Pop Culture: A Long Time Ago, In a Galaxy Far, Far Away

A Long Time Ago, In a Galaxy Far, Far Away . . . 

Today we start looking at Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.

We'll be doing a number activities with this over the week, built around watching the complete first film and exploring how a phenomenon is made. 

SHOW YOUR LEARNING.

Blog.

Posts Due. 11.6.15.

Option 1. Create a Star Wars themed logo for something you care about. Or mash-up something you care about with a logo. 

Examples: 

Barn Bocock's 'Brand Wars': Star Wars Parody Turns Company Logos Into Galactic Characters (PHOTOS)

All 32 NFL Team Star Wars Logos - Page 2 of 2 - DOWN & DISTANCE - Presented by Sports-Kings

Option 2. Create a scrolling narrative describing your day (or week). Mimic the tone/language of the Star Wars opening. 

Examples: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDI9c-15c00
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKRIUiyF0N4

Option 3. Make an original cast list for Star Wars. Choose from people you know or another theme. (Hip-Hop Star Wars, NFL Star Wars, etc.)

Examples:
Alternative Star Wars Saga Cast

Links for This Week's Blogging

Barn Bocock's 'Brand Wars': Star Wars Parody Turns Company Logos Into Galactic Characters (PHOTOS)

All 32 NFL Team Star Wars Logos - Page 2 of 2 - DOWN & DISTANCE - Presented by Sports-Kings

Why 'Star Wars' Still Matters - Beyond the Box Office - Zimbio

Star Wars overrated: May the Force be dissipated - Page 2 - tribunedigital-chicagotribune

Why 'Star Wars' Matters | Troy Campbell

Humanities: Tuesday's Station Work

On Tuesday, I read another chunk of Of Mice and Men aloud and then we worked through four stations.

Everything is described in this sketchnote of my plans.

SHOW YOUR LEARNING.

No New Blogs This Week.

Demonstrate Your Best Evidence in Req'd Posts of the Past

Revise. Submit. Multigenre.  Cardboard Challenge.

Study. Roots Quiz 3 (1-3)

Due.  Thursday. 10.29.15

Optional Evidence. Roots-Based Product.

AP Lit: Joyce & Dubliners

For this week, we are exploring James Joyce and his short story collection, Dubliners.

We are looking to Joyce's style to help us explore the relationship between setting, character and plot structure.

Key features of Joyce's style include:

Fusion of Fiction w Reality

• Real places, real buildings, even real people appear amongst the fiction

Epiphany

• awakening/understanding
• appeals to all 5 senses

Free Indirect Discourse 

• a particular style of stream of consciousness
• fluid movement between narrator and character

Manipulation of Language and Aesthetics

• experiments with word play, structure, linguistics, genre

We started our work with a close read of "Araby" together to have a collective experience with Joyce's style.  

The readings for night one were then, "Eveline" and "The Boarding House."  Sketchnote/annotate and literary 3x3 each of the short stories. 

Here's a glimpse into what we'll be doing with those 3x3s.  

The readings for night two, "Clay" and "A Mother."  Again, sketchnote/annotate and literary 3x3 each.  

We'll be looking for trends across the collections of stories in terms of character, setting, structure, and style as means to understanding and to applying to our own thinking.   But not yet, one step at a time. . .

Pop Culture: HMW Design a Film Festival

How might we design a film festival?  How might we demonstrate our listening & speaking skills via a film festival?

We'll use these for DISCOVERY phase. 15 min

http://www.sundance.org/pdf/film-guide/SFF14-FilmGuide.pdf

http://fantasticfest.com/

http://www.miff.org/

http://allsportslafilmfest.com/

http://iffboston.org/

http://www.festival-cannes.com/en.html

You might Notice/Wish/Wonder:

What do you notice about these film festivals?

What do you wish about film festivals?

What do you wonder about these film festivals?

OR

Rose/Bud/Thorn:

What are the roses (cool aspects) of these film festivals?

What are the buds (opportunities/ideas you have) based on these film festivals?

What are the thorns (things you don't like/find ineffective) in these film festivals?

EMPATHY phase. 15

Interview at least 2 people from another design team.

Ask these three Qs

Which genres of film do you enjoy the most?

Would you rather watch a film you love again or watch something new?

What

Ask at least one follow up question in each interview to help you program your festival.

Record the answers.

EXPERIMENT phase. 15 min.

Craft it!  Design it.  What are the films you would show?  What would it be called? Where would it be held?   Why?  Use your empathy knowledge and your discovery to help you.

PRODUCTION phase. 15 min.

Four corners feedback.  (More on this in class.)

Eng 9. Kickstart Your Creativity.

SHOW YOUR LEARNING.

Blog.  3+ Posts.

Critical Creativity Challenge Post. Kick Start Your Creativity.

Take a look at these examples of creative Kickstarters

an improved hammock design that features a guy in a bear suit,

a machine that converts food waste into energy

 little hands that make you look like you caught a huge fish

 a mustache that makes reading easier.

Now it is your turn.  Invent a product you would pitch on Kickstarter.  What does it do?  What problem does it solve?  How much money will you be hoping to raise?  How will you spend it?  What will your stretch goals be?  Enhance your blog post by including drawings or photos, a logo, maybe even a pitch video.

Study.  Roots Quiz 3.  (Includes lists 1-3)

Optional Demonstration of  Understanding.  Roots Product 3.

Next wednesday

Write.  Cardboard Challenge One-Page Reflection.
Due. Thursday, Oct. 22. 

