VMTNewsletter-Feb2012

Pictured: Rodrigo Murrillo and Edgar Vasquez

The purpose of this article is to describe the projects going on in Ms. Sanchez-Lopez’s class. Her students recorded videos and then edited them on the I-Pad using an app called I-Movie.

With I-movie they edited short clips and turned them into movies. They also added backgrounds, music, and many other details.

In this issue:

• LCC Christ-mas Concert, pg. 2

•Rachel’s Challenge Video, pg. 3

• Jewelry, pg. 4

• Presidents elections, pg. 5

• The Global Theater, pg. 6

•Monologues, pg. 7

Interviews on the I-Pad

By: Sergio Garza

A Scholastic Arts JournalWriten, edited, and produced by VMT students

Vol.1, No. 1February 2012

For this project, they interviewed teachers and students about the many online resources available to

learn about technology and software appli-cations such as Youtube, Linda.com, etc.

Shading with Ink

By: Brianna Cruz

Visual arts student Eliza-beth Vazquez is working on an ink project. The subjects of her portrait are two Korean singers named GD and T.O.P. The materials she uses are pencil, ink, a cut-ter, and a poster paper.

Elizabeth gained her

inspiration from listen-ing to Korean pop music. She was amazed about how flawless they werein appearance. Her goal was to make the Korean singers the best for her art show, her ink project, and her senior recital.

Shading with ink piece

Pictured: Noel Loera

Pictured (L-R): Sarah Sarmiento and Erin Martinez

The students in Mr. Gaynor’s class did a proj-ect on the history of the Renaissance. The students had to use their fine arts skills tolearn more about the Renaissance. First, they had to choose an area of Renais-sance art that interested them. Some stu-dents chose to play some of the Renais-sance music with their own instruments, while others chose to present information about their artist’s work in PowerPoint slides.

For this project students had to do research on the internet, check out books, and interview their visual art teachers to learn more about the Re-naissance. At the end, each student present-ed their project to the class. By doing this, stu-dents learned things they didn’t know about the Renaissance and at the same time they tought their classmates more about the Renaissance.

The Nutcracker is a traditional Christmas concert performed all around the coun-try and around the world. In preparing for the Nutcracker at LCC, students used bal-let base technique, increased their flexibil-ity through daily practice and stretching, and most importantly benefited from Ms. Ley-endecker extensive experience in choreo-graphing dance routines for the Nutcracker.

Thanks to Mr. Reimund, orchestra teacher, who approached Mrs. Leyendecker to see if his students could play the music for the Nut-cracker composed by Peter Tchaikovsky. He wanted for his VMT philharmonic youth or-chestra students to collaborate with Ms. Ley-endecker’s talented ballet dancers. This per-formance was presented on December 12, 2011 at LCC as part of Mr. Reimund’s annual Christmas concert. The goal of this project was to present a Christmas experience byperformingexcerptsofdancesfromthemorepopular music composed by Tchaikovsky.

Renaissance Art Project

LCC Christmas Concert

By: Silvia Reyes

By: Daniel De Leon

Karina Davalos’s sculpture

Snapshot of video

Mr. Rocha’s visual art students are work-ing on a project about Alberto Giacometti. Mr. Rocha’s students are making sculp-tures using styro-foam, wires, aluminum, and clay. For the projects the students had to use Alberto Giacometti’s techniques.

First, students made the base with the styro-foam. Then, they had to make a type of skeleton with the wire for the sculpture to stand. Finally, they traced the skeleton with aluminum, and then the added the clay. At the end, the students’ sculptures looked like the ones shown above.The goal for this project was for the students to learn more about the different types of art.

Eliseo Ceja, a freshman student in the VMT Radio/TV program, was asked to do a vid-eo and was given a certain topic. He chose to do a video on Rachel’s Challenge. The video was about showing compassion and kindness to all students at VMT. Eliseo got the idea for the video from Ms. Salinas’ pre-sentation to VMT students on Rachel Scott. The technologies that Eliseo used in this project were i-Movie and Avid. He was tought how to use these resources by Ms. Sanchez and her assistant, Mr. Imperial. The purpose of this is to get out the mes-sage to students to respect each other.

Giacometti Sculptures

Rachel’s Challenge Video

By: Amanda Johnson

By: Gustavo Chavez

VMT teachers,

Please let us know about any upcoming projects or activities that you would like to be featured in ournextupcomingissue.

Student welding copper and brass

Selected student projects

ThestudentsinMr.Santos’classrecentlyfin-ished a jewlery-making project. Making jew-elry takes a lot of steps to producea finalproduct like rings, necklaces, etc. Developing a concept requires organization and creativity.

First, the artist decides what materials to use such as copper, brass, or some other met-al. Then, the artist sketches his or her de-signonapieceofpaper.Next,heorshese-lects the necessary tools such as jeweler’s saw to cut the pieces that are not needed, a metal hammer, and a chisel. A block of lead is also used to bend the metal. Then, solder isusedtojointhepiecesofmetalandfluxtoweld them together. Finally, the artist sands the piece of jewelry and cleans off the dust. If there is anything else on the metal then baking soda and soap are used to wash it off. The jewelry artist often challenges him-self or herself to make harder pieces which the artist may decide to give away as a gift.

