Humanities: Habits of Mind Work Continues

Thursday, you have two options.

1) Completing the missing work  that demonstrates your understanding of the Of Mice & Men/Poverty Culture unit.

Or

2) Create a short film, play or comic strip that demonstrates your understanding of four of the sixteen habits of mind and where they have appeared in our work thus far this year.

This extends from the work we did on Tuesday and Wednesday, paraphrasing the Habits of Mind, identifying those we think most critical to understanding, and then doing some work around our strengths and weaknesses.

All of this is so we can best identify ways of developing our habits of mind moving forward and so Mr. Dunbar & I can develop a system of tracking and reporting your growth.

Here's some pics of the work we did.

HOMEWORK

Blog: 3+ Posts 
Req'd Post of the Week:  What do you think of these habits of mind?  Why do they seem important?  How well developed are these habits for you?
Due: Friday, December 20

Study & Complete Roots 7: Product & Quiz
Due: Thursday, December 19 TODAY!!!!

Projects & Arguments, Self Assessments & Reflections
Due: ASAP

AP Lit 2B/3B: Poetry As Design EXPERIMENT PHASE!

Today, we play with design & poetry.

We are in the EXPERIMENT phase of our DEEP design thinking process.

We will briefly review the CRAP principles of effective design by looking at them in practice.

And we will take a look at some particularly design-oriented poetic terms that will be particularly helpful on the AP Lit test as well.  They are highlighted here on this collection of terms from Dennis Carroll.

We'll see if we can identify some by looking at one or two of the poems in the Poet Speaks of Art collection from Harry Rusche at Emory University or perhaps by looking at the Scottish Poetry Library and its poster collection.

And then we make! Design Challenge: In 25 minutes, create a design inspired by a song or poem that works toward our collaborative goal.

Some of Tuesday's results from the Commercial Arts/AP Lit collaborative.  This class worked with Miley Cyrus' "Wrecking Ball."

HOMEWORK

Blog: 3+ Posts

NOTE: 2 Req'd Posts 

1 Req'd Hamlet: Act II.  Branagh. The guy directed Thor.  Check out his Hamlet. And your Drive. Thoughts?

2nd Req'd: Post Your Suggested Means/Proposal/Prototype of Collecting Evidence of Thinking & Writing Processes as well as your thoughts on what the end products should look like to be most useful in demonstrating your understanding as well as being useful in the future.

Due: Friday, December 20

Watch:

Clips of Branagh Hamlet posted and shared for Act II in your Google Drive.

Reflect on Blog w/ Analysis/Thoughts on Versions

Due: Friday, December 20

Design:

Poetry as Design Project (create one poem, create visual interpretation of a found poem)

2 Products Total

1 must be a design interpretation of a found poem/lyric

1 must be connected to the collaborative goal

From there:

1 may be an original poem

1 may be a personal piece

Both may be connected to your goal

Friday:

Graded Class Discussion

1st Semester In Review Including But Not Limited To:

* Big Take Aways?

* Where Are the Gaps?

* What Is Working?

* What Could Help Things Work Even Better?

Not going to be in class?  Put these ideas on . . .  your blog!  Record them!  (This is a listen/speaking assessment after all.)

Due: End of 1st Week of January (we may want to think about an installation/publication the 2nd week of January)

Think ahead: 

Revisions of Synthesis Essay

Indie Book Project Due at Top of Q3

PACE: Calibrating & Project Work

We have spent the last month of class focusing on the reading standard.

Today we take some time to self-assess what we have learned, what we have done to demonstrate that learning by using the reading standard self-assessment chart in your PACE 2013 OUT folder.

And then there will be time to work on your poetry projects, due Thursday.  Remember, if you have your project done and submitted, you will not have any work to do over break.

When we return from break: writing.

HOMEWORK

Blog: 3+ Posts
Req'd Post:  Personal semester year in review.  Where are you at?  Where have you been?  How have you grown?  How would you like to grow?  What is working well for you in this class?  What could help you do even better?
Due: Friday, December 20

Complete Project: Poetry Is Music Is Poetry
Due: Thursday, December 19

Complete: Graphic Organizers
Due: PAST Due

Humanities: Introducing the Habits of Mind

I know they were in your guidelines and expectations at the beginning of the year, along side academic initiative.

Perhaps we should have done this before now, but here we are going to dive into the Habits of Mind.  What they mean and how we can develop them.

We started class today with an improv game called "World's Worst."  We've played it before, but I had forgotten.  We started with breakfast cereals and worked up to scenes of the world's worst students.

Then we went to BlueLab and did some brainstorming with post-it notes and big ol' tables.  We identified qualities that make up:

• good students
• good leaders
• good employees
• good problem solvers

We noticed that these four groups of people share very similar positive qualities.

From there, we handed out an explanation of the 16 Habits of Mind from Costa & Kallick.

