RHHS English
Department Newsletter—Winter 2020
The first semester of
the 2019-20 school year has been a very successful one with numerous activities
and awards in our English program. In addition,
there are numerous student achievements that we would like to acknowledge. First, we would like to
congratulate Caitlin Chu for winning the OSSTF Creative Writing Contest with her poem "One Strong Woman," Dani Fox for winning the Marie Pick Award for Proficiency in
English Writing, and Vicky Xie for winning the Robert MacDonald Award for
Excellence in English Literature. The students who received the awards for
highest marks in their courses were: Katelyn Wang (ENG4UE), Donia Zeng (ENG4U),
Freya Abbas (EWC4U), Sahra Sultani (ENG4C), and Andrew Lin (OLC4O). Continuing
this tradition of excellence we would like to recognize Vicky Xie for winning
the Bow Seat Ocean Awareness Essay Contest and Dani Fox for placing first out
of ten thousand students across Canada, in the prestigious Turning Points Essay
Competition. The results from the 2019 AP English exams were fantastic: nearly
half of the ninety participating students received perfect scores on two
separate internationally recognized AP English exams.
We held our second annual Poetry in the Park
event on October 29th, which featured poetry written and performed by students
from across our school. Students and teachers gathered in the garden behind the
portables to enjoy an evening of poetry, food, and music, hosted by RHHS’s slam
poetry club. Performers shared passionate poems on topics that ranged
from depression, to lacrosse, to the fear of growing up. Slam poetry club
members and other volunteers helped to put together a stage, supply blankets,
hang lights, and give out food and drinks during the event. In addition,
audience members judged the performances to inspire some friendly competition.
The event had a great turn out, and both the audience and performers enjoyed
listening and gaining insight into each other’s lives through the words that
were shared. With lights hanging in the trees and candles framing the stage, it
was a beautiful evening where students had the opportunity to showcase their
thoughts, emotions, and creativity.
We would also like to acknowledge last
year’s Slam Poetry team of Annika Pavlin, Iris Xie, Apisha Mahenthirarajan,
Matthew Ao, Caitlin Chu, who finished as finalists in York Region. Students who are
interested in joining the RHHS Slam Poetry Team can drop by the RHHS Slam
Poetry Club every Tuesday after school in Room 1062 to sign up, or see Mr.
Cimetta in the English Department office for more details.
In November we kicked
off our literacy month celebrations by participating in numerous literacy
initiatives including the Turning Points
Essay Contest, the Richmond Hill Public Library Short Story Contest, the Marion
Drysdale Creative Writing Contest for Poetry and Short Fiction, and the
Canadian Poet’s League Poetry Parade.
Sir Kenneth Branagh’s world renowned “Shakespearience” interactive
workshop also made a stop at Richmond Hill High School. Our students had the
opportunity to gain a new appreciation for Othello and to discuss the
craft of professional acting in Canada with two very distinguished actors from
the Stratford Festival, Robert McClure and Marvin Karon.
This year the English department is sponsoring several
field trips as extensions to our academic English program, including an
insightful trip to the ROM for students to study the history and culture of
Elizabethan England, an animation workshop at the National Film Board of
Canada, and a day of film production workshops at the TIFF Centre. We also have field trips
scheduled to visit the Stratford Festival in May: students will have a chance
to watch either Hamlet or Much Ado About Nothing. This will
provide students with an opportunity to view an authentic production of an
Elizabethan play in an environment replicating London’s Globe Theatre.
The Ontario Secondary
School Literacy Test will be held on Tuesday, March 31, 2020 and students have
been preparing for it in their grades nine and ten classes throughout the first
semester. This year we are anticipating one of the largest AP English enrolments
ever in York Region (over 90 students) and we hope to continue our tradition of
literary success on the two international AP English exams to be written in
May. If you have any questions regarding the Literacy Test, Advanced Placement,
or the English program at RHHS please feel free to contact the English
department at any time.