Thanks for allowing the staff and myself to be a part of your child’s education this past year.  We look forward to our work together next year.

Just a few important dates to keep in mind before you head off to a relaxing summer:

Summer office hours: M-F 6/1-25/10, and 7/22/10 – 8/11/10; 7 a.m. – 3 p.m.
Offices are closed 6/28/10- 7/21/10,  Voice mail will be monitored during closure.
9^th Grade Academy: July 26 – 29, 2010
9^th grade Barbeque: Thursday, August 5, 2010 at 6 p.m.
Mandatory Senior meeting: Thursday, August 26, 2010 at 7:15 p.m.
1^st day of school for 9^th graders: Thursday, August 19, 2010
1^st day of school for grades 10 -12: Friday, August 20, 2010
Back to School Night: Thursday, August 26, 2010, 5 – 7 p.m.

I am looking forward to seeing everyone in August.  Enjoy your summer!

Sandra Just
Principal

On July 31st a group of community minded families will converge on Thomas Jefferson High School to show their support for their community high school. Members of the New City Church plan to paint and clean their way through TJ in an effort to further our ongoing work and to show pride in their community. This second annual event, called Sharefest, is done also to encourage members of the TJ community to give some of their time to make TJ a better place for students to attend school.

The focus for this year is to paint the pillars in the front of the building to match the guard rail that was painted at last year’s Sharefest, and to scrub out as many lockers as possible. There are 18 pillars to paint and 1100 lockers to clean, so we can use all the help we can get.

If you would like to support Sharefest please contact Scott Lessard at Scott_Lessard@dpsk12.org and let him know you are coming. Last year we had nearly 100 students, parents and community members show up to help out. We would like to see even more folks participate this year. If you have a project that you would like to see addressed please include that information with your communication. Groups that want to focus on a specific job are highly encouraged to participate (for example, the softball team replacing the wind screen around the dug outs).

As a side note, TJ is implementing a community service requirement for students this year, and hours spent at Sharefest will be counted towards a student’s annual hours needed.

Thank you in advance for helping TJ be the best it can be, and we look forward to seeing you there.

• Two Daniels Fund Scholars
• Over 1 million dollars in scholarship money earned to date
• 38 State & 3 National DECA qualifiers
• 15 new NHS inductees
• Two Magnet students National SkillsUSA finalists
• Successful CSAP completion
• Increased number of students on track due to credit recovery offerings
• Instructional Rounds – staff is visiting each others’ classrooms and studying indicators of student engagement
• Average attendance is ranging 89-90%.

Photo by Alia Gant

College, college, college. I am sure many of you have these exact words repeated in the same phrase. As you approach closer to your senior year, college becomes more of a concern. Should I even go to college? If I go to college, where am I going to study? Should I stay in-state or go out-of-state? What do I like so I can narrow down a major? These may be some of the questions racing through your head as you think about college.

Well, I can honestly say that each and every one of you will make the decision that you think is best – which could be going to a college or university, going to a technical school, armed forces, or joining the work force. Whatever your decision, I strongly suggest you consider studying or working abroad. This past semester I studied abroad in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and through my experiences I would like to illustrate the reason why studying abroad is such an enriching experience.

I did not have the typical experience that most students would have during the initial process of going abroad. I followed the same course of action many would take in studying abroad – I chose a country that interested me and that I had some background language knowledge of, I talked to my student advisor, and talked to my study abroad advisor. Everything seemed to be going as planned– the only issue that instilled fear in me was my finances. I knew that I would need to look at other means of gaining financial aid. I asked both my study abroad and merit awards advisor and they encouraged me to apply for scholarships and fellowships that are mainly for studying abroad.

To my surprise I found many different scholarships, some focusing just on language immersion, while others focused on internships, and even some that centered upon U.S. students studying in countries that are not visited as often as others. While researching different scholarships I came across one called the Benjamin A. Gilman Scholarship Program. This scholarship allocates funds to students who plan on going abroad. The scholarship pays for many different things such as visa applications, passport applications, transportation, and room and board in the country. After reading about this scholarship I was hooked; I knew that if I won the Gilman award, my study abroad experience would be more feasible. After thinking about it, I realized that it would be worth it to apply to the Gilman Scholarship whether I got the award or not.

