On a recent morning at Flushing HS, Demetra Fasolakis’ 10th- and 11th-grade English students — all English language learners with rudimentary English — are discussing the relationship between the poet and novelist Rainer Maria Rilke and a military officer, Franz Kappus, who wrote him letters asking for advice. They read aloud and annotate a paragraph explaining the connection between the men.
Then it’s back to basics.
Students answer questions about the text using a worksheet that prompts them to complete sentences using key conjunctions.
