomenico.

English Teacher Jordan Stob is a "Make a Difference Award" winner

The PTO's Make A Difference Committee announced today the Third Quarter Winners of the Make a Difference Award! 

I'm pleased to see English teacher Jordan Stob is one of the award winners.  Congratulations to all the winners!  

Sara Pendergrass- Special Education

Karen Ford - Bookstore

Pat Morgan - Bookstore

Jordan Stob - English

Mark McCabe - Guidance

Sally Belter - World Languages

Solstice Wins Coveted Scholastic "Crown Award"

More great news for Hinsdale Central publications!

This spring, the 2013-2014 edition of Solstice, Central’s art and literary magazine, was awarded the prestigious “Crown Award” from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association at its 91^st annual convention.  Out of over 1,200 entries, Solstice was one of 60 magazines to win the Crown Award.  

The chief editors from last year’s magazine, Gabrielle Lail, Sydney Schwartz, and Emily Ding, as well as the current editors, Nicholas Lucaccioni, Erin Bruns, Connie Sarantos, and Elizaveta Mangutov, are very excited about receiving this honor. 

This year’s Solstice staff was proud to distribute the 2014-2015 magazine last week.  The faculty sponsors for Solstice are HCHS art teacher Pat Potokar and HCHS English teacher Jim DiDomenico. 

A photo of the 2013-2014 and 2014-2015 Solstice magazines:

Cool assignment - frosh and senior collaboration

 

The more I hear about the innovative and creative stuff that English teachers do, the more excited I get.   I often feel that I don’t do a good enough job of sharing the good ideas.  I just heard of this cool collaborative project that Mike P and Kim W worked on together  and wanted to share the idea.  Kim’s E1H kids worked with Mike’s Brit Lit 2 kids for two hours this morning for an in-school field trip.  Mike’s kids taught Kim’s kids the 3-step process they use in his BL2 class from going from page to stage.  From the descriptions I got from Mike and Kim,  it sounded like it went really well and was good – for different reasons – for both groups of students.  Both would be happy (I think!) to talk to you about this idea.

 

 

 

Ecology Club receives award -- and grant -- for their video

from left: Stephanie Jamilla, senior; Josh Feldman, senior; Gardeneer Founder Adam Zmick; Claire Hultquist, senior; Wendy Li, sophomore

Congratulations to the Ecology Club for their award-winning video!  The Hinsdale Central Ecology students received recognition and a grant that they plan to use for the courtyard garden.  

The club was also able to chose an organization for a matching grant.  They chose the Gardeneers because the founders work with Chicago schools and assist them in developing school gardens.

Watch the award-winning video here.

Read about the winners in other age brackets at the Green Community Connections website here.

Devils' Advocate online is a Pacemaker Finalist!

photo credit: http://studentpressblogs.org/nspa

I just received notification that Devils’ Advocate Online has been awarded a Pacemaker Finalist Award.  Wow!  

According to the award's website, The NSPA (National Scholastic Press Association) Online Pacemaker competition "recognizes the top student-directed online news publications in 2015. The 30 finalists were selected from 172 entries. A team of three judges worked over the course of several weeks to select the finalists based on content and coverage, writing and editing, design, rich media and interactivity."

Coincidentally, I just wrote a post about an incredibly cool interactive feature about HC poets.  Check out that feature here.

Advocate Online Interactive Feature

I was blown away by the beauty and functionality of this recent interactive Devils' Advocate Online story about Hinsdale Central Poetry Club competing at a recent Louder Than a Bomb bout.  The story is by Paige Pialet.  The video and design is by Matt Stockmal. Advocate Sponsor and HC English teacher Cherise Lopez told me that the advanced features in the multi-media package can't be supported by the regular DA website.  So, you can go to this interactive feature by clicking here, or by scrolling down and clicking the "interactive story" link toward the bottom of the DA Online website here.