Karen Spidal, WISE Task Force

Monument Mountain High School

We first read his journal in February of his senior year. Sentences were short, lacked creativity; punctuation was lacking and spelling was . . . “you know”. He had eleven and a half years of school, and this is how he wrote.He had signed up for WISE at Monument Mountain Regional High School. in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Task Force members first met him when we read his application for the program and approved his project.

Starting in January of his senior year, he focused on his learning experience with passion.  He was into his music, doing research, talking to people, meeting weekly with his mentor, and writing frequently. The Task Force read his journal monthly. Then came his presentation. We on the Task Force read the journal one last time. WOW! His writing contained complex sentences and great insight. There were still some spelling and punctuation errors, but what a change during the four months of WISE. His successful project may have been writing music, but perhaps his greater success was the improvement in his thinking and writing process.