93 Milwaukee Rufus King Students Present International Baccalaureate Papers

Alan Borsuk:

Three things to know about Mohammad Mohammad:

He's a senior at Milwaukee's Rufus King High School, he's a good student, and he's a big sports fan.

You can serve all that on a silver platter.

At least that's what Mohammad did this week at a program honoring him and 92 fellow students for completing lengthy research papers as part of their work at the school.

The 3,000- to 4,000-word papers - "extended essays" - are required for students who want to receive the International Baccalaureate diploma. For those who complete such a paper - a process that begins in the spring of their junior years - it is a tradition to present the final product on a silver platter to the teacher who advised the student along the way, followed by the student and the teacher each commenting on what was learned.

The silver platter ceremony was held this week, and the 93 who presented their work are the largest group to complete the formidable research project in King's nearly 30-year history as an IB school.

The topics they researched included matters from the worlds of science, history, art, religion and beyond. Daniel Gatewood, one of the advisers, said as he commented on one of his student's papers, "I didn't learn to write like this until graduate school."

Mohammad said, "Every time I get one of these papers, I try to incorporate sports into it." He chose as his topic the effects on American and Soviet psyches of the "Miracle on Ice" victory of the U.S. hockey team over the Russians at the 1980 Winter Olympics.

Links: International Baccalaureate website, Milwaukee Rufus King High School and Clusty search on the school.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at February 2, 2008 8:06 AM
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