Eng 9: Presenting Tiny Houses & Stations in Transition

This week we continue sharing our Of Mice & Tiny Houses design challenges.  Remember to check out the rubric available here and to use the empathy map and intention map graphic organizers in your Google Drive English 9 OUT folders.

We will be using stations to help our transition from Of Mice & Men into our Marketing with Empathy unit that will result in us taking over WickedFocus.com from last year's classes.

Stations this week will include.

Jenga Your Roots.  Create Jenga constructs to represent Roots 7 terms.  Post images in your Google Drive folder.  Prepare for a quiz next week.

Frankenword.  Design new words using your Roots 6 & 7 terms.  Put them to work in sentences that relate to the bigger messages and themes from Of Mice & Men.

Theme.  Complete a Notice/Wish/Wonder over this video on Theme.

No Red Ink: Commonly Confused Words II.   Complete the diagnostic on No Red Ink and the practice, if you so choose, to prepare for a quiz next week.

Designing & Writing:  Several folks still need to complete their narrative writings and their tiny house designs.  There will be some time to do that at one of the stations.

Potent Quotables:  At the Potent Quotables station, you will be learning how to combine words from a text -- in this case Of Mice & Men -- and images from a source -- in this case, Unsplash.com -- to create a visual worth of sharing on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, Pinterest and beyond.  That visual will speak to one of the THEMES evident in Of Mice & Men.  You will need to explain your thinking and intentions as this will end up being a reading assessment for the quarter.

Here are some examples from the first sessions of Potent Quotables.

SHOW YOUR WORK.

OF MICE AND TINY HOUSES.
All work due ASAP.
Documentation (any photos, videos, notes, graphic organizers, etc.) must be in your Google Drive Eng 9 IN folder.

NARRATIVE WRITING 2.  Tell a story about the lesson you learned from the Cardboard Challenge.  Use powerful imagery and meaningful details to deliver a well organized story.
Revisions and Drafts due ASAP.
Must be in your Google Drive Eng 9 IN folder.

ROOTS QUIZZES.
NO RED INK MUGS Quizzes.
Coming up next week.
Retakes require evidence of practice.

Eng 9: Tiny House: DISCOVERY Phase continues: Of Mice and Men

Tiny House Design Challenge:  DISCOVERY Phase

Today we continued reading Of Mice & Men as we are learning more and more about our tiny house users, Lennie & George.

OF MICE AND MEN.

I read aloud from page 30 to 44.

We used sketchnoting to identify key ideas and observations from this chunk of the text, doodling and noting and including the page numbers to point to the moment in the text that inspired the doodle.  On Thursday we will read a very healthy portion of the book -- about 20 pages.

We'll use sketchnoting again, but each of us with a particular focus.

VOCAB ROOTS.

We also have a quiz on Roots 1-4 on Thursday.   Remember, you can also make a roots-based word product (story, song, rap, game, poem, instruction manual, video, animation, comic, sketchnote, etc.) to demonstrate your understanding.  

BLOGGING.

The last thing we did today was focus on creating posts for our blogs and using the new blog tracker.

Each week you will have optional creative challenges that can help you to meet those standards. This week is to create a soundtrack for the men living in the bunkhouse from Of Mice & Men.

You can also start your own passion/interest driven blog and use your posts there to count toward meeting your standards.  Say you really love working with animals or creating art or rebuilding engines.  Blog about it.  Put it in the blog tracker.  Boom.

After writing your post, you will need to choose which standards to count it toward and also self-assess the extent to which you met those standards.   You have the new blogging rubric and the blogging anchor pack to help you with that self-assessment.

SHOW YOUR LEARNING.

Blog.

Post(s) Due Friday.  11.13.15

Post & Self-Assess on the Blog Tracker.

Study.  Roots Quiz 4 (1-4)

Quiz.  Thursday 11.12.15

Humanities: Foreshadowing & Symbolism: Of Mice & Men and To Kill a Mockingbird

LNG.

Today we'll start as we do every Monday with an LNG.

FORESHADOWING.  OF MICE & MEN.

From there, we'll discuss the results of your foreshadowing work from Friday, connecting the dots between Steinbeck's first chapter of Of Mice & Men and what follows in the rest of the novel.

Remember, Steinbeck was a designer.  He wanted his users to have very specific reactions to his worked with intention.

In fact, take a look at these 6 tips on writing from the man himself.   How do these tips help us better understand what he intended to do with Of Mice & Men?  How can you see them reflected in the novel he wrote?

FORESHADOWING & SYMBOLISM.  TO KILL a MOCKINGBIRD.

We are going to study the film To Kill a Mockingbird at the end of this week.  To help us, we are going to tune up our symbolism lens, as well as our photography and videography skills.

Today we will watch just the first three minutes of the film.  Just like a Of Mice & Men, the opening tells us a great deal about the end.  We will be making predictions of what we believe this film will be about, what will happen, and what sorts of symbolism we will encounter.  How can we do this?  Because we've uncovered Speak and Of Mice & Men.  We can do this.  We're ready for the challenge of making some evidence & pattern-based predictions.

The clip is the Humanities OUT folder.

You'll need to grab screencaps from the film and put them in the graphic organizer I've placed there as well.

ASSESSMENTS.

Blog.  3+ Posts
Req'd Post.  Foreshadowing with Pictures.  Tell a 3 to 5 picture story in images that uses at least one instance of foreshadowing in the first image.  How can you hint at what will happen in the end by hinting in the first image?  You may take photos or draw this story.  Explain your thinking at the end.
Due.  Friday, Mar 27.  Last Req'd Post of the Quarter.

Of Mice & Men Foreshadowing Graphic Organizer.
Due.  Today.  Mar 23.

To Kill a Mockingbird Foreshadowing Graphic Organizer.
Due.  Tuesday.  Mar 24.

Romeo & Juliet Projects.  Due ASAP.

Theme Song Essay Revisions.  Due ASAP.  

Humanities: Work Session

Today you will have time to do work.

Start by working on roots 6. Remember, we brainstormed a number of products you could make that are not word maps.

In your inbox, you have an exit ticket that MUST BE COMPLETED at the end of the day.  This will be an academic initiative grade.

• Exceed the standard by providing DETAILED, SPECIFIC information about your work for the day.
• Meet the standard by providing specific information about your work for the day.  
• Partially meet the standard by providing some information about your work for the day.  How might you go deeper?
• Do not yet meet the standard by providing minimal information about your work for the day. How can we help you fill this out more effectively?

HOMEWORK

Blog: 3+ Posts this week

Creative Blog Entry: Casting Call.  Select at least two actors/actresses for a new version of Of Mice & Men. Explain your casting decisions by referencing the performers prior roles, embedding images that prove they have the necessary "look," and making an argument that these are the BEST people for the roles.  

Due: Friday, December 6

Complete: Project Proposal Form

Due: TODAY (one day later  than due date)

Study: Roots 6 Quiz & Product

Due: Thursday, December 5

Closing Arguments

Due: Friday, December 6

Photo Essay/StoryCorps

Due: Tuesday, December 10

Humanities: Roots 5 & Of Mice & Men and More

We'll be starting with Roots 5 and giving folks a chance to get their Word Maps started.

From there we will work on Of Mice & Men, with Mr. Ryder reading a solid chunk and time to  complete Three 4 Thinking #2.

Update: By a solid chunk, he finished the book.  Everyone should be finished by Wednesday.

Then we'll wrap with a chance to do some pre-thinking and planning on our project options.  What would you make? Who might you interview? What questions might you ask?  What pictures might you take?  What evidence might you be able to find?

HOMEWORK

Finish: OF MICE & MEN.
If you haven't.

Blog: 3+ Posts
Req'd Creative Post:
Choose any character from Of Mice & Men and create a photo essay about that character's hopes and dreams for his or her future.  Post or link those images on the blog.  Try to write in the voice of the character.
Due: Friday, Nov 15

Complete: Three 4 Thinking Of Mice & Men #2
Due: Today

Study & Complete: Roots 5
Quiz & Word Map
Due: Thursday, Nov. 21

Humanities: Improvising Of Mice & Men & Socratic Seminar

We spent today in the Forum, because we did some improv acting, a little dramatic reading and then some deep questioning.  