My journey started with applying to a program at my school. I had been taking Portuguese classes and I learned more about Brazil every day. When my school opened a study abroad option to Brazil in Rio de Janeiro I knew that I was destined to go to the country. I applied to the program, and soon afterwards I applied for the Gilman Scholarship. I would not find out if I was accepted into the program or received the scholarship until the summer. I waited anxiously for any news. Finally, I heard from my school that I was accepted into the program at Pontificia Universidade Católica do Rio (PUC-Rio), but I was still waiting to hear from the Gilman Scholarship. Shortly after my study abroad acceptance I heard back from the Gilman Scholarship staff. I had won the award! They were granting me $4,000 that would be used for my trip.

After all the great news from my school and the scholarship fund, I truly thought that it would only be smooth sailing from then on for Brazil. However, I was wrong. I had issues concerning my visa. Without the Brazilian Government collecting my visa application and returning it as accepted, I would not be allowed into the country. Unfortunately my visa was rejected, twice. I did not understand why and was completely miserable because I honestly thought that my dreams for Brazil would stay dreams. In fact my situation got so drastic that I signed up for classes at my university here in the States because I did not believe I was going. When I stressed my concerns to my study abroad advisor and my advisor at PUC-Rio, action was instantly taken. My visa application was rushed and within a week my visa was accepted. I booked a flight and was off to Rio de Janeiro by the following week to start school. When I finally sat on the plane for my trip to Brazil, I could only feel anxious and excited. Within hours I would be in a completely different country—from the weather to the different language of Portuguese.

After arriving in Brazil I cannot deny that I was nervous and a bit scared. Sure, I go to school out of state, but I am still in the country. Being in a foreign nation is completely different. A new language (depending on the nation), new norms, new culture, new food…these are just some changes I had to adjust to and everyone who goes abroad deals with. Even with these differences I was still welcomed by all the people I encountered with open arms. When I arrived at my new home, my host family (one woman and her son) made a traditional Brazilian dinner called feijoada, which consists of different types of meat—specifically marinated pork and beef and black beans. In addition, feijoada is typically served with white rice, chopped collard greens in olive oil, farofa (similar to sift flour), and orange slices. I was ecstatic and could not believe that as soon as I arrived in Rio de Janeiro for my homestay I was having a real Brazilian dinner. My homestay family was not the only group of people who made my first days in the country smooth. The workers at the local market helped me with showing me local places to visit, the exact location of my school, and even how to get to the beach! When I arrived to my new school for the semester, PUC-Rio, the staff for the school directed me to the building where the office for international students studying at the campus was located. The office staff greeted me very warmly. They gave me my schedule and then directed me to my classes. The classes I had for the semester were Brazilian History, Social Brazilian Debates, Brazilian Foreign Policy, and Portuguese. In fact one of my classes, Social Brazilian Debates, reminded me greatly of one of my Computer Magnet classes, Newspaper. I was a reporter for The Jefferson Journal and often had to interview people and do separate research in regards to a specific topic. For Social Brazilian Debates, I had to write a paper about HIV/AIDS treatment for the youth in Rio de Janeiro and interviewed various people such as school doctors and students at PUC-Rio. Newspaper class helped me greatly with this paper because I was able to refer to old articles I wrote and simultaneously switch gears from the strict academic writing I had been doing to a more reporter style type of writing that Newspaper class calls for.

I was extremely lucky with not only my classes, because they were interesting, but also the wonderful professors I had and my fellow classmates. My classmates came from all over the world such as France, Sweden, the United States, England, Mexico, Finland, and much, much more. My classmates became my friends and even like a second family because mine was so far away.

