Yes, we are all on SNOWZILLA watch! Don't count your blizzards before they're...um...blown. Or whatever. But we could get some serious snow action starting some time tomorrow.
Or not.
Meanwhile, let's talk about today.
In the 2cp/3h world, we had writing workshop. We introduced the new vocab concept the WIKICAB boards. These boards are now active and you may begin playing on them tonight. Go ahead; it won't hurt. Remember: this is for POD PRIDE!
2CP: We're doing that fishbowl writing group tomorrow, so we'll be back in WW tomorrow. (Therefore bring another draft!!! And bring enough copies for your groups, please?)
3H: I forgot: tomorrow is the day you find out about all of the elective choices you have for next year! Still. annotations are due!!! (Buy Macbeth if you have not done so already.)
Drama: Revise (or write--you know who I'm talking to) your monologues. You'll be practicing them tomorrow.
It's the last weekend before the rodent finds out if he can see his shadow. I know! I'm excited too! :-)
The following people did not show up at their conferences this week:
Kirstyn Walker, Ben Warren, Brenna Shannon, Katie Skinner, Carlie Passalino, James Ankenmann, Alex Ehrens, Bobby Dennis, Kirt Booth, Caroline Kirsch, Ari Rivera, Bowen Welles, Eddie Schutt, Derek Pristou, Jack Ducker.
These folks must make up these missing conferences next week. Please be more careful in the future.
E3H: Finish reading and annotation Portrait by Tuesday.
E2CP: Read Act One of DOAS by Tuesday.
Drama: Stealth Observation game in progress. Personal monologue first drafts due on Monday: this should be an approximately 23-5 minute monologue that shows some aspect of you as a person, but is structured as a dynamic monologue spoken to a specific audience.
E3H: Get thee to the boards! Discuss Stephen's friends and start talking about his artistic philosophies. Macbeth ($5.99) is available in the bookstore. We will not be getting to it for awhile, but please purchase your copy tomorrow or Friday.
E2CP:Death of a Salesman is now available. So is the book after that, Catcher in the Rye. Buy them both in the bookstore for $20 tomorrow.
Drama: Please bring me your journals tomorrow. Behaviour scenes are due as well.
And now, for those who have not seen the Oscar nominated movies, here is a quick recap of a few of them:
The Black Swan:
The King's Speech:
127 Hours:
The Fighter:
The Social Network:
and for those who absolutely need their disney fix:
Honored guests. Distinguished students. Students who have not yet become quite so distinguished.
Today we gather to discuss the state of our great classroom. It is a tradition begun so many milliseconds ago that no one can even recall exactly the moment it began, but let's call it, for the sake of a name, "in this minute." In this grand tradition, we examine what is going well and what is not going so very well in the Small World of Room 305.
According to Recent Reports, most of you do not enjoy using the Boards. My response is that we have not given them our best shot yet. We shall do so. After that, if you do not see their value, we may well diminish or eliminate them.
These same reports indicate that Projects receive very positive comments. These shall therefore be continued into the Second Semester of our acquaintance.
Also receiving high marks is Writing Workshop, though it was noted by a few people that it would be nice to be able to go to labs on occasion. We shall see if we can work that out.
In a very odd dichotomy, our discussions received comments--in the same class!--ranging from notes that I talk too much and no one gets to speak to everyone gets the chance to say whatever they want and there are no preconceptions. It is rather difficult to know what to glean from such a range of comments, but I will be watching further conversations closely.
From my end: I wish to engage in more Grammar Gremlins and more Vocabulary this semester. Some of this will come in the form of mini-lessons during Writing Workshop periods. For some of it, I'd like to try using the boards in their best wiki-possibilities. We did this a few years ago and students had a great time playing with wiki-grammar and wiki-vocab.
Special note to Drama Students:
Your needs have not been addressed here because your class has just begun, but rest assured that you are on my mind. Speak up when or if there are things you need to say. :-)
And now, the homework...
E2CP: Work on the poem "Acquainted With the Night" (255) and try to discover or think of logical reasons with clues from the poem about why he is walking late at night. What does he gain from this? How does he feel about it? What does it mean to be "one acquainted with the night"?
E3H: Continue reading and annotating Ch 5 (annotations due next week, though reading is due by Friday). Online, discuss issues in Ch 5 on the boards. Oh, and you can find the CAPSTONE PROJECT INFORMATION HERE if you cannot remember where to locate it.
Drama: 3.2, 3.3. Also: Behavior Scenes, which are scripted improv scenes in which you show us typical and atypical behaviors of yours. Due Thursday.
And if you are thinking about doing something stupid this winter...like going out on thin ice or driving in terrible conditions...think again:
Wow, it's Wednesday already! I like weeks that begin on Tuesday. :-)
E3H: Beginning with "day of dappled seaborne clouds," go through the final pages of Ch 4 seeking evidence of how and why Stephen is ready for the epiphany involved in the girl on the beach. What aspect of his personality is ready to take charge? Where do you find it? What does he fell? How does it relate to everything else that has happened?
E2CP: Bring today's work. Bring the five discussion questions you were supposed to have written about the poems at the end of Ch 4. Bring your enthusiasm. Bring your final exam review.
Drama: Do exercises 1.1-1.3 in your journals except where they require a partner.
