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On November 6, 21 eighth grade students were officially inducted into Junior Delta Epsilon Phi Deutsche Ehrenverbindung. The chapter Pennsylvania Junior Theta was created this year by Frau Walter, the Phoenixville Area Middle School German teacher. It’s a national educational honorary society for the study of German, and its goal is to spread interest in the study of German language, literature, and culture. It is sponsored by the American Association of Teachers of German. In order to join the club, students had to have completed one year of German, and needed to have an overall average grade of 85 percent as well as an 85 percent or above in their German class. The induction ceremony started off with all club members standing up and promising to uphold German culture and language – all spoken in German, of course. As soon as all the students had gotten onto the stage and received their official certificates allowing them to join the club, each person was given a candle. Then, in the style of a traditional National Honors Society induction ceremony, the club president Mitchell Gibson had his candle lit, then he in turn lit the first person’s candle, and they lit the person’s next to them, and so on. And the stage didn’t even catch fire. Some activities that the Honor society is working on at the moment are cooperation with PAMS’ life skills class and introducing German culture and traditions throughout the school. In celebration of Nikolaus Tag (a German holiday celebrated on December 6), some club members went be to Ms. Lamb’s (the Life Skills teacher) RECAP class to tell the Life Skills students about the Nikolaus tradition, fill their shoes with candy and sing a Nikolaus song for them. Other students are currently constructing a Christmas tree out of cardboard, construction paper, and various decorations (which will again be worked on with PAMS life skills class) to be put up outside of the cafeteria. Signs will be hung up to show students how many of their own traditions originated in Germany. The honor society will have many more exciting activities coming up throughout the school year and is always looking to cooperate with other groups. Congratulations to the first ever members of PAMS’ National Junior Honor Society of German: Katherine Bland, Karly Burton, Maddie Cooke, Caroline Costello, Mitchell Gibson (President), Kaleigh Hartson, Jordan Hrynkow, Kayla Johns, Christian Lehning, Eva McDonnell, Tim Miles, Amanda Monachelli, Cailin Robinson (Treasurer), Tanner Romance, Nina Shafer, Maggie Shillinger, Tyler Skomsky (Vice-President), Jacob Straka, Matthew Tague, Quinn Vollmer (Secretary) & Aaron Weiss. Herzlichen Glückwunsch! -Cailin Robinson, Treasurer of Junior Delta Epsilon Phi 
The members of the German Honor Society had their first meeting this Thursday. They voted on their representatives for the 2012-2013 school year. Congratulations to our officers:
President: Mitchell G Vice-President: Tyler S Secretary: Quinn V Treasurer: Cailin R Thank you also to everyone who ran and was willing to take on these responsibilities. After our first meeting members of the honor society have already gotten busy and started the first projects. Some students started to build a cardboard Christmas tree, while others are finding instructions to craft ornaments and teach them to PAMS life-skills class. A group of students is also in the process to prepare a Nikolaus visit to the life skills class to tell them about this tradition and fill their shoes with candy. Exciting things are happening! Don’t forget that the induction for members of the Honor Society will be next Wednesday at 6:30pm in PAMS’ LGI room. Here, as promised, the audio file to practice your lines. Please don’t forget to wear red, black or yellow or any combination of those three colors on Wednesday.  I'm excited to announce that a chapter for the National Junior Honor Society, Delta Epsilon Phi has been established here at PAMS. The honor society is for students at the Middle School who are in their 2nd year of German and who met the requirements of ending 7th grade and the first marking period of 8th grade with an average of 85 in German and as their overall GPA.
The invitations have been given to the eligible students and about half of the eligible students have already turned in their forms to join. Our formal induction will be held on December 5th at 6:30pm at the Middle School. Parents, grandparents and/ or other guardians are welcome to attend and celebrate with us as the students receive their certificates. I am very excited to meet with you all and come up with ideas of how we can get the school and the community involved and aware of not just the German culture, but also an awareness to other cultures around them. We will cross with other classes and organizations for this and I am hoping that this will be a great experience for everyone involved. Our first meeting will be held on November 29th at 6:45am. Looking forward to seeing you there!
some details here and there is still considered plagiarism. The movie is silent and black and white. One more fun fact: The actor playing Nosferatu (Dracula) is Max Schreck. Schreck is the German word for "scare."  If you like this movie, you may also like: "Das Kabinet des Dr. Caligari." This 1920 movie is the paragon for German expressionism and has been an inspiration for many movies and artists to this day. Tim Burton's early films pay tribute to this movie and the Red Hot Chilli Peppers as well as Rob Zombie have used the movie as inspiration for their music videos.
