Eng 9: Inspiration Shelves, Personal Symbols, Blogs and Vocab

Inspiration Shelf & Personal Symbols.

We'll start the day by looking at the Inspiration Shelf.  Your goal?  To figure me out.  You'll complete a Notice/Wish/Wonder tool for three different items, in an effort to answer these two questions:

Why might these items be on this shelf and what might they tell us about Mr. Ryder?

Then you'll repeat the same with the artifacts you brought from home.  We will look at each others' collections and try to determine what they tell us about that person and why those items were
included.

Then we'll take pictures of items that interested us most and post them to our blogs as our first blog posts.

Vocab: Roots 1.

We will start our very first work with vocabulary.  We'll be learning Greek and Latin roots this year; this will help you learn so many more words than just learning a list of vocab words from a story we read.

Blogger.

We will set up our blogs and I will explain your first creative blog prompt: 5 Card Flickr.

Show the Learning.

Blog. 3+ Posts.

Creative Blog Prompt.  5 Card Flickr & Problem Story.

Create a 5 Card Flickr that tells the story of a problem being solved.

Post your images and write out the story on your blog.

Due. Friday. Sept. 18.

Study.  Roots Quiz 1.

Due. Thursday, Sept 24.

Brit Lit: Design Challenges: Discovery & Experiment Phase

We'll start today with a ten-minute blog prompt to serve as part of our Discovery phase of our MUDDING SIGNAGE and THERMOSTAT CAR STARTER design challenge.

PROMPT.  Why did you choose the design challenge topic you did?  What experiences have you, or people in your life, had that led you to this topic?  What experience can you bring to the table that will inform possible solutions?

Then we'll complete DEEP dt Adventure Grids to game plan the next stages of the design challenge.

Then, we're going to jump right into some Experiment phase and make some low-rez prototypes of possible solutions.  We're going to use our Adventure Grids to guide us into Empathy work next week.  Expect to experiment each day going forward though.

The other thing to expect next week is a spreadsheet in Google Drive and assessments on PowerSchool  that will give you a checklist of exactly what you need to do between now and the end of the year.

ASSESSMENT.

Req'd Blog Post.  
Why did you choose the design challenge topic you did?  What experiences have you, or people in your life, had that led you to this topic?  What experience can you bring to the table that will inform possible solutions?
Due. Thursday, April 30.

Humanities: Empathy Phase: Photo Essay Challenge

Last Wednesday we mapped our our cultural identities based on the eight components of culture.  Each circle represents a component, the placement and overlapping reveal how much, or how little, each plays a role in our lives.  After personal maps, we collaborated in groups on maps of our community culture.  This worked served as part of our Discovery phase.

This is a shot of my #sketchnotes plan for the day.

Here are some of the insights and trends we mapped after looking at our models.

This gave us some fuel for going into Thursday where we spent our energy identifying the various users we may have for our photo essays.  This marked our first day of Empathy phase in our DEEP design thinking process.  

What did we notice from our culture work on Wednesday?  We revisited it on Thursday.

And that led us to Friday where we had at the opportunity to talk with the crew from South Carolina again, if only briefly.  We had a couple of class leaders take on the task of conducting an empathy conversation.  This gave us some valuable insights as to how we should shape our photo essays this week.

This takes us into Monday . . .

Monday we dive into Experiment mode.  Folks should be coming with photos they've taken so far and start playing with formats for their photo essays.

There's time to brainstorm and play and sketchnote and storyboard.  We'll be using some of our 8 Box techniques and other means of getting to great photo essays.

Tuesday will be more experimenting and then Wednesday, we practice.

ASSESSMENT.

BLOG.  3+ Posts.
Req'd Post.  Explore Pecha Kucha and Ignite.  Find an example here or here.   In your blog post explain why you chose this sample as a mentor text -- a model you can follow for you own.  What made it great and interesting to you?

PHOTO ESSAYS.
Friday.  Friday.  Friday.

Pop Culture. How Might We Curate Our Content: Discover/Empathy Phase

Today we will continue our design challenge: How Might We Curate Our Content for Pop Culture?

