9 CPI: Final Readings Posted

For the final, you will want to have read these selections prior to coming.

This little packet (posted on the Google Drive) includes:

* Two pages from Romeo & Juliet from Act 2, scene 2 a.k.a. The Balcony Scene

* Two pages from To Kill a Mockingbird where Scout and Atticus are sitting on the porch after Scout has had a rough day at school

* Three pages from Of Mice & Men where Lennie is talking to Crooks, the African-American stable buck (tends the horses and gear)

* An article from Wired magazine about people making their own apps to solve interesting problems

* An article from Wired magazine about Pinterest and social media and the sorts of things that gain popularity on social media

Make sure you bring the packet with you to the final.

At the final you will write three DEJs, one on theme, one on characterization, and one on point of view.

You will also do a set of text connections (text to text, text to world, text to self)

And then we will have a graded class discussion.

BRING your five paragraph essay about what you have learned about yourself, others, and English this year to the final.  You will probably not have time to write that in class.  (It should have a hook intro and a solid thesis, strong details in the three body paragraphs, and a “so what?” conclusion

9 CPI: DEJs for the Final

Double Entry Journals are part of our common assessments in the ninth grade, so they are part of your final.

For this work, you need to complete a grand total of six DEJs before coming to the final.

2 on Characterization

2 on Point of View

2 on Theme

A DEJ consists of finding a brief passage from a reading and then a paragraph of analysis where you explain how the creator/author/director uses the technique/device you are discussing.

I’ve posted an example of two characterization DEJs from Of Mice & Men.  We created these during period 1.

Since you have to turn in the computers on June 7th, create your DEJs on Google docs so you can access them from any computer even after the 7th.

When you come to your final, you will have to write 3 DEJs over the short story you will be assigned.  You will have to do these by hand.  Think of these first six as practice leading up to those.

All Classes: Mine of Steel

9 CPI: Work To Be Done & Final Preview (You Might Want to Get Started)

Five paragraph essays, tolerance projects, social network profiles & interviews, Flocabulary and blogs.  There are a lot of zeroes in the books at the moment.  Let’s get this work done and end the year strong.

1. Five Paragraph Essay: Place of Significance (Same rubric as Person of Significance; Write about a place or places this time)

Due: Wednesday, May 29th.  We will have a workshop time available on today and Friday for those who would like to take advantage.

2. Social Network Profiles & Interviews

Past Due: Monday, May 17th.

Parts of that project you need to make sure you complete:

• STEAL interview organizers (Interview subjects and consider what you learn about them from their speech, their thoughts, the effect they seem to have on others, their actions, and their looks)
• Practicum student profile pages (Take those interviews and create social network profile pages based on that information; do your best to create those pages from their points of view rather than your own — it should feel like they are the ones that made it — very personal, very specific; the elements of your class’ social network are in your inboxes)
• Final profile page (of someone you see everyday but do not know well) (Same as practicum pages, but for that one other interview and an example of your best possible work)

When most folks have this in, I have another piece of the work that needs to be completed.  Without the profiles, done, though it won’t mean much to do that final piece of work.

3. Flocabulary Exercises & Retakes

Past Due: May 20th &  May 2nd (and April 9 for Roots 11)

Remember: You can retake any vocabulary quiz as long as you study and show me evidence of that studying

Today’s magic number? Zero.  That number is the number of people who have chosen to retake a vocab quiz this year.

4. Tolerance Project

Past Due: April 24

Some folks have gotten parts and pieces of this project done.  Missing self assessments from many folks.

5. Blogs.

This is the last week of blogging.  That gives you a couple of weeks to get caught up.  Use your blog to help you get your other work done.  Post drafts of your essay.  Self assess your tolerance project in a blog post.  Try using your Flocabulary words in a post.  So many ways to keep your blogging relevant and avoid making it feel like added “busy” work.   (If it feels like busy work, it is because you have made the choice to treat it as such.)

AND ….

The Final

The final will have four equally weighted components:

1) Read and respond – text connections and double entry journals

You will receive a reading the week before the final. Come to class having read it and be prepared to make text connections and complete double entry journals over it.

2) Graded class discussion – we will discuss the year in review; to meet the standard you must make two meaningful contributions to the conversation; to exceed you must make three. You will also be sharing your final PBL products during this time.

3) Five paragraph essay – In a five paragraph essay, discuss what you learned about yourself, others, and English this year.  You do not have to limit yourself to what you learned about others in this class or about yourself in this class.  Think about yourself as a freshman.  The rubric will be the same as for the Person and Place of Significance essays.

