The Devil's Advocate the Devil's Advocate
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The Devil’s Advocate November 2011 Seeing Green! Hot Topics: -HSPA -Grease: March 23-25 -Blood Drive: March 21 WRHS, not in blue, but in green!! During St. Patrick’s Day, March 17 th , Wood-Ridge High -Read Across School’s colors switched from blue to green for a day as students and teachers celebrated this festive America holiday. St. Patrick’s Day, also known as the Feast of St. Patrick, is a cultural and religious holiday. -Sports This holiday is based upon the arrival of Christianity in Ireland. The original color used to symbolize St. Patrick’s Day was originally blue, but during the 17th century it changed to green. After interviewing a -Senior Spotlights couple students from WRHS, it was discovered how many people went to the St. Patrick’s Day parade in NYC. Some students went with friends, while others decided to go with their families. No matter what nationality, every person said he/she loved the parade. Spirits where high, music was heard blocks throughout the day, and everyone seemed to have a smile on his/her face as Leprechauns marched down the streets of NYC. Students talked about their trips and traditional corned beef and cabbage filled family dinners. All of WRHS seemed to enjoy their Saturday St. Patrick's Day. - Jessica Cygan GGG ooo ttt HHH SSS PPP A?A?A? This year's juniors at Wood-Ridge High School were fully prepared for HSPA (High School Proficiency Assessment) testing. The juniors had been developing their test taking skills since September to ensure success. The administration instated weekly contests for the juniors to help prepare for the HSPA. The contest consisted of an English and math lottery question ticket. Students were given assignments that related to tasks they would be expected to complete on the HSPA. All the correctly answered questions were put into a lottery box. Each and every week, on any given day, the guidance counselors picked from the correctly answered tickets from both the math and English boxes and chose five to six winners. As a motivator, $10.00 iTunes gift cards were distributed to each of the winning students. The HSPA scores will be revealed around the first week of June. I am sure the juniors will exceed everyone's expectations. -Marianne Lim The Devil’s Advocate Page 2 of 14 W R H S N e w s ! GREASE IS THE WORD!!!!! Wood-Ridge High School Blood Drive On March 21, Wood-Ridge High School held a blood drive in the gym. The event was organized by Mrs. Fontana, the school nurse. Students, 16 years of age and older, and teachers alike contributed. The blood drive was a success and many people volunteered to donate blood. There was surprisingly an abundant amount of first time donors. When asked how it felt to be a first time donor, senior, Helga Hysa, responded, “It felt good to be able to give back to the community.” When one person donates a pint of blood he or she can save up to three lives. The feeling of donating blood must be truly gratifying. Doing a simple good deed like Students at Wood-Ridge High School took a trip back to the donating blood means so much to those who are receiving it. 50’s. The drama club put on a production of the famous movie and play All of the donors did a wonderful thing. Thank you to all the “Grease.” They performed on Friday, March 23, Saturday, March 24, participants for making it such a huge success. and Sunday, March 25. The performance was fantastic and the audience loved it. The play starred Joshua Buscema as Danny, Anthony Rispoli as - Casey Walsh KeNickie, Melissa Plaza as Rizzo, and Heather Nolting as Sandy. All of the performers were wonderful. The play had a great turnout; the seats were filled with family, friends, and spectators. At the end of the play, baskets were given out to the winners of a raffle. It was a marvelous night for the Drama Club and the singing, dancing, and acting was excellent. Afterwards, the actors all took a bow and said thanks to Mr. Colarusso and Ms. Blender and who helped make the play possible. It was truly a magnificent play. Garage Sale ! The Wood-Ridge National Honor Society held a garage sale on Sunday, April 22 nd at the Wood-Ridge Civic Center between 8:00 am and 4:00 pm. One hundred percent of the proceeds raised during this event went towards Heifer International, an organization that supplies food to families in need in order to try to end world hunger. There was an array of items at the garage sale, such as clothes, furniture, books, toys, household items, and more! Many shoppers stopped by to see what treasures there were to uncover. Not only did people find things that they wanted or needed, they helped out a caring charity in the process. Thank you to all who donated items to the garage sale. All donations were greatly appreciated and went to a worthy cause. -Shannon Lacey Page 3 of 14 The Devil’s Advocate Movie Review!!! This March, for the second year in a row, the Wood-Ridge School District promoted "Music in Our Schools Month." The Catherine E. Doyle, GRO Middle School, and Wood-Ridge High School bands came together to celebrate a day of music. The day of “The Hunger Games” falls under the genre of action, adventure, sci- fi, and fantasy. The producer of the movie is Suzanne Collins' and music is a product of the National Association of Music Education this movie based upon her first novel. The novel was the best who requested an American flag be flown over the US Capitol in selling trilogy because of its fight to the death thriller plot. Sixteen honor of “Music in Our Schools Month.” This gesture symbolized the year old Katniss Everdeen is the main character in the movie and importance of maintaining high quality music education for all students throughout our entire country. The performers needed to go she needs to make a choice: life against love or survival against through a lot of practice in order to get ready for the big day! Mrs. humanity. The movie will keep you on your toes. Sterba, the music teacher at Doyle, teaches all the instruments in small “The Lorax” by Dr. Seuss is a movie for children, but adults will group lessons. The students were pulled from class on a rotating basis enjoy it as well. Zac Efron, Taylor Swift, and Danny Devito are the and attended a band rehearsal once a week. The middle school band voices for the animated characters in the movie. The movie is about and high school bands are directed by Mrs. Baumgartner. The middle a twelve years old boy who is trying to win- over the affections of school band rehearsed as a full band twice a week for 20 minutes. The high school band rehearsed after school once a week. Wednesday, another girl. In order to get the affection from the girl, he needs to th discover the story of the Lorax. “The Lorax” is a creature in the March 28 was the big day of music and, after individual workshops movie that is trying to protect his world. See “The Lorax” before it throughout the day, all 140 performers from grades 4-12 came comes out on DVD! together for a full band performance. The band members were presented with a certificate from the National Association for Music Education at the end of the performance. Celebrating “Music in Our “21 Jump Street” casts Channing Tatum, and John Hill. They both Schools Month” is a great step in promoting the idea that schools need are the main characters in the movie. Jenko and Schmidt are part of the police department and the secret Jump Street unit. They are to keep their music programs. The bands from all three Wood-Ridge undercover in a local high school. The movie is supposed to be very schools are proof that music is fun and can bring students together. funny. Be ready to laugh for this one! -Stephanie Guarino R e a d A c r o s s A m e r i c a On Friday, March 2, 2012 the annual "Read Across America" was held all around the United States. "Read Across America" is program that was designed to motivate students to read. The program is held every year on March 2nd, the same date as Dr. Seuss's birthday. Students from different states across the country celebrate by reading on this day. "Read Across America" is not only for students, but also for teachers and parents who can help their children by teaching them how to enjoy reading. The "Read Across America" program also helps provide parents and teachers with the right resources to encourage students to read throughout the year. This program is exciting for students because along with reading they can also learn from this experience. Mrs. Layman's 6th grade cycle class invited Mrs. Garvin's 6th grade cycle class into the Media Center for a reading of "The Lorax", by Dr. Seuss to celebrate this event. "Read Across America" is a great way to motivate students and to get them excited about reading because it is a very important part of their education. The Devil’s Advocate Page 4 of 14 B L U E D E V I L S P O R T S BOYS’ BASKETBALL: SHOOTING BLUE The WRHS boys basketball team is undoubtedly the talk of the town during the winter sports season.