Class of ‘09 APELCers
The Girard family was once again in the stands last evening to see past and present APELCers graduate. Congratulations to Sarah, Andrew, Jackie, Elise, Blaise, Paul, Marie, Simone, Addie, Danielle, Maggie, Tony, Laura D., Emily, Alli, Ben, Michael, Logus, Julia, Valene, Chloe, Hal, Mark, Brennan, Yixuan, Ryan, Katie, Casey, Andre, Petra, Adam, Keerthana, Danny, Clay, Laura P., Jake, Mae, Megan, Lucy, Sam, Hannah, Kala, Miriam, Taylor, Natalee, Eliza, Jen, Kourtney, and Carli.
The forty-eight of you were either junior APELCers with me in 07-08 or seniors APELCers in 08-09, and each of you offered valuable insights to your peers, and we’re our all better for your participation. Thank you for working with and helping me to establish the foundations of my Advanced Placement English Language and Composition curriculum at CDO.
Best thoughts and prayers to you all as you leave this stage of your lives and begin the next. I hope you’ll send me a note in the future to let me know how you’re changing the world.
APELC Class Notes
Third and fourth periods, it was a slim last day with so many seniors out and getting ready to graduate tonight, but we enjoyed the last of Star Trek: The Motion Picture which presented us a couple of other essential, existential questions when the character of Ilia, now a machine with the Lieutenant’s schemata intact, was returned to the Enterprise as V’ger’s representative and data-gathering device.
The first question was “What is the connection between mind and body?” And further, “Is mind merely a product of biological and electro-chemical processes in the material body, or is it immaterial, separate from the body, and potentially capable of existence on its own?” This is called the mind-body problem and is informed by dualism, materialism, and idealism.
The second question, closely related to the first, was “What makes a ‘person’?” Are we only matter, or are we more? This question has to do with consciousness and identity.
That was it for today. We are at an end, but I’ll offer some final reflections before I leave for Europe next week. Until then, I hope to see you at graduation tonight where we’ll celebrate your peers’ accomplishments.
English 9 Class Notes
These notes are for first and second period, who met today and will serve for sixth period who’ll meet for the last time this Thursday. You turned-in your final work as you entered and we completed the film version of To Kill a Mockingbird. I wrapped up the year with some thoughts and bid you have a restful but productive summer. That’s it.
I’ll post some final reflections next week before I leave for Europe. Check back if you like.
APELC Class Notes
Objectives: APELCers processed a film.
As I said I’d keep it light but educational and relevant this week juniors, we began watching Star Trek: The Motion Picture. I justified it because of the movie’s socio-cultural, popular-historical, media significance, and because of the essential existential questions its story implies, among them: What are the responsible limits and uses of power? Of technology?, What is duty?, What is sacrifice?, What is it to be human?, What is identity?, What is purpose?, What are humanity’s destinations?, et cetera. You’ll recognize these from discussions of our several of the texts from the year past. I recommend examining the following for some interesting insight: “Star Trek” at Wikipedia and the “Cultural influence of Star Trek” and the brief essay “Star Trek as a Cultural Phenomenon”.
See you Wednesday for our final 90 minutes together.
English 9 Class Notes
Objectives: Freshmen identified and explained character, setting, idiom, plot, imagery, irony, foreshadowing, point of view, motif, symbol, and theme in a film.
We began comparing the film version of To Kill a Mockingbird with the novel we just completed last class. You’ll note that the pacing is different and the story line condensed with events that happened separately in the text occurring together in the film. This is for the obvious reasons of the limits of time for the film.
We’ll continue next class when your final papers are due.
APELC Class Notes
Fourth period juniors (no more seniors) we tackled the same as your third period colleagues yesterday with some degree of success. It was a bit too chatty yesterday, understandable as it was the seniors’ last day, but we were able to informally throw around ideas engendered by the documentary.
We’ll finish out the year with something lighter but equally educational.
Have a good weekend.
English 9 Class Notes
Periods 2 and 6, we completed the novel today as did your peers yesterday. I encouraged you to think about relationships in the novel and in all of the human products we’ve encountered this year. Check yesterday’s notes for more.
I hope everybody is proceeding well on their finals. Remember that you’ll put them in my hand the moment you pass the threshold of T-12.
Have a good weekend.
APELC Class Notes
Period 3 APELCers, with several absent taking the APECON exam, we began The Persuaders.
Juniors, you get to hang-out until Wednesday, but We said goodbye to Andrew, Lucy, Megan, Hal, and Taylor today, and tomorrow we’ll miss Bennifer, Keerthana, Jackie, Yixuan, Petra, and Natalee.
I’ll write some summary notes next week after all the year is over for good. Until then, best hopes of success for the seniors, and the rest I’ll see next class.
