The Talon

VOLUME 1 , ISSUE 7

JANUARY 29, 2012

By: Kayla Kuhl, Lauren Coons, and Haley Donaldson

Tied for SECOND PLACE:

Rachel D’Wolfe and Sidnee Ward

Eighth Wonder Fruit Salad

Tied for SECOND PLACE:

Remy Polster & Meghan Hagenbarth

Island Eruption

THIRD PLACE:

Hannah Lowenstein & Hailey Beiswanger

Fiji Escape

First quarter seventh grade health students were challenged to create a sandwich for one of Nagel’s favorite Partners in Education, Chick-Fil-A. The winners were Noah Wadley and Jacob Fries with their sandwich called Poul-try in Paradise. This quarter the seventh were challenged to create a new salad for Chick-fil-A. The winners will have their creation sold and featured at the Beechmont location for a month. The challenge was to make a salad that is low in calories, fat, and sodium. The salad also should be unique, healthy, and tasty. Competitors created an imaginative name for their salad. They had to present their salad in a nice manner, meaning that they had to explain their choice of ingredients before handing it over to the judges to await their review.

Each salad went through three rounds of judging: advisory, team, and then actual judges from Chick-fil-A. The judges critiqued on the students’ ability to meet the requirements and great taste. The students who won the challenge received a $500 dollar prize and their salad will be featured for the next month.

FIRST PLACE WINNERS:

Brogan Bennell & Dana Middendorf

Tropical Cave

Page 2 Volume 1, Issue 7

The Bowling Club is an of-fered club at many schools around the country, as well as Nagel, Anderson, and Turpin. This year Mrs.Cripe is the Bowling Club Advisor here at Nagel. The club will have its first meeting after school on January 17, 2012, in room 239. Their first day of bowling will be February 13, 2012, from 3:30-5:00 pm, at Cherry Grove Lanes. Transportation will not be provided, so as your gather your friends to form a team,

you should talk about carpooling. It will cost $6 every week to bowl and rent shoes. Once everyone gets there, bowlers will be divided into teams of four to bowl. If there is not an even number of bow-lers, Mrs. Cripe will ad-just teams accordingly. There is no limit to the number of people who can participate. Every-one wants to bowl can and should show up for

the fun! Dates that the club will meet at Cherry Grove Lanes are:

February 13

February 27

All Mondays in March

April 9

April 16

See you there!

By Grady Cummins

The 2012 Nagel Spelling Bee was held on Thursday, January, 20 12. It was held in the flex room 134 and 136 and hosted by Mr. Highley. The winner of the Nagel Spelling Bee will get a certificate for their accomplishment here and then take an online test. If they pass it, they will move on to regional's at the Duke Energy Convention Center. After many elimination rounds, finalists head off to nationals in Washington D.C. and then competition is broadcasted on ESPN. Last year’s winner Sukanya Roy won over $40,000 thousand dollars by spelling the word “cymotrichous” the round lasted over three hours.

The Nagel Spelling B ee usually has between 40 to 50 kids who participate, with four or five students from each team in both seventh and eighth grade. Nagel has held a spelling bee for about ten years. Some words of wisdom from Mr.Highley are, “ A person with correct English grammar and spelling gives people a better perspective on who they are and makes them look up to three times smarter. ” He also believes that people CAN study for spelling bees and can also get better at spelling words aloud or just spelling in general. Congratulations to Benjamin Jones from Team 8-1, the 2012 Nagel Spelling Bee Champion! By Griffin Crawley Erin Smith and Truman Lee

Page 3 The Talon

made and take to the skies as Barry Steakfries, the lovable hero on a one way trip of adven-ture. (Apple Only) Cut the Rope: IGN has named cut the rope as the best game on the app store for 2011.

City Jump: You are a superhero and you have to avoid the objects that are trying to hit you. If you hit three of the same objects in a row you turn into a crea-ture. (Android only) Scooter Hero: You are a hero on a scooter and you have to jump from ledge to ledge and you have to collect medals. (Android only) Drag Racing: You get to customize your car and race for money and to win you have to have a perfect shift in gears.

