About Us
Our team is a mixed 7/8th grade team at CLC Charter School. We work on a trimester schedule, with three different project, reading, and writing activities a year. Our goal is to maintain a positive and productive workplace while we complete creative and challenging projects. Below are some further insights into what we do. Welcome to the team!
Who's in charge?
Brian Rowan (a.k.a. Stewy) began teaching at CLC in 2002, and has been a member of the CLC community since the school's first year in 1998, serving as Administrative Assistant, Assistant Teacher, and ESP Coordinator in the school's early years. Brian is a graduate of Penn State University with a BS in Elementary Education. He informally serves as the school's "tech guy" and enjoys using the school's 3D printer to create innovative projects and fix pencil sharpeners. Brian currently is the lead teacher of SBoogle. Email Brian at: [email protected].
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Projects |
Each day, our team devotes most of our time to real-world projects designed to put students in the role of a professional as they acquire and apply knowledge while sharpening their research, writing, presentation, and technology skills. A sampling of some of our projects is below.
Biodiversity Golf Students explore the importance of biodiversity as they design a miniature golf course that highlights life on Earth.
Birderhood Students learn about bird habitats while creating structures to support the local bird population.
CSI: CLC Students train as crime scene investigators and work to solve staged crimes around the school. After suspects are arrested, students work as lawyers to prosecute or defend the suspects in the CLC court of law.
Revolution: The Musical Students create a musical about a specific revolution after learning about the important events and themes from that revolution and other revolutions throughout history.
SBenergy Students explore the technical aspects of how electricity is generated and the impact each source of fuel has on our environment before creating energy-efficient and environmentally-responsible cities of the future.
Terra 2.0 Students train to become astronomers as they work to discover life on other extra solar planets.
World Building Project Students create a new world from scratch, starting with building the climate and associated biomes and concluding by creating the history of the world based upon Earth’s human history.
Independent Projects Throughout the year, all students design and complete at least one independent project. These projects range from research-based projects to hands-on projects that serve as a platform to demonstrate the knowledge, skills, and attributes that each student has developed that year.
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Reading |
Each day, our team devotes time to both independent and guided reading as a supplement to the authentic reading activities done during our project periods.
Readers’ Cafe After math each day, we devote time to our readers’ cafe. During this time, students participate in independent reading using books from our team library.
Read Out Loud At various times, students participate in a classroom read out loud. During this time, a novel is read to the class and students engage in classroom discussion and analysis of the book being read.
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Writing |
Each marking period, writing is integrated into our project-based curriculum as students write scripts for presentations, business reports, or other meaningful documents. Below are some of the focus areas for our project-based writing curriculum.
Thesis Statements From the beginning of the year, we teach students how to construct thesis statements that indicate the purpose of the writing and provide a roadmap for the writing piece. Engaging Introductions In order to help students write engaging introductions, we teach the following methods for starting off their writing pieces.
Thoughtful Conclusions We teach the following methods to help students write thoughtful conclusions.
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Standards |
In addition to the project-specific standards listed above, PA Common Core standards are assessed through use of teacher-created rubrics. See below for a breakdown of which rubrics are aligned to which standards.
English Language Arts
Reading & Writing in Science and Technical Subjects
Reading & Writing for History and Social Studies
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