Goal of this blog

The purpose of this blog is to provide regular schedule updates to members of our community on projects sponsored by and coordinated through the Bernardine Franciscan Learning Center. The projects include but are not limited to the following

-Book clubs (NYT Most Notable book club-- several titles; Football book club-- Where Men Win Glory; Faulkner book club-- Absalom, Absalom; Common Good book--The Golden Rule; Michigan Read-- Arc of Justice)

We provide the books to the participants in each of these book clubs. We suggest guiding questions at the beginning of discussions of the titles.

-Test prep (Virtual Falcon ACT Prep; Kaplan access code; Shmoop partnership; HSPT Prep 8th grade; CLEP-- summer help for class of 2011)

We prepare half to two-thirds of every junior class for the ACT, nearly all our eighth graders, and a mix of accelerated and remedial students from all grades for a variety of standardized tests.

-Author visit (2011-2012: John Smolens, author of The Anarchist )

We have hosted authors in our library three of the four years that I have worked at Divne Child. We are making plans to invite 2010 Michigan Author Award winner John Smolens. We will purchase copies for students to read over the summer and evaluate.

- Study Skills (Necessary Ninety; Saturday study hall)

We work with 20-30 students every day after school from 3:30 to 5pm. Students must either read or do homework during this time. They are encouraged to be social and to remove anxiety from their daily routine. On Saturdays, we work with students in need or more individualized attention.

-Battle of Bands
We rate classic rock bands every Wednesday and select a weekly winner from 4 competitors. Ballots are distributed and typically 25-30 students participate in the voting. Results are reported to the alumni coordinator who opens the ballot to our 10,000 alumni.

- Research Projects (Anatomy and Physiology; Music Appreciation; honors biology; Physics research; freshman honors biology/science fair; Selected topics in European History)

We help students in these classes identify and make strategic use of peer-reviewed scholarly research.

- Early College class 2015; 8th grade virtual honors algebra; Madon​na courses; Assumption College online classes

We work with accelerated students on their college readiness by supporting their work in dual enrollment and continuing education college classes.