Dreilinden’s future writers inspired

Writer, storyteller and professor for Critical Studies at the California Institute of the Arts Brian Evenson gave a lecture to our Year 11 English A-level courses on July 2 2025, accompanied by his wife Kristen Tracy, who writes books for children and teenagers as well as poetry.  

Evenson has been a fellow at the American Academy in Wannsee over the past six months, working on his latest novel-in-progress “A Handbook for a Future Revolution”. His work generally explores the unsettling aspects of Mormon life as well as mental health issues.

The event started with a reading of extracts from Tracy’s and Evenson’s work. While Kristen Tracy read her poetry, the story chosen by Evenson reminded us of elements of Dostoyevsky, Mann and Kafka. Evenson’s writing raises interesting questions about religious identity, psychological boundaries, and moral dilemmas.

The two authors were incredibly open and empathetic. After the reading part, there was a lively question session which brought up a wide variety of topics. These included the current political situation in the USA, differences between American and German culture, the authors‘ sources for their inspiration and many more.

Overall, this memorable encounter left a lasting impression on everyone who attended. The unique blend of complex topics will encourage a curiosity for the world of literature and will – no doubt – inspire the next generation of writers at Dreilinden.

• Englisch
• Projekte
• Schulleben
• Sprache
• Veranstaltung

Why you should (not) go to Brussels

We travelled to Brussels via train and I was positively surprised by our smooth journey with the Deutsche Bahn, at least on the outward journey. We got to see beautiful landscape from put windows and I even spotted the Cologne Cathedral!

My first impression was that the city felt slightly unsafe, since we walked through a dirty and sketchy district as we arrived. This led me to think that the majority of the city center would look like this and I was proven somewhat right later on. Buildings were in need of renovation and trash was always to be found on the side of the street – Not just random litter, but also whole boxes and trash bags were lying in the
middle of the street. There were some spots though, where I really enjoyed the architecture, such as the Grand Place, Brussels Stock Exchange and the Royal Gallery of Saint Hubert.

Sadly, we lacked organisation in terms of food preparation, which made it difficult for us to have full meals. On top of that, as I’m plantbased, I had a hard time with finding food more than others. Since I’m used to many vegan options in Germany, Brussels was not as easy. Nevertheless, I still managed to buy or make myself food one way or another.
However, the museums we went to, such as the House of European History and the exhibition in the European Parliament did not disappoint. Among other things, I learned much about the structure of the EU, how it was created and some of its accomplishments, which ultimately is very valuable knowledge.

Lucky for us, the European Championship was happening right at the time we were walking through the popular areas of the city. Therefore, we were able to catch the vibe of many fans cheering Belgium on and even participate ourselves. The bars, restaurants and cafes felt incredibly lively and tempted many of us to join the crowd.

My favorite part of the Brussels trip was actually the one time we weren’t in Brussels, but in Blankenberge. There we did a long walk to appreciate the landscape near the North Sea and learn about the biodiversity of birds. After this we had a lot of free time to spend in small groups, which turned out to be great fun. We strolled through a pedestrian-only area with beautiful decoration, leading to a tall church at the end of the street. Afterwards we collected some seashells by the sea and used our binoculars to watch surfers. On the other days we did
not have as much free time and I was exhausted accordingly, so this day stood out to me.
Blankenberge was the perfect round-off for this intense trip.

To bring things to a close, the city of Brussels did not strike me with its beauty as much, but with what it has to offer in terms of learning opportunities about the EU and its international significance. I can say with confidence that I broadened my horizons through the insights I got into Brussels. In combination with the time we spent in a rural area like Blankenberge, this trip ticked the most important boxes for
me: Gain knowledge and make experiences together.

Charlotte (Q2)

Einen weiteren Artikel zu den Favourite Activity in Brussels von Liam (Q2) finden Sie hier

• Englisch
• Historisch-politisches Engagement

Dreilinden-Gymnasium Participation in BERMUN2 Model UN Conference 2024

Dreilinden-Gymnasium’s delegation participated in the BERMUN2 Model United Nations Conference 2024 at the Konrad-Adenauer-Foundation Berlin organized by the John F Kennedy School. Representing Bangladesh and Malta, our delegates engaged in lively debates, negotiations, and resolutions on the pressing topic of „Rising Nationalism: Fortifying International Institutions.“

We extend our gratitude to the organizers and fellow participants for their contributions to the success of the conference, and we look forward to continued engagement in future Model UN events.

