Quality Project Reflections

Here are some general topics to make sure you cover in your reflections. In addition, all of you need to have a written introduction that elaborates on the reasons why you chose this project.

For the reflection:

*Describe the process you went through for the past six weeks.

*What were the successes and frustrations? How did you deal with them?

*What makes your project quality? Think about our discussions of the classical and romantic elements of quality. Discuss both and how they apply to your project.

*What's next for you? What doors have been opened? What interests have you found?

A Couple of Things...Sophomores

Free Choice Books -
It's a good idea to use your blog to keep track of characters, themes, plot, essential questions, and connections you make as your read. On day 3 of cycle 27, you will be responsible for discussing these elements of your book with the rest of the class. To have all of this information on your blog will make this an easy task. Otherwise, you might come up short in the detail department.

Quality Project Rubrics -
We've been discussing the Universal Standards/Sophomore Rubric all semester. For the Quality Project, it will look similar with a few modifications to apply to the nature of the project. Here's the rubric:

CREATIVITY – It is original and inspiring. The creator put a lot of thought and planning into the piece, and it possesses aspects that distinguish it from others of its kind.
__________

AESTHETICS – It is well made and pleasing to the eye, demonstrating excellence and superiority. It is executed well and will not easily fall apart or lose its value.
__________

TIME AND EFFORT – There is a clear, organized and defined thought process. The final project looks professional and finished. Also, the amount of time, effort, and dedication is readily apparent and documented.
__________

PRESENTATION – It is clear, organized, compelling, and the process of its creation is explained. Overall, it captures the audience’s attention.

...and don't forget about the reflection, which will be graded separately.

Cycle 25 - Everybody

Okay, the final month is here. And each class is on their respective "plan" for the remaining 4 cycles. Be sure you're consulting the calendars I created for you often. Sophs, it's quality project all cycle, and "Stuckness" in class; Freshman, bring A Midsummer Night's Dream and get ready to do some performing; Composition, this cycle we write our nature essays.

Cycle 24 - Sophomores

This cycle marks the end of our work with The Poisonwood Bible,culminating in an essay with a few options.This essay is your chance to display what you've learned about reading critically and writing thoughtfully. This cycle we also begin work on Quality Projects. Be sure you check the calendar handout I gave you in class often for checkpoints,work days, and due dates. The rest of the semester will be mostly self-directed.

The Plan:
Day 1 - Quintessence, project proposals, examples of Quality projects, PB paper assignment.
HW - Rough draft of PB paper. (You should be finished reading).

Day 2 - Peer feedback groups for PB paper.
HW - Work on paper.

Day 3 - Final draft of paper due, discuss, start working on Quality project, plan work day.
HW - Bring materials for work day.

Day 4 - First project work day.
HW - Quality Project, get free choice book.

Cycle 23 - Sophomores

This cycle we will come very close to finishing The Poisonwood Bible. Your load will be lightened to give your more time to read. And our attention will shift from literature to Quality Projects. Start thinking about where your essential questions have taken you and what you might want to spend the quarter exploring in your project. Also, review and exercise critical thinking strategies; they will be an important part of your project.

Plan and Homework
Day 1 - "Bel And The Serpent" quiz.
HW - Read "Exodus."

Day 2 - Reading day in class.
HW - Read "Exodus."

Day 3 - Literature circle meeting and class discussion.
HW - Post response to discussion, and keep reading.

Day 4 - Introduction to Quality Project and Quintessence.
HW - Quintessence.

Welcome to 4th Quarter - Cycle 22 - Sophomores

Soon, we'll be finishing The Poisonwood Bible, revisiting our essential questions, and starting independent quality projects. For the next two cycles, you will continue to use your weblog as a commonplace book and reading response journal.

A Few Important Changes
1. Label all your posts with cycle number. And add a side bar element for "labels."
2. A few weeks ago, I set up a blog reading schedule. But it was too confusing for me. So the new plan is that I'll read your blogs at the end of each cycle. So 11:30, your posts are due E-days by midnight; 1:30, your posts are due F-days by midnight.
3. Continue to pay attention to the quality of your blogging. Go back to the critical thinking standards and wheel and make those moves in your writing/thinking.

In Class:
Day 1 - "Judges" quiz, silent reading time.
HW: Critical response to passage

Day 2 - SAT practice essay.
HW: Word process (on blog) and print essay, then bring to class.

Day 3 - SAT scoring panels activity
HW: Commonplace post

Day 4 - Lit. Circle meeting for "Bel and the Serpent."
HW: Lit circle post

Here's My Practice SAT Essay

The media does not determine what's important and worth value in our culture; at the same time, they do. What I mean is this is a false question because technology has changed the face of the media. Increasingly, we are our own media. We have places to publish and broadcast our own original work, opinions, and news. In addition, we have the tools to critique what we all the "mainstream" media. We are able to hold them much more accountable than ever before.

Recently, The New Yorker published an essay about Google's current project of creating the world's loargest digital library. The implication is that anyone with internet access has the ability to access any information they deem valuable. Access changes everything. And the ability to publish freely makes the amount of and diversity of media content grow exponentially. People have a choice. They can decide what's worth valuing and consuming. The question becomes who does and doesn't have access.

Currently, my class is reading The Poisonwood Bible in which a family goes to the Congo in the 1960's on a Baptist mission. They realize that Congo is diametrically opposed to the world they live in, and what works in America doesn't work there. In a very general sense, they (admittedly, in their own way and with a religious bias) are trying to help. One problem is that Congo is only covered during the 1960's by major news broadcasting organizations. Now, with the advent of what we'll call hyperlocal media, more information is available, awareness is global, and there are resources to try to help in appropriate ways that make sense within Congolese culture, or at least there are ongoing attempts. Moreover, with a people-controlled virtual spotlight, leaders are hopefully held more accountable as are Americans.

What we are beginning to realize is that the technologies available now are redefining terms, like media, that we've grown accustomed to. Logically, once our literacy changes, the way we communicate, negotiate, and live will change. It's not a question of us or them defining culture. We are them. The lines have disappeared. It's time to examine what we value. And who has access.

Literature Circles With A Twist

I guess that makes them literature figure-eights. :) As we read our respective novels in freshman and sophomore English, we'll be using literature circles to discuss and extract ideas from the texts. Traditionally, I'd assign you groups, assign you roles, and assign you a reading and meeting schedule. I'll still assign you groups, but they will change after we read each chunk of the book. I'm going to give you a list of role options from which your group will decide who does what. And you will post and comment on each other's work on your blogs. This will allow you class time to discuss and determine what direction your explorations will go. Eventually, we'll use our wikispace to develop an extensive, original, Poisonwood Bible and Woman Warrior resource publications. For now, here's the list of possible roles:

Moderator (Bring questions)
Lexicographer (Vocabulary)
New Critic (Identify key passages)
Character Analyst (What do we know about the characters?)
Biographical Critic (What do we know/learn about the author?)
Psychological Critic (Analyze motivations)
Director (for drama) (Give instructions to actors for key passages)
Engineer (Identify physical and/or logical structures)
Historian (Information and inferences about history)
Anthropologist (Information and Inferences about culture)
Narratologist (Identify authorial strategies)
Stylist (Sentence-level strategies)
Feminist (What is stated/implied about the role of women?)
Devil's Advocate (Identify and attack weaknesses)
Cinematographer (How would this work as a movie?)
Philosopher King (What are the themes/big ideas?)
Musician (Where is this language most pleasing to the ear?)
Egotist (What's in this for me?)
Artist (How would this translate into a picture?)

Getting Back On Track - Sophomores

Well, I'm designating this cycle to just getting everybody, including me, back on track. So here are the tasks you should accomplish by the end of next week.

1. Post your "This I Believe" podcast. Now, some of you have had some trouble for various reasons. The process should be a lot easier next time around. Here's are the tricks: be sure to set you iTunes iPod setting to "manage music manually." This will allow you to move voice memos back and forth without restrictions. Also, before you can upload your podcast to podomatic (make sure you have an account started), you need to export the file to iTunes. After it's in podomatic, it's easy to embed the URL in your blog. (This will probably be our last podcast session in the lab, but if you need to you can come use an iPod in my office or record with Audacity).

2. Read the first section of The Poisonwood Bible.(up to page 10). Then compose and post a similarly descriptive passage based on a place you know well, maybe at home or on campus. A picture on your post would be nice too.

3. Reflect on all your posts up to this point. Then revisit you essential questions. Write a post in which you discuss what you now know regarding your questions. Do you need to explore further? Have your questions changed?

4. Explore some of our online collaborators (links in the sidebar) and leave some thoughtful comments. Remember to "leave the door open" for more thinking.

Once we accomplish these four tasks, we will be moving forward with the novel. Our work will include collaborative literature circles, artwork, and creative writing. I'm also excited to show you a place where other sophomores, outside just our classes, are collaborating and sharing PB work.

Garageband - Some Basic Instructions

Today, we're in the computer lab editing the material we've recorded for "This I Believe" podcasts. Since everybody will move at different speeds, I'm posting some quick instructions that everybody will need to follow to get started.

1. Plug the iPod into your computer via USB. When you do this iTunes will open and ask if you want to transfer voice memos. Answer yes. Then it'll ask you if you want to sync the iPod to the computer. Answer no.
2. Now open Garageband and start a new project, be sure to pick podcast.
3. On the right, your multimedia browser will open. From there, you can import your voice memos as podcast tracks. Off you go.

Tips:
Move your mouse around and see what the controls do.
Under edit, you're going to use the split function a lot, check it out.
Look around and find the loops you can import for sound effects and music.
Listen to other podcasts for good ideas.

WikiSpace Update

Okay, I've set the page to accept any new members. So you should be able to join without problems. It would be a good idea to read the tutorials and learn as much as you can about how to edit the page. Explore the following: how to add new pages within our space, how to add hyperlinks, how to add pictures, how to use the toolbars, etc. We'll share what we learned in class next time.

Quality

Mr. Kandell led you through an introductory exploration of quality in art, writing, thinking, and other aspects of the world. You also had a chance to revisit how these universal standards for quality translate into our Sophomore Rubric and will later lead to your Quality Projects. Our next move is going to be to use and develop our wikispace to further explore, collaborate, and generate a collective understanding and explication of what quality means to us. So, click on the link for our wiki, join as an editor, then add some content to the page. Here are some suggestions for contributions:
-Summarize yesterday's discussion.
-Develop a rubric for a quality blog post.
-Develop a rubric for a quality world citizen.
-Post an example of something you see as quality and explain the criteria.
-Work on the wiki's design, theme, style, look.
-What else?

Thousand And One Flat World Tales

We've been talking about the possibilities of Web 2.0. And you know I've been working to find other schools around the world with which we can collaborate. Check out this writing project wiki. Basically, it's a worldwide writing workshop. Let's not do anything just yet, but take some time to explore the pages and think about what we might contribute. I've got some ideas brewing; I want to here yours when I get back from SoCal.

A Discussion Emerging

ab imo pectore: This I Believe...

Quote: My favorite piece was The Right to Be Fully American, by Yasir Billoo. Yasir is a Pakistani Muslim who immigrated here. It made me really think about the "politics" of our culture

Invitation: Eddie, John, and Colton are sharing some interesting thoughts about what culture means in Hawaii and what racism means here. Go read and join in.