English News Archives - Rutherford High School

Engaging “Escape Room” Activity in English Class

Brian Ersalesi — Mon, 31 Mar 2025 20:07:34 +0000

Mr. Stracco’s Honors 400 English class participated in an engaging escape room activity as a culminating experience for Ibsen’s A Doll’s House. The challenge incorporated riddles, symbolism, and character identification, with each clue leading to the next step—until one group, like Nora Helmer, successfully “escaped.”

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Creative and Academic Projects for “1984”

Brian Ersalesi — Tue, 25 Feb 2025 14:43:02 +0000

Mr. Stracco’s Honors English 400 class recently completed their unit on George Orwell’s 1984. As a culminating activity, students designed self-directed projects with corresponding rubrics aligned to NJLSA standards. Each group conducted a comprehensive analysis of the novel, focusing on its plot, themes, symbols, and key quotes. Projects ranged from student videos to newspaper articles, to recreations of scenes to explanations of the novel to the present day. They were the perfect mix of academic and creative!

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Judge Guida Visits RHS Class

Brian Ersalesi — Thu, 19 Dec 2024 14:05:05 +0000

Rutherford High School’s Finding Happiness Through Mindfulness class closed their recent unit with a visit from Hon. James J. Guida, J.S.C (Ret.) of Bergen County. Judge Guida shared his insights and discussed some of the challenges and highlights he experienced throughout his career. The objective was to offer our students an opportunity to listen to a unique perspective, one that includes maintaining a positive outlook even when experiencing difficult moments in a long career within the legal system. Judge Guida delivered a thought-provoking message at an appropriate level and he encouraged the students to ask questions and to share their thoughts. He used real world examples that included a quote from Vince Lombardi, which helped students make connections with our recent lessons.

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RHS Romeo and Juliet Student Art Connections

Brian Ersalesi — Fri, 13 Dec 2024 14:57:43 +0000

Students in Miss Barcenas’ and Ms. Garcia’s English 100 classes have been creating masquerade masks to coincide with their reading and analysis of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. The key scene where the star-cross’d lovers first meet takes place at a masquerade party. Students have been taking notes of character traits and analyzing them. Once their list of traits allowed for a full character description, students completed artistic representations of those traits on their masks. Art projects like this are just one way that our teachers help students make connections with classical literature.

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7th Grade UMS Students Create Community Mural

Brian Ersalesi — Wed, 20 Nov 2024 12:07:44 +0000

Seventh-grade students in Mrs. Collins and Mrs. Mac Millan’s classes recently completed a mural project following their reading of The War of the Wall by Toni Cade Bambara. This hands-on project served as a meaningful conclusion to a unit focused on the concept of belonging to a community. Throughout the unit, students explored how communities are defined by shared narratives, and how individuals contribute to the collective story. The mural project highlighted how each student, through their unique perspective and creativity, contributes to the broader narrative of Rutherford, illustrating the diverse yet interconnected ways in which everyone plays a role in the town’s community.

The project began with a brainstorming session where students reflected on their discussions about community. Each student then created an individual panel, using crayons, colored pencils, and markers to visually represent their personal understanding of community and belonging. The panels feature key themes, images, patterns, and words that symbolize what it means to be a member of the Rutherford community. The completed mural stands as both a creative expression of each student’s perspective and a powerful visual representation of their collective exploration of community and connection.

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RHS Seniors Debate Impact of Cell Phone Use

Brian Ersalesi — Mon, 04 Nov 2024 15:52:39 +0000

Based on Superintendent Hurley’s recent discussions with faculty, staff, parents, and community members about the book The Anxious Generation, students in Miss Rizzi and Dr. Porto’s English 400 class read selected pieces from the text and synthesized their primary knowledge with the data from the text to debate whether or not cell phones are the cause of many of the issues teens face today.

Based on their evaluation of the data and their experiences as students who live as part of The Anxious Generation, students discussed potential ‘fixes’ including their understanding of how a school-wide cell phone ban would work.

Students came up with valid points regarding technology as a whole, and in the end, they concluded that there isn’t just an issue within schools; there is a broader issue in our society regarding technology and its impact on students. Students were able to evaluate both sides of the argument while using evidence from the text and their own lives.

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Siddhartha Activity in Honors English 400

Brian Ersalesi — Fri, 01 Nov 2024 11:41:36 +0000

Mr. Stracco’s English Honors 400 Class participated in a text-based analysis of Chapter Six of Siddhartha by Herman Hesse. Using quotes, students argued the themes of materialism and spirituality and applied them to Siddhartha’s inner conflict. After the debate, students participated in a Quiz, Quiz, Trade activity where they reviewed major concepts as well as weekly vocabulary.

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RHS Open House English Department Presentation

Brian Ersalesi — Fri, 25 Oct 2024 11:06:05 +0000

Thank you to everyone who attended the Open House at Rutherford High School on Thursday, October 25th. It was a pleasure meeting the students and parents of incoming RHS students as they finish out a successful year in 8th grade at Union Middle School. The slideshow from last night presentation in the English Department session can be found here.

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Connecting New Vocabulary to the Real World!

Brian Ersalesi — Tue, 15 Oct 2024 18:14:57 +0000

8th graders in Mrs. Kiick’s ELA classes at Union Middle School are creating Semantic Maps of their Vocabulary Workshop terms. The goal is to make the new terms real to the students and not just focus on memorizing the words. Not only are they are writing their assigned terms in the center of their posters, including definitions, parts of speech, synonyms and antonyms from their workbooks, but they are also brainstorming their own subcategories and ideas/ examples to illustrate real life applications of the new words. In the end, they will be more likely to use the new terms in speaking and writing, and recognize them when reading and listening! Lastly, their posters will be scanned into a slideshow to use as an additional study tool.

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Unique Project in Honors English Class – Book Bento Boxes

Brian Ersalesi — Sun, 06 Oct 2024 14:17:08 +0000

Mr. Stracco’s Honors 400 English Classes finished their study of Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom by creating Book Bento Boxes. A Book Bento Box is a visual analysis of arranging objects – physical or digital – that are arranged and relate to a novel’s themes, plot, or setting. Each student presented to a team of peers who provided feedback and additional discussion.

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