A Message from Snyder and Abrams

Dear Senior Project Students:

Here's what's hot.  Your finished research paper is due Thursday, April 28th and I want it submitted via Google docs.  Make sure that the first page features the final outline as per the sample, and you should have an additional 5-6 pages of research paper and on top of that I need to see a properly structured "Works Cited" page.

Make sure that you have a great working outline by April 1st.

By Friday, May 6th, you need to invite two teachers and an administrator to see your project which will be about 45 minutes.  Usually, we do this during lunch (5th or 6th period). Sometimes students show their presentation in the media center or in the auditorium. Your mentor should be there, but this is not a must.

You will have the chance to create a program that will be something like a playbill, which will be distributed before your presentation.

Mr. Snyder and I will schedule actual presentation times for everybody by May 6th. 

Take care.

Miracle Worker Vocab

Once again, here is my word from last week.  Follow my format exactly.  This means to use caps where you see caps, dashes where you see dashes, parenthesis where you see parenthesis, etc!  Give us your best word and make sure that your custom-made sentence features more commas than periods.  Use the compact comma summary sheet!

Abrams - VERTIGINOUS - adj. - dizzying, giddy, lightheaded from great heights.


"Ferguson discovers that the SuperKids, students with vertiginous GPAs and board scores, can still fail to get into their first choices and end up at "safety" schools" (The Philadelphia Inquirer).

Icarus, undaunted by his vertiginous flight toward the sun, foolishly ignored his father's warnings because he let his adolescent impulse for foolish risk-taking get the best of him, and he paid for his hubris by eventually plunging to his death.

ENG 10, GIVE ME THE VOCAB

Hi Gang!
Look at the four vocab words that I just handed back. Select the SAT word that with which you feel most comfortable.  Enter it in my comments section exactly as per my model.


Abrams - VERTIGINOUS - adj - dizzying, giddy, lightheaded from great heights.

"Ferguson discovers that the SuperKids, students with vertiginous GPAs and board scores, can still fail to get into their first choices and end up at "safety" schools" (The Philadelphia Inquirer).

Icarus, undaunted by his vertiginous flight toward the sun, foolishly ignored his father's warnings because he let his adolescent impulse for foolish risk-taking get the best of him, and he paid for his hubris by eventually plunging to his death.

Anthony Wellington

How lucky we were today that Mr. Anthony Wellington, a professional musician, came to talk to us.  There are literally millions of teenage and college-age musicians who jam in bands and in garages, and millions more who dabble in the safety of their homes, and still countless others who enter their adult years playing music, often just scraping by.  Anthony is in that rare class who has reached a vertiginous level which far transcends the status of being just another musician; he has gone to the Grammies, he makes six figures, and he has a sterling reputation.  Professional teachers are everywhere, but professional musicians are rare breed.

I heard snickering after I asked him what magazine and books he reads.  I'll bet a few of the students thought I was crazy because, after all, this is not what one asks a professional musician who is the quintessence of cool. I knew that Anthony was a thinking man, and I know that congruent thinkers and speakers read. A lot. 


Anthony listed an armful of music magazines and journals that fill his mailbox.  A spiritual man, he mentioned that he reads widely about world religions, and then he listed many titles and authors who write about the psychology of music and success.  My hope is that many of the students realized that reading is power, and this is the stuff that puts our guest in a league above other musicians who couldn't care less about reading or deep thoughts.  Here are some of his recently read, favorite books:

Sources

By the weekend, it is imperative that you have at least 10 good sources that answer your working thesis. You may have to read/skim a couple dozen articles before your find the right handful Let your mentor help search, ask me and I'll help, if you're stuck, and yes, for now it's okay to modify your thesis if you think it will be a dead end.

I need to see URLs that will lead me right to the articles, websites, or video links.  To keep better track of them, you need to rename them so that they are not big, clunky thinks followed by hundreds of numbers and characters.

Check out the search engines on the following:
Magazines related to your working thesis
EBSCO
Sirs
Grolier
The New York Times
TedTalks
npr.org

A final stage note...

“You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.”- Jack London

Since about half the senior project class had a role in Seussical, I couldn't let the opportunity to blog about it slip by.  Sometime over the weekend,  London's familiar quote popped into my mind, and just now I connected it to the transformative, magical experience that was the show.  

I've forgotten exactly where I encountered the quote during the last few days (the whole weekend was a busy, happy blur), but I can say that it became highlighted in my mind after I read Essence's blog this morning.  She is the first of you to discuss how it built her confidence.

In my universe here at LHS, I've seen hundreds of students go after inspiration with the proverbial club as they audition for shows and see them through until the final, glorious curtain call.  Performing in a show takes such courage and commitment, regardless of whether the student is a lead or a walk-on.  Hopefully, the experience that was Seussical will be the inspirational vehicle that will let our students soar to new heights, and I am sure that the sweet residue of the show will be apparent in their presentations. 

You can't wait for inspiration, whether it's for the research paper or the final project presentation; you have to go after it with a club. How and where will you find yours?