Thursday was all about the Empathy phase, finding out what we liked and didn't like.  What inspired us and what bugged us about apps and organizational tools.

Today we go back to Discover phase and start playing around with the tools we brainstormed initially.

Those Post-Its are on the carts toward the back of the room.  We can use them to help guide the searching and discovery today.

In the Google Drive shared with you is a shared Google doc.  Go digging.  Play and explore. And then share your findings with the rest of the class on that Google doc.  Add more lines to explore more tools.

At the bottom, make recommendations for action.  Based on the above, what should we use?  What should we incorporate into our work?

Next class, we figure out how to make them all work together and move into experiment phase of our design challenge.

ASSESSMENT

Blog: 3+ Posts.
Req'd Post:  Explore Brain Pickings, Studio 360,  Monkey See, Boing Boing, and 99 Percent Invisible.  These are all dynamic places full of content related to pop culture and more -- often much much more.  You'll find videos, audio, articles, photos, all sorts of neat things.

Curate a collection of three items from across any combination of those sources.  Consider exploring an interest or passion of yours, or perhaps an angle we've been talking about in class (comedy, social media)  Provide a brief summary of the content of each and finally explain why you selected these three.  ALSO consider how you can use this work to set you up for your Social Media Product due next Thursday.

Blog. Due Friday.  March 27.

Comedy Culture Product.
Due.  Today.

Social Media Culture Product.
What Impact Does Social Media
Due.  Next Thursday, April 2.

AP Lit: The Ultimate Joycean Story & Test Prep

TEST PREP.  MULTIPLE CHOICE.  MARVELL.

We'll start the day with some test prep.  Rather than an on demand, however, it will be the first of our multiple choice.

I've shared with you the reading and the questions.  It's a poem by Andrew Marvell.   Refrain from reading it until class, if you can resist.  Want a print copy? Print one off when we get to class and it's all yours.  Whatever works for you.

I'll be sending the questions along in a Google form as well for you to respond -- it'll let us look at the data afterward.

JOYCEAN 3X3.

Next.  We'll be trying to figure the one word Joyce believed captured Dublin at the time of his writing.  We'll try to uncover this using our literary 3x3s.

Bust out all of your Dubliners decks.  Give yourself plenty of space to work.  Lay them out.

Then start remixing.  Shuffling.  Trading.  See what sorts of stories reveal themselves to you.  Develop an original 3x3 and quickly note the story you see revealed.  You might sketchnote it.  You might audio record it.  At any rate . . . capture that story.

Then, find a partner.  Combine your decks.  Repeat the process.  Create a story together.  Capture that story.

You now have three stories that have revealed themselves to you and your partner (1 from each of you solo, 1 collaboration.)

Revisit your decks together.  Identify trends.  Consider Joyce's stories.  Your original stories. See if you can narrow your own decks down to one three-word-line to capture all of the stories.  Use the words from your decks to create that three-word line.

As a class, lay out those three-word lines together.

Identify the trends.  Distill.  Narrow.  Just like the NCAA tourney.

What's the one word?  Check it against the stories.  Does it work?

Capture all of this work.  Document.  Put it up on your blogs.


ASSESSMENTS.

Blog: 3+ Posts
Req'd Post: In How to Read Lit, Read both "Geography Matters" & "Season."  Then, using your ingenuity & creative spirits, create a 3 to 5 image photo essay (a sequence of images unified by intention) of where you live that you believe reflects the ideas present in Foster's work.  Explain your thinking.
Due.  Friday.  March 27.   Last Blog Post of Q3.

Complete.  Frankliners.
Due.  Today.  March 23.

Submit. Q3 Indie Book Project Self Assessments.  Get them in ASAP so I can assess your work from the beginning of the Quarter!

Complete.  Revisions.  Blog Posts.
Due ASAP.  Quarter closes April 3.

Design.  Q4 Indie Book Projects.
Due Thursday & Friday Before April Vacation.  April16 & 17.

