Humanities: Designing, Artifacting & Naming

We are going to continue shaping our room into a premiere thinking and learning space today.

Designing

We'll start with another round of Thirty Circles to get the brains flowing. 

From there, we will draw maps and construct Lego models of our new space.  These maps will go up on the wall and will help determine the best ideas for our space.

Cultural Anthropology

This leads us to the MakeSpace where we will be working with cultural artifacts and practicing our cultural anthropology skills.  Four tables will feature a number of artifacts.  Using your observation, inference and deduction skills to make hypothesis about who you believe owns each of those artifacts, Mr. Ryder or Mr. Dunbar. 

Homework

Due Thursday 9/5

Gather artifacts that represent you based on these criteria.

a. One artifact should be about you as a student. 

b. One artifact should be about you socially (family/friends)

c. One artifact should be about your personal interests/hobbies.

d. The last artifact is completely up to you.  

On the sheet provided, write a few sentences about what each artifact says about 

you.  Put all of the artifacts in the brown paper bag given you along with the rationales.  

Put your name ONLY ON THE SHEET.  


Identity Cultural Anthropology Experience:  We will place the artifacts that each of you have brought in 

paper bags. Your job/and my job will be to get one bag, put the items on your desk, take a 

look at them, and then circulate around the room.  Make your best guess as to who belongs 

to each set of artifacts and why you think that.

AP Lit: Designing, Guiding, Expecting, Sharing, Uniting, Ending

A tremendous amount to accomplish in a very short amount of time, these first two classes of the week.

Essential Question: Why Study Literature?

Sub EQ's:

• How do we define literature?
• How do we study literature?
• How can our space help us to better understand literature?

I will hand you a selection from How to Read Like a Professor that you are to close read and be prepared to apply and discuss next class.

Design

We'll start with the continuance of our design project by completing the Four Compass Points interview process.  During the interview, you will learn about your fellow classmates and what needs they have for this space as a place to study and understand literature, as well as problem solve, collaborate, and enjoy themselves.  This interview, along with your other observations and the ideas upon the walls, will inform the design work you will complete for homework: a diagram/model of the room as you believe it would best function.

Guidelines & Expectations

From here we will take some time to discuss the course guidelines & expectations.  You receive so much of this material in the first week of school, I prefer to save it for the second.  

Preview of Our Guidelines & Expectation

During this session we'll also talk about class norms: the behaviors and understandings we each need from one another in order to function well as a problem solving team.  I like to think of it as "How We Roll . . ."

Sharing Projects

Another round of summer project sharing.  I'll be asking folks to get ready for this during our Guidelines & Expectations conversation.  We can multitask like that, right?

Uniting Great Expectations & Empire Falls

I've begun assessing summer essays and I thought it might be helpful to the revision process if we explored some of the connections between these two works.   

Ender's Game

Today I assign the first one hundred pages of Ender's Game to be read for the first class of next week. We'll sign those out of the library to end class today.  This title is going to be our chief point of discourse around our essential question.  

H/W

Read: Ender's Game page 1-100 - Due 1st Class of Next Week (9th/10th)
Close Read: Intro to How to Read Like a Professor - Due Next Class (5th/6th)
Close Reading includes annotations: what you notice, questions you have, connections you can make
Design: Map/Visual of the classroom as you believe it would best suit the classes' needs - Due Next Class (5th/6th)