Episode 95: Fantasy Sports Midterm ReviewRunning Time: 26:35 This Week's Guests: Mr. John Meehan and the 5th period students of  Honors American LiteratureTom Brady or Tom Sawyer? Eli Manning or Ethan Frome? What happens when we take the same principles of Fantasy Football and bring them to life in a literature classroom? Welcome to fantasy sports, O'Connell High School English Department style! This week's episode goes inside one of DJO's Honors American Literature classrooms to watch how...

Episode 94: A Christmas Carol Radio Show (Re-Gift Edition)! Charles Dickens (1843) Running Time: 1:02:21 Original Air Date: 12/11/15 Directed By:  Co-Director (student) Kathryn Baker  Starring: The Narrator (student) Laura McLellan  Scrooge - Fr. Gregory Thompson, Chaplain Fred - Mr. Trent Jones, Art Fred’s Wife - Mrs. Jill Williams, Science Poole - Sister Tracey, Science & Math  The Party Guests: Young Scrooge 2 - Mr. Sam Pell, Science & Latin Belle - Ms. Lisa Monyihan, History Mr....

Episode 93: The Podcast About PodcastsRunning Time: 27:00 This Week's Guests: Mrs. Courtney Lewicki Mr. John MeehanThis week, the Bishop O'Connell English department hits the road for the annual Virginia Association of Supervision and Curriculum Development's annual conference in Williamsburg, Va., where our very own Mrs. Courtney Lewicki will be delivering a breakout session to educators from all over the state in which she'll be discussing -- what else! -- the awesome teaching and learning...

Episode 92: What are You Thankful for, DJO?Running Time: 16:40 This Week's Guests: Dr. Joseph Vorbach, Head of School Mrs. Diane Cerniglia Ms. Allison Gibeily Natalie Leiva, Class of 2018 Roisin Bergeron, Class of 2018 Mrs. Courtney Lewicki Mr. John MeehanJust in time for the holidays, O'Connell High School is serving up a special Thanksgiving episode of our weekly English Department Round Table Podcast. This week, we're celebrating the spirit of the season by asking members of the O'Connell...

Episode 91: Student Battle Raps and Rhetoric REMIX!Running Time: 23:40 This Week's Guests: Sabena Chadda as Jacob Black Elysse Anderson as Edward Cullen Serena Davis as Walt Disney  Vanessa Nkurunziza as Dr. Seuss Alec Quiroga as Cristiano Rinaldo Seth Viani as Tom Brady Bishan Shourie as Darth Vader Christopher Ho as Vladimir Putin #1 Tyler Dittmer as Ronald Reagan and  Daniel Danenberg as Vladimir Putin #2 It's a second installment of the O'Connell English Department Battle Rap Showdown!...

Episode 79: Get to Know MyDJO! Running Time: 20:13 This Week's Guests: Mrs. Lewicki Mr. MeehanHave you heard the news about MyDJO? Teachers, coaches, counselors and school administrators are taking online learning to the next level thanks to all the cool features and functionality "MyDJO" has to offer (like Edmodo, but infinitely more awesome) -- which is transforming our school's website into a one-stop shop for personalized user content. Completely new and optimized for mobile access, MyDJO...

Episode 80: Annotation 101 Running Time: 18:52 This Week's Guests: Mr. Meehan Mrs. Swaim Mrs. WentzelTaking notes while your reading is a time-tested strategy, but it can be pretty overwhelming to establish a meaningful system of note-taking that works for you. So what does it mean when teachers ask students to "annotate a text?" And how can you develop an annotation strategy of your own? Join Mr. Meehan and Mrs. Wentzel as they welcome Mrs. Swaim to our DJO English Department Podcast family...

Episode 81: Collaborative Learning Running Time: 21:35 This Week's Guests: Mrs. Lewicki Mr. Meehan Mrs. RimesTeamwork makes the dream work! And in the information age, this old adage has never been more true. Twenty first century classrooms, colleges, and employers are embracing the power of idea-sharing and small group collaboration -- and teachers at Bishop O'Connell High School are providing increased opportunities for students to learn from one another as they take increased ownership of...

Episode 82: Students Sound Off On The Moviegoer Walker Percy (1963) Running Time: 22:56 This Week's Guests: Abigail Dinegar Jennifer Joseph Kirsten Knauf Hannah Pin Sophia Stalnaker Eighty two episodes in and counting, and O'Connell's English Department Round Table continues to be a real hit with our student body! So this week, we're turning the microphone over to small groups of real, live DJO students as we wax philosophical and try to make deeper sense of Walker Percy's The Moviegoer,...

Episode 83: Students Sound Off on "In Another Country" Running Time: 18:43 This Week's Guests: Daniel Danenberg Keenan Murphy Christopher Niland Michael Santos Seth Viani What happens when you get a room full of high school guys together in a room to talk about one of the all-time "man's men" of American Literature? Episode 83 of the DJO English Round Table podcast, of course. This week, Mr. Meehan welcomes five guys from the Honors American Literature class to the podcast studio for the...