Unblock Me: You have to move the blocks around until you get the red block to the oth-er side. When the levels get higher the harder it gets.

Google Sky Maps: you have to put your iPod or droid up to the sky and it tells you what shape the stars are, so

you could find the little dipper or the big dipper and you can do it in the day time or night time. (Android Only) Fruit Slice: A game sim-ilar to fruit Ninja but is free, it is for both an-droid an for apple and is capable for all genera-tions of I pods and an-droids. You slide your finger on the screen when the fruit pops up and it slices it. (Android Only though Fruit Ninja is available on Apple)

Temple Run: Make your way through a maze with obstacles and collect as many coins as you can as you go along. (Apple only) Friend Caller: This app. allows you to call people on any network from your iPod Touch, as long as you have a working speaker and microphone.

Paper Toss: Good time waster app that tests your accuracy with many objects to throw.

Shazam: Can’t remem-ber the name of that song? Use Shazam to record a few beats and it will tell you the name of the song and give you the lyrics!

AppZilla 2: The ulti-mate tool app with over 100 FREE apps in one!

Pictorial: How quickly can you guess what pic-tures are hidden in your night sky? (Apple Only) Deluxe Moon: Enjoy current moon phase, moon age and zodiac signs visible in the night sky.

Jetpack Joyride: Suit up with a selection of the coolest jet packs ever

Awesome Apps. By: Logan Cook, Mathew Lemon, and Alex Friemuth

By Guest Columnist: Sammy Choudhury

Wondering why your grades are going down? Maybe it’s because of your study habits. Do you find it difficult to study? Do you get distracted easily? Changing your study habits for the better will make it easier to stay focused and help improve your grades.

There are two types of study habits. The first type is bad study habits. Bad habits include studying with groups or friends because it may cause you to get off topic, which takes away from your study time. Even listening to loud music or music with lyrics can create a distraction. If you’re in poor surroundings with a lot of noise that doesn’t allow you to concentrate, you won’t be able to study as well as in a quiet area. Small things like eating and drinking can also distract you and make it harder to concentrate on your school work. Lastly, pushing everything till the last day, also called procrasti-nating, can cause pressure and create stress which will definitely affect your studies.

Next are good study habits. These are ways to help improve your grades. First, it’s very important to stay organized, so write every assignment and due date in

your planner. Also, keep your papers organized in sepa-rate folders so you know where everything is. This can be done on a computer as well. When you don’t under-stand something it’s crucial that you ask questions so you know what you’re supposed to know.

Tests are a huge part of your grade so you need to study before each test using your notes. When taking notes you must only include the important parts. Stud-ying is not just looking at the material. You might want to have someone quiz you or do something else to help memorize the material like make flashcards or re-copy your notes. Knowing your strongest learning style will also make it much easier to learn and remember material.

Those are the different types of studying habits. If students avoid the bad habits and follow the good hab-its their grades will most definitely go up. Best of luck third and fourth quarter!

Improve your Study Habits

Political Cartoon submitted by Audrey Mooney

E-mail us at :

nmstalon@gmail.com

Dear WHITNEY, I just moved here at the beginning of the school year. I've been doing good in class so far. I am in ELO and getting good grades. But I often find myself having no idea what my class-mates and my teachers are talking about sometimes. I recently became more worried when there was a question on the prac-tice OAA I had to leave blank. What should I do? -New Girl

Dear New Girl, Welcome to Nagel! I know it’s hard being new. It’s not your fault you don’t know some of the things we already learned. But if you have a problem you’re not sure about, go to your parents or a trusted friend to explain it to you. Do you remember the question you skipped? Go over it with someone who can help so you’ll know for the future. Maybe if you are really confused, you can ask your teacher to assign someone in your class to tutor you on the subject. But as long as you try hard and do your best to catch up, I promise you’ll continue to get good grades.

