Last November, I wrote an article for the print edition of The Roosevelt News called “Unearthing the treasure chess-t: Roosevelt’s underground chess-playing community revealed.” The article described the chess group that Roosevelt social studies teacher Jibril Rashid hosts in his classroom during second lunch.
Mr. Rashid approved of my article and requested that I expand it into a short documentary about his classroom. Four months later, I finished the documentary, which I titled “Chowing Down with Chess: The Story of Jibril Rashid’s Lunchtime Chess Group.” Several of the students interviewed in the original article also appear in the film, including Zach Rodan, Fredrik Hernqvist, and Joel “Sijay” Musafiri, not to mention Mr. Rashid himself. There are also several new student interviews in “Chowing Down with Chess” that did not appear in the original article.
“Chowing Down with Chess” is not a product of The Roosevelt News. However, it depicts the culture of a classroom at Roosevelt and thus constitutes news about Roosevelt, hence it’s appearance on this website.
