E3H: Practice Finals are due today*. Board posting was supposed to happen by today. Thanks to the three people who emailed me to say they were having trouble (Annie, Brandon and Bijan), I have found and fixed the glitch and you all should be able to post now. I have extended the deadline through the 29th so that good conversations may happen.
E2CP: Practice Finals are due TODAY!!!!!*
* In both cases, I'll accept them as "on time" through Monday. Merry Christmas. :-)
I don't know about you, but nothing says "vacation" to me like leaving school at 5:30 with two overflowing suitcases full of portfolios weighing me down and dragging them to my car, knowing that over the next two weeks I will not only be grading most of the, but also looking at essays that other students will be emailing me!
Yay!
(I think this is why, when asked for the Faces Board downstairs what I look forward to about Christmas Break, my immediate and emphatic answer was, "Summer Break!")
Actually, I'm kidding--sort of. I do have all of that stuff to do, of course, and I may get some of it done, but the coolest thing about any vacation is that it is a vacation. And I'm feeling that already! Let's see...my brain tells me there was something I was supposed to do today...it seems to me I was supposed to post something for you guys...
Oh! Right! A new video!
No? That wasn't it?
Well, then. I guess it must have been the whole
Final Exam Practice thingie.
So, all right. The prompt, such as it is, is this:
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.
Also, E3H-ers: I will be organizing the chapter 2 boards either tonight or tomorrow. Check back here for further info!
And don't forget that Capstone Project!
E2CP-ers: Do the Final Exam practice thingie by Christmas and work on a new WW piece for Jan 3. :-)
And all of you CW folks looking for a greater understanding of the final project for your class?
The assignment: Examine pieces from each of your high school years.Find work from each of the Writing Workshop experiences you have had and trace your growth as a writer through this fall.
What have you learned?
What have been the greatest catalysts of that growth?
With what do you continue to struggle?
Where will your future focuses be?
Quote from your own work. Liberally sprinkle this with bits and pieces of you. Finally, put it together in a micro-portfolio (no need for anything fancy this time) that illustrates your personal writing journey over the last four years.
You may do a mini-portfolio, but I’d actually prefer that you do this in a completelydifferentformat. Try something you’ve never tried before. Make a DVD* or CD-ROM. Make a web-site** or blog***.You are creative people: be creative! The rules are that you must explore your career in writing as noted above, but the format is wide open.
* Lots of programs make this easy. I’m a Mac girl myself, so I use iMovie. Easy as pie.
** Mac has one for this too: iWeb. I imagine Vista has one, but I don’t know that universe.
*** Here’s a super-simple option and it’s universal: use Google! If you create a free account on Google, they will guide you through the creation of a blog, provide templates, and publish it for you!
So…have fun!
This is due when we get back, so we can share them in class on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. (I won’t be here on Friday due to Theatre Fest.)
Want an example or two (or four)? Here are some blogs from last year (besides Betsy's that I showed you in class). I can't show you the videos or magazines, but I can show you these. :-)
Well, my voice is slowly coming back from the dead, so that's a good thing. Nothing like sleeping for 20 out of 24 of the last day's hours. And tea...lots of tea. I've consumed half of the tea in my classroom closet and no coffee at all since Sunday.
Of course, pretty much everything else gets screwed up along the way. I feel as if I need to restart E2CP. E3H has one section that is a day behind the other with a vacation looming. CW has portfolios due tomorrow and...well...we shall see.
But, hey: it's Christmas! It's all good! Ho ho ho? Fa la la? Jingle? Right? :-)
Anyway...
CW: Boy oh boy, if you don't know where your portfolio is by now, there just isn't any hope. Congrats to Maddie and Jori and Matt, all of whom have already turned theirs in and can get a good night's sleep tonight. :-)
E3H: First of all, the fishbowl conversations went very well this week. Nice work! Almost all grades will be excellent. (Those that are not: join in next time!!!) As to the ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM, yes, Virginia, it's true: there is a Big Huge Gigantic Enormous Semester Project. But it's for the second semester, not the first. I'm introducing it now because, well, it is pretty darned big, and I thought having the Christmas break to begin considering and planning how to approach it might be rather useful for you. We will discuss this tomorrow, but I'd like to have each of you look at it tonight, so go to this link: Big Honking Semester Two English Project. Also, please bring in materials connected to your Writing Workshop tomorrow. I would like to take a moment to see where you are. This is the leftover Monday assignment.
E2CP: Please bring in your Writing Workshop materials tomorrow so I can see where you are. I need to know where you stand going into Christmas break. Also bring Sound and Sense (take another look at Ch. 4 tonight).
And now, possibly the single coolest video i will ever post here:
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.
