Five students in the Harker Latin program were singled out for recognition by the National Latin Exam Board on May 18 at the Junior Classical League (JCL) Awards Ceremony. Four of these students, Jenny Chen, Pranav Sharma, Shannon Su, and Ashvin Swaminathan, all grade 10, have received gold medals to acknowledge their excellence in Latin four years in a row; these students will receive copies of the Oxford Classical Dictionary in recognition of this achievement. Alexander Hsu, grade 11, will receive a special book for five straight gold medal years. Please congratulate the students for their continued commitment to excellence in Latin!
April was a great month for Harker’s middle school Latin students, who performed exceptionally well in the National Latin Exam, and also scored dozens of awards at the State Latin Convention.
In the National Latin Exam, Alayna Richmond and Austin Tuan, both grade 6, had perfect papers in the Introduction to Latin category. John Nicolas Jerney, grade 7, and sixth graders Kshithija Mulam, Anthony Luo, Aditya Dhar, Arjun Subramaniam, Venkat Sankar, Brandon Chow, Peter Wu, James He and Alexander Lam all received awards for outstanding achievement in the same category. Achievement awards for Introduction to Latin went to Ashley Zhong, grade 7, and grade 6 students Albert Xu, Brendan Tobin, Karthik Sundaram, Jackson Su and Manan Shah.
In the Latin I category, grade 8 students Billy Bloomquist, Richard Gu, Ryan Pachauri and Vivek Sriram received gold/summa cum laude awards, along with seventh graders Rishabh Chandra, Grace Guan, Sadhika Malladi, Kaushik Sankar, Elisabeth Siegel, Gurutam Thockchom, Robbie Underwood and Alison Wang. Silver/maxima cum laude awards were won by Celine Liang, Noko Stearns and Arjun Narayan, all grade 7. Michael Moncton, Kevin Chen and Malvika Khanna, all grade 7, won magna cum laude awards.
Aadyot Bhatnagar, Simran Singh, Sahana Rangarajan, Madhu Nori, Tiara Bhatacharya and Rasika Raghavan, all grade 8, won gold/summa cum laude in Latin II, where Sophia Shatas, Maya Nandukumar and Jackelyn Shen took home silver/maxima cum laude awards. The remaining of Harker’s 50 award recipients in the contest were magna cum laude winners Zabin Bashar, Allison Kerkhoff and Sahiti Avula, all grade 8, and fellow eighth grader Christopher Hildum, who won cum laude.
In early April, nearly 30 middle school students were in attendance at the State Latin Convention, held at Miramonte High School in Orinda, Calif. A total of 10 grade 6 students won awards in the MS1 category. Sean Costello took second in Latin sight reading. Aditya Dhar came in first in derivatives, mythology and Latin oratory and also won the individual academic sweepstakes at the MS1 level. Alexander Lam took second in derivatives, while Eric Pei earned an honorable mention in grammar. In dramatic interpretation, Venkat Sankar won first place for interpretation of a boy, and Amrita Singh won first for interpretation (girls division) while also taking third in grammar and Latin sight reading. Karthik Sundaram won first in strings performance, and Austin Tuan took second place in grammar.
At the MS2 level, Billy Bloomquist, grade 8, placed second in Latin sight reading and third in reading comprehension. Classmate Richard Gu took second place in reading comprehension and third place in mythology. Eighth grader Vivek Sriram placed first in no less than three events: derivatives, reading comprehension and Latin sight reading. Rishabh Chandra, grade 7, won first place in grammar and tied for third in reading comprehension with Bloomquist and Kaushik Sankar. Seventh grader Sadhika Malladi won first place in reading comprehension, tying with Sriram. Taking first in both pentathlon and essay was Elisabeth Siegel, grade 7, whose classmate, Allison Wang, took second in mythology and pentathlon, and third in Latin sight reading. The middle school quiz bowl team of Chandra, Sankar, Siegel and Wang took first place at the state level.
