Meet Nellie Cuddy: Highlander

About Me:

Name: Nellie Cuddy

Hometown: Kennebunkport, ME

College attended: Ithaca College

Major: Sports Studies

Siblings: Older sister, Debbie Older brother, Mark

Pets: Jax- cat

Favorite Color: Blue

Hobbies: Writing Poetry, Singing, Drawing

Favorite Subject in School: Writing

Service Year:

Grade and School that you serve at: Highlander, 6^th grade

Why did you choose to serve a year with Americorps:

I chose to be a part of Americorps because I enjoyed my service year last year, and I wanted to keep helping out the community.

What has been your favorite part about working at Highlander:

My favorite part about working at Highlander is that I feel so welcomed by all the students and teachers there.  My teacher has really made me part of the family, and an asset to the class.

What do you hope to gain from your year of service:

I hope to get more experience on working with youth in and outside of the classroom. I look forward to finding a way to continue my passion of working with youth in the future.

Meet Nicole Nowak: Times2Academy

About Me:

Name: My name is Nicole Nowak.

Hometown: I am from Portland, Maine.

College attended: I attended the University of Southern Maine.

Major: I majored in Psychology.

Siblings: I am an only child.

Pets: I have Molly, an Irish Setter. A cat named Callie, and Stewart the Betta fish. 

Favorite Color: My favorite color is purple.

Hobbies: I enjoy Zumba, Yoga, cooking, and reading.

Favorite Subject in School: A favorite subject of mine is Science.

Service Year:

Grade and School that you serve at: At TIMES2 I assist in 7^th grade Science and K-1 Art.

Why did you choose to serve a year with Americorps:

I chose to serve a year with Americorps to prepare and make decisions for graduate school, while gaining work experience and contributing to a great cause.

What has been your favorite part about working at Time2Academy:

Getting to know all the kids, and their very unique personalities.

Meet Alenoush Hagopian: Highlander

About Me:

Name: Alenoush Hagopian

Hometown: Cranston, RI

College attended: BA –UCLA MAT- Rhode Island College

Major: Psychology, Elementary Education

Siblings: Younger Sister (Ani)

Pets: none

Favorite Color: black

Hobbies: reading, drawing, dancing (zumba)

Favorite Subject in School: social studies

Service Year:

Grade and School that you serve at: 4^th grade, Highlander Charter School

Why did you choose to serve a year with Americorps:

I wanted to use my expertise as an educator to help urban youth realize their full potential academically and to make a difference at a renowned charter school, such as Highlander Charter School. 

What has been your favorite part about working at Highlander:

My favorite part about working for Highlander has been working with the diverse group of students during the after school enrichment sessions.

What do you hope to gain from your year of service:

I hope to hone my teaching skills and grow professionally as a classroom teacher.

Comic Book Telephone Game

One of my afterschool activities this session at Highlander is a Comic Book Creations class. The ten or so fifth through eighth graders will end the session with their own comic books created from scratch. So far, the students have been working on developing their main characters- protagonists and antagonists. Today, we'll start sketching outlines for the plots of their stories. We've also been playing warm-up games to get the creative flow going. One of their favorite is a sketch-based version of the old game Telephone. Instead of sharing a secret by whispering it into your neighbor's ear, the students each create a quick sketch which is then passed around to the rest of the class. With each round, the sketches pass to a new person who acts as a human Xerox and makes a new version of the sketch. At the end of the game, everyone has about a dozen versions of their original sketch on the same sheet, and everyone's made a bunch of sketches! Then we're ready to move onto bigger things!

Here's a scan of one of the sketches from an earlier week:

[Can you guess which one is mine?]

- John

Meet Leah Harrigan: Times2 Academy

About Me:

Name: Leah Harrigan

Hometown: Taunton, MA

College attended: Providence College

Major: Psychology

Siblings: Two sisters

Pets: An adorable toy poodle named Ringo

Favorite Color: Green

Hobbies: Playing basketball, piano, writing

Favorite Subject in School: English

Service Year:

Grade and School that you serve at: 6^th grade at Times² Academy

Why did you choose to serve a year with AmeriCorps:

I wanted to do a year of service after graduating college, and I have always loved working with kids. Charter Corps seemed like the place to do meaningful work and get more experience working with students.

What has been your favorite part about working at Times² Academy:

The kids of course! Whether it be during class, after school, or just around the building, I get to spend my day with hundreds of awesome young people.

What do you hope to gain from your year of service:

Besides forming relationships with students and gaining experience running my own programs, I really want to get a better idea of where to go from here, especially in the realm of grad school. I’m hoping that working with my students will steer me in a more specific direction when it comes to my future job. In addition to my own goals, I want the students that I work with to gain something from me as well – I hope to be a good teacher and mentor to them throughout our year together.

Talkin' about Charter Corps

Charter Corps minus Alenoush, Jill and Nicole

In the fall of 2010, Highlander partnered with Times 2 Academy, another local charter school, to create the Charter Corps, an AmeriCorps program focused on serving local independent charter schools through hands-on help in classrooms, literacy and math instructional assistance, and after school programming that works to connect in-school and after school learning.

Charter Corps is made up of 14 members; half of the members of the team are assigned to Highlander Charter School and the other half to Times2 Academy. At both schools we work with students grade K through 8. During the school day each team member is assigned to a classroom where they have the opportunity to assist the teacher with classroom management, and working with students either individually or in small groups. Then during the after school time we become the teachers and focus on academic enrichment, where we reinforce what the students have learned during the school day in what we call homeroom time. We also run activity classes that include topics such as sports, art and crafts, cooking, science, math, and literacy among other learning activities that keep the students engaged and working as a group. We also participate in Freedom Fridays where we focus the after school day around self-discovery, civic issues and social change.

What is Americorps?

Americorps was founded in 1993 as a part of the Corporation for National and Community Service. Today, around 85,000 Americans serve in a variety of arenas to address critical needs in education, disaster relief, health, housing, and environment across the country. In Rhode Island, Serve Rhode Island administers six Americorps programs with about 270 members alongside six Americorps National Direct programs with operating sites in Rhode Island.


For more information check out these websites and videos:

Americorps

Serve RI

Americorps Pledge

 

 Americorps Opening Day Video (10/3/2011)

 Opening Day Pictures (10/3/2011)