Smiles your way, Whitney

Dear WHITNEY, I was assigned to a group by my teacher. Most of my group members do their part, but one boy in my group does nothing. He's really cute and everyone likes him so I'm afraid to get him in trouble. I'm afraid people will know I ratted him out but I also don't want a bad grade. What should I do? -Doing my Part

Dear Doing my Part, There are some people who just have trouble with the concept of "actually doing work!". I would recommend you try assigning him specific jobs. At home, I have to help my little brother pick up his toys. Unless I give him little jobs every few minutes, he really just dawdles. But remember not to be to bossy or pushy, and say please.

If this problem persists even after you give him jobs, you have a few options. You can anonymously tell the teacher or send the teacher an e-mail, or if you peer grade on performance, you can give him the grade you think he honestly deserves. I would recommend just telling the teacher over the second option, because you will probably be better off with his help.

Good luck, Whitney

Dear WHITNEY, I have two friends that I love equally, but they just won't get along. Sometimes I think they are jealous of each other. They argue all the time and always try to get me to take a side. I don't want to be in the middle but no matter how much I try to tell them to leave me out of it, they just don't stop. Any sugges-tions? -Caught in the Middle

Dear Caught in the Middle,

I've been in the same situation. I know it's hard, but try playing peacekeeper for a while. NEVER take sides, if they are both good friends. But try to see both sides of the argument. Try finding common interests between the two of them, so they will have something to talk about together and maybe even start a friendship of their own. But, if one friend is bullying the other, it is always the right thing to stick up for the victim. If they absolutely refuse to tolerate each other, the least you can do is give each of them equal attention.

Hope this helps, Whitney

The National Geography Bee, sponsored by The National Geographic Society and Google, has the major reward of a $25,000 college scholarship. It is a nationwide contest for schools in the United States. There are three levels of competition: school, state and national. The ques-tions are designed to test the students’ skill of knowledge for geography and names of locations. Questions may require knowledge of maps, graphs and photographs. Some questions will re-quire knowledge of place-names, culture of location, physical regions, climate, bodies of water, soils and flora/fauna. The format for the questions call for brief answers, usually only a word or a phrase. For this year’s 2012 Nagel Geography Bee Connor Lambert finished in third place, Dominic Altimari finished in second place, and our first place finalist is Maria Henriquez!

Congratulations finalists!

Shopping for the Holidays: A Response Why does everyone want these expensive things? The new iPad’s,The IPhone 4, An XBox? Shouldn’t the holidays be about being with family and not the gifts you get? Should itmatter what color UGGs you get? Or should it matter if it’s the iPad or the iPad2. Or if its 23% thinner? Or a more detailed camera? Or if it has two cameras that make it perfect for face time? And it lasts 10 hours?Are Apple products and UGGs going to be the hottest gifts this year? Does the iPad really have amazing features? Or could your family have even more amazing features? I think your family does. They are always there for you and always will be. The iPad could break and so could your family but you can fix your family easier than an iPad. At the end of the day, year,or 50 years, you’re not going to care about an iPad; you’re going to care that your family is around you -especially when you’re at your weakest. What would you rather have- your family or an iPad? You choose.

Editorial By: Emaleigh Egan

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First Place: Maria Henriquez

The amazing school of learning and laughter.

The school of golden halls and majestic fountains.

The school where youths run along free with independence and joy.

The school where music reaches the ears to those who listen.

The school where education shines in everyone's eyes.

Where no one is marked with the pains of prejudice and judgement.

Where creativity flows like a river, and colors stream through walls.

Where giggles catch girls by surprise and guffaws catch boys

Where hunger is satisfied and thirst is quenched

Where safety and thrills are taken in gulps

The place where one can learn, find delight, and grow.

Nagel Middle School.

~By Deni Morales

I am lost In a pit of despair

No one understands What I am going through

For food I look in dumpsters

To sleep I lay on benches

I need hope I need food

I need shelter I am homeless

By Kelly Molloy