Humanities: Cultural Identity as Art

Today, we'll start with a Kahoot! to help us with Roots 10.  Remember Kahoot!?  Yup.

That'll be the quick jump start to the day and then we'll get into the culture wagon.

HMW express our cultural identities through art?

8BOX.

Finish the 8Box you started yesterday with the 8 components of culture (language, government, art, history, economics, daily activities, religion, social groups).  Sketchnote your identity into the respective boxes.  5 min. to finish off this pre-thinking DISCOVERY work.

STATIONS.  You have 4 stations today to flow through.  We will run four rotations HOWEVER you do not need to cycle to all 4.  You simply have to create 3 individual pieces of art.  They might all be poems.  They might all be sculptures.  Why 3?  Good question.  Why do you think I want you to create 3 rapid fire pieces of art?

Absolute Requirement:  Show your work.  Screenshots and photos of your process.  I'll be running a timer every five minutes.  At the bell, you must document your work.

Consider this EXPERIMENT phase.

THIS IS YOUR REQUIRED BLOG POST FOR THE WEEK.  Done all in class.  Today.

STATION 1.  MUSIC.

Using the digital tools available to you, aka GARAGE BAND create a piece of music to represent a component of your cultural identity.  Consider how you might express that through the title as well as the sound.  You may explore using a visualizer or laying it down as a soundtrack over other images.

STATION 2. 3D Art.

LEGO. K'nex. Jenga blocks.  Use the resources here at this table to create 3D art that reflects a component of your cultural identity.  Consider how color, shape, texture can all be used.

Some great LEGO art

Lego Food Art is here, and it's AMAZING! http://t.co/tKN9OomS8U @bruceywan #foodart #lego @lego_group @legoideas pic.twitter.com/CFBDQUmuFQ
— Homemade (@homemade) March 19, 2015

Some great Jenga art here. 


STATION 3. 2D Art.

Use the materials available at this station to create 2D art.  Consider the medium you use to do your drawing as well as the surface.  You may also choose to create digital 2D art and you may use the iPad to create something on Paper.


STATION 4.  Poetry.  Blackout Style.

You'll be using excerpts from Of Mice & Men to create blackout poetry.  Need some examples?  Check out the master of the form, Austin Kleon here.

Finally.  With 10 minutes to go in class, you will document your four pieces of art.  Use the tools available to take not just captures of your art, but see if you can create interest with what you make.

I'll be creating alongside you today, so you'll have my examples to work from.

ASSESSMENT.

BLOG. 3+ Posts.
Req'd Post.  SHOW YOUR WORK. PRODUCTION phase. Cultural identity.  Post images of your four art pieces as well as documentation of your creative process.
Due. Friday Mar 20.

REVISE.  Theme Song Essays.
Must also submit a revision submission form so we know what you've changed.

Due. Friday Mar 20.  (We will take them any time before end of the quarter; if you get them in you will have time to revise AGAIN.)

COMPLETE.  Romeo & Juliet PROJECTs.
Well past teacher pace.
Due ASAP.

AP Lit: Anchors Await & Modest Proposals

Big Project Week.  Thursday and Friday, we get to see To Be or Not Be.  This is exciting stuff.

Monday and Tuesday, we'll be following up with "The Century Quilt" on demand by examining some anchor papers and comparing them to our own writing and thinking.  We'll be doing a tremendous amount of mark up on the anchor packets and busting out serious degrees of Post It notes.

From there we will conduct a close reading of Swift's "A Modest Proposal" right in class.  We'll be using our SCOUT/NWW/RBT triple lens.  And this will lead us to our next writing product (not the synthesis essay yet!).

We also have a collaboration with other seniors not from around these parts that is about to happen.  It involves redefining senioritis.  We'll look at this more closely on Wednesday and Thursday.

Here's the blog prompt due NEXT FRIDAY.  March 6.  Use words/video/audio to define your now more accurately than "senioritis."  We'll be connecting with seniors in a HS in Northern Illinois around this very idea -- and perhaps elsewhere as well.  Here's an example of how one student tackled it.