English 9 Class Notes
Objectives: Freshmen identified and explained character, setting, idiom, plot, imagery, irony, foreshadowing, point of view, motif, symbol, and theme in a novel.
First freshmen, we completed To Kill a Mockingbird today and I asked you to think about relationships, after talking over Boo’s desire to express himself in the community (evidenced by his attempt to connect with and through Souct and Jem). I argued that all of the literary artifacts we’ve examined this year, all of the visual and graphic artifacts on the room’s walls, and, really, all of the products of human endeavor are essentially expressions of our need to engage one another in meaningful relationships.
I asked you to ponder different relationships and the needs implied in them in the book (Mayella’s need to relate to men as a young woman, Atticus’s need to relate to the community as a example of decorum), and I asked you think over other relationships from other stories we’ve read. We noted, for example, Juliet’s need for a love relationship other than the poisonous she ahs with her parents and Maya Angelou’s need to relate people of al races as an equalm, Madame Loisel’s need to have others relate to her as a woman of stature. As I write I think of Montresor’s need to expose his crime against Fortunato in a confessional relationhsip and Terry Williams’ uncle Alan’s need to engage people not in his situation in a relationship of understanding. I encourage you to continue to consider what connections you can make with the texts we’ve read this year, and try understand what they can tell you of your own relationships.
You have limited time to see me for assistance on your final assignment. I want to believe you’re proceeding well, but I fear, from the lack of students in my room looking for help, that too many will wait until the last minute to complete work. This can only have a negative affect on your grade. Of course, perhaps few of you need my assistance and you’ll prove me wrong. I hope so.
Have a good weekend.
APELC Class Notes
Well, Ben, Keerthana, Jackie, and I enjoyed the FRONTLINE documentary The Persuaders another cultural critique by The Merchants of Cool producer-director Douglas Rushkoff, the rest of you ditched to complete the APELC exam.
The day finally came and I trust you did well; early reports from those of you that stopped by afterward appeared positive. Certainly I’m confident that each of performed as well as you had prepared and were capable of doing.
Remember that we have four more class days (at least the juniors and I do), so please come to class. It’ll be educational but light―you’ve all worked hard and written enough that you’ve earned that reward.
English 9 Class Notes
Periods 2 and 6, we covered the same as your peers yesterday. Please check their notes if you have questions.
APELC Class Notes
Objectives: APELCers will process texts from multiple genres.
Third period juniors and seniors, today we continued The Elegant Universe, kind of. The disc was skipping, but that gave you time to let off some steam before the exam tomorrow. I’ll do my best to have it fixed or I’ll bring something equally compelling next time.
I offered you two more articles as well that we lightly touched upon and that you were able to read at your leisure: “Parallel universe proof boosts time travel hopes” and “Study Plunges Standard Theory Of Cosmology Into Crisis”. Again, I encourage you to examine these in more depth when you have the chance; it’s interesting and important to understand what people of all worldviews believe, what examination bears out, and how ideas can be challenged and changed.
Please remember to be here tomorrow before the exam at 7:30 for our APELC class picture.
English 9 Class Notes
We completed chapters 27 and 28, first freshmen, and I asked you consider again if it’s true that people have inherent value, whether they have intrinsic worth, as Atticus does.
We’ll finish on Thursday, and we’ll have time to talk over your progress on your written finals.
APELC Class Notes
Objectives: APELCers will process texts from multiple genres.
APELCers, since in your argument and analysis I’ve asked you to focus on fundamental assumptions about and existential questions of the natures of reality and truth and encouraged you to evaluate how such assumptions inform the artifacts of the authors, artists, and thinkers we’ve examined over the year, I thought we might seek this week at least a superficial understanding of very popular string theory, ostensibly a scientific attempt by many physicists to discover the theory of everything.
To begin, I gave you two articles to consider, “Has String Theory Tied Up Better Ideas In Field of Physics?” and “A Crisis in Fundamental Physics”. The former you read over in class and the latter I recommended you read at your leisure. I discussed briefly and in a limited way the standard cosmological theory of the beginning of the universe and a recent competitor and actual and potential infinities before we began watching The Elegant Universe.
I encourage you to explore more at the American Institute of Physics’ site Cosmic Journey: A History of Scientific Cosmology. This is fascinating and relevant material, perhaps more than you might imagine, and not without worldview implications as evidenced in the article “Why Steven Hawking’s Cosmology Precludes a Creator” in the philosophical journal Philo, a publication of the secular (and particularly anti-theistic, at least from my experience) Center for Inquiry.
We’ll continue with The Elegant Universe next class.
NOTE. Please remember that the APELC exam commences two days from now at 8:00 am, Wednesday, May 13. I politely request that all APELCers, even those not taking the exam, be present in T-12 for a class photo at 7:30. I’d really appreciate it.