Write this before you come to class.  You will not have time in class to write a meaningful, powerful essay that meets or exceeds the standards.

4) Project Based Project of Your Choice

Just like in the fall, choose a topic of interest to you, develop an essential question, and create a product that demonstrates the answer to that essential question.

 

 

9 CPI: Flocabulary #2, Romeo & Juliet, and Social Networks

On Thursday, I’ll be with the PACE class at the MLTI Student Conference in Orono.  While I’m gone, you folks will be crazy productive.

Start with FLocabulary SAT #2: Shakespeare Is Hip-Hop.  Dig out the song, listen to the lyrics, get on Quizlet, do some activities, complete the exercises.  Lots to do around that.  Use about 15 minutes of class for that.  There is a quiz next Monday.

From there, you will have a fifteen minute clip — or so — of Romeo & Juliet to watch – the 1967 Zefferelli edition which is supposed to look historically authentic to when the play actually takes place.  (We are in Verona, Italy rather than Verona Beach, California.)  This clip will be in the Google Drive.  A volunteer should hook up a laptop to the screen and speakers to watch.  I want you to see the difference in how the story plays out.

Finally, you have the rest of class to work on your profiles.  Here is what I am expecting you to turn in for Monday:

4 total profile pages (3 from practicum students, 1 from someone who you see all the time but don’t really know)

Be prepared to turn in your interview notes as well.

You will be doing a blog entry on Monday about these profiles and the sort of thinking it required of you.  Be prepared.

9 CPI: Work Those Interviews & Profiles

On Tuesday, we will start with Romeo & Juliet, the film version of the play directed by Baz Luhrman, the same cat who directed The Great Gatsby.  We will watch 10-15 minutes a day each class until we get to the end of the year.

Then we will do a quick activity to get us more familiar with your Flocabulary #2 words.  And I will introduce an optional project – Learning to Love You More — that some of you might want to make.

From there, it will be time to work, work, work.  Your profiles from your practice interviews with practicums are due.  I’m excited to see those.  Your interviews for your final product were supposed to be completed.

I’ll be conferencing with each of you, looking at the profiles you’ve made so far, giving you feedback, so you can make sure your final is spot on.

Final profiles due at next Monday, May 20th.  You will have Thursday, May 16 to work on them in class.

H/W:

Flocabulary #2 – Quiz and exercises due May 20th

Final social network profiles – Due May 20th

Make up work & projects

Blog! Blog! Blog!  Last week of blogging will be the week of May 24th!

9 CPI: Social Networks, Interviews & More

Wednesday’s practicum student interviews went incredibly well.  Woot.  Now . . . next steps.

Take the information from the interviews and create profile pages for your social network.  I suggest using Pages or Comic Life to create a template for your social network.  On Pages, use the “text box” feature to create your layout.  Be certain to set them as floating and also to turn off the text wrapping function.   That way you can move them anywhere on the page.

After creating your template, create a profile page for each of your interview subjects.

Remember, as we are doing this work you are demonstrating your understanding of STEAL characterization techniques and the importance of adopting someone else’ point-of-view.  Get inside your interview subject’s head and create that profile page as though you were that person.

Between now and next class, you must interview three people you see often, but do not know.  These may be community members, school staff or faculty members, or students.  Use the interview form that Ms. Murphy developed.  You will be creating profile pages for these folks next class, so make sure you have that information ready to go.

H/W:

Three interviews using the STEAL interview graphic organizer.  – Due next class

Social Network Profile Pages for Practicums – Due next Class (Choose one of your interview subjects)

Social Network Profile Pages for People You See Everyday- Due NEXT Thursday

Flocabulary #2: Shakespeare is Hip Hop – Due Monday 5/20

9 CPI: Social Network Mock Interviews, Characterization, Point of View

Today we continue working on our new social networks and doing the work necessary toward building profiles using our crazy strong knowledge of characterization, point of view and social media.

Everything starts with Flocabulary SAT #2: Shakespeare Is Hip-Hop.  There will be a quiz and exercises on this list due on Monday, May 20.  And remember, you can re-take #1 if you demonstrate/document some studying, some practicing.

From there, you will conduct some mock interviews courtesy Ms. Murphy and the colleagues she has lined up to help.  Follow her directions throughout this experience.  You will benefit from taking it seriously as this is giving you the practice you before doing your actual interviews.