HOMEWORK.

Blog. 3+ Posts.
Req'd Post:  From A to To Be.   Stack that blog full of images and explanation of your process.  Show how you got there.
Due. Friday. Feb 27.


Blog Prompt for NEXT WEEK.
Use words/video/audio to define your now more accurately than "senioritis."  We'll be connecting with seniors in a HS in Northern Illinois around this very idea -- and perhaps elsewhere as well.  Here's an example of how one student tackled it.
Due. Friday. Mar 6.

Literary 3x3:  Modest Proposal.  Bring it to your next class.
Due. Wed & Thurs.  Feb 25 & 26.

Complete the Design.  To Be or Not to Be.
Due Thursday/Friday Feb 25 & 26.

Humanities: Theme Song Essays: Intros & Thesis Statements

We'll start as we do every Monday: LNG.

Though I might be feeling some improv-ness or creative thinking quick hits to start us off . . . hrmmm . . .

We will also talk about Extended Day Program and how everyone in this class could be benefitting from getting some extra help after school.

Then LNG with Brackett so we can really start nailing those.  Boom.  Hardcore.  No quarter.

From there, we will share out our pre-writing.  I want to get a look at what ideas you already have going.  To hear which songs people are finding work best for their brains.

And then we'll run a thesis and introduction workshop, ideate a pile of ideas to help us.

HOMEWORK.

Blog. 3+ Posts
Req'd Post. Look at the LNG choices for this week and find a theme song for one of the people featured in the article.  Post a video or the song itself and explain your thinking in 3 to 5 sentences.

Feel like doing others?  Go for it!

Write.  Introduction & thesis statement.
Due. Tomorrow.  Workshopping in class.

1st Draft of Entire Essay.  Due Thursday.

Brit Lit CPI: Beowulf & Boasting Continues

Today . . . 

We'll start with some more boasting and smack talk -- this time via ERB.  

NO RED INK.

We're going to start our first work with commonly mistaken words.  We'll be looking at:

• their/there/they're
• to/too/two
• then/than

Their: possessive
There: location
They're: contraction of they are

To: preposition -- used with a verb -- to go, to swim; handed to, given to, run to
Too: also or quantity
Two: the number 2

Then: order, time  -- I took my snowmachine out for a run, then I ate forty-seven Ring Dings.
Than: comparison  -- I'd rather throw dead batteries at cows than listen to another Pitbull song.

You'll take a quick quiz for me to get a baseline of your skills in this particular area.

BRAGGING & BEOWULF.

We'll share out the work you folks did the other day.  It's here I'll show you how to access the folders on Google Drive and turn in work on Google Classroom.

Most every group finished the work so we should be in good shape to look at what happens when Beowulf arrives and how he battles Grendel.

Those chapters you'll work on individually.  The idea here is that if you were able to work with partners before  -- as most of you did -- you should be okay tackling a chunk on your own.

And this is also where Beowulf starts talking serious smack and Grendel shows up and claws and gnashing and all the good stuff.

You'll complete a second organizer, but this one focused on Beowulf's boasts.

Here's a graphic organizer to keep you rolling.

Then today there will be time to start this, which we intended to do last week . . 

Req'd Blog Post for the Week:  Letting Fly the Taunts and Volleys of a Thousand Suns Upon the Ears of the Meek Before Us a.k.a. Running Our Mouths

Boast, brag, run yer mouth about anything you like -- just keep it relatively school friendly.  It could be aggressive and calling someone or something out or it could be talking about how great you are at knitting.  I trust you to use your best judgement there.  Remember: swearing is lazy.  It can be fun.  And it's lazy.   Your boast

Write or audio/video record two versions:
One. Your style.  Your words.
Two.  Beowulf style.  His words.

Your goal?  To show me you understand how the language used in Beowulf, the style and format, isn't all that different from today by using it yourself.

Option.  Not feeling like bragging about anything particular about yourself?  Do what the bards & the scops did back in the day: make up a character.  Just let me know whether it is invented or real.

Due.  Friday, Feb 13.