Happy Halloween!!  Click for message from German ambassador Peter Ammon German-American Day is a holiday in the United States, observed annually on October 6. The holiday, which celebrates German American heritage, commemorates the date in 1683 when 13 German families from Krefeld near the Rhine landed in Philadelphia. These families subsequently founded Germantown, Pennsylvania, the first German settlement in the original thirteen American colonies. Originally celebrated in the nineteenth century, German-American Day died out in World War I as a result of the anti-German sentiment that prevailed at the time. The holiday was revived in 1983.
In 1983, President Ronald Reagan proclaimed October 6th as German-American Day to celebrate and honor the 300th anniversary of German American immigration and culture to the United States. On August 6, 1987, Congress approved S.J. Resolution 108, designating October 6, 1987, as German-American Day. It became Public Law 100-104 when President Reagan signed it on August 18. A proclamation (#5719) to this effect was issued October 2, 1987, by President Reagan in a formal ceremony in the White House Rose Garden, at which time the President called on Americans to observe the Day with appropriate ceremonies and activities. (Wikipedia)  On September 3rd PAMS had their annual Anti-Bullying kick off. The teachers, students and staff participated in anti-bullying, pro tolerance activities and watched PSAs made by students in last year's PPA classes.
The videos we did were send in to our anti-bullying force which decided on the best videos of the school. I am proud to announce that my class' video (see prior post) was chosen as one of the best! The students did a great job and deserve the recognition they received. Tomorrow our little group will be rewarded with pizza and a movie. Good job everyone, it was a lot of fun to make this video with you!!
We all have our idols, heroes and role models. Sometimes they are people in our family or friends and sometimes they are strangers, who are just familiar to us because of their fame. A lot of times these strangers are our heroes for their looks or their talents. I have been a fan of Cornelia Funke ever since I read Inkheart. I love her imaginative young adult books and have read quite a few of them. I admire Funke's talent to bring stories to life and fill my head with vivid images that stay with me way after I am done reading her books. (After reading Reckless I can still see Jacob's world and whenever I listen to Peter Fox's Das Zweite Gesicht oder Ich deine Steine, Du Steine, as this was my soundtrack during the book.) After finding Funke's facebook page for her trilogy Reckless I sent her a message online. I didn't really think I was going to hear anything back from her, but I just wanted to leave a little note, telling her how much I enjoy her books. Little did I know that this little note would not only be answered 5 minutes later, but would also open up a wonderful opportunity not only for me but also for my students. Mrs. Funke offered to send autographs for my students as well as a signed book to PAMS. She even offered to personalize the autographed cars with the studens' names which I though was going to be a really great surprise for my students. In all of my German classes I collected the names of the students who had read Conelia Funke's books and send them to her office via e-mail. What we got back was just plain amazing. Not only did we get back 48 personalized autographs and one signed book, we got about 10 signed books (in German and English), about 30 more bookmarks with her signature and 2 audiobooks! I was down right stunned when I opened the package. 
everything we received plus the T-Shirt for Cornelia funke
As a Thank you, the students helped me to film a video to send back to Frau Funke (which is being edited at the moment) and every student signed the Shirt on the picture above.
I would have never thought that my one little message to Frau funke would lead me to receive all this for my students and me. The generosity Frau Funke has shown is amazing and really knocked me off my feet. Today, Frau Funke you have made a German teacher and her students very happy. Thank you for giving our school some of your greatest stories. Today you are my hero! ....nothing is going to get better. It's not. Dr. Seuss' famous words were true when he was still alive and they are now more true than ever. After we just finished a unit on the environment in German 1, there couldn't have been a better way to finish of the week than by watching The Lorax. The animation was amazing though unfortunately some of the dialogue was lacking a bit and didn't do justice to Dr. Seuss' writing style. Still, it's the message that is important: We need trees to live! We can't destroy our environment or we will pay the price.
As part of the environment unit I showed my class the documentary "Blue Gold: World Water Wars." I had told my students how this documentary made me stop buying bottled water. I though that the reference in the Lorax that "people will buy anything that comes in a plastic bottle" was just great. I hope that viewers realized that it is not just outrageous that air gets bottled in The Lorax, but it is just as ridiculous that we are buying bottled water when we can have the same for much cheaper from our tap. Great kids' stories like The Lorax are hopefully reaching children all over the country/ world teaching them what is really important in life. I hope that thoughtful parents take the opportunity to talk to their children after watching the movie and making sure they understand the message. The wonderful imaginary mind of Dr. Seuss presents great potential for life long lessons. |
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