Episode 84: More Students Sound Off on "In Another Country" Running Time: 19:36 This Week's Guests: Christopher Chehade Thomas Cook Christopher Ho Wake Wildman What happens when you get another room full of high school guys together in a room to talk about one of the all-time "man's men" of American Literature? More students sounding off on Ernest Hemingway! This week, Mr. Meehan welcomes four of O'Connell's fine young men for a second round of philosophy and literature analysis as we discuss...

Episode 85: Students Sound Off on "For Whom the Bell Tolls" Running Time: 18:37 This Week's Guests: Katharine Colclough Serena Davis Zacharias Muleta Nikolas Rocha Jessica Seager Our greatest hits of Ernest Hemingway continue this week, as Mr. Meehan welcomes five students from the eleventh grade Honors American Literature course to discuss Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls. So many questions to tackle in this week's episode: Is there heroism in fighting a losing battle? What does it mean...

Episode 86: Students Sound Off on Ethan FromeRunning Time: 19:16 Edith Wharton (1911) This Week's Guests: Elysse Anderson Roisin Bergeron  Ryley Howard Vanessa Nkurunziza Sofia Cardenas As the days grow shorter and the weather gets colder, Ethan Frome feels like a perfect book to discuss how a story's setting can influence the lives of its characters. So is there any joy to be found in the bleak, frosty landscape of Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome? Even if the characters in this novella don't...

Episode 87: Students Sound Off on Hamilton: An American MusicalRunning Time: 17:32 Lin-Manuel Miranda (2015) This Week's Guests: Mr. Meehan Erika Williams Tonight at part of their Great Performances series, PBS will air Hamilton's America -- an in-depth documentary about the making of the smash Broadway musical written by and starring Lin-Manuel Miranda in the title role of "The Ten Dollar Founding Father," Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton. First Lady Michelle Obama has called...

Episode 88: A Student Club's Take on Edgar Allan PoetryRunning Time: 20:44 Edgar Allan Poe (1849) This Week's Guests: Thomas Bascom Jinlee Colucci Cameron Feeley Victoria Gordon Caileigh Keegan Just in time for Halloween, Bishop O'Connell's newest student organization -- the Poetry Club -- joins together for their first official meeting to dissect a seminal, seasonal, and spooky favorite of Gothic literature: the poetry of Edgar Allan Poe. Join Mr. Meehan and the founding members of the DJO...

Episode 89: The Declaration of IndependenceRunning Time: 17:57 Thomas Jefferson (1776) This Week's Guests: Elysse Anderson Sofia Cardenas Sabena Chadda Katharine Colclough Thomas Cook Natalie Leiva Frank Lucchetti Vanessa Nkurunziza Hoang Pham Pio Soliven Our election season is drawing to a close, and so the DJO English Department Round Table podcast decided to kick it "old school" this week with an in-depth conversation about the founding document that made our democracy possible in the...

Episode 90: Student Battle Raps and RhetoricRunning Time: 20:12 This Week's Guests: Will Whitt as The Burger King Katie Geraghty as Inspector Javert Katherine Gardinier as Maximilien Robespierre Sophia Stalnaker as Cleopatra Abi Dinegar as Mary Queen of Scots Clara Cobb as Elvis Presley Hannah Pin as Michael Jackson Hugh Bothwell as the T Rex Kyley Van Doorn as the Brachiosaurus and  Bart Whelan as Spongebob Squarepants What happens when DJO students go toe-to-toe trading verses of rhyme and...

Episode 77: Frankenstein (Summer Reading Strategies) Mary Shelley (1818) Running Time: 12:25 This Week's Topics: Multiple narrators Close reading strategies Frame narrative Original Air Date: 7/31/15 After a two week summer hiatus, The DJO English Round Table Podcast is back! Students are often told to "take notes" as they make their way through the summer reading, but sometimes it can be tricky to determine just what we should take notes on (and why!) in each new book. This week, Mr. Meehan...

Episode 76: A Farewell to Arms (Summer Reading Strategies) Ernest Hemingway (1929) Running Time: 9:11 This Week's Topics: Guiding questions Close reading strategies The Iceberg Technique Original Air Date: 7/24/15 Students are often told to "take notes" as they make their way through the summer reading, but sometimes it can be tricky to determine just what we should take notes on (and why!) in each new book. This week, Mr. Meehan puts a "Five Minute Focus" -- which is actually more like ten...

Episode 78: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Summer Reading Strategies) Robert Louis Stevenson (1886) Running Time: 12:25 This Week's Topics: Guiding questions Close reading strategies Gothic novels Original Air Date: 8/7/15 Students are often told to "take notes" as they make their way through the summer reading, but sometimes it can be tricky to determine just what we should take notes on (and why!) in each new book. This week, Mr. Meehan puts a "Five Minute Focus" -- which is...