You should use this STEAL graphic organizer to help you in the interview.  You need to turn it in at the end of class.

After conducting the mock interviews, start constructing a profile page for your social network using Pages or Google Drive.  Fill that profile page with the information from your interviewee.  Someone in each class offered to make a template for everyone to use.  Hopefully those templates are ready to go.  If not, create your own.

On Friday, we will spend more time with profiles and prepare for the work you need to do between Friday and next Tuesday.

 

9 CPI: Social Networks, Characterization, Point of View & More

Today we start designing a better social network and doing the pre-planning we need to do in order to create that network.

We’ll start by watching these three clips from The Social Network.  After watching each clip, identify what you can learn about the protagonist, Mark Zuckerberg as played by Jesse Eisenberg, and which characterization techniques (STEAL) the filmmaker uses to deliver that information about the character.  You might want to blog these understandings for quick reference.

• Girls That Row Crew: http://cli.ps/iHfqR
• We’re Ranking Girls: http://cli.ps/8PcC
• We’re Putting It Online: http://movieclips.com/QRFrt-the-social-network-movie-putting-it-online/

After this, we will brainstorm all of the social media networks that we know.   You can find reminders, inspirations and piles of information here: http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/55-interesting-social-media-infographics/

This leads to us working in small groups to design our ideal social network tools.    We will share these ideas and come up with common denominators a.k.a. the parts and pieces we can all agree should be part of our social network.

Now . . . all of this is leading toward the following work: interviews and profile building.

Here’s the one characteristic of our social network that will make it unique: users don’t create their own profiles; the network creates it for them.  What?!!?  Yes.  I’ll explain . . .

You will be interviewing people you see everyday, but do not know.  They can come from three categories: students, teachers/staff, community members.  For example, you might buy a soda from the same store at the same time everyday, but not know the name of that person behind the counter.  You might sit in a learning lab with a teacher you know nothing about.  You might eat lunch at a table next to a group of juniors you don’t know — and sit there every day.

You will be interviewing them and using that information you learn about them to create their profile for our new social network.  After you create the profile, you will meet with them again to see how well you did with your information and design work.

The point of it all? To use your STEAL knowledge and combine it with your P.O.V. knowledge to create profiles that you can feel confident accurately represent these people or “characters” you have just come to know because you have been able to adopt their points of view.

Some of the essential questions you may be answering: How do we get to know a person through social media?  What makes a social network successful and powerful?  What can we gain from better knowing the people around us?

On Wednesday, we will practice our interview skills as we know we need to go out into the world and do this for real.

This video should help us with that.

H/W:

1. Prepare questions to ask the interview subjects about the various information your class chooses to have in its social network.  Check your e-mail for your class list of topics.

2. Tolerance Projects, Self-Assessments: PAST DUE! Get ’em in.

3. New Flocabulary list is coming on Monday.  Make sure you have done the work for Flocabulary list #1!!!!

4. Blog, blog, blog!  Remember, 3 per week.  Lots of topics available to you right now.  Use it to plan your interview, your network, talk about the power of the internet, etc.

9 CPI: Week of 4/30 and 5/2; Characterization

Well folks, things have been going well in class but not well on Flight 307.  I typically post our thinking and work during your PrimeTime, but the last few classes we’ve run into internet troubles.

Here’s a recap of the work we’ve been doing this week.

We’ve moved from a focus on point-of-view to a focus on characterization, while still remember that we need to access that point of view information.

On Tuesday, we were introduced to the concept of STEAL by Ms. Murphy.

Speech

Thoughts

Effect on Others

Actions

Looks

Those are the indirect ways that an author creates a character.  It is also the ways in which we learn about people around us.  Those are the tools we use to evaluate the people around us, to make judgements about them, to make choices about engaging them as friends or avoiding them altogether.

Here’s a slideshare to help you remember them all.

Methods of Characterization from kjhatzi

On Thursday, we will be working with this same characterization info, we will be taking that quiz, and we will be looking ahead at our future up to the end of the year.

The only homework was to study for the Flocabulary SAT #1: Transformation quiz on Thursday, complete the exercises there on the Flocabulary website (print and complete) and make sure you’ve got your tolerance project in and self-assessed.  (That last part was due last week so this shouldn’t feel that overwhelming IF you’ve been on top of it.)

We used clips from Mean Girls to help us see this work in action and then lines of dialogue and narration from Of Mice and Men and To Kill a Mockingbird amongst others.