Coupla Things v20 (1/21/2012)
Post date: Jan 21, 2012 9:0:27 PM
Happy Saturday Everyone!
Last night the power went out on us mountain residents, so I didn't get a chance to send the weekly email. Instead, we played cards, read by candle light, and had family time around the fire -- nice.
English:
The student speeches (which continued this week) were fantastic. Hidden talents, passions, and perspectives emerged daily and I am reminded, again, just how strong and secure most of these kids are. The next rounds of speaking sessions will be in March, and I'm going to get input from the kids before deciding upon a category for the topic. I've entered the scores for the January speeches onto Powerschool, but to me, assigning a point value almost demeans the worth of the experience. Some kids worked very hard to create, refine, support, and enhance their presentations, and they "pulled it off" brilliantly. There were simply too many exceptional "performances" for me to be able to mention each here, but this spreadsheet shows the topics of those who entered them. The kids will get my feedback sheets on Monday.
The lit-circle genre, government power and dystopian societies, overlapped quite nicely (but coincidently) with current events this week as the SOPA and PIPA issues became quite the topic of discussion and passion. What thrills me the most, is watching the students become discerning consumers of information -- most question the hearsay, wonder about the validity of the blogs & posts, and are judicious in their adoption of a position and level of involvement (from apathy, to curiosity, to bewilderment, to outrage, to activism).
On a similar vein, but also coincidentally, I had the kids read and discuss (my class at least) an article on brand name marketing. Most consumers these days have to work hard to resist the powerful draw of peer-hyped products, and the article provides the raw material for great discussion. Not a very typical topic for an ELA class, but I think it is a valuable one.
Speaking of which, this week I also strayed from lessons the traditional purposes of writing (to analyze, inform, or persuade) and broached the idea of writing for personal exploration, expression and introspection. Since the age of 12, I've written thousands of pages into spiral bound notebook "journals", and although much is irrelevant self-indulgent dribble or diary-style documentation of my post-college travels, the writing of reflective pieces is an amazing and valuable process. It is also quite entertaining to read entries that are about 4 decades old. I have assured the kids that whatever writing they do as a part of this "assignment" will remain private, but I did start with some guiding questions and shared my own responses. It is my hope that some students begin (or continue) to use personal writing to express, explore, and expand themselves as they journey forth in life. We are so bound to communication via social media that I sometimes feel like writing for private purposes has become a rare event. On that idea, check out this poetry performance by Marshall Jones.
Science
All week was devoted to the patterns and advantages of the periodic table of elements -- a bit of overkill for chapter 12, actually. The students made a wall-sized table and then (most) aced the short test for chapter 12. The students also assembled and organized their papers from last unit (energy, work, and heat) into a packet which, along with a cover sheet, should have come home for your review and comment. Those students who returned the packets on Friday received 3 extra credit points towards unit 5, as shown in Powerschool. Next week... nuclear energy & chapter 16.
The more exciting part of our week in science involved the onset of some month-long science experiments. The students will explore various ideas and propose a few that interest them. I've asked the kids to try to come up with challenging and innovative ideas and classify their investigation into one of the following categories:
design/build/test/improve
test the effect of ___ on ___
teaching model or proof of concept
qualitative comparison
Although the projects are not part of the official school-wide science fair that happens later in the semester, they do provide the much needed hands-on/personal-interest component that is too infrequent in my science curriculum. As a quick aside, I'd like to thank Kerry Lewis, Maria Laughlin, and some students in my Friday tutorial for typing up almost 200 science project ideas from some old Science World magazines. Once the students have proposed their ideas on this spreadsheetand I've made comments, they will be creating project plans and coming to you for input and approval.
Th-th-thats all folks. Unless, of course, you want to, perhaps, you-know, aw garsh, reply or somethin'. :)
Chris
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