After-School Activities Cancelled Due to Severe Weather

May 8, 2024

With strong storms in the forecast this afternoon, MICDS is canceling all after-school activities today, May 8. This includes all extracurricular activities and athletic practices and games, both at home and away. The Middle School ASAP program and Lower School Extended Day program are also canceled. Please make arrangements to pick up your children at our usual dismissal time today (3 p.m. for Lower School, 3:15 p.m. for Middle and Upper School). Campus will be closed at 4:00 p.m. Please note: the Band Concert scheduled for this evening will be rescheduled for tomorrow night, Thursday, May 9, with the 6th/7th Grade Band Concert beginning at 6 p.m. and the 8th Grade/Upper School Bands performing at 7:30 p.m. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Bernard Berry.

Upper School Literary Museum Unveils Thought-Provoking Connections

Students in the Upper School classes Literature of the South and Literature of the Southwest recently designed two exhibits: The Museum of Mississippi, a collection of displays to stimulate critical thinking about the connections between William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying and Jesmyn Ward’s Sing, Unburied, Sing, and The Museum of the Southwest, which connected Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony and Natalie Diaz’s When My Brother Was an Aztec.

Set up in Olson Commons during the last week of school, fellow Upper School peers and faculty enjoyed and contemplated the imaginative displays.

Upper School English Teachers Ryan Bueckendorf, Courtney Check, and Dr. Julia Hansen ’01 were excited to challenge the students to reflect deeply on the comparative texts. Each student displayed a one-page write-up and a small object visually representing the student’s perspective and the connection between the texts.

Read below for a sampling of display titles:

  • Defeating the Ourobouros: Breaking the Cycle by Recognizing One’s Role in Conflict
  • Running Out of Time: Faulkner’s and Ward’s Use of Fans and Death
  • Selfish Solutions: Materialistic Coping Mechanisms in Faulkner and Ward
  • Reflections of a Grandmaster: A Pawn’s Perspective
  • Corrupted Coffin: The Cruelty of Unresolved Problems After Death
  • Negligence: A Comparison of Ailments With the Same Symptoms

Check remarked, “This is the second time we’ve done this assignment, and the student work remains visually and intellectually impressive. One of the best parts about this assignment is that students discover connections between the two texts that are original and insightful—some responses spot similarities between the texts that I’ve never considered! The whole project helps me maintain a healthy and ongoing curiosity about both texts. Another amazing aspect of the project is that though I know my own students’ work, the work from students in my colleagues’ classes is totally new to me (and to my students), so there’s excitement about seeing what everyone else has brought to the museum.”

Well done, Rams!