While in Brazil I knew that school was going to be a priority especially because I had started the term late. Still I knew that venturing into the city was going to be a huge factor. The country of Brazil and the city of Rio de Janeiro is one of the most unique places in the world. The nation has so much history and it is drastically different from ours, yet so similar. Like the United States, Brazil was a former colonized region. However it is different because it was colonized by the Portuguese. In the past Rio de Janeiro had become the imperial capital for the Portuguese empire. From that there were many remnants from the imperial nation such as Praça 15 (15 Square), the Jardim Botânico (Botanic Garden), the market in Urguaiana, or even the infamous arches of Lapa. In addition, Rio de Janeiro has the beautiful beaches, sports such as soccer and caproeira, which is an Afro-Brazilian martial art that originated from the slaves in colonial Brazil, the giant Cristo de Redentor (Christ the Redeemer), and distinct music such as samba. Also, when I was Rio de Janeiro, the city got the bid to host the 2016 Summer Olympic Games. I made sure to take advantage of this city while I had the chance to.

Though I also had some downs in my travels to Brazil, the positive aspects by far surpass the negative. I will forever be grateful to Brazil for what it showed me about myself and the world. I matured so much in Brazil because of the fact that home is not as easily accessible and that things will not always go as planned (such as with my visa). You have to do what works in your best interest. I also obtained a greater appreciation for my home country. The United States is something beautiful and unique in this world and I could even see that in a liberal country like Brazil. I am still however appreciative of the fact that I was able to see something different, yet see at the same time how globalized our world is becoming. Studying abroad is not solely about studying. Studying abroad is about immersing yourself into a new world that is different than what you find normal and comfortable. It is about learning how other countries teach their students so they can become more adaptable to change their styles. It’s about trying new food, experiencing new cultures, trying new things you would not normally do such as dancing the samba, learning about other histories, and much, much more. I know this is a time when many have other concerns, especially dealing with finances and the global atmosphere, but I implore all of you to look at a country that you want to visit. There are so many scholarships and fellowships that are out there for students or even workers that focus on all kinds of different majors and interests. All you have to do is simply look.

Test anxiety is when a student excessively worries about doing well on a test. This can become a major hindrance on test performance and cause extreme nervousness and memory lapses among other symptoms.

The following are tips on reducing test taking anxiety:

If you’re still experiencing extreme test anxiety after following these tips, seek help from your school counselor.

Reading scholarly books and articles critically requires a specific method and strategy that makes it very different from reading for fun, or reading to survey a work. If you care to get the most out of the materials you are assigned, you have to learn to read critically or analytically, that is, to break down an argument into its constituent parts (explandum, explanans, premises, hypotheses, theorems, laws and mechanisms, conclusions and corollaries, ramifications for other theories or arguments), retrace its major stages and turns, evaluate its strengths, weaknesses, and validity, and grasp its implications (empirical, theoretical, moral, practical, and so forth). Here are some practical tips to help you do just that.

Always read with a purpose. Moving your eyes across a printed page is not critical reading! Reading with a purpose means asking a question (or, better yet, a system of questions) that you keep in mind as you progress and that helps you put the pieces of the puzzle together. So always identify from the outset what the author intends to do in the writing, how s/he proposes to do it, and what kind of arguments s/he develops (causal, historical, interpretive, etc.).

Scan and scope the text beforehand. You’ll do a much better job of picking up the argument(s) in the text if you know in advance what to look for. For this, always scan the full text beforehand: flip through the pages, grab a few paragraphs here and there, pay attention to titles and subtitles, notice highlighted phrases or italics, tables and figures (in particular their captions)-in short, get a rough feel for what’s going on there. You can also read the first and last sentence or paragraph of every section, just to become familiar with the substance and tone of the argument(s). Then read the text in depth.

Read to identify the logic of the piece. This means identifying the problem the author is trying to resolve, the concepts s/he uses or develops for that purpose, the evidence s/he brings to bear on the issue, and the quality of the argument. Make an effort to situate the authors’ claims in the broader constellation of literary or cultural theories or research you are familiar with (from class discussion, other classes, other reading you’ve done-whatever you’ve experienced that is relevant). Never read a text in isolation: always relate it to relevant texts you’ve read (among them, those assigned for the same and prior weeks). Literary arguments have a structure; your reading should locate and mimic it.

