A Taste of What's Down the Road

Yesterday, I welcomed the students into the blog that I so lovingly maintained with my Senior Project class for the last three years.  Blogger was good, but its access became increasingly erratic; often, the students and I would try to log on only to see that something mysterious blocked it. 

In the spirit of taking risks and trying new stuff, I told everyone that we're going to build our personal websites, which will have a blogging component, and we can find the free source at Weebly http://www.weebly.com/ . We won't start building our sites until after break.

Once we return, we will officially begin the Senior Project portion of the year.  Each week, you will complete three to five entries,  one of which will require you to find an article, podcast, or video that relates to your project's theme.  Today, I will introduce you to TED talks http://www.ted.com/ , an engaging site that provides a treasure trove of stuff that will help you become your own best teacher.  The people on this site teach us how to think.

For now, let's watch the following video about empathy, then respond to it. Strive to use at least 5 - 7 sentences in Socrative.

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/sam_richards_a_radical_experiment_in_empathy.html

Your response should address any of the following or both:

Describe your gut response.  What stands out in your mind the most?  What stimulated you in a visceral way?

Explain how the concept of empathy connects to your project's theme.  How can people affiliated with your project be more successful if they are empathetic?

Message to Mentors

Hi All:

 

We're getting to a very exciting time in the Senior Project experience, and your mentee is going to need you for inspiration and guidance more than ever. Attached, you will find a grid indicating student presentation times. This is a very big deal because none of them have controlled a classroom filled with adults and students for the better part of an hour.

 

At this point, I've told the students that they need to plan and create a session that will fill 45 minutes as they share what they have created, how they have grown, and what they have learned over the last few months. They need to go into the Disney trip with much off the planning under their belts.

 

Here are some tips:

• When you see them this week, ask to see their presentation brochures.
• Help them chart out how they will fill the time and exactly what product/information they will present. Remember how it was during our first year in front of a class?
• Encourage them to see their SPONSORS to consult about content and generate ideas.
• Please take time to look at their recent blog entries and make thoughtful comments.

 

Ask Mr. Snyder and me ANY questions.

Thanks for what you do for our students!

 

Larry

 

 

 

 

 

Snakes!

During our Senior Project nature walk, I found inspiration in the unlikeliest place. While poking around in the forest beside a reservoir pond clogged with chirping frogs, I encountered two massive black snakes unlike anything I had ever encountered in nature. Here I was, picking up sticks, thinking about making some kind of connection to the project, and here were two Northern Black Racers or Eastern Hognose snakes!

I called over two of my strapping male students to help me inspect my new find, and they took one look, gasped, and quickly skipped away. Miss Robertson, our nature junkie, fortunately got a good look at them.

Sometimes excitement and novelty pops out of the most unlikliest places.  I'm so glad that we took our walk and we need to do it again.

Chatting in the Classroom

Hello colleagues:

My fourteen year-old daughter prefers having on-line chats with her friends rather than speaking to them on the phone.  I suspect that most of my students feel the same way, so I'm beginning to harness their skill at chatting to take our academic game to a higher level. So many of our students excel at keeping focused on videos while simultaneously chatting with a friend or two, so why not use this skill in the classroom as a communication tool?

I will show you how Today's Meet can facilitate intelligent dialogue, thoughtful questions, and creative connections the next time you show a video, play a song, or have read-alouds. In one of my ENG 10 classes, I have seen one of my quietest students, who has real challenges with the language, go from zero to sixty with the "Power of the Chat," becoming something of a class leader whenever we do this.

Please go to the following chatroom I prepared, and we will use the power of chat to enable our students to become better oral readers and critical thinkers: http://todaysmeet.com/teacherchat

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.