GREENWAY SCHOOL TEAM WINS MATH BOWL

    Greenway School’s 7th grade team placed First in the annual Pellissippi Math Bowl, competing with other seventh-grade students from 30 Knox and Anderson Counties schools. Individually, Greenway 7th grader Timothy Blackwell placed 3rd and Sam Shadwell placed 4th.  Timothy is the son of Stephen and Aleka Blackwell.  Sam is the son of Cliff and Jane Shadwell. Other members of Greenway’s winning team were Stephen Bassett, son of David and Laura Bassett, and Blaire Toedte, daughter of Ross and Sharon Toedte.

    Overall, 604 students competed. Oak Ridge Associated Universities helped fund the April 25th competition, which was hosted by Pellissippi State Technical Community College. The event was sponsored by the Math Departments of Austin Peay State University, Middle Tennessee State University, Pellissippi State TCC, the University of Memphis, UT-Martin, and Walters State Community College. A Greenway School team has scored within the top two places two years in a row.

Greenway School's seventh-grade team won 1st place at the Pellissippi Math Bowl.  Left to Right:  Sam Shadwell (4th Place individually), Blaire Toedte, Stephen Bassett, and Timothy Blackwell (3rd Place individually.)

THREE GREENWAY SCHOOL STUDENTS ADVANCE 

                                   TO NATIONAL HISTORY COMPETITION

    Greenway School students won two First Place Awards, one Second Place and two Third Place awards in the Junior Division of the Tennessee State National History Day competition, held at the University of Memphis on April 5th.

    In Historical Papers, Erin Stapleton was awarded First and Blaire Toedte won Third. In the Individual Performance category, Sophie Yates was awarded First Place, Timothy Blackwell received Second Place, and William Coe earned Third. The three Greenway students who won First and Second now advance to the National Competition to be held in June at the University of Maryland.

    Greenway began participating in National History Day in the competition’s second year, 2003. Thus far, Greenway students have advanced to both the state and national competitions every year. Three Greenway students -- the most from any Tennessee school -- have placed at the national level. Greenway Social Studies teacher, Liz Shugart, was named a 2004 National History Day Teacher of the Year.

Five Greenway School students won awards at the Tennessee State National History Day competition. (Left to Right) Front row: Erin Stapleton, Blaire Toedte. Back row: Sophie Yates, William Coe, Timothy Blackwell.

 

GREENWAY SCHOOL STUDENTS' ART IN GALLERY SHOW

    Greenway School students got what all young artists dream of – their own showing in an art gallery. On Friday evening, May 2nd, Unarmed Merchants, a new art gallery downtown, featured a work of art of every Greenway student. Some of the students' works were auctioned to benefit the school's fundraising effort to build a house in Haiti. The students' creations included papier mache clocks, ceramic mugs and oil paintings . “The students really understood the possibilities of these various media. I am amazed at their creativity – and their generous spirit in offering their work for the benefit of charity,” said Greenway School's art teacher, Liz Shugart.

    The event was part of Knoxville's traditional First Friday Gallery Hop, when all downtown art galleries are open from 6 to 9 PM. Unarmed Merchants is located at 129 S. Gay Street.  The Greenway students' art will be on display there most of the month of May.

Sarah Margaret Hutchison and Mark Terry display their papier mache clocks, which were auctioned  to benefit charity at the Unarmed Merchants Gallery show.

      The second MTSU Linguistics Olympiad took place on Saturday, February 2. Forty middle school and high school students participated in this year’s competition representing Knox, Rutherford and Williamson Counties. Timothy Blackwell and Jonah Diegel of Greenway School won second place in the middle school team competition. Sarah Margaret Hutchinson and Blaire Toedte tied with a Rutherford County team for third place. Pretty impressive for our first time out.       The competition consisted of traditional linguistics problems, such as identifying word formation and syntactic patterns in Modern Greek, Russian, and Swahili, as well as fun activities, such as creating word blends similar to the place names Japaridelphia and Chilondoscow introduced by AT&T in an advertising campaign.

      While waiting for the judges’ results, many of the participants also participated in an informal Language Bowl.  Students from different schools joined together to form teams and worked on solving anagrams, writing palindromes, saying tongue twisters and identifying orthographies from around the world. The members of the winning team – “The Verbs” – were given the new word game Wordigo. 

      Lynne Mullins, Greenway's Language Arts teacher, is proud of all eight of our seventh graders who made the trek to MTSU and participated in the linguistics competition.

GREENWAY SCHOOL TRAVELS BACK IN TIME

At Greenway School’s Fall 2007 Medieval Faire, the school’s entire campus became a medieval village. Greenway’s 6th, 7th, and 8th grade students transformed themselves into people of the middle ages. Jesters and puppeteers delighted the crowds, players performed medieval dramas, knights demonstrated arms and armor-making, weavers and herb growers taught their lore, and parents and visitors feasted on stew and tarts baked from medieval recipes as the students serenaded them with medieval ballads.Student-crafted puppets tell the story of St. George and the Dragon.

Typical of Greenway’s “Connected Curriculum,” the Medieval Faire was the combined focus of Social Studies, Science, Language Arts, Math, Art, and Music, to unify the students’ learning experience. Every student also participated in a project-based learning course, in which they cooperated in small groups to research specific aspects of Medieval culture. At the Faire, they presented what they had learned in colorful demonstrations. The students performed two dramas based on Chaucer‘s Canterbury Tales: What Women Want Most and Chanticleer and the Fox.

 Students share their research on the types of chain mail and what they learned by making chain mail themselves.

 

These students built and demonstrated a medieval weapon known as a trebuchet.

Greenway School Students Excel at Math Competition

    Greenway School’s MathCounts team placed fourth out of schools from all over East Tennessee in the 2008 annual competition at the University of Tennessee. Stephen Bassett, Timothy Blackwell, Sam Shadwell, all 7th graders, and 8th grader India Gill made up Greenway’s winning team. Sam Shadwell, son of Cliff and Jane Shadwell of Knoxville, placed second overall individually.

    "Mathletes" at Greenway met weekly for practice sessions, working complex math problems frequently involving advanced problem-solving skills. Greenway has placed in the top four in MathCounts four years in a row.

    For 24 years, MATHCOUNTS has served as a national enrichment, coaching and competition program promoting middle school math achievement throughout the United States. Following several months of coaching, each school selects students to compete individually or as a team of “mathletes” in one of more than 500 written and oral contests held nationwide and in U.S. schools overseas.

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Greenway School’s winning “Mathletes“: Left to right:

Timothy Blackwell, Sam Shadwell, Stephen Bassett, and India Gill

      At the official book-signing and press conference to announce Greenway students' first published book, author Daryl Green congratulates middle school students on their accomplishment. Out of a Guided Inquiry elective course in publishing came

 Thirty-four Students:

 A School's Collection of Stories, Poems and Thoughts.

The first edition sold over 100 copies and is now available online and in local bookstores.  Quite an accomplishment for middle school writers and editors!