Official Student Newspaper of Henry M. Gunn High School

The Oracle

Official Student Newspaper of Henry M. Gunn High School

The Oracle

Official Student Newspaper of Henry M. Gunn High School

The Oracle

The Elements of Writing Confidence: English curriculum should emphasize grammar, style

The Elements of Writing Confidence: English curriculum should emphasize grammar, style

Irene Tsen, Managing Editor April 17, 2023

Gone are the days of sentence diagramming, organically structured essays and high school term papers. Students who know about the subjunctive mood, present continuous tense or nominative case likely learned them from studying foreign languages or grammar books. This trend in education to leave grammar...

Marc Igler

Madison Yue, Features Editor May 23, 2022

English teacher Marc Igler is retiring after teaching at Gunn for 21 years, coaching the boys’ golf team for nine years and being an active member in the Palo Alto Educators Association. After working as a newspaper reporter, Igler began his teaching career at Gunn. Since then, he has never thought...

Texts in humanities classes overplay white narrative

Texts in humanities classes overplay white narrative

Amann Mahajan, Editor-in-Chief March 8, 2022

Though student schedules may vary considerably throughout high school, history and English are two courses that typical Gunn students take all four years. These classes rely heavily on novels, articles or textbooks. In fact, a primary learning target in these classes is interpreting and analyzing writing....

English, social studies and special education teachers release open letter asking PAUSD board to reconsider reopening plan

English, social studies and special education teachers release open letter asking PAUSD board to reconsider reopening plan

Jessica Wang, Editor-in-Chief November 13, 2020

This afternoon, English, social studies and special education teachers sent an open letter to Palo Alto Unified School District (PAUSD) Superintendent Don Austin, Associate Superintendent of Educational Services Sharon Ofek, Director of Secondary Education Services Kathie Laurence and the Board of Education...

Departing teachers reflect on time teaching: Paulette Sato

Annika Bereny, Lifestyle Editor May 26, 2020

After spending three years teaching English, Paulette Sato plans on taking a leave of absence for the upcoming school year, during which time she will move to Southern California. “I will be moving down to Pasadena for a year to help out with family, teach more yoga and possibly teach English part-time,”...

Wendy Xiong

Seasoned teachers reflect on their changes, experiences throughout time spent at Gunn: Paul Dunlap

Angela Wong, News Editor March 5, 2020

A sea of adults fresh out of college, eyes wide in anticipation of the next stage of their professional lives, swam up and down the stands of potential teaching positions at the Santa Clara job fair. One face in particular—a California Polytechnic State University San Louis Obispo graduate...

Melissa Ding

Senior Vincent Lomeland completes first novel

Angela Wong, News Editor September 20, 2019

Senior Vincent Lomeland was only eight years old when they first dreamed of becoming a writer. Every now and then, they would jot down fragments of an ambiguous story’s plot and fractions of a character’s life—a young and naive, but active, attempt to begin their writing career. Little...

Photo by Sofia Sierra-Garcia

Students preserve cultural roots through multilingualism: Shana Ebrahimnejad

Jessica Wang, Editor-in-Chief February 1, 2019

For freshman Shana Ebrahimnejad, learning Farsi, German, French and English came from her life in Germany and America, her Persian roots and Duolingo. As her family moved between countries, Ebrahimnejad acquired languages naturally through immersion. Accordingly, she interprets...

Humanities courses should limit eurocentric worldview

Humanities courses should limit eurocentric worldview

Nikki Suzani, Managing Editor October 9, 2018

Written by Nikki Suzani, Copy Editor Eurocentric. This four-syllable word encompasses a world of meaning and promotes values that are deeply inculcated into students’ minds due to the education they receive. In order for a course to be eurocentric, the course must be rooted in a European...

State Propositions: prop 58

State Propositions: prop 58

stina0213 November 4, 2016

Written by Stina Chang When English learners start attending school, they are required to take classes that are predominantly taught in English. is is due to the outdated Proposition (Prop) 227 passed in 1998 that restricts school districts’ ability to o er dual-language programs that bene...

Pleasure reading should not be forgotten

chenganyi October 11, 2016

Written by Anyi Cheng Pleasure reading is dying a slow, terrible death, and we are doing nothing to stop it. The change is one that happened gradually—too slow for me to be aware that it was happening at all. It’s shocking how little I now actually read for pleasure, especially when I used...

English electives adapt to inclusionary co-teaching model

chenganyi September 9, 2016

Written by Anyi Cheng This is school year, two English elective classes, Escape Literature and Film Literature, will be co-taught in an effort to diversify instructional perspective. “The goals would be to ensure that the students are able to access the curriculum in their English classes, including...

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