From Mindwerx.com

Each of those habits was printed on a different sheet of paper.  We sorted our qualities of effective leaders, problem solvers, students and employees on to the different habits based only on what we could figure out from the sheets.  No teaching has happened yet, so this is a scary place to be.

We took some time to check our work after this sort.

And then we reflected by adding "I Noticed/I Wonder/I Think/I Want" statements to a white board using post-its. (This way we can do some prioritizing on Tuesday.)

HOMEWORK

Blog: 3+ Posts 
Req'd Post of the Week:  What do you think of these habits of mind?  Why do they seem important?  How well developed are these habits for you?
Due: Friday, December 20

Study & Complete Roots 7: Product & Quiz
Due: Thursday, December 19

Projects & Arguments, Self Assessments & Reflections
Due: ASAP

AP Lit 2B/3B: Poetry as Design - Empathy Stage & More!

We're working our way through the design thinking process, which can seem like a long time before tangible products are in hand.  By following this process, however, we better ensure that which we make achieves our intended goals.

Remember, we are using the DEEP Design Thinking Process.

Last week, discovery.  Today, empathy.

We started by calibrating ourselves to last week's work and making sure we share a common goal within each class.

Note the sumo-esque qualities of the earlier goal set.  It felt powerful and big, but lumbering.

The team members luchadored their thinking and narrowed it into a nimble, powerful, explosive set.

The four elements at the bottom will serve as the concrete entry points for creating
poetry and designs that achieve the end goal.

Period 2B: To motivate and inspire students w/ "You Can Do It" Encouraging Michal philosophy
Period 3B: To encourage self-expression

From there we completed one of Standford's d.School empathy map exercises described in detail here with examples.

Here's what that work looked like:

These notes and ideas will go up in more detail on Tuesday.

Ultimately, they will inform the poetry and design pieces we create.

HOMEWORK

Blog: 3+ Posts

NOTE: 2 Req'd Posts 

1 Req'd Hamlet: Act II.  Branagh. The guy directed Thor.  Check out his Hamlet. And your Drive. Thoughts?

2nd Req'd: Post Your Suggested Means/Proposal/Prototype of Collecting Evidence of Thinking & Writing Processes as well as your thoughts on what the end products should look like to be most useful in demonstrating your understanding as well as being useful in the future.

Due: Friday, December 20

Watch:

Clips of Branagh Hamlet posted and shared for Act II in your Google Drive.

Reflect on Blog w/ Analysis/Thoughts on Versions

Due: Friday, December 20

Design:

Poetry as Design Project (create one poem, create visual interpretation of a found poem)

2 Products Total

1 must be a design interpretation of a found poem/lyric

1 must be connected to the collaborative goal

From there:

1 may be an original poem

1 may be a personal piece

Both may be connected to your goal

Friday:

Graded Class Discussion

1st Semester In Review Including But Not Limited To:

* Big Take Aways?

* Where Are the Gaps?

* What Is Working?

* What Could Help Things Work Even Better?

Not going to be in class?  Put these ideas on . . .  your blog!  Record them!  (This is a listen/speaking assessment after all.)

Due: End of 1st Week of January (we may want to think about an installation/publication the 2nd week of January)

Think ahead: 

Revisions of Synthesis Essay

Indie Book Project Due at Top of Q3

AP Lit 2B/3B: Poetry As Design Day Two (And what 3G did)

On Thursay, we we once again to tackle our design challenge.  It takes a stronger shape today.

And then we start that work . . .

DISCOVERY stage of DEEP design thinking.

Four stations.
Poetry.  What do we know? What do we want to know?
Design. What do we know? What do we want to know?
Lyrics/Song/Art. Importance Inventory. What seems important in this?
Problem discovery. What problems might we solve at MBC? Western ME? Beyond?

What happens next may look a lot like this  . . .

Some of the problems we might solve.

Some of the problems we might solve.

Discovering the problems we might solve.

Identifying and sorting the problems we might solve through this work.

Working with "All Fires" by Spencer Krug & Shaun Kardinal's "500/500," an art piece inspired by Krug's lyrics & music.

What we know and want to know about poetry.

What we want to know about design.

What we know about design.

Working with "All Fires" by Spencer Krug & Shaun Kardinal's "500/500," an art piece inspired by Krug's lyrics & music.

Next class we dig into experimenting and some empathy as well.

HOMEWORK

Blog: 3+ Posts

Period 2B: The Swimmer Playlist

Periods 3B/3G: Casting Call.  Hamlet.  Thus far.  Create the perfect cast list for Hamlet based on your reading so far.

Due: Friday, December 13

Watch:

Clips of Hamlet posted and shared for Act II in your Google Drive.

Reflect on Blog w/ Analysis/Thoughts on Versions

Due: Friday, December 13

Design:

Poetry Project (create one poem, create visual interpretation of a found poem)

More info to follow soon

Due: End of 1st Week of January

Think ahead: 

Revisions of Synthesis Essay

Indie Book Project Due at Top of Q3