I will be in the city in the daytime, attending a conference at the Newberry Library that equates "ALLEGORIES OF THE PSYCHE IN LITERATURE AND POPULAR CULTURE." (The "popular culture" in that title is (no joke here) Buffy the Vampire Slayer!)
After that, I will be heading out to the Marriott to attend an evening performance of Les Miserables with my family. So it's a busy day.
You, of course, will be here, and this is what will be going on:
E3H: your assignment is to continue processing what is happening in Macbeth via the online boards. Tomorrow you'll watch more of the movie. You will have to help the sub to find the place, as each class is in a vastly different spot.
E2H: your assignment is to list iin order of preference the 7 topics and email that list to me. The topics are:
Testing: is it a fair assessment? Drinking age Drug legality Later school day School dress codes Patriot act R-rated movie before 17/censorship
Tomorrow you will have a Reading Workshop.
Drama: memorize...memorize...memorize! You'll work together tomorrow on your monologues, even though it is a Wednesday. We'll do WAH both Th and F this week.
random thought of the day: Talent hits the target which no one else can hit; genius hits the target which no one else can see.
(which explains why the blog hasn't been updated in two days as I've tried to recover from shock...)
E3H:
go to the E3H page (link on right) and find the Macbeth project. group yourselves together and select a scene and make a start! get together if possible. (note: if you select a scene not on my suggested list, clear it first.
WIKICAB POLL ends saturday morning.
shakespeare day on monday! wear t-shirts as your outermost garment all day in school; bring snacks!
E2H: PORTFOLIOS DUE MONDAY!!!!!
Drama: check back later in the weekend to see when i sort out the character mess. until then, assume that you have at least the first character you were assigned...
random thought of the day: Nothing's impossible for those . . . who don't have to do it.
Welcome to a new week during which, if things go as predicted, we should finally see temps in the 70's...just shy of the all-time record for consecutive days without a 70 degree reading in Chicagoland. As with the February snow record, this is one I do not care to have. :-)
E3H: finish the play this week. continue posting. t-shirts Monday!!! Thing 2 coming up... Key Training online (see Mrs. Littell in library to log in.) wikicab poll ends wednesday!
E2H: WW again tomorrow. portfolio due monday. catcher posting continues. wikicab poll ends wednesday!
Drama: daily reflections. discussion of whether we should go with short plays or Metamorphoses...
random thought of the day: Someone who thinks logically . . . is a nice contrast to the real world
Yesterday is was in the thirties and raining. Today it's in the sixties and cloudy, with likelihood of rain. Tonight it will be in the forties and raining. Tomorrow it will be in the forties with a rain and snow mixture. Tuesday it will be sunny and in the seventies?
I'll believe it when I see it.
Enjoy your weekend.
E3H: Shakespeare t-shirts! Look here for more info. And post post post.
E2H: Posting continues. Portfolio countdown: 10 days as of today! And... Compose an essay of 1.5-2 pages in which you explore the impact of minor characters on our understanding of Holden Caulfield. You must use at least three characters other than Stradlater, Ackley, Antolini, and Spencer. (You may use them as well.) Your thesis should discuss the way these characters affect our view of Holden; it should not merely be something about the characters themselves.
Drama: Enjoy your weekend. Each of you will be responsible for a warmup activity next week. be ready!
random thought of the day: I have changed my mind a dozen times. It seems to work better now
You can't study the darkness by flooding it with light. Edward Abbey
Love is the only game that is not called on account of darkness. Thomas Carlyle
See you in the darkness. Gary Gilmore
Remember, it is better to light one little candle than to curse the darkness. Frank Gorshin
I don't like dragging kids, young kids especially, through the darkness because I believe in positive. Yin and yang, black or white. I'm an up guy. Sammy Hagar
Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it. Terry Pratchett
Just a few darkness quotes on a strange, strange day...
Check out my story blog if you're interested. Link is on right.
E3H: finish posting from Friday (see last blog post). Act Two is due; start reading Act Three.
E2H: post in the Bananafish board.
Drama: work on your open scenes with your partners. You will be able to work with them tomorrow but you're performing on Wednesday. Emma, we're working on the open scenes (exercise 4.17)
random quote of the day: what, you need more quotes? come on! i gave you six already!!!
Who will have the best conversations? E2H or E3H? It's a weekend challenge!!!
E3H: Finish Act 2 and post in the Act One Soliloquies board which will be graded after the weekend.
E2H: Post in the What Are the Rules board and the Teen Slang of 2008 board; the weekend posting will be graded!
Drama: Exercise 4.17. If you know your partners, devise the scenarios together. If not, devise each separately and we'll partner you on Monday. Read the instructions carefully, especially the pages that follow the exercise.
random thought of the day: Just when you think nothing will ever get better . . . everything gets dramatically worse
Hi, everyone, and welcome back to another (or your first) year at LFHS.
What you have heard is true. The English teacher has lost her ever-loving mind and is not going to be giving any grades at all in her classes this year. Not. One.
There will be no percentages, no numbers, no scores, no letters, no anything that will count toward anything that will end up being averaged for a final grade. But before you call in the men with the white coats, let me explain:
As I hope you have read in the doc your son or daughter (I have always hated the phrase "your student" when addressed to a parent) should have showed you, there is a wealth of research that indicates that grades--or the need to achieve them--are the single greatest thing that stand in the way of a great education. Studies show that the most influential thing a teacher can do to help a student grow academically is to allow him or her to self-grade. Most teachers would rather climb Mt. Everest dressed only in a swimsuit.
But the thing is: our academic system is severely broken. We say that our goal is to get our students to master Common Core Standards, and that is all well and good. But if that is truly the goal, then why do we care how long it takes them to master them? I'm serious. Think about it this way:
Try to remember back to when you were learning how to ride a bike. Oh, it was scary. You needed all kinds of support at first, lots of help from Daddy or Mommy. Then they let go and you were very, very wobbly. Probably you fell off, maybe several times. It took quite a while before you completely mastered the skill. But when you had...you had it down perfectly for the rest of your life.
Now imagine if you were being graded on that learning experience the way schools grade you. We would not score those first scaffolding attempts with Mommy and Daddy, but then...oh, you failed those quizzes when you fell off. And those wobbly rides? C's at best. Then a bunch of B's probably before you finally settled into 100% forever. But if we graded you right at that point, you'd probably average, oh, 83% or so. Why?You've mastered the skill perfectly. So why do you not get 100% if that is what we say we care about? Why on earth do we care about all those earlier times when you didn't have it down yet?
That will be what we go for here. Students will know what the goals are. They will understand what an "A" student looks like. And they will know when they have mastered an objective. Those who do so earlier than others will become tutors to those who have not yet done it: everyone gains from this and the newly learned skills, instead of being quickly forgotten as things studied for a test usually are, will continue being applied as masters tutor their classmates.
That is an awful lot to imagine will happen because I don't give grades this year, but what the heck: if you don't dream big, you never win big, right? The research is behind this, as is the school administration. I'm happy--well, actually I am excited--to pilot this concept at LFHS. As always, I'm glad to discuss this or anything else with you.