Newspaper Page Text
THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE November 7, 1986 Page 15
Young Writers’ Annual selects
three Academy students’ poetry
by Robin Maginsky
TSI contributing writer
Leah Margolis, Andy Travis
and Sarah Levinson, students at
the Hebrew Academy of Atlanta,
have received recognition for
their creative writing abilities
duringthe 1985-1986 school year.
McDougaL Littel & Company,
publishers of school texts, in
cluded the three children’s works
in the just-published Young Wri
ters’ Annual. The selections were
among 149 chosen from 4,000
entries submitted to the nation
wide contest. The publishers
based their selections on content,
quality of writing, creative ex
pression and grammatical skills.
Lean’s entry, a poem titled
“Rain,” appeared among the
third-grade selections. Andy’s
poem, “Danny,” was among the
entries by second graders, while
Sara’s poem, “Taffy Pull,” was
among the fourth-grade selec
tions.
The fact that the three children
are the only ones from Georgia
and from a Jewish day school
makes them unique.
Madeline Urkin, special re
sources teacher at the Hebrew
Academy, said she felt the pieces
were selected because they were
Jewish teachers
to confer Nov. 23
“Jewish Education: In Search
of Excellence-In the Image of G-
d” is the theme of the sixth
annual citywide Teachers’ Con
ference and Education Fair to be
held Sunday, Nov. 23, from 8:45
a.m.-2:45 p.m. at Congregation
B’nai Torah.
The conference, sponsored by
the Atlanta Bureau of Jewish
Education Inc., will be attended
by approximately 300 Atlanta
educators and lay leaders. In
addition, teachers from sur
rounding communities in Geor
gia and nearby states will attend.
The program will include Torah
study workshops and general and
Judaic teaching methodology
workshops presented by leading
scholars, educators and profes
sionals from the Atlanta area.
The workshops will be geared to
classroom teachers of Sunday
schools, day schools and after
noon schools, administrators and
persons concerned with Jewish
education.
The featured presenter will be
Joel Lurie Grishaver, chairper
son of Torah Aura Productions
and vice chairperson of CAJE.
Grishaver, one of the foremost
teacher trainers in the United
States, will deliver a major ad
dress on “Reinventing The Jew
ish School: Landmarks Of A
New Era Of Excellence,” and will
conduct two methodology work
shops.
This year’s Education Fair, a
successful experiment at last year’s
conference, will feature Judaic
arts and crafts demonstrations,
the Jewish Teachers’ Exchange
“PX,” a book sale, a media review
and a display of award-winning
books.
For further information, call
Elaine Gruenhut, teacher train
ing coordinator, or Frances
Goodman, assistant conference
coordinator, at the Bureau, 873-
1248.
good examples of what the pub
lishers try to teach at each grade
level.
In her classes, she emphasizes
creativity, she added.
“We brainstorm a lot; talk
about words, how they’re put
together, the flow of the lan
guage. We bring in feelings, emo
tions that the words create—all
the senses,” she said. Technical
aspects, such as grammar, are
taught within the context of how
they are being used so that the
students will internalize such basic
English skills more easily, Mrs.
Urkin said. She believes that the
Hebrew Academy, under the direc
tion of Dr. Ephraim Frankel,
fosters this creativity by treating
each child as an individual.
“Most of the kids come from
homes where education is impor
tant. They are expressive, verbal.
The trick is to get them to not feel
uptight about writing it down,”
she explained.
“The movitator is that when
you meet with success and feel
good about it, you want to repeat
it. Positive reinforcement works.”
This is Mrs. Ur ken’s philosophy
of education and she indicated
that the philosophy is common
throughout the teaching staff.
The young writers are good
examples of how Mrs. Urken
teaches. Ten-year-old Sarah has
been writing about food lately,
because, “I can think of a lot of
words that go together. I thought
taffy was a real good subject: all
this stretching and pulling and
stickiness.”
She also writes on her own, the
result of a teacher who made her
class do so every day, she said.
Writing has now become a hobby.
Sarah lives in Dunwoody with
her parents, Judee and Sherwin
Levinson.
Leah also is 10 years old. She
says her parents, Aviva and Joel
Margolis of Stone Mountain, want
her “to be an author when 1 grow
up. I want to be a teacher.” When
she becomes “stuck” while writ
ing, she goes to Mrs. Urken, who
“tells me a better way to write it,
and that gives me new ideas.”
Andy is 8 years old. The son of
Lynne and Bill Travis of Decatur,
he said he is eager to enter the
contest this year.
Andy summed up the child
ren’s reactions to being in a na
tionally published book: “It made
me feel good.”
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Budding writers Leah Margolis, Sarah Levinson and Andy
Travis.
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FREEDOM
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CONCERT
with
The College Choirs Of
Clark-Morehouse—Morris Brown—Spelman
and with
Cantor Isaac Goodfriend
and the
Shirim Chorale
8:00 p.m.
Wednesday, November 19,1986
at
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1589 Peachtree Road, Atlanta
Tickets: *5 per person
From: NCLI-Histadrut
Suite 272, Prado North Building
5600 Roswell Road, N E„ Atlanta, CA 30342
Phone Reservations:
255-0938
in support of courses
in Organization and communication Techniques
for Black South Africans at the Afro-Asian institute in Israel.