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EDITOR'S NOTE: Tennessee schools are ranked near the bottom of the nation in academic performance on national assessments. The United States has also experienced a slip in its international student assessment rankings. State officials have implemented new graduation requirements, curriculum standards and assessments in an attempt to get education back on track. This is part of an ongoing series focusing on schools as they adjust to the changes.

William Blount High School's Ninth-Grade Academy was designed to ensure all students are better prepared for the demands of high school.

School officials feel the academy has been successful in that regard. "I feel the freshman academy has really helped us. It's a small school concept where we have five teachers overseeing a group of 125 students," said Principal Steve Lafon said. "I think a much better learning environment happens in a school of 500 to 600 students. It's definitely a lot better way to start off high school."

During a recent visit, students started their day with a lesson review in Joyce Henderson's English class. They went over vocabulary words, brushed up on active and passive voice and worked on grammar by fixing a paragraph on Henderson's interactive whiteboard.

Students later gave presentations about Richard Connell's "The Most Dangerous Game." The short story is about Sanger Rainsford, a big-game hunter from New York, who falls off a yacht and swims to an isolated island in the Caribbean. Rainsford is eventually hunted by a Russian aristocrat who has become bored with simply hunting animals.

Students could reenact a scene from "The Most Dangerous Game" or discuss the story's themes. One group discussed whether Connell's story supported artificial or natural selection, and another group discussed whether his tale had a cynical view of civilization.

Students completed a group geometry lesson -- with a slight twist -- in Shauna Dukes' math class. They had to measure a roll of toilet paper and determine the entire roll's volume, the paper tube's volume and volume of the toilet paper sheets. Students also had to determine the toilet paper roll's area.

They were later dismissed to the gym for a pep rally. The academy's student body -- which is divided into four teams: the G, O, V and S teams -- competed against each other in a chant off.

Students then went head-to-head in a relay race where each contestant had to spin around on a baseball bat before sprinting out to the basketball court's baseline and back to half-court. Laughter filled the gym as students watched their peers run sideways, fall on the floor and otherwise adjust to their dizziness.

After the assembly, "O"-team students went to their wellness class. They ran around the school and its baseball field to get ready for the academy's second annual cross country run.

Students learned about land cover and surface runoff in Randy Puckett's science class. They evaluated and mapped the school's flow of water during an earlier class. Students determined the ratio of grass to pavement on campus and made a pie chart with the final percentages.

Students later went to their elective course. The school offers Air Force JROTC, technology, agriculture, technology, band/music, choral and journalism courses.

Students completed an exercise on socialism in Paris Longmire's geography class. They moved all the desks to a corner of Longmire's classroom and put their textbooks on the floor.

Students were then divided into three groups, and each group had a different task to perform. One group picked up books and placed them on the teacher's desk. Another group put the desks back in order. The last group put the textbooks on everyone's desk.

Longmire had students perform the exercise three times so students could understand the difference between the theory of socialism and how it's actually implemented in certain countries.

Revamped lesson plans

Teachers have put in a lot of time and effort to provide students with the opportunities to be successful under the new state standards.

Many teachers have revamped their lesson plans. Dukes, for example, said she has made her lessons more hands-on and tries to present every lesson in at least two to three different ways.

Social studies standards were largely unaffected by the Tennessee Diploma Project's curriculum revisions. Longmire, however, has changed all of the wording on her tests to correspond with state exams. "It's my way of helping the others out."

Educators are also presenting daily vocabulary words in their classroom, Longmire said. Teachers are now teaching more test-taking strategies such as looking at operative words and breaking down a word's roots, Henderson said.

Students evaluated

The team's teachers also meet at least twice a month to discuss students and make sure students aren't falling through the cracks, said Assistant Principal Cassandra Dowd. "We try not to have any anonymity."

"We take an interest in all of them, and we're very passionate about what we do here," said Assistant Principal Rob Clark. "I think we're making a difference in their lives. The impact is perfectly evident when you talk to teachers in the main building about our students."

Teachers have told administrators this year's sophomore class -- the first class to go through the freshman academy -- are polite, well-disciplined and extremely focused, Clark said.

Educators support the curriculum changes. "The new standards will be great. It will make our students better prepared for the workforce and college," Lafon said. "The need for a better education is there, and everyone will benefit from it. We'll need it in order to compete locally and globally as a job market.

"It's very important everybody gets behind these standards. I came out of business and industry, and I know it's needed," he said. "Everybody should be pleased with the more stringent requirements, because we'll be better prepared."