I interviewed Mrs. Hernandez, who teaches world geography, about the project that her students were doing. The students had to re-search the human geography of one of the four regions of Europe. The students conducted their research using articles from the Internet.

She mainly got the idea from school projects like science fair projects, where the students can show what they have learned from a certain project or experiment. It was also agreat opportunity to display their work. Her goal was for the students to demonstrate the similarities and differences of the cul-tures of the European regions. At the end of the project, her students displayed their tri-fold in the hallway outside of the classroom.

Jewelry

Research on European Regions

By: Ana R. Gomez

By: Pedro Flores

Ms.Hernandez’s choir students

In the VMT Radio/Television class, Ms. Sanchez-Lopez’s students recently com-pleted an educational project on the presi-dential elections. For this project, the stu-dents did research on the Internet and followed the Republican primaries on T.V.

The idea to do a project on the election start-ed when Ms. Sanchez-Lopez was talking about the presidents. The students involved in this project wanted other VMT students “to know what is going on with this year’s presidential election.” This project turned out to be a great way for the radio/televison students and their peers to learn about the candidates and the major campaign issues.

During the holidays, Ms. Celia Hernandez’s choir students went Christmas caroling. The students enchanted people with their voices. Ms. Hernandez trained them to use a softer voice for the Christmas songs. She didn’t want them to sound as if they were singing hip-hop. The purpose of this project was for each choir stu-dent to have their own Christmas performance experience by having everyone participate.

The studentswere excited because none ofthem had had the experience of going doorto door caroling. They had fun while learn-ing and experimenting with songs and sing-ing techniques that they didn’t imagine doing.

Presidential Elections

VMT Christmas Caroling

By: Lucia Salvador

By: Hevian Perales

Did you know?... Students who are highly involved in the arts are 3.4% less likely to drop out of school by the 10th grade than students with low-level participation in the arts.

Source: http://www.artsusa.org/pdf/get_involved/advocacy/research/2007/artseducation.pdf

A model of the Globe Theater

The students in Ms. Ashley Ramirez’s class made structures of how they thought the Globe Theater looked like when William Shakespeare presented his plays there. The purpose of this project focused on William Shakespeare. Each student made remark-able structures which were made of Popsicle sticks, tape, and glue. They had to make a stand for the structure to stay standing up.

Many students made their structures really creative by adding paint and other materials to make their structures look good. It took stu-dents three to four days to make the project. Students had a bit of a hard time construct-ing the structure, but in the end it came out to be a very incredible model. The models were then displayed in Ms.Ramirez’s class-room for other students and teacher to see.

The Globe Theater

By: Elizabeth Vazquez

Pictured (L-R): Stephanie Hernandez, Elizabeth Aguilar, Ana Cardenas, and Raquel Brizuela

Mr. Arevalo and Mrs. McKennis’ dance stu-dents are preparing for the annual Culturas Concert at LCC in May. The dance students are learning different types of dances such as swing, modern, jazz, ballet, flamenco,and folklorico. Some techniques that they are using to prepare for the upcoming piec-es include modern and ballet techniques. Mr. Thatcher’s music students and the VMT philharmonic are also going to participate.

Mrs. McKennis and Mr. Arevalo came up with the ideas and made some special cho-reographic arrangements for their pieces. The purpose of the Spring Concert Show is to let others experience new traditions andto let others see different things. Also that the people enjoy it and for them to have fun.

Spring Culturas Concert

By: Cynthia Soto

Attention educators and students:

Our School, Vidal M. Trevino Magnet recently visited LISD Middle Schools in search of students with talent and determination. Motivated 8th grade students are urged to apply today!

Pictured (L-R): Martin Vela, Mario Pena, and Lisa Martinez.

VMT theater arts student Lisa Martinez’s project is called “The Fear of Growing Up.” The technique she used was talk-ing to other people to discover that she is not the only one scared of the future. She got the inspiration from butterflies be-cause she lovesbutterflies. “I tied it into theidea of growing up and becoming mature,” she said. The purpose of this project was not to be afraid and embrace youth while you still have it.

Monologues

By: Diana Zamarripa VMTPromoting

learning through creativity

in the arts, communications, and academics.

Did you know?... According to the College Board, students who take AP or Honors English and Social Studies score on average 12% higher on the Critical Reading and Writing SAT tests than for all students who take the SAT.

Source: http://press.collegeboard.org/releases/2010/2010-college-bound-seniors-results-under-score-importance-academic-rigor

A special thank you to the following teachers and their students who contributed

the project information for thisedition of the newsletter.

Ms. Kirkpatrick-LeyendeckerMs. Celia Hernandez

Mr. SantosMs. Sanchez-Lopez

Ms. Cindy HernandezMr. CarrollMr. Arevalo

Mr. BlumbergMr. Gaynor

- Co-Editors -Gustavo ChavezDaniel De Leon

Silvia Reyes

-Staff Artists-Brianna Cruz

Elizabeth VazquezDiana Zamarripa

Sergio Garza

-Columnists/Designers-Pedro FloresAna gomez

Hevian peralesAmanda JohnsonLucia SalvadorCynthia Soto