Read differentially. Do not treat all printed text in the same manner. “Democratic” reading is analytically inefficient (even unsound); some parts of a text contain critical conceptual or causal arguments and should be read very cautiously (and repeatedly if necessary); others contain illustrative materials, empirical elaborations, or theoretical digressions and can be read more rapidly (or sometimes even skipped). So allocate your time and effort wisely, in proportion to the difficulty and significance of the passage.

Annotate the text as you read. Read with a pen or pencil in hand and mark the progression, twists, and turns of the argument as it unfolds. You can devise your own stenographic system (arrows, stars, circlings, underlinings, etc.) to highlight in a consistent and economical manner the main names, dates, definitions, and logical turning points, conclusions, and implications, etc. But do not defeat your purpose and highlight everything.

Pay attention to passages that confuse. It may be, as you begin to read scholarship, that the terms or language used by an author may seem confusing, or that the writing may be impenetrable. Be confident that you can still read critically difficult texts, and be aware that reading these texts may take a bit more time than reading prose that is written to be more accessible. Note the source of confusion. Is there a key term being used in an unfamiliar or unclear way? If so, revisit the beginning of the text (or any other passages that set up the framework of the argument) to see if there are helpful definitions. Don’t forget that a dictionary is a tremendous aid-it will give you a range of meanings for the term and/or related terms that will allow you to discover, with the help of the surrounding context, what is being said. Is the writing difficult to read on the sentence-level? Try diagramming a sentence, untangling complex syntax, to see if the writer’s meaning becomes clear (and then, having learned a bit about the writer’s habits, learn what you know to unravel other difficult passages). Ignoring difficult vocabulary or passages will likely leave you unclear about the author’s overall work.

Notice the author’s relationship with other scholarship. Are there footnotes and other references to scholarly work? Does that author incorporate others’ research without comment, or does the author discuss the pros and cons of this research? An article that engages with other scholarship is likely to have been thought through more thoroughly than one that sticks in references with no articulated reasons.

Write up notes immediately after reading. If you’ve read a text with an active analytical intention, you should be able to summarize and reconstruct the main lines of its argument(s). Immediately upon finishing your reading, write, type, or scribble a short recapitulation of what you just absorbed. What was the key question posed by the author, what answers were given to it, what concepts or theories were introduced, what evidence adduced, how does this or that thesis or theory differ from rival views, etc. Use your annotations and marginalia as guides and signposts; if the text introduces new concepts, make a note of them and write down their definition (as given by the author and/or reconstructed by you); if it contrasts several phenomena or theories, enumerate what makes them different or similar. Use whatever devices (tables, lists, bullets, diagrams, etc.) give you the best synoptic and synthetic view of the piece you’ve read. I highly recommend that you try and diagram the major argument(s) made by the author. If you can draw an author’s argument, you likely get it. Your reading notes will be invaluable self-teaching and learning aids as long as you study (and beyond).

Reflect back upon the text and evaluate the argument. Never close a book or put away an article without evaluating its argument: was it logically consistent and empirically adequate, plausible or convincing and why (not)? What alternative or rival arguments some to mind? Again, relate the text you’ve read to others you know (or those mentioned by the author). Never take an author at face value, no matter how famous and authoritative; there is a lot of poor scholarly writing, as in every other kind of writing. It’s your job to separate the wheat from the chaff. Also, do not be swayed by emotional appeals and moral exhortations; more often than not, good sentiments hide bad scholarship. Watch out for mere rhetoric!

Do not hesitate to read a text for a second or third (or Nth) time. A common myth among novice readers is that if you’ve read well a given text, you’re done for life. This makes no sense! A text may be “rediscovered” as many times as there are purposes or occasions for reading it. Genuinely complex and rich texts are profitably read several times over as each reading unearths new layers and treasures.

Remember that reading analytically will save you time, energy, and throbbing headaches come midterms, finals, and paper time!