• Englisch
• Gesellschaft
• Historisch-politisches Engagement
• MUN
• Politik

Die große Welt hautnah – eine weitere erfolgreiche Teilnahme unserer SchülerInnen bei den Berlin Model United Nations

From Wednesday to Saturday Dreilinden-Gymnasium showcased its commitment to global citizenship and diplomatic skills by participating in the BerMUN Model United Nations (MUN) Conference 2023. The school’s delegation represented the Kingdom of Bhutan, embracing the opportunity to engage in diplomatic discourse on pressing global issues.

At the opening ceremony on Wednesday Sonja Gottwald gave her speech as Bhutan´s ambassador focussing on Bhutanese customs, and the sharing of Bhutan’s unique socio-economic and environmental policies, which align with the country’s commitment to Gross National Happiness. The following three days the delegates debated on topics relating to the conference theme of Sustainable Development in a Capitalist World in the various committees.

Dreilinden-Gymnasium’s delegation approached the conference with a diplomatic mindset, participating in debates, negotiations, and resolution drafting. They embodied the essence of Bhutan’s diplomatic traditions, known for their emphasis on peaceful dialogue and cooperation.

The special guest speaker Horst Köhler, President of the Federal Republic of Germany from 2004 to 2010,  shared his views on the conference theme encouraging students to actively shape their future.

You can find here a little impression of the conference.

• Englisch
• Gesellschaft
• Historisch-politisches Engagement
• MUN
• Politik

Saving the planet – ein Unterrichtsprojekt des LK Englisch bili (Q3)

Der bilinguale Englisch Leistungskurs Q3 befasst sich in diesem Semester mit dem Thema „Saving the Planet“. Die Schüler:innen haben in diesem Zusammenhang Flyer/Cartoons zum Thema „Plastic Pollution“ gestaltet. Schaut selbst – die Ergebnisse regen definitiv zum Nachdenken über das eigene Handeln an!

• Englisch

Impressionen zur Auseinandersetzung des LK Englisch der Q1 mit „Gender roles and Oktoberfest“

Das Plakat wurde von Mika, Catalina, Tabea und Marlene entwickelt und künsterlisch umgesetzt.

• Englisch

Book recommendations by the advanced English course Q2 (VL)

• Englisch
• Sprache

“The Wave” – Theatre performance at “Akademie der Künste”

On the 8th of November 2021, we, as one of the Dreilinden-Gymnasium’s English Advanced courses in Q3, took a trip to the Academy of Arts to see a play performed by the American Drama Group Europe, which is currently touring Germany with the play “The Wave”. This experience was quite a memorable one and we collectively agreed that it is one to recommend.

The theatre visit was planned very well: we all sat in the front row and had the perfect view of the stage. Additionally, the actors spoke very clearly, and the performance was easy to follow. The play started off a little confusingly with someone passionately playing air guitar, having us wondering just what we had gotten ourselves into, but we quickly got immersed in the captivating story.

The play itself is based on a true story from 1969 that was turned into the book “The Wave” by American author Morton Rhue. History teacher Ben Ross, after questioning how people could follow the Nazis in the Third Reich, sets up an interactive experiment with his students to educate them about the rise of the Nazi party: He founds a movement in the school called the Wave. The Wave takes off and spreads throughout the whole school and the experiment ends in disaster.

In the reviews our course has given, the students agreed on the importance and seriousness of the topic that were presented very well while still bringing forth an aspect of humour and light-heartedness. The play had indeed quite a charm to it. The musical elements and performances through songs linked the scenes very well, showing a swift and entertaining change of the rather simplistic stage, built of dull-coloured boxes in varying constellations and setups.

Even with just five actors, the drama group managed to portray a good number of characters convincingly, giving each their own aura. The moral of the story was brought across clearly. Students said that “the story was coherent, and it was really cool to see it develop on stage”, while someone else mentioned the benefits of native speakers performing an English play would help the students improve on their pronunciation as well! Personally, I would recommend the play to other classes because it covers historical and psychological along with philosophical aspects and portrays a thought-out storyline in a fitting and impactful way.

To sum up, our course had a very good time visiting the play “The Wave”, taking new memories and maybe even new takes on questions away from it. It was an experience that can only be recommended! In the name of us students, thanks to everyone who made this experience possible and special thanks to our teacher Mrs Schroeren, for making us to go there and witness such an incredible performance!

