SENIOR SYMPOSIUM
Since the class of 1994, seniors at Mount Alvernia have faced the challenge of the culminating thesis of their education at Mount Alvernia: the Senior Symposium. All seniors at Mount Alvernia High School are required to complete a Senior Symposium project. This project is the culmination of their years of preparation in English and in history. It consists of a research paper for history, an analytical paper for English, research logs, and a formal oral presentation. The students' papers are bound and become part of the permanent collection in the school library. Our students thrive during the stages of this intense process which is simultaneously absolutely individual and at the same time extraordinarily collegial.
In establishing this requirement for graduation our goal is fourfold: first, to provide an opportunity for formal closure to the high school years within these disciplines; second, to assess authentically the student's ability to pursue independent research and literary analysis; third, to have students demonstrate within their learning community a written and an oral command of their chosen material; and fourth, to graduate students with a sense of confidence in their accomplishments, ready to use them as scaffolding in college and beyond.
All students see, first-hand, their intellectually and technically demanding work move from the private thinking of investigation and speculation to spirited conversation with instructors and classmates, and finally to the formal public display of all they have learned. The Senior Symposium measures their grasp of essentials and prepares them for the challenges of college work. It is grounded in personal responsibility, defined by expectations and achievement, and results in a profound sense of accomplishment for each young woman.
The corporate experience of the symposium unites not only members of each senior class as they proofread and peer edit one another’s papers but it also provides a connection to past Mount Alvernia graduates who have undertaken this unique challenge and all future students who will follow in their footsteps.
SENIOR ENGLISH
The English analytical paper for the Senior Symposium is the final major project of the six year English curriculum and is completed by all Mount Alvernia students in the second semester of their senior year. This long-term project requires each student to draw on the skills she has developed during her years at Mount Alvernia. Preparing to write the English analytical paper allows a student to choose the focus of her own independent study by selecting an author about whom she is passionate. Throughout the months of the second semester each student reads over one thousand pages of text, submitting weekly reading logs to her teacher. The reading logs are the earliest forms of the student’s independent analysis. Each log is an accumulation of quotations with commentary, questions, and notations of literary elements in the author’s works. It is from these logs that she eventually writes her symposium paper. In addition to the written logs, a student must also submit an annotated bibliography of each work she reads. The annotation of the bibliographic entry allows a student to develop a thumbnail sketch of a work through the lens of her thesis. Periodically, each student must schedule formal meetings with her teacher in order to discuss progress and refine a focus for her paper. As the second semester progresses, each student hands in a rough draft of her paper to her teacher for correction and after this feedback submits her final draft. Through logs, meetings and drafts the student receives the support needed to complete this independent analysis. Finally, each student prepares a synopsis of her analysis and presents this to her fellow students, family, and faculty at the senior symposium.
SENIOR HISTORY
The history research paper for the Senior Symposium is the capstone project in the Mount Alvernia High School history curriculum. At the Symposium, students showcase the knowledge and skills developed in all their history classes at Mount Alvernia. For each student, the process of picking a topic, locating relevant sources, taking careful notes, crafting a thesis, and writing clear meaningful sentences offers tremendous opportunities for growth.
Writing the Senior Symposium history research paper begins with determining an area of study. In consultation with her teacher, each senior chooses a history topic related thematically, geographically, and/or chronologically with her chosen English author. Students organize their research by developing questions and recording the results of their research in written logs. Their history teacher monitors the logs weekly, making sure that each student has noted correctly all the essential bibliographic information. Student/teacher conferences, class presentations, and writing exercises offer further opportunities for guidance and reflection. After a significant amount of research, students develop a thesis, outline, and a working annotated bibliography. The history teacher works closely with each student, reading drafts of her paper and helping her deepen her analysis and craft her writing. All seniors give a presentation of their final papers at the Senior Symposium on an evening in May. At that time, parents, faculty, and other invited guests listen as each student introduces her paper with a confidence supported by genuine historical knowledge.
SENIOR ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY
After six years of technology instruction and integration, the technology component of the Senior Symposium gives all seniors the chance to demonstrate their competence in using technology for practical purposes. In addition, the seniors enrolled in the Advanced Technology course use their knowledge of page design software and image processing technology to produce the Symposium book and the Symposium Web site.
Technology is an integral part of all seniors’ Symposium experience: They do preliminary research electronically; they keep notes and bibliographic information in computer files, and they download or scan pictures of their subjects. They are responsible for using customized features of Microsoft Word to write and edit the drafts of their papers and to format footnotes in the proper style. The teachers comment in the students’ files electronically, and each student produces her own final, clean copies of her papers, ready for binding. Every senior is responsible for scanning and preparing her author portrait in Adobe Photoshop. The students use QuarkXPress software to make a poster of their authors for display during Symposium night. For preparing their synopses for the Web, all seniors are introduced to the basics of HTML coding even if they are not participating in the Technology class.
In addition, the seniors enrolled in the Advanced Technology course demonstrate additional skills and expertise by producing the Symposium program book and the Symposium Web site. For the Symposium book, technology students design the pages to incorporate their classmates’ synopses, bibliographies, and author pictures using Adobe InDesign and Adobe Photoshop, they demonstrate their command of the elements of desktop publishing and the principles of graphic design. For the Symposium Web site, students use Macromedia Dreamweaver and Adobe Photoshop to create an online presentation that puts each senior’s Symposium project and Art Thesis on public display