A total of four grade 8 students performed well in multiple events, including Anni Ankola, who placed third in the costume category (dressed as Charon) and earned an honorable mention in reading comprehension. Zabin Bashar won first in impromptu art and honorable mentions in both mythology and reading comprehension. Aadyot Bhatnagar came in first in reading comprehension and vocabulary and placed second in strings. Maya Nandakumar won first place in mythology and dramatic interpretation (girl) while placing second in vocal music. In addition to their awards in other categories, Bhatnagar and Nandakumar tied for first place in the individual academic sweepstakes at the MS3 level. The quiz bowl team of Bashar, Bhatnagar, Nandakumar and Rasika Raghavan took first place.
Harker’s middle school delegation at the convention won first place for spirit, aided by seventh grader Kevin Ke’s first-place-winning T-shirt design, and the first-place banner by grade 7’s Shannon Hong and Natalie Simonian, and grade 8’s Sophia Shatas and Allison Kiang. Harker’s chariot race team finished second, and the scrapbook created by Nandakumar took third place.
Fifty-nine ravenous Advanced Spanish Honors students descended on La Habana Cuba on April 20, and not a single morsel of food escaped. Julie Pinzas and Susan Moling supervised as their classes took a field trip to enjoy traditional Cuban food in San Jose, while sharpening their Spanish-speaking skills.
The students were treated to white rice, fried plantains, refried beans, and their choice of garlic chicken, pork and vegetarian tamales. They were encouraged to converse in Spanish during the meal and the wait staff was given specific instructions not to speak to the students in English, nor acknowledge their pleas for more food in any language other than Spanish. The main courses were followed by servings of “tres leches,” or three milks cake, a dessert topped with syrup and cream, a delightfully sugary desert to end the meal. Allison Kiang, grade 8, had a great time on the trip, enjoying the good service and delectable food, saying “next year’s students can look forward to a unique trip!”
For more information about the trip, email Julie Pinzas at juliep@harker.org.
Two teams of Harker students had stellar performances at this year’s Japan Bowl, held in Washington, D.C. The Japan Bowl is a competition in which students are tested on their understanding of Japanese language and culture, including topics such as history, performing arts, geography, fashion and current events.
Harker’s level III team, made up of Crystal Chen, grade 11, Shilpa Nataraj, also grade 11 and Kimberly Ma, grade 9, took second place.
Meanwhile, the level IV team of Tiffany Jang, grade 11, Victoria Liang, grade 12 and Lorraine Wong, grade 10, became the national champions at their level of competition. The team was awarded a trip to Japan, the schedule of which is yet to be determined due to circumstances stemming from the earthquake and tsunami that hit the northern part of Japan’s Honshu island last month.
This is the second time a Harker team has won a Japan Bowl championship, following a previous win in 2009.
Two teams of Harker students had stellar performances at this year’s Japan Bowl, held in Washington, D.C. The Japan Bowl is a competition in which students are tested on their understanding of Japanese language and culture, including topics such as history, performing arts, geography, fashion and current events.
Harker’s level III team, made up of Crystal Chen, grade 11, Shilpa Nataraj, also grade 11 and Kimberly Ma, grade 9, took second place.
Meanwhile, the level IV team of Tiffany Jang, grade 11, Victoria Liang, grade 12 and Lorraine Wong, grade 10, became the national champions at their level of competition. The team was awarded a trip to Japan, the schedule of which is yet to be determined due to circumstances stemming from the earthquake and tsunami that hit the northern part of Japan’s Honshu island last month.
This is the second time a Harker team has won a Japan Bowl championship, following a previous win in 2009.
Two teams of Harker students had stellar performances at this year’s Japan Bowl, held in Washington, D.C. The Japan Bowl is a competition in which students are tested on their understanding of Japanese language and culture, including topics such as history, performing arts, geography, fashion and current events.
Harker’s level III team, made up of Crystal Chen, grade 11, Shilpa Nataraj, also grade 11 and Kimberly Ma, grade 9, took second place.
Meanwhile, the level IV team of Tiffany Jang, grade 11, Victoria Liang, grade 12 and Lorraine Wong, grade 10, became the national champions at their level of competition. The team was awarded a trip to Japan, the schedule of which is yet to be determined due to circumstances stemming from the earthquake and tsunami that hit the northern part of Japan’s Honshu island last month.