Katharina Wagner (Q3)

• Englisch
• Sprache

American-style yearbook pages

Ein Jahrbuch am Dreilinden – das wär‘ doch was! Die Klasse 8c hat in einem Projekt im Englischunterricht mit viel Freude Seiten für ein Jahrbuch nach amerikanischem Vorbild erstellt. Die Schüler:innen bearbeiteten in Gruppen eine der drei mögliche Kategorien „Highlights of the Year“, „Student superlatives“ sowie „Clubs and Sports“. Herausgekommen sind dabei sehr gelungene Arbeiten.

• Englisch
• Schulleben
• Sprache

Translationale Berlin – Workshopteilnahme von Schüler*innen beim Festival für Literaturübersetzung

Am 1. Oktober 2021 nahmen 12 Schüler*innen an einem zweistündigen Workshop zur „Filmuntertitelung“ beim Festival für Literaturübersetzung „Translationale Berlin“ teil.

Geleitet wurde er von Nadine Püschel, die vor allem auch als Übersetzerin für Kinder- und Jugendliteratur bekannt ist. Ausgewählt hatte sie den zehnminütigen englischen Kurzfilm „Washdays“.

Die Herausforderung beim Untertiteln besteht u.a. darin, dass nur begrenzt Zeit zur Verfügung steht, die Untertitel zu lesen, bevor zur nächsten Einstellung gewechselt wird. Außerdem geht es darum, den authentischen Ton des Originals zu treffen. Also hieß es immer wieder: Suchen nach alternativen kürzeren und treffenderen Formulierungen. Aber dabei war es ein tolles Gefühl zu sehen, wie der untertitelte Film immer mehr Gestalt annahm. Das Ergebnis ist sehr beeindruckend und es ist „wirklich großartig, auf welche Lösungen und Feinheiten die Gruppe in so kurzer Zeit gekommen ist“ (Zitat Nadine Püschel). Nach Klärung der Rechtefragen wird der untertitelte Film bald auch auf unserem Youtube-Kanal zu sehen sein.

(14.10.21, Sie)

• Deutsch
• Englisch
• Sprache

Die 10c zu Besuch im Allied Museum Berlin

Last Friday our class visited the Allied Museum in Berlin. Despite Corona, we were able to make this trip and had a lot of fun.
While we were looking at the museum, we had five worksheets to complete. Through this, I personally learned a lot about the post-war period of World War II in Germany and the role of the Allies. 
The museum was very interesting because the items shown were originals. One of the biggest highlights for me was of course the candy bomber, the English Hastings TG503.
But also the part of a spy tunnel that could be recovered, was very impressive. 
I would highly recommend this excursion as the visit was great even during Corona. 
Even though I have been to the allied museum before, it is always interesting and worth going there a second time. In my opinion, many classes should go there, because the Allied Museum presents a very important part of German and especially Berlin history.
Additionally I think, you can also have much more fun in class when there is such a great opportunity to learn more.

Marie Braun (10c)

• Englisch
• Geschichte

Song Project 2021 (10c)

As the values of the EU and climate change are very important topics today, a song shown in a video seemed to be the perfect possibility to share all of our thoughts with others to maybe get them to think about these topics, too, and so we started the project week. In the beginning it was a bit strange, because most of us didn´t do anything similar before, so we just wrote down anything that came to our minds. After the first days the structure of how the music video should look like however became clearer and clearer and we could come up with more and more ideas. We could write, we could speak, we could draw, we could film and we could use the knowledge we got in school. There were some moments where we were stuck, but with the help of our two workshop leaders Ginger Schnarrenberger and Dominik Schoetschel we got some new ideas how to continue and despite some difficulties it was a lot of fun. Quickly our project chat was full of our pictures, lyrics, music and videos. These parts needed to be arranged to have a finished script for the music video.

And here it is! In some parts it´s a bit embarrassing, but I think that´s ok, because it´s the fact that we all got the possibility to say and do something and maybe to give some food for thought for the people who watch the video.

We hope you like it.

Have fun!                                                                                                                      

Emmi Mertens (10c)

Das Filmprojekt finden Sie hier!