Today in all classes we sort of took inventory. We discussed final exams, surveyed for thoughts about the course, and looked ahead. In all, a good day but a sort of holding pattern. Tomorrow, we move on...
E3H: In a powerpoint or informal essay, explore the scores you have received on final exams over three years to discover whether your writing has improved and in what ways. You must quote from both the rubric and the essays themselves. In addition, discuss why you received the grade you did this year: was it deserved? (If you do not have the essays from earlier years, focus your attention on only the second point.) This is due Friday.
We will be back in Portrait tomorrow.
E2CP: In a powerpoint or informal essay, explore the scores you received on the final exam. You must quote from both the rubric and the essays themselves. Why did you receive the grade you did this year: was it deserved? This is due Thursday.
We will be in WW tomorrow. You are to take notes on the conferences and have your peers sign your notes. Bring them with you to school on Thursday as well as your Sound and Sense books (and the five discussion questions from the Ch. 4 poems).
It's Monday morning and I am still grading grading grading.
E3H-7 is still unfinished and is on my list for today. CW is coming along: I'll have most portfolios tomorrow, though a couple may straggle into Wednesday. Otherwise, it is merely a matter of adding the grades for the finals themselves to the mix. I'll do that tomorrow, as they are at school.
And for those interested in the Golden Globes, one just has to ask: Helena Bonham Carter, what were you thinking?
So not much has changed. I have been working on grading finals, so I have not done a lot of checking into old grades. That's on the docket for tomorrow (along with a few more portfolios).
I have checked everything regarding E2CP. Other than the Practice Final, Q2 Participation and Final Exam, everything ought to have been entered. If something is missing that you believe should be there, I do not have it (with the exception of a couple of Nolan's things that I would not open here and had to send myself at home to view). It is your responsibility this week to see me and bring it to me or prove that it was graded.
I am working on E3H, but there are still a lot of holes. It may take into tomorrow to double check and plug them all. We shall see...
and now let's all learn a little something about the movies, shall we?
And here is your last (sob!) letter from me! Don't forget to respond, and in that response to spend some time writing what you liked and disliked about the various aspects and elements of the class. Be as picky and specific as you'd like. :-)
E3H/E2CP: If there is anyone who has not yet shown me WW things, your last shot is Monday.
No Portrait reading is due this weekend.
This is the final exam prompt. (Yes the ACTUAL final exam prompt):
Write an essay that explores an important idea suggested by this story.
That idea may relate to a character or characters in the story, a dominant theme that emerges from it, or literary techniques the author uses to convey its central concepts. You may also use a combination of these approaches if you prefer.
Before you begin writing, plan your essay using any strategies you have found helpful—brainstorming, outlining, free writing, webbing, etc.
Focus your essay on a strong thesis statement; use mapping statements, mapping points, or some other clear plan to establish the paper’s organization; and prove your
arguments with solid textual support.
Remember, this essay is an exploration of ideas, not a plot summary.
You may bring with you the following items: dictionary, thesaurus, copy of rubric, hand-written notes about exam-taking, and something to do should you finish early.
Before 2010 goes too far away, here are what one compiler calls its Greatest Wins:
Guess what? I had my first E3H CAPSTONE PROJECT CONFERENCE today. And it was kind of exhilarating. :-) Let's go, juniors: bring it on!
E3H: Drop in for those CAPSTONE conferences (and regular old WW conferences too!). And start reading Ch 4. :-) Bring book tomorrow, but we're focusing on finals and WW folders for those whom I have not seen.
E2CP: Bring S&S tomorrow, but we'll be focusing on finals and WW folders for those whom I have not seen.
CW: Ah...it's almost over! You guys are so close to being second semester seniors you can taste it. Speaking of "taste," why not bring in some goodies tomorrow and Monday? We can party you out!
Yes, Virginia, there is a reason I detest winter. It's called WINTER!
Anyway...as we move inexorably closer to final exams...
CW continues to "chill out."
E3H continues to find James Joyce a bit of a "cold fish."
E2CP wishes their computers had "frozen" before they read this and remembered they had HW tonight: In a one page essay, discuss how Hopkins' and Williams' imagery create different moods in their poems about spring (pages 58-59).
Maybe this will warm you up: a one-man Village People!
Isn't it just lovely to be back again? Don't you all just find it joyous to be here in these hallowed halls instead of, for instance, Arizona or Hawaii or California or even your own bedrooms? I know that I for one woke up every morning bright and early the entire vacation without even setting the alarm, got into my car, and did a drive-by of LFHS just to see the place. Otherwise I'd just have missed it way too much.
Thank goodness that awful two weeks is finally over!
CW: Your entire course is almost over! Portfolios will trickle back over the next ten days or so. Projects will continue all week.
E3H: I'll grade annotations tonight if I can. However, I just had a bit of a monkey wrench thrown into my scheduling for the afternoon, so I am not sure what I will be able to get accomplished. More group reports/literary circle discussion tomorrow. (Plus: I need to check the remaining WW folders!)
E2CP: Read the two Robert Browning poems that open Chapter Four as well as the material around them. Read them reach several times and be ready to discuss the imagery in them. (I also have to check remaining WW folders!)
Oscar season is starting, and there is one film that just is not getting its due from the critics. So here is a "For Your Consideration" piece from the makers of Piranha 3D:
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.
