Wednesday, May 10, 2017

Senior Seminar: Navigating Values - Writing Assessment

For the past couple of weeks, we've been discussing values and morality. We've looked at episodes of Meat Eater, readings from I Am the Messenger, talked with our SRO Office Gilbert (a.k.a. Bridgette), represented our values in LEGO/beads/Jenga or other materials, explored MIT's Moral Machine and designed morality machines of our own using Little Bits and shared them on Flipgrid.




Now you are putting together all of those pieces and ideas together to write the following.

Navigating Values
Single Point Rubric
Choose any ONE of these THREE prompts/writing styles to demonstrate your writing skills.

EXPLAIN your PROCESS.  How do you make a moral decision?
or
TELL a STORY.  Tell about a time when you made a difficult moral decision.
or
MAKE a PERSUASIVE ARGUMENT.  Convince others they should make a particular moral decision.

Criteria
Evidence of Exceeding the Standard (clever, insightful, unique, powerful, creative, meaningful, professional)
What Meeting the Standard Looks Like
Evidence of Needs for Improvement (gaps, missing pieces or evidence, incomplete thoughts)
Details
(WRITING)

I like how your writing is full of showing details by appealing to the five senses in your descriptions, adding specifics to your process, or adding detailed reasons to your points..  I like how you move beyond just listing what happened and get into describing how it happened, what it looked like, what it felt like.  

Voice
(WRITING)

I like how your personality comes through in your writing.   I like that your use of language and details helps your reader know this isn’t just anyone’s story: this is  your story.

Organization
(WRITING)

I like how your writing  is well organized, with an introduction, a paragraphs to develop your ideas and a conclusion to leave your reader and audience thinking.  I like how the order of your piece makes sense and seems intentional.

CONCLUSION
(WRITING)

I like how you include a conclusion at the end of your piece  that explains why your ideas matter -- either to you or to others. I like how you leave the reader with a big idea to think about.  

MUGS
(MUGS)

I like how any writing included is properly spelled and features proper word usage; I like how capitalization and end punctuation seems right on; there might be a minor error or one or two mistakes because of a complicated rule (comma usage, semicolons, etc.); the basics are there

Timeliness
(HABITS of MIND)

I like how you turned it in within 24 hours of the agreed upon due date

Perseverance
(HABITS of MIND)

I like how you created pre-writing evidence (sketchnote, storyboard) and more than one draft (working draft, submission draft) of your essay to show that you worked through the process.  I like that you took the feedback given and put it to use.

DRAFT DUE for ASSESSING on FRIDAY, MAY 12 by the End of Class

Tuesday, May 9, 2017

English 9: To Solve a Mockingbird: This Week

This week we've started our To Solve a Mockingbird unit, which involves a formal narrative writing assessment (a short memoir inspired by To Kill a Mockingbird) and a design challenge sprint.

Monday/Tuesday:  May 8/9

Symbolism/Foreshadowing in TKaM.
Watch TKaM.
Writing Workshop: 4th Narrative.
Read: Indie Book.

Wednesday/Thursday: May 10/11
Watch TKaM
Writing Workshop: 4th Narrative.
Read Indie Book

Friday/Monday: May 12/15
Watch TKaM: Identify problems emerging
4th Narrative: Submission Draft DUE
Read Indie Nook


BLOG: This week.
1. Symbolism/Foreshadowing in TkaM.  See Graphic Organizer
2. SCORE the BOOK.
This week's critical creativity challenge for your blog post relates to your independent reading book:  SCORE the BOOK.

Based on what you have read thus far in your book, compose an original instrumental score(no lyrics) to accompany the reading of your book using either a digital tool (Garage Band, Soundtrap, Wolfram, BeatsLab, etc.) or live instrumentation.  You may work with a musical friend to develop your score.  Your score should be at least three minutes in length to demonstrate your thinking extends beyond just a single moment in the book and reflect typical song length -- though film scores tend to be longer.

Seek inspiration from these playlists 


and


After composing your score, post it on your blog along with an explanation that connects THREE moments from the text (use text evidence) to THREE moments in your score (use time stamps) to help your reader understand your intentions.

4TH NARRATIVE.  Due Friday, May 12th.
DESIGN CHALLENGE.  To Solve a Mockingbird. Due, Tuesday May 22nd.

AP Lit: Post-Test Design Challenge & This Week's Work

Here we go . . .

Your "To Do" List for the 4th Quarter

WRITING ASSESSMENTS

FRANKLINERS short story: 1st submission Due 5/16.  Final Due 5/31 so they can be compiled in an anthology before end of year.
SYNTHESIS 3 Revising
SYNTHESIS 4 Due on Day of Final 6/6

MEDIA ASSESSMENTS

DESIGN CHALLENGE Reflection & "Ship It" Date 6/2


BLOG POSTS
2x Per Week.  Design Challenge Process.  #ShowYourWork.  Keep track of everything.


For THIS WEEK . . .

We are defining the problem that is starting from this place: How might we address the "brain drain" problem of Franklin County?

On Monday we discussed the challenge of defining this problem, seeing this problem from different points of view, and establishing our user class.






We had to do some narrowing . . . 




On Wednesday, we will work to further define the problem and identify our users.  We will use a couple of design thinking strategies and protocols to help us with this work. Remember: design is messy and requires both a bias toward action and a recognition that we may need to shift or pivot our work in a different direction.  It can be tough to reconcile what may seem like divergent problems.

For Wednesday, some folks agreed to dive into the empathy work -- connecting with both folks who might be leaving the area AND with folks who live outside the area and may need to be convinced to return AND with folks who have not lived here before.  Wow.  I just identified a third user class.  I wonder . . how might we appeal to all three with one solution?

Other folks agreed to do some more focused research on brain drain in Franklin County.

And remember through it all, we need to be thinking about how we might employ literature and our knowledge of literature into whatever solution we pursue.

That's one of our key creative constraints.  Using literature to solve the problem. Still leaves us plenty of possibilities to explore.


Pop Culture: HMW Design a Film Festival

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.

DUE FRIDAY. 5/12.
Festival Title.
Theme/Concept.
Location & Venue.
Tagline/Slogan.
Poster.
Schedule & Line Up.
Programming/Additional Events.
MUST WRITE.  A pitch letter to potential investors/sponsors for your festival.  Convince them using persuasive techniques and purposeful details to achieving your goals.



Thursday, March 2, 2017

Eng 9: Personal Brand, Storytelling as Marketing and More

With the hectic and irregular schedule before February break, I thought it might be helpful to write up a blog post that captures where we are at in English 9.  There is a LOT of info here.

Anything with a B* should be posted on your class blog and linked on the English 9 blog tracker.

PERSONAL BRAND.

By the time we reach mid-April, you will be ready to make your personally branded website/blog go live.  Between now and then, you have to develop some content.  Experiment with your design. Empathize with your potential audience and figure out what you want to do.

a. Personal Brand Graphic Organizer (In English 9 OUT Folder) B*

Complete the organizer and post the completed organizer on your blog.

b. Mood Board.  (Examples from Lorri Brown in English 9 OUT Folder) B*





Complete a mood board for your personal brand and post it on your blog.

c. Weekly content for your personal brand.  B*
Video? Images?  Audio?  Writing?  You choose based on what you're establishing as your brand.

Week of 3/3/07   B*
Week of 3/10/07 B*
Week of 3/17/07 B*
Week of 3/25/07 B*

You will choose the best of your content to use as a demonstration of content standards. (Writing/Media-Presentation/MUGS-Language)

MARKETING AND STORYTELLING

Understanding Stories

a. Use the 100WordStory.org selections to explore the story cycle.
Complete 2 story cycle graphic organizers.   (In English 9 OUT Folder)
Place in your English 9 personal IN folders.

b. Complete the Comparison Matrix graphic organizer and watch the three branded content videos.


Write a blog post in which you find another example of branded content, explain what is being advertised, discuss the effectiveness of the ad and how well it tells a story.  B*

b. Read 1 short story/memoir/poem per class and complete notice/wish/wonder organizers. (Notice/Wish/Wonder in English 9 OUT Folder)  (Put Finished
(I will update as we offer up more options.)

Reading 1.  Is This Love/A Release/Pull the Next One Up





This one is from the poet Marc Smith himself! ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Reading 2.

Reading 3.

Reading 4.

c. 3rd Narrative Writing Assessment:  How Might We Write Branded Content Stories to Market Our Focus Fidgets.  (See the Rubric in the English 9 OUT Folder)

Draft Due 3/3/2017

ROOTS and VOCABULARY

a. Roots Quiz 10.
b. Roots Quiz 11.

MUGS.

a. Mistaken Words
b. Capitalization

SHOW YOUR WORK.

Blog.  Be Certain to Update Your English 9 Blog AND the Blog Tracker.

Personal Brand.  Be Certain to Create Content for your Brand EVERY WEEK.  
Something meaningful.
1st Due 3/3/2017

3rd Narrative Writing.  Content Branded Focus Fidget Story.
Due 3/3/2017.