Humanities: Learning to Love You More and The End of the Year

Learning to Love You More lands on May 30th as we create a massive installation in the Food Court that people can witness before attending the final concert of the music department.

The rubric for your individual contribution is here.

Besides Learning to Love You More, you may have some past due work to get in. This includes:

• Flocabulary SAT #1 and SAT #2 Exercises/Word Castles and Retakes
• Little Brother Organizers #1 – #6
• Place of Significance or Secret of Significance Essay (same criteria as person of significance essay)
• Speak Graphic Organizers
• Speak Projects

Remember, we have also laid out the expectations for the final

The final will include :

• Reading and Responding (text connections and double entry journals)
• Graded Class Discussion
• Five Paragraph Essay (what you learned about yourself and others this year)
• Media Product (create any product you like to demonstrate what you have learned about Humanities this year)

Remember, you will not have your laptops after June 6.  (You have to turn them in during the day on June 7.)

That gives you about two weeks from now to work digitally.

 

Humanities: Impromptu Music Appreciation Day

Today we had planned to talk about Little Brother, the challenges of weighing privacy vs safety, and the ways in which one can take action when one disagrees with authority.

And we did that for a little while when it became apparent that people didn’t know who Bruce Springsteen is, or Fleetwood Mac, or Ani DiFranco, or Bob Dylan, or Nirvana, or Pearl Jam.

We sought to rectify this in the last 20 minutes or so of class today.

H/W:

Little Brother organizers (1 – 6) are due on Friday

Flocabulary #2: Shakespeare is Hip Hop – Quiz next Thursday – Exercises due next Thursday

Learning to Love You More  – 7 assignments and accompanying artist statements due May 30th.

Don’t forget to turn in your essay that was due this past Monday

 

Humanities: The End (of the Year) is Nigh

Monday we talked about the power of anonymity and how it works on The Daily Bulldog, Tuesday we learned about the power of persistence and integrated thinking from Steve Milligan of Phenix New Media and the Maine Arts Commission, and Wednesday we learned about what the rest of the year has in store.

Today?  Pre-write and write.  Working draft of a 5 paragraph essay due on Thursday.   The topics were sent to you in an email on Monday.  Here they are again:

Option 1: Discuss a place of significance in your life and the reasons why that place holds such significance for you.

Things to think about as your plan and write your essay:

What makes it so important?  What is that place like?  Was it a single moment that makes it so special or is it a place you return to often?  Is it a geographical location (a river, a pond, a mountain) or is it more everyday (your bedroom, your uncle’s garage)?  How can you help your reader see it but more importantly understand your point of view, help your reader see that place from your perspective?

Option 2: Discuss a secret of significance in your life, what you have kept secret and how that secret has had an impact on you.

Things to think about as you plan and write your essay:

Why did you choose to keep this secret?  Has the secret leaked at all?  Have you felt “branded” by the secret in some way?   What is it like to reveal the secret if only to Mr. Dunbar and Mr. Ryder?  What would happen if you let the secret out?  Where does the power of secrets come from?  What happens to Marcus when his secrets are revealed?

Thanks to Brooke for that 2nd option — it’s a great idea.

The rubric will be exactly the same as it was for the Person of Significance essay. http://www.rcampus.com/rubricshowc.cfm?code=L93W35&sp=no&mode=framed&nocache=1367885582661

You need to use one or more pre-writing strategies which may be using graphic organizers to plan, creating webs, creating outlines, doing some free writing, making lists, drawing cartoons, doing some visual thinking.

Calendar for End of the Year in Humanities 2013 (also on Google Drive here)

Date	What? (This is what we’re doing in class and/or what is due ON that day)
5/7	Steve Milligan – Power of Coding, 3D Design, etc. Presentation
5/8	Little Brother — Up to Chapter 10, Some Essay Work
5/9	Little Brother — Up to Chapter 11, Working Draft of Essay Due
5/10	Little Brother — Up to Chapter 12, Writer’s Workshop
5/13	Little Brother — Up to Chapter 14, Essays Due, Intro. Learning to Love You More (LTLYM)
5/14	Little Brother — Up to Chapter 15, Work on LTLYM
5/15	Little Brother — Up to 16, Work on LTLYM
5/16	Little Brother — Up to 17, Work on LTLYM
5/17	Little Brother — Up to 18, Work on LTLYM
5/20	Little Brother — up to 21, Work on LTLYM, Wrap up LB stuff, LTLYM
5/21	LTLYM
5/22	LTLYM
5/23	LTLYM
5/24	LTLYM
5/27	Memorial Day – No School.
5/28	LTLYM
5/29	LTLYM
5/30	LTLYM Installation (Food Court?)
5/31	Senior Assembly Day — Short Class — Flex Day — Assign Parts of the Final?
6/3	Romeo & Juliet
6/4	Romeo & Juliet
6/5	Romeo & Juliet
6/6	**ALL WORK (EXCEPT FOR FINAL) DUE.**, Romeo & Juliet
6/7	Last Day with Laptops (turn ‘em in today) — think about what parts of the final you need to complete before turning in your laptop.
6/10	Work on Final
6/13	Part 1 of in-class Final
6/14	Part 2 of in-class Final

Humanities: Point of View, TED Talks, and Little Brother 4

Hi folks,

Mr. Ryder and Mr. Dunbar are out this afternoon and you are all recovering from a week of Harajuku Fun Madness.

Today in class you have a few different tasks to complete.

The first is the Flocabulary #1 quiz.  It is in your e-mail.  Thank you for being honorable when you take the quiz.  That’s why we love you, folks.  You are good people.

