APELC Class Notes
Objectives: APELCers 1) processed an essay, and 2) researched their worldviews.
First and third seniors and juniors, we discussed the Wenke piece today, and some interesting ideas about cheating and academic and family pressures came. One of the fundamental questions that we were left with after talking over the text and its relevance to our context at CDO and education in general was “Is the education system broken, at least in that it expects so much from students, broken?” A great, revealing class that began with a brief talk over how we experience symbols and thinking beyond our assumptions; I’ll put up some images and links in tomorrow’s notes. We spent the last half of class in the liberry.
Check back this weekend for the amended presentation schedule, keep working on your final worldview papers, and be ready for timed-writing 8 (a traditional argument) when you get back Monday.
Have a restful (?) weekend.
Civics
News of pending cuts to education financing across the valley and state and the budget decision made by the Amphitheater Governing Board last night engendered rumors and misinformation all over campus Monday, yesterday, and today about possible consequences for the next school year, Proposition 100, and so on. It’s my purpose as an educator in my discipline to help you become critical consumers and producers of language, and to that end, as you’ve experienced this year, I’ve always encouraged students to go beyond their assumptions and critically examine as many sides of an issue as possible to develop informed opinions. So here’re links to two stories from today’s Star that are worth reading if you’re genuinely interested in civic engagement (you may find the readers’ comments worth reviewing, too):
- “For districts across city, it’s a night of bitter cuts”
- “Sales tax hike: job generator or burden on Arizonans?”
And you might also read the April 13, 2010, Governing Board Budget Presentation that details how the proposed-now-accepted cuts will affect you directly.
The current recession, this tax referendum, and the state’s political zeitgeist have provided remarkable opportunities for you to experience robust democracy in action at a local level. You Dorados will be inheriting your birthright, that is, citizen-participation in this nation and this world very soon; indeed, some of you will be voting for the first time in your lives in a little over a month. So inform yourselves and talk all sides of these issues over with the adults in your lives and your friends. It’s in your best interest and you’ll help generate more light than heat.
See you at school, kids.
English 9 Class Notes
Objectives: Freshmen identified and explained literary concepts in a novel.
We continued review of our novel, freshmen, after some discussion of the events of last night’s board meeting. We talked over several ideas about some of the chapters up to and including “And Some More”. (We’re behind because of my absence Monday.) Issues of race, class, and identity became apparent again, and these’ll become the subject of your imminent composition when we complete the book Monday.
The reading assignment for Friday is posted on your class page.
See you in a couple of days.
APELC Class Notes
Second and fourth APELCers, we accomplished the same as your peers yesterday. Please review their notes for objectives and details; I enumerated important considerations about your final worldview papers, the same I reviewed with you in class today, but I want there to be no excuse for not understanding the expectations I have for your work.
Also, here’re the names I gave you in class (plus a few more) of students whose work you’d benefit from examining as models of the successful integration of narration, exposition, and evaluation: Nicole in first; Sam, Kevin, Joe, and Rhiannon in second; Joy, Ben, Leigh, and Brigette in third; and Andrea in fourth.
Finally, here’s a story I came across today and shared with fourth and another from a few years ago that’re relevant to our reading of Prager and viewing of Rushkoff
As I explained, gender and race studies are significant disciplines on campuses today and it’s worth your time becoming familiar with the issues as you prepare to enter post-secondary institutions. Dig the results of a Google search and a Google Scholar search.
APELC Class Notes
Objective: APELCers researched their worldviews.
Periods 1 and 3 juniors and seniors, we spent just a little time on the Prager piece and hardly on the Steele piece before I detailed some observations of your worldview drafts and prescribed some logoi you’ll need to attend for your final papers. In their final products, students must
- Attend all worldview categories (foundations, cognition, constitution, et cetera) and answer the research questions (correspondence, cohesion, coherence, benefits, consequences, et cetera) somehow;
- Embed quotations it their own sentences and off-set (and un-quote) quotations longer than three typed lines in a body paragraph
- Cite sources sufficiently and format them properly (in-text and parenthetically) in their paper bodies;
- