Humanities: Let’s Get Some Work Done

Monday, Oct 15, in Humanities, we had a work session day.  Both Mr. Dunbar and Mr. Ryder had to be absent from the room for important meetings.

Everyone had these options for work

A) Of Mice & Men Closing Argument (working draft — beginning/middle/end – due Tuesday)

B) Revise Thinking to Succeed Essay (revisions due by 10/22 if choosing to do so)

C) Make Up Work (GISTs for Of Mice & Men, word castles, etc.)

D) Prime Time (silent reading)

Tuesday will be all about conferencing and workshopping as well as some continued discussion of morality.

9 CPI: That’s a Long Ways Up There: Red Bull Stratos Project

Monday, OCt 15, in both sections of 9 CPI, we started an inquiry-based mini-investigation into the Red Bull Stratos Project, the project responsible for Felix Baumgartner breaking the world skydiving record on Sunday, Oct. 14.

We watched this video of the event.

We developed questions and recorded them on question jar graphic organizer.

I explained how to use the I-Chart available here.

From there, we began to investigate the questions using information at Red Bull Stratos and Wired.

We will continue the investigation process on Wednesday and Friday.

Oh, we also stood on chairs and jumped.  It was 1/60,000th as awesome as what Baumgartner did.

9CPI: Monday, Oct 15th: Red Bull Stratos Inquiry

Today in both sections of 9 CPI, we started an inquiry-based mini-investigation into the Red Bull Stratos Project, the project responsible for Felix Baumgartner breaking the world skydiving record on Sunday, Oct. 14.

We watched this video of the event.

We developed questions and recorded them on question jar graphic organizer.

I explained how to use the I-Chart available here.

From there, we began to investigate the questions using information at Red Bull Stratos and Wired.

We will continue the investigation process on Wednesday and Friday.

Oh, we also stood on chairs and jumped.  It was 1/60,000th as awesome as what Baumgartner did.

9 CPI: Red Bull Stratos Project Inquiry Research

Today in both sections of 9 CPI, we started an inquiry-based mini-investigation into the Red Bull Stratos Project, the project responsible for Felix Baumgartner breaking the world skydiving record on Sunday, Oct. 14.

We watched this video of the event.

We developed questions and recorded them on question jar graphic organizer.

I explained how to use the I-Chart available here.

From there, we began to investigate the questions using information at Red Bull Stratos and Wired.

We will continue the investigation process on Wednesday and Friday.

Oh, we also stood on chairs and jumped.  It was 1/60,000th as awesome as what Baumgartner did.

Flight 307 Reborn

Eh . . . sorta . . . 

As I migrate away from Wikispaces (www.flight307.wikispaces.com) and move toward more real world tools, I’m hoping to embrace WordPress this year.  This is the industry standard for bloggers and so . . . it is what I want to use this year, it is what I want classes to use this year, and it will be a challenge well worth taking on.

Now that the laptops are rolling out like so many Autobots, we should be making full use of this blog.

Look to the left and you will see links to the various pages for the various classes.

You will also see a Twitter feed that gets more active as of Oct 15.

And below that you will find the tagging menu which serves as another way to search.

I’m going to try to use this as an information source for students, parents, other teachers, and more.

Let’s see how this goes, shall we?

For the Week of 9/24

So this week we really dig into the television unit in full force

For Tuesday, 9/25, you should have completed the 20 Important Television Items handout.

On Tuesday, 9/25, we’ll be exploring the basics of television sitcom structure and looking at the specific requirements related to the ‘We Ain’t No Sitcom Family’ project (It will be due the week of 10/15 so get started ASAP — it will account for most of your 1st quarter grade)

PCL: What are the family values that your family maintains here in 2007?

On Thursday, 9/27, we will explore a sitcom of the past — what we do
depends on a choice we make in class on Tuesday. Your PCL prompt is also reliant upon Tuesday’s choice.

A helpful link for your sitcom project would be this one related to sitcom structure. It should help you as you start thinking about story.

Another is here — it takes a little more sifting to get to the good stuff, but what you’ll find is worth it — especially the parts that regard old stability, instability, and new stability.

Hey, I Can Access Our Blog Again!

So, a few days have passed and for some reason I wasn’t able to get to our blog.  Hrmmm…

Well, that’s distressing because we lost a whole week of record.  In that time this happened:

*We designed restaurants

* We looked at food advertisements through the years

* We shared traditional foods from our homes

* We talked about the nature of the food industry and marketing

And now, we are ready to move to the world of television

On Wednesday, 9/19, after hearing a couple of last restaurant presentations, we will start by looking at a contemporary classic: The Simpsons.  We will watch the Monorail episode and see what we can discover about this historic show from one single episode.

For Friday, 9/21, read the two articles about The Simpsons and respond in your PCL: Based on what little or how much you know about The Simpsons, why do you think they have managed to stay on TV for so long?

Friday’s Class

I thought I’d use this space to post the homework as well, for people who could use the helpful reminder.

Complete: Cookin’ Cultchah inventory (9/11)
PCL: To What extent should restaurants be held accountable for the public health? (Start: Great American Eatery (due 9/17)

Besides that, I thought I’d toss you some of the interesting websites I’ve found regarding food and food culture.

History of Food Timeline — It links to a variety of other places; some of these may not be the best, but most are really pretty darn interesting.

Food History News — Scrowl right down to the ‘Worthy Websites’ section and make sure you head to the New York Public Library’s gallery of vintage menus.  Some really interesting stuff happening there.

Merchants of Cool

Folks,

Here is the URL to the show we watched in Wednesday’s class; there are a ton of links to additional information about cool hunting and marketing. You can find a ton of source material for your Pop Culture Logs in here.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/cool/view/

Hello All!

Hello, folks.

This shall be the starter blog for Pop Culture this semester. It’s a private blog in that it can’t be found through Google or other search engines. Until I can get one up and going through the school server, this is what we will use.

Some basic ground rules for comments and such, since this isn’t as secure as I’d like it to be for our purposes:

1. First name and last initial only on posts.

2. No specific references to our school name. Initials are fine.

3. The norms apply here as well.

I reckon that is it. I’ll be using this to post interesting links worthy of your attention and to keep the conversation and discussion going. I’ll also post day’s events here.