Finals Week at ACHS

Last week was the final week of the fall semester at ACHS. Students were busy studying for finals and making sure all of their work was turned in. Students had time to do some extra studying during their YESS classes. They also used the time to finish putting together their final projects for YESS (look for photos after break). Some of the students organized potlucks on their last day of class to celebrate the end of the semester! YESS students are excited for their holiday break and are looking forward to having more mentors in their classes next semester.

Week 17 at ACHS

This past week in class we spent time exploring the War on Drugs. We watched a video narrated by Jay Z about statistics on drug use and incarceration of people of color. After the video, mentor leaders led a discussion for students to talk more about what their opinions and beliefs were on the War on Drugs and share their personal experiences. One of the mentor leaders put together a Powerpoint on research she had done on New Jim Crow laws. She went back to the start of Jim Crow Laws and compared it to today's statistics on minorities and incarceration rates. The mentees were also given time in class to study for the upcoming finals. Students also spent time working on their final projects.

Final Project: The Hippocampus and Alzheimer's  

Week 16

Students arrived back at school after a long Thanksgiving break to start their last YESS unit of the semester. This week students began a unit on drugs and the brain. We started off the unit discussing how drugs affect the brain at the beginning of the week. By the end of the week students picked out specific drugs they wanted to research and then present to the class. Students have also been busy working on their final projects for their YESS class, where they are designing a comic book character based off of a region of the brain and then making a six panel comic storyline about their character.

Cerebral Core-Brainer 

Week 15 at ACHS

This week in class the mentors focused on getting the mentees caught up with missing work. It was beneficial for them to get their missing work so they can catch up over break. This week we, the mentor leaders, focused on mentor recruitment for next semester. We delivered invitations to students we believed have the potential to become strong mentors. On Wednesday after school we held an informational meeting for students interested in becoming mentors, where we had at least 35 students show up. We told the students about our experiences in the YESS class so far this year and answered questions the students had about the program. After the meeting, the mentor leaders offered interviews for mentors. We recruited nearly 25 mentors for next semester!

Thank you Fernanda and Angel for all of your hard work last week!

Week 14

This week at ACHS we wrapped up our unit on the brain. Students picked brain structures to research and then make posters for, which they presented to the rest of the class. Students had a short week this week with an assembly on Thursday for the Sadie Hawkins dance that night. This week the YESS 8th period class had the opportunity to do a workshop with Gerardo Lopez. Gerardo spent some time talking to students about the election and some of the fears and concerns students are facing.

Week 13 at ACHS

This week we continued our unit on the brain. Students learned more about the different structures of the brain and began learning about the unique developmental stage our brain goes through during adolescence. We talked about the anatomy and functions of neurons and the process of synaptic pruning, also known as "use it or lose it". Students got to watch a PBS documentary about the brain at the end of the week. This week we also began identifying classes that students are struggling in and setting goals for the end of the semester for these classes.

Week 12 at ACHS

Thanks again to our wonderful mentor leaders for writing our blog posts!

This week we have been learning about the brain and its various structures and functions. We discussed the amygdala, the part of the brain that controls fear. We learned about a person referred to as "SM". A significant amount of research around fear has been done on SM because her amygdala was damaged. We learned that the damage to her amygdala caused her to not experience fear anymore. She was not able to draw a fearful face, or experience fear in traumatic and dangerous situations. We filled out a crossword puzzles and played games in order to familiarize ourselves with the brain, as well as colored and labeled the different brain regions.

Week 11 at ACHS

This week in class we talked about fear and how we feel when we experience fear. Some students said that they were afraid of public speaking, others said spiders, and a few said they weren't afraid of anything.  Student shared experiences they have had that come with being afraid of something, for example, feeling shaky and having elevated heart rate and blood pressure. Students learned about our biological fear response and spent time learning about the amygdala, and what it would be like to not have one, such as in the case of patient S.M.

 Many mentors had senior lock-in this week where they learned about obstacles, dreams and the steps we need to take in order to succeed.

Week 10 at ACHS

This week the ACHS mentor leaders began teaching some of the YESS class and writing the ACHS YESS blog!
This week classes talked about the power of choosing. Students began the week having a discussion around the proverb, "you can't control the wind but you can adjust your sails". Students wrote about what the quote meant to them, some said that you can't control what happens around you, but you can control the way you handle it. Students gave examples of things they do have control over in their own lives, some examples included completing their homework, what they eat, what time they sleep, or how they act or respond to situations in class. After that, mentees and mentors paired up to complete a reading titled "The power of choosing your thoughts". We learned about positive and negative attitudes as well as what goes on in someone's mental state. Over the course of this week, the students in the class focused on their fear. After watching a Ted Talk, the students realized the first step to conquering fear is finding out what they fear. After identifying their fears, the students wrote down what steps they could take to conquer their fear.
This week one of our mentor leaders designed and implemented a lesson on study skills and staying organized in school. She led a discussion and shared her own experiences with school and the ways in which has learned to study and stay organized while juggling college classes, applying for college and scholarships, and finishing her senior year of high school.