Pop Culture: Film Trailers & Film Culture & Project Interviews

Hi folks,

We are going to pack today full of film culture goodness as we explore and discuss the beautiful thing that IS the film trailer.  You may want to create a film trailer for your film culture product due next Thursday.  We're going to watch and talk and review.  A lot.

Here are three great resources to help us get started.  All of these can be found on our Pinterest board.

Resource 1.  9 Short Storytelling Tips.
Fantastic storytelling tips that can be applied well beyond film trailer designing.

Resource 2. The Golden Trailer Awards.
The Awards for Best Film Trailers.   (There are lots. Lots and lots.)

Resource 3.  Trailer Fatigue.
History and Current State of Affairs of Film Trailers.

You'll divide up into teams of 1, 2 or 3 to tackle this work today.  Pick your crew and get to work.

We'll start with the 9 Short Storytelling Tips.  In the space of 10 minutes, do the math for I will be cruising at breakneck keep-it-tight speed, I will give you both a sketchnote and a brief explanation of each tip.

Then!  In your teams, you will get to work looking for examples of those 9 short storytelling tips in either the Golden Trailer Awards nominees and winners OR Trailer Addict.com or a movie trailer source of  your liking.  Avoid the general YouTube search.  It can be cumbersome.  There's better curated sources out there.

Meanwhile, as you do that work, I will be conferencing with folks about their music culture products and write ups, giving feedback and putting you in a position to revise before next Friday if you so choose.

For the FILM CULTURE project, you will be able to choose if you want it to count on 1st Quarter or the 2nd, but not before it is assessed.  You know what the strength of your work will be.  You know the depth of your understanding.  Where do you want your evidence?

Also, the rubric for the FILM CULTURE product is exactly the same as the MUSIC CULTURE product.  Just insert FILM everywhere it says, "MUSIC."

SHOW YOUR LEARNING.

2 Req'd Blog Posts. This Week.

Last Week of Blogging for the Quarter.

Blog: 3+ Posts

Req'd Post 1:  Film Review.
A.  Read through the four reviews of the first Hunger Games films linked here.Roger Ebert hereLisa Schwarzbaum herePeter Travers hereIMDB.com User emptygravity here
B.  Choose a film you feel worthy of your time to write about.  It may be because you want to tear it apart and it may be because you want to sing its praises.  It may be a little bit of both.
C.  Write a 2-3 paragraph film review in which you attempt to copy the style of one the above reviewers by using the same techniques in your own review.


You might consider which of the above reviewers use the following:

• References to other films in which the actors have appeared
• References to other films the director has made
• References to the source material for the film (in this case, a novel)
• Summary of the plot
• Spoilers and/or spoiler warnings
• Spoiler-free discussion
• Vivid and descriptive language
• Casual and general langugage
• Use of 1st Person "I"
• Some form of review coding system: numbers, stars, thumbs, etc.

D.  In a final paragraph, explain which reviewer's style you were trying to adopt for your review.  
To what extent has this influenced how you watch films?

Req'd Post 2.  Pinterest Curation.

You've collected a series of articles for the class Pinterest boards.  In a three paragraph discussion, discuss which article you find most entertaining and why, which you 'd most likely replace and why, and which you think would be most important for me to use with other students and why.

DUE.  Friday 10.23.15

Revise. Music Culture Project.
Due. Friday. 10.30.15

Design.  Film Culture Project.
Due. Thursday. 10.29.15

AP Lit: Prufrock Remixes, Process, Woolf, and More

This week will feature more Prose 15 on Monday and Tuesday.  I've been enjoying our digging into Jane Eyre and "The Things They Carried."  I'm going to find a shorter excerpt, however, for Monday and Tuesday.  It is taking us almost as long to read it as it is to think about it.  Hopefully this next, from one Virginia Woolf, will allow us more space to discuss.

Then we will examine the results of last week's remixes and map and chart how our thinking is evolving and growing.  Our goal in this?  To become more and more keenly aware of both our creative and analytical processes.  In fact, that would make for a remarkably good third blog post for this week.

Your creative and analytical processes, as you see them now.   Monday and Tuesday in class will give you an opportunity to discuss.  Wednesday and Thursday classes will give you an opportunity to put them in practice as I'm giving you folks the all-too-uncommon-in-AP-land time to work.

There will be expectations for documenting your work on those days.  

Then Friday's class will begin our transition into Cunningham's The Hours and our move into less holistic, more precision focused literary analysis.   We'll be using The Hours to explore the relationship between character, point of view and plot and uncovering Cunningham's design.

Of course, as I type this, I'm thinking we may start delving into Joyce's Dubliners instead.   Hrmm . . . well!  We'll just have to see what Friday brings, won't we?  In that case we'd be looking at the relationship between character and setting and point of view.  See a trend emerging?

If you have a preference?  Holler!  Let's customize as much as we can.

Show Your Learning.

Blog. 3+ Posts.

(Last Week of Blogging for the Quarter)

Req'd Critical Creativity.  Finished Prufrockian Remix.

After having read & re-read the poem, sketchnoted & remixed the poem, design an original Prufrockian remix that employs Eliot's poetic device strategy and sensibility while offering something new.

Due. Friday. 10.23.15

Close Read.   Eliot Academic Articles.

Close read these articles then choose two to annotate and/or sketchnote.

Then discuss the extent to which the articles' content informs your understanding of Prufrock and any influence it may have on your remix design.

Blog your work.

Due. Friday. 10.23.15

Revisions.  Synthesis Essays.

Due. ASAP.  Final day for Revisions.  10.27.15.

Indie Book Projects.

Read & Design.  Due 11.4& 5.