We started with a quick refresher of the book by means of a quick game of symphony.  We thought of words that described Lennie & George as well as words that stood out to us in the text.

Then Mr. Ryder read aloud up through the next chapter break around page 36 or so.  We countered the rest of the bunk house for the first time, as well as the boss' son, Curley, and Curley's wife.  We are about a third of the way through the novel.  

To check for understanding of the scenes, we recreated tableaus, frozen images, from the story so far.  Groups had to guess which moments from the book the other groups were recreating.  

We ended with a socratic seminar that started verbally and then moved to a digital back channel on Today's Meet.  You can access the back channel here.

Homework

Blog:

3+ Posts

Req'd: Post 3 images/symbols that represent the 1st quarter for you; after posting the images, write a single paragraph of explanation

Due: Friday, Nov. 1st

Everything Else:

Grades Close Today: Friday, Nov. 1st

Humanities: Of Mice & Men Begins

Yesterday (and today) we started our work with John Steinbeck's Of Mice & Men.

On Wednesday, we started by signing out our books.  Then we took a look at the newly created Three 4 Thinking Google doc that's in the Humanities 2013 OUT folder on Drive.  You now have two options, the downloadable and uploadable PDF and the way, way cooler Google doc that you can make a copy of and then put right in your IN folder.

As Mr. Ryder read out loud, we started the process of thinking about our reading.  We completed two of the four boxes, with two more to complete another day.

Also during the reading, Mr. Ryder asked folks to make note of important words in the description of the setting, as well as key words that describe the two main characters (who we later learned to be named George & Lennie).  After everyone cut and paste those words to a shared Google doc., Mr. Dunbar made a Wordle out of the common words.  Words that stood out included "recumbent" and "Gabilan."

After Mr. Ryder read the whole first section/chapter of Of Mice & Men, he and Mr. Dunbar modeled how to do "How might we" thinking with four essential questions the class voted on for our poverty unit.

That ended Wednesday's class.

On Thursday,  class started with a roots activity.  Everyone grabbed a few Legos and built representations of roots from Roots 4.  Mr. Ryder built a ridiculously cool representation of "bell" (war), but forgot to take a picture of it.  Visiting the PACE link over to the right will take you to a list of blogs where you can see various Lego/Roots designs.

From there, Mr. Dunbar and Mr. Ryder finished their "How Might We" thinking about this unit.  We divided into four groups from there to keep working on it and so students could contribute in put.  Two of the groups made the following happen.

We returned as a class and jumped right into another chunk of Of Mice & Men.

On Friday, we will make some decisions regarding our "how might we" work and finish our Three 4 Thinkings.  We'll also do a little improvisation and a Socratic Seminar as well.

Homework
Blog: 3+ Posts
Req'd:  Post three images/symbols that represent your 1st quarter.  Write a paragraph at the end that explains your thinking.

Ignites/Essays: Get Them In & Revised If You Choose  GRADE CLOSE FRIDAY

Humanities: Poverty Questions, Power Voting & Of Mice & Men

Today in Humanities we'll continue the work we started on Friday.

We need to complete our sorting and then identify 4 questions in each group that the group believes to be valuable, meaningful and interesting questions worth answering/solving.  

We'll compile those 16 questions (4 groups X 4 questions) and run a PowerVote through Google Drive.  The 4 questions that receive the most votes become the focus of our unit.  After we vote, we'll run a "How Might We?" session to brainstorm ways we can go about answering those questions.

Meanwhile . . . as Mr. Ryder pulls together those 16 questions, Mr. Dunbar has an article from CNN.com and a Three 4 Thinking graphic organizer to help you understand the article.  Remember: graphic organizers aren't there to be annoying "worksheets" -- they are there to help you sort, organize, and think about the information you are getting from a reading/viewing/listening.  They also help the teacher folk in the room to determine whether or not you "get it."  

Homework

Blog: 3+ Posts
Req'd: Post 3 images/symbols that represent the 1st quarter for you; after posting the images, write a single paragraph of explanation
Due: Friday, Nov. 1

Complete/Revise (If You Choose): Cardboard Challenge IGNITE & Essay

Due: Friday, Nov. 1 (Grades closing!)