This is the second time a Harker team has won a Japan Bowl championship, following a previous win in 2009.
Beginning Japanese students in Harker’s middle school finished their culture projects on Feb. 4, by creating beautiful origami lilies for their mothers, to be given on Valentine’s Day as a token of appreciation and love. The students also made Japanese-style cards and attached them to the flowers with a message written inside entirely in Japanese.
Middle school students taking Advanced Japanese went on a culinary and cultural field trip on Feb. 4 to practice their language skills. The students traveled to the authentic Japanese restaurant Tanto in Sunnyvale, where the Japanese-speaking wait staff was instructed to ignore any student request spoken in English. Japanese teacher Kumi Matsui said the students benefited from practicing Japanese outside the classroom while also being exposed to authentic Japanese cuisine. The students also had the chance to interact with two visiting high school students from the Tamagawa School in Tokyo, Japan, who joined in on the delicious outing.
During the fall semester, students in Kumi Matsui’s middle school advanced Japanese class got to play dress-up for their Supermodel Project. Taking place over two weeks in October, the endeavor let students pretend to be celebrities who were interviewed by other students posing as TV reporters.
Interviews were conducted entirely in Japanese, and the students-as-stars were asked such questions as where they lived, what type of car they owned, and whether they were married or had a significant other. “The students can answer to them as a celebrity, so the answers don’t have to be real. They can live in Hollywood, own a Lamborghini and have Megan Fox as a girlfriend,” Matsui said.
In addition to being great fun for the students, the project functioned as a method to learn and practice how to talk about fashion choices and physical features. Students were required to use at least five verbs in Japanese to describe their wardrobes.
This story was originally published in the Fall 2010 issue of Harker Quarterly
Since 1998, Harker’s Latin programs have been highly successful, due to a high degree of commitment from both the students and faculty. “The kids are enthusiastic about what they do, and they get it when it comes to excelling at these things,” said John Hawley, upper school Latin teacher. This enthusiasm has resulted in consistent top placements in both state and national competitions. Since it first went into full swing in 1998, the upper school’s Junior Classical League (JCL) has placed either first or second in its division in every state JCL convention it has entered since 2000. “We got very good, very fast,” Hawley said.
The middle school program, too, has often received top honors at state competitions and has finished in the top 10 at nationals.
“The addition of the sixth graders to the middle school means that Latin starts earlier and that eighth graders compete at a higher level,” said Lisa Masoni, middle school Latin teacher. “In fact, the California Junior Classical League needed to create a new category, Middle School 3, last year, because of the students from Harker and a few other middle schools with three-year programs.”
In May, 13 Harker upper school students won awards after taking the Medusa Mythology Exam, which tests knowledge of Greek mythology and is open to all students. Shannon Su, grade 10, received a gold medal award and was eligible to apply for a cash prize. Taking silver were Ashvin Swaminathan and Richard Fan, both grade 10, while sophomore Phillip Oung and Jessica Lin, grade 11, earned bronze medal awards. Sophomores Jonathan Cho, Eric Zhang, Pranav Sharma, Sean Fernandes, Suchita Nety and junior Alex Hsu received Corona Laurea Certificates. Prag Batra and Ila Dwivedi, both grade 11, won Corona Olivae Certificates.
Most recently, at the national JCL convention, held at North Dakota State University in late July, four Harker students earned top spots.
Annirudh Ankola, grade 8, competed at levels 1 and 2 and took first place in novice open certamen, second place in large models and third in boys costume.
Oishi Banerjee, a grade 9 student who represented the middle school at level 2, had the most top finishes of the Harker students in attendance at the convention. Banerjee had first place finishes in level 2 girls Latin sight reading; level 2 girls dramatic interpretation; and mottoes, quotes and abbreviations. She also placed second in modern myth, intermediate competitive, level 2 Latin oratory and creative arts.
Nik Datuashvili, grade 10, competed at level 3 and took first place in ancient geography and Hellenic history. Classmate Fan also competed at level 3 and took first place in the junior boys 800 meters and second places in the junior boys marathon.
Finally, level 4 competitor Lin, took second place in Roman life
Editor’s Note: Oung and Banerjee have since transferred to other schools.