After taking the quiz, watch the video at this link.  Notice how Adam Mordecai , a blogger at Upworthy, added little time code notes for the readers of his blog.  That’s important for the next step in your day.  Make sure you check out his notes though HERE.

After watching that video, take a look at this collection of TED Talks that Mr. Dunbar pulled together. After watching one of them all the way through, create your own time stamp notes a’la Adam Mordecai.  You should have at least 7 time stamp notes, and three of them should connect to Little Brother in some way.  Post a link to the video on your blog as well as your time stamp notes.

And finally, Little Brother Organizer #4 is available.  You will need to watch this video on Point of View to help you out.

 

H/W:

Complete all of the above

Read Little Brother

Work on Little Brother organizers  (All are due by May 17)

BLOG BLOG BLOG!

Humanities: Little Brother, Harajuku Fun Madness, Flocabulary and More

This week, our energy has been very much on Little Brother and trying to find active ways to dig into all the different issues going on with the book.

Monday, it was using Legos to create devices that solve our problems — much as Marcus creates those that solve his.

Tuesday, we played a Harajuku Fun Madness sort of game to explore issues in the book using QR codes and such.

Wednesday, we worked on catching up with reading, worked on the graphic organizers, and studied for Flocabulary SAT #1: Transformation quiz on Thursday.

Thursday, we will take that quiz and then we will  . . . well . . . let us see . . .

So far our surprises have worked fairly well . . .

Don’t forget to read a chapter of Little Brother a night, two on the weekends, and to complete the graphic organizers shared in your Google Drive.  There are three so far, all eight being due on May 17th.

Humanities: Little Brother Begins . . .

We begin today by sharing our Speak projects.  Folks will lay out their Speak projects between the two rooms and complete the feedback forms for each project as you circulate.  It’s a way to share your amazing work without the worry and anxiety of standing in front of the room.

Then, thanks to the unreliability of the internet in the condos right now, we are off to The Forum.

In the Forum we will spend some time on Flocabulary and looking at the tools you can use to learn those words from Flocabulary SAT 1: Transformation.  There’s also a Quizlet for SAT 1.

And then we dig into Little Brother by Cory Doctorow.  Something unique about this book — he has made it available as an e-book for free since he first wrote it.  He’s an interesting cat.  You can find out a ton about him by checking out these videos.   And there are loads and loads of other videos  and articles featuring him online.

Over the space of the next four weeks, you need to complete eight graphic organizers.  How much you read in order to complete them is up to you.  We have a reading schedule and you may want to write up an organizer every couple of chapters or so.

The first Little Brother Graphic Organizer is here and the other seven will be available very soon.

It is a chance for you to take control of your learning and follow a schedule that best fits your learning patterns.  It may feel very overwhelming if you choose to wait until last minute to do them all.

H/W: 

Read Little Brother Chapter 1 – Due Tomorrow (Friday)

Graphic Organizer #1 – Assigned (All are due by May 17)

Complete the blog post on which U.S. Constitutional Amendments relate to you.  See yesterday’s post for more detail on this assignment.

Flocabulary SAT #1: Quiz and Exercises/Word Castles – Due Next Thursday!

Humanities: The Constitution & Boston

Today we pulled together the parts and pieces of Monday and Tuesday into something bigger.  

We started with a quick review of the issues that the U.S. Constitution addresses by looking at the document Mr. Dunbar distributed Tuesday and identifying which amendments connect to those issues.

Then we took a look at this video featuring coverage of the manhunt for the Boston bombing suspects.  We identified the amendments with clear connections to this event and this news broadcast in particular.

H/W:

Look at the 27 Amendments to the Constitution. Which 3 or 4 of them are the most relevant to your life? Why are they the most relevant? Post the answers to those questions to your blog.  Due Friday, 4/26

Flocabulary SAT #1: QUiz and Exercises/Word Castles due next Thursday, 5/2

Get ready for Thursday – project share and the start of Little Brother!

Humanities: Exploring the Constitution

Today, the internet did us in.  Again.  It is getting quite frustrating.  We soldiered on, however, and accomplished quite a bit regardless.

Vocabulary:  Flocabulary!  It begins now and runs through the end of the year.   (We have a free trial available to us and we want to try it out.)  We are going to be working with the SAT program on here, starting with SAT #1: Transformation.  Mr. Dunbar and Mr. Ryder think this could be a pretty powerful way to learn a bunch of vocab in a hurry.  We will be doing a pre-test today and then you can measure that against what you get on the actual quiz.

There will be a quiz next Thursday on these twenty words.  Instead of Word Castles, you may choose to complete the Exercises you can download from the site.  (You don’t have to complete both of the crossword puzzles listed.)

The log-in information was up on the board.  Ask us and we can tell you.  (It’s easy to remember.)

Constitution:  We broke into about ten groups to explore the United States Constitution.  In light of what happened in Boston last week and in Newtown a few months ago, the Constitution is under tremendous scrutiny  right now.  And there’s more issues coming up every day it seems.

So . . . we need to better understand it.

Your group was assigned three amendments and then followed these steps:

1) Read your amendments.  Make a list of all of the words you don’t know.

2) Look at this list of issues related to the Constitution.   Connect your amendments to the issues listed here.

We will be digging into this even further on Wednesday and making connections to the Boston Marathon bombings.

Remember, you also have homework from Monday due on Wednesday.

H/W:

Find two articles/videos, one full of reliable information about the Marathon Bombings, one full of unreliable information.

Post both links on your blog and then complete the three text connections — text to text, text to self, text to world – for that reliable article.  We’ll be looking at what people posted on Wednesday.

On Thursday, we will have our big project share from Speak.  Should be quite exciting to see what everyone has done.

Flocabulary #1 – work and quiz next Thursday, 5/3