AP Lit 4B: Literary 3x3s

We committed our Friday to becoming comfortable with Literary 3x3, exploring the power of distillation and remix.

Our work centered on Tracy K. Smith's "I Don't Miss It."

Showing the Learning.

Read. True Grit (1 to 44).

Due. Tuesday. 9.15.

Create.  Literary 3x3s.

Summer books.

True Grit

How to Read Lit Like a Professor Intro.

Set Up. Blog.

Pop Culture: Taking Care of Business.

Today we took care of the business side of things.

Guidelines & Expectations.

We looked at the Guidelines & Expectations for the class.

Blogger.

Then we set up our blogs on Blogger.

Pinterest.

And finally we got started on Pinterest.  We'll be using the #flight307pc hashtag when we curate content on Pinterest for the class.
Follow Flight307's board Flight307 Pop Culture on Pinterest.

Essential Questions.

Finally, I shared the four essential questions for this course.

• To what extent does pop culture influence society?
• To what extent does pop culture influence you?
• To what extent do you influence pop culture?
• To what extent does society influence pop culture?

Show the Learning.

Find an article, listening, or viewing that speaks to one of the four essential questions for this class.
Check out Flight307's Pop Culture Board on Pinterest for inspriation.

Humanities 2BG: 9/11 and Caine's Arcade

9.11.2001.

On Friday, we started class by listening to this StoryCorps story of a husband and father talking about losing his wife on 9/11.

Isaac Feliciano via StoryCorps

Mr. Brackett and I both shared our experiences on 9/11 and answered some clarifying questions, cleared up a couple of misconceptions.  It was quite a serious discussion and I was impressed with the seriousness and respect with which the class handled it.

Global Cardboard Challenge.

Then we allowed ourselves to breathe a little joy into the room again as we introduced the Imagination Foundation's Global Cardboard Challenge by watching Caine's Arcade from Nirvan Mullick.

We will hold our cardboard challenge on either October 8th or October 13th.  (We are still trying to figure that out.)  In either case, you will have two weeks in class to design a cardboard product that either . . .

a) Solves a Problem
b) Brings Others Joy
c) Demonstrates a Passion

The other Humanities class is doing this project and perhaps other classes as well.

Show the Learning.

Get ready for next week.

Blogging starts.

Vocab starts.

LNG starts.

Lots of opportunities to show the learning.

Eng 9: Laptops, Suiting Up and Oreos.

Today was our first day with laptops.  We did a pretty good job staying on point.  We really need to to be careful about getting distracted with laptop issues when we don't need to be focused on them.  (VPP could have waited.)

That said, we did some great work with Suit Up, an opportunity to get to know one another a bit better, names, strengths, weakness, Oreos.

After getting to know five other people in class, you then tackled the mini-design challenge of "How might we demonstrate a super power or kryptonite with an Oreo?"  You were allowed to use any materials in the room and could get a additional Oreos if you pitched the idea to me.

Out of Class Work

Bring In to School. Over the weekend, find three items from home that represent you in a meaningful way and bring them in.  Please do not bring anything valuable or fragile.  And these items need to be transportable in a reasonable way.  Think about what might fit in a backpack or a pocket.

Due.  Monday, 9.14.15.

Complete.  Guidelines and Expectations signature sheet.  

Due. ASAP.

If Possible, Gather.  Design Kit.

Due. ASAP if Possible.

Humanities 2BG: Doodling to Think

Today was our first day with laptops.

We'll began with our thirty circles again as a quick warm up.  This led right into the rest of our thinking.

We watched a short news clip about a recent story about a break-in in Maine.

 We  identified  the key points as a class and then set them aside for a moment, while I showed you about these super cool tools from Austin Kleon.

We'll did some work with this alphabet and saw what we can create.  I even added an alphabet item or two.

Then we'll bring it back over to the key points and find ways to demonstrate the key points using the visual symbols we can create with the drawing alphabet.   We find it incredibly helpful and powerful for people to be able to express their ideas in both words and images -- even if those images are super simple.  (Actually, simple images can sometimes do the work of representing an idea much better than complex ones.)  

From here, you will be able to choose one out of six readings/listening/watchings to explore using this new set of thinking and demonstrating tools.  All of these readings and listenings can be found on our new Google Classroom space.  

Out of Class Work

Complete.  Guidelines & Expectations signatures sheet.

ASAP.

Complete.  Personal flag.

ASAP.

AP 3G: "I Don't Miss It" and Literary 3x3

Today we marked up our first poem as a class, conducting our first collaborative close reading.  We then had our first reading discussion as a class.  

Just a point to make about summer reading; while we have not delved deep into our summer reading books just yet, we will be coming back to them again and again over the space of year.  They will inform our work and there will be opportunities to discuss them in context.

"I Don't Miss It" and Literary 3x3.

We read Tracy K. Smith's "I Don't Miss It" and did some close reading and annotating.

Then we introduced Literary 3x3.

Literary 3x3.  You can read more detail about it by reading Rebecca Daniel's explanation of William Melvin Kelley's technique in the AP Lit guide available here.

Screenshot here.

From the AP Lit Writing Guide

The idea here is that by distilling our thinking about a text down to a 3x3, we can hone our thinking and then use it as a catalyst for further development into . . . oh . . . say . . . a piece of analytical writing.  I'd argue that developing a 3x3 is completely worth your time as a pre-writing exercise during the on-demand portion of the test.

You each created a 3x3 for "I Don't Miss It."  Hold on to those.  We'll need them next class.

Out of Class Work

Read & Annotate.  True Grit Chapters 1 & 2.

Create.  Literary 3x3s.

Intro of How to Read Lit

Both Summer Books

True Grit - First 2 Chapters 

AP Lit 4B: Guidelines & Expectations, Smith's "I Don't Miss It" and Literary 3x3

Guidelines and Expectations.

After relocating to the library to escape the miserable heat of the classroom, we talked about the Guidelines & Expectations for this year.  With our small class size, many of these are irrelevant and we'll be able to customize our work even further.  I think it serves as a good base.

"I Don't Miss It" and Literary 3x3.

We read Tracy K. Smith's "I Don't Miss It" and did some close reading and annotating.
Then we introduced Literary 3x3.

Literary 3x3.  You can read more detail about it by reading Rebecca Daniel's explanation of William Melvin Kelley's technique in the AP Lit guide available here.

Screenshot here.

From the AP Lit Writing Guide

The idea here is that by distilling our thinking about a text down to a 3x3, we can hone our thinking and then use it as a catalyst for further development into . . . oh . . . say . . . a piece of analytical writing.  I'd argue that developing a 3x3 is completely worth your time as a pre-writing exercise during the on-demand portion of the test.

We ran out of time before we could create a Literary 3x3 for Smith's poem.  So you'll do that for Friday along with the following.

Out of Class Work

Read & Annotate.  How to Read Lit Like a Professor Introduction.

Create.  Literary 3x3s.

Intro of How to Read Lit

"I Don't Miss It"

Both Summer Books