• Englisch
• Schulleben

Wir werden Europaschule – Das Dreilinden-Gymnasium auf dem Weg in eine neue Zukunft. Ab dem Schuljahr 2021/22 beginnt das Dreilinden-Gymnasium mit einer neuen Epoche seiner schulischen Entwicklung. Als Staatliche Europaschule Berlins (SESB) werden ab dem nächsten Schuljahr die ersten 7. Klassen eingeschult, die zu jeweils 50% ihren Unterricht auf den Partnersprachen Englisch und Deutsch auf muttersprachlichen Niveau haben werden. Die Fremdsprache ist Französisch und wurde in der 5. Klasse begonnen. Diese besondere Sprachprofilierung, die mit einem Zusatzzertifikat zum Abitur honoriert wird, bietet den künftigen Schüler*innen unserer Schule ganz besondere Entwicklungsmöglichkeiten.

Des Weiteren spielt die interkulturelle Integration insbesondere auf europäischer, aber auch auf globaler Ebene eine herausragende Rolle. Die damit verbundenen, einzigartigen Impulse werden die Schule und die Schulgemeinschaft weiter voranbringen und fruchtbarer Boden für weiterreichende Projekte sein. 

Für die Aufnahme auf unsere Staatliche Europa-Schule gibt es besondere Voraussetzungen:

Schüler*innen mit guten oder sehr guten Noten in Englisch und Deutsch, die bisher eine der Staatlichen Europa-Grundschulen (Quentin-Black-Grundschule, Charles-Dickens-Grundschule, Galilei- Grundschule, ab 2022 auch die Dreilinden-Grundschule) besucht haben, werden auf Basis des Prinzips First-come-first-serve angenommen.

Andere Schüler*innen müssen eine Englisch- und/oder Deutschprüfung ablegen, die ihre Sprachfähigkeit und Eignung für dieses duale (Sprach-) Programm testen soll. In dieser etwa 60 Minuten langen Prüfung werden die Lese-, Schreib- und Kommunikationskompetenz der Schüler*innen überprüft.

Wir freuen uns schon jetzt auf diese bereichernde Weiterentwicklung unserer Schule!

• Englisch
• Schulentwicklung
• Sprache

Futurium – The House of Futures. How can we reduce our carbon footprint? What impact does tourism have on the environment? And why are the oceans so polluted?

We have been dealing with the environmental impacts of our consumption and daily life on nature for months in school. To do so, we dragged apart aspects of waste pollution, sustainable production and emissions.

Today we wanted to take a closer look at our future by visiting the Futurium in Berlin. The visiting hours are all week from 10:00 to 18:00, except Tuesday, where it is closed. The entry is free. In case you would like to visit the museum, you will find it at Alexanderufer 2, 10117 Berlin.

We, Mrs. Viola-Launert’s English advanced course, were actually highly impressed by the exhibition. We liked the guide, who gives you a tour for 2,50€ per person and we were surprised by all the alternatives, which can be used to rebuild the environment again.

Everything in the Futurium revolves around the question: How do we want to live? Featuring many different approaches of becoming more sustainable, as alternatives for factory farming or even biodegradable structures for construction!

The Futurium itself often features open discussions to provide food for thought, thereby giving those new approaches a possibility to be introduced.

Furthermore, the exhibition contains a laboratory. In workshops, visitors of all ages can involve themselves playfully with future technologies and tinker about with new inventions.

But due to the current Covid situation we weren’t able to test out everything.

We were also a little disappointed, that we couldn’t find a section about mobility alternatives, which we found one of the most important topics concerning this issue.

However, many fellow students were keen to try for example alternative animal protein – produced by insects. Also shown as a new approach to defeat factory cattle, reducing methane emissions and the demand of soy, insects were introduced as very nutritious, protein rich and sustainable alternatives.

Even though the idea freaked out a few fellow students, we faced up to the fact that it could get reality if we do not change our consumption habits.

Why could it get real? Because we consume way too many resources for harvesting forage. A single grasshopper holds relatively more protein, consumes way less fresh water and doesn´t have flatulences which drive climate change.

All in one, the Futurium is a place, where visitors can discover exciting options concerning humans, nature and technology to develop their own standpoints on controversial issues. Therefore we highly recommend a visit.

We can assure you, you will be fascinated, surprised and possibly shocked after paying a visit to the Futurium Berlin.

By Aaron Emde and Anna Berg

(Q3, LK Englisch)

• Englisch
• Schulleben