Week 9 at ACHS

This week marked the halfway point in the semester for ACHS students. Students were busy studying for midterms and getting missing work turned into their teachers. Mentors had the opportunity to participate in mentor trainings with Dannikka this week. Mentors got to hear about Dannikka's experiences as a mentor and mentor leader at North while she was in high school. She discussed challenges and successes she had had with her own mentees. YESS classes wrapped up their community building unit with an art project exploring their values, goals, community, culture and personal identity. Students were asked to think of their identity through the analogy of an iceberg, and to explore what parts of their identity they share with the world and what parts they keep hidden beneath the water. This activity was meant to be a personal reflection of what we have done in our YESS classes thus far this year.

Week 8 at ACHS

This week at ACHS many students were excited about homecoming and the events leading up to the dance. YESS students discussed the relationship between values and goals and learned how to assess their goals using a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis. Mentees worked with their mentors to help them identify challenges they might face in achieving their goals, as well as opportunities they have in school and in their communities to help support them in reaching their goals. This week YESS students also created maps of the people in their world to help them identify the different support systems in their lives and the different networks they can use to help them achieve their goals.

Week 7 at ACHS

This week at ACHS students finished discussing culture. Students discussed how their own cultural backgrounds impact their experiences in the classroom. Students then discussed how culture relates to the classroom and what type of classroom culture they would like to see in their YESS classes. This week YESS students also had the opportunity to attend a field trip to the Sie Film Center in Denver to see a screening of one of the films that was featured in CineLatino, a film festival celebrating Latino cinema. YESS students attended a screening of "Clever", a short film documenting the life and work of Gerardo Lopez. As the director of Homies Unidos Denver, Gerardo does youth gang intervention work after he himself left the gang scene in LA to start a new life in Denver. Students had the opportunity to participate in a Q&A after the film with the director, Alan Dominguez as well as with Gerardo. 

Week 6 at ACHS

Last week at ACHS we finished our unit on trust. Students started off the week having discussions around trust, and they began thinking about the different types of relationships in their lives. They were then encouraged to think about who they trust in their lives and why. Students brainstormed how to build trust and then designed posters representing behaviors that build trust and behaviors that destroy trust. Students then completed a team building activity where they broke out into small groups and designed and built bridges out of various materials including popsicle sticks, pipe cleaners and cardboard. Students then tested out the strength of their bridges with jenga block. Students finished off the week discussing culture. Students were asked to come up with working definitions of culture. Students were encouraged to think about their own identities and the role that their culture plays in their identity, which led into our discussion on classroom culture.

Week 5 at ACHS

This week at ACHS we continued conversations about mentoring and began discussing trust. Students were encouraged to think about who they trust in their lives and who the do not trust and why. Students then began thinking about what creates trusting relationships and what destroys trusting relationships. Students then broke out into groups and designed posters with the theme of trust.
This week mentees also had time to work with mentors on completing homework and making sure they were caught up on all the assignments listed in IC for their classes. Many of the students have also been excited about working on ACHS YESS t-shirt designs to submit next week.

Trust Poster

Students discussed types of relationships in their lives,
they then used a bridge as an analogy to discuss trusting relationship

Week 4 at ACHS

Week four at ACHS brought about some exciting new mentor-mentee relationship developments, as several more mentors joined our classes this week. Many of the students began to gain a clearer understanding of their roles in the class through several in class exercises on mentoring and the YESS program. Students also had the opportunity to spend some one on one time with a mentor or mentee.

This week we spent time learning how to read transcripts with the help of the mentors. Mentors helped mentees to understand their transcripts and the ACHS graduation requirements. Mentors then assisted mentees in mapping out their credits from last year in order to help them identifying which credits they were missing. The mentees then came up with a plan to make up any missing credits with the help of the mentor they were working with. 

Mentors and mentees also had the opportunity to learn about their roles in the classroom. Students spent time discussing what they believed the role of a mentee or mentor was in and outside of the classroom. Mentors and mentees then shared what they had discussed with the class. Students were then encouraged to think about how these expectations fit in with their shared agreements from the beginning of the year.   

Week 3: M&Ms and Art

Students at ACHS are excited about the start of fall sports. Week three of school has also brought about the start of clubs and other extracurricular activities. We have had a couple of new mentors start this week, but we are still trying to fill spaces in classes. This week students had fun getting to know each other with help from M&Ms and art.
Students had the opportunity to learn some fun facts about each other while getting to snack on candy. The YESS mentors and mentees were asked to pick questions off of a list that corresponded with the colors of M&Ms they had received. Student were not allowed to eat their M&Ms until they had told their group a little bit about themselves.
We all got to know a bit more about each other while completing personal timelines. Students were asked to make a timeline that represented their past, present and future. The goal was to make a visual representation of where they come from and where they would like to go in life. Students were able to identify similarities and differences in their histories as each student presented their timeline to the class.

Personal Timelines 

YESS Begins its First Year at ACHS

YESS began its first year at Adams City High School in Commerce City on August 8th! We are starting the year off with new mentors and mentees and a lot of team building. We have spent time talking about identity, our communities, our values and our goals. We have also been playing plenty of games and getting to know each other. The students put together several projects including posters with their shared agreements around expectations for their classroom community. They have also made their own personal Coat of Arms to represent their values and identity. We are still working to fill all of our mentor spots, but the mentees are patiently waiting their arrival. One of the major highlights from the first two weeks of school has been making marshmallow towers. Students broke into teams of three and were given 20 minutes to make a tower out of differing sized marshmallows and spaghetti noodles. Students used various creative strategies in order to create these towers, some strategies working better than others.

Period 5 Shared Agreement