Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Post date: Aug 21, 2013 9:49:06 PM

The 2013-2014 school year is well underway. The freshmen seem to be finding their way around the school better and better. There are only a few "slowpokes" eighth hour, but I'm sure that they'll start getting the hang of things. In freshmen literature today we discovered that readers register only the first and last letter along with consonants when we read. We also discussed the importance of prior knowledge. The more we can connect with what we read, the less time we have to spend studying at the other end of the process.

Sophomores should be able to explain the communication model. We discussed how the speaker presents a message to a listener. The listener picks up on verbal and noverbal clues, internalizes the message, provides feedback, which the speaker could then adjust his/her message. We also really enjoyed watching Abbott and Costello's famous "Who's on First" as an excellent example of miscommunication.

Seniors today discussed the qualities of a state (population, territory, sovereignty, and government). We identified various examples by those characteristics to determine whether they were a country or not. We then began to discuss how a "state" is born. For example, some countries are born through violence or force. The United States is an example of the force theory as we were created through a revolution. Other theories include the evolutionary theory, divine right theory and the social contract theory.

All and all it was a productive day.