English 9 Class Notes
Objectives: Freshmen identified and explained character, setting, idiom, plot, imagery, irony, foreshadowing, point of view, motif, symbol, and theme in a novel.
We plowed through chapters 25 and 26 today, freshmen, with little time for discussion, but we’ll review next class before we proceed to the following chapters as we begin to close-out the novel.
APELC Class Notes
Period 4 juniors and seniors, as did period 3 yesterday, so did you today.
All APELCers, to receive credit on for your practice exam, your essays must be highlighted. Please get them to me no later than Wednesday morning before the exam.
English 9 Class Notes
Period 2 and 6 freshmen, you did as your peers yesterday, but I asked you to think in particular about Atticus’s criticism of American public education. I encouraged you to think if your experience as a student bore out his assertion that lazy and incapable students, those who enjoy the right of public education but merely are present physically and do absolutely nothing to help themselves, are treated equally with those who demonstrate responsibility, citizenship, and ability. Here’s what Atticus said in his closing argument in the defense of Tom Robinson:
One more thing, gentlemen, before I quit. Thomas Jefferson once said that all men are created equal, a phrase that the Yankees and the distaff side of the Executive branch in Washington are fond of hurling at us.
There is a tendency in this year of grace, 1935, for certain people to use this phrase out of context, to satisfy all conditions. The most ridiculous example I can think of is that the people who run public education promote the stupid and idle along with the industrious-because all men are created equal, educators will gravely tell you, the children left behind suffer terrible feelings of inferiority.
We know all men are not created equal in the sense some people would have us believe-some people are smarter than others, some people have more opportunity because they’re born with it, some men make more money than others, some ladies make better cakes than others-some people are born gifted beyond the normal scope of most men. But there is one way in this country in which all men are created equal - there is one human institution that makes a pauper the equal of a Rockefeller, the stupid man the equal of an Einstein, and the ignorant man the equal of any college president. That institution, gentlemen, is a court. It can be the Supreme Court of the United States or the humblest J.P. court in the land, or this honorable court which you serve. Our courts have their faults, as does any human institution, but in this country our courts are the great levelers, and in our courts all men are created equal.
Do you know students who’ve been passed to the next grade even though they’d failed one or more classes? Do you know students who are or have been rewarded for doing nothing and who actually distract hard-working students and subtract from their experience ? Is Atticus’s criticism of the public education system that promotes them correct? Is it fair that the “stupid and idle” are rewarded along with the “industrious”?
Think of your answers to these questions as you attend your homework.
APELC Class Notes
Objectives: APELCers 1) completed a critical reading assessment, and 2) assessed their thinking, reading, and writing skills.
In my absence, your substitute administered the multiple-choice section of this practice exam.
See you Monday.
English 9 Class Notes
Objectives: Freshmen identified and explained character, setting, idiom, plot, imagery, irony, foreshadowing, point of view, motif, symbol, and theme in a novel.
First freshmen, you were to have read and listened to chapters 20, 21, and 22 in my absence and to complete for homework the answers to the questions I assigned if you didn’t finish them in class.
See you next week.
Next Year
As most of you are aware and as I’ve explained to some of you, my future as a teacher at CDO is highly dubious. Every day it becomes more likely that I’ll not be invited back to teach for 2009-2010. To quell any misunderstandings, I thought I’d elaborate that my imminent departure is a matter of budget and not behavior. I’m not in trouble and haven’t done anything (at least to my knowledge) to earn the disfavor of any body in authority.
The fact is the Arizona legislature has decided to cut education spending and so districts have had to similarly cut costs which means thousands of teachers and other school personnel across the state are facing unemployment. Sadly (for me and Mrs. Girard and Debabu and Zufan, anyway) I’m one of those affected. If I’ve seemed distracted and have been more behind than usual in getting work back to you for the past while, this is the reason and I hope you’ll accept my apologies.
Of course, it’s my first desire to stay at CDO. I was whole-heartedly looking forward to working with the unprecedented 110 students who registered for Advanced Placement English Language and Composition next year. I’ve enjoyed designing and building APELC these last two years and I’ll miss the opportunity to work with new students and siblings of students-past for whom I’ve been preparing a revised curriculum next. As I understand the class-assignments for 2009-2010, the sections comprised of those future APELCers will now most likely be split among two teachers.
I also regret that I’ll miss the chance to work with this year’s freshmen I’ve identified as potential-APELCers their junior and senior years. And certainly I’ll miss all of the students that have ever spent time in and even those who just pass by T-12 every day.
We still have two weeks left though, and so there’s no time or effort to waste. Stay focused and do your best on the remaining tasks and this school year’ll be over before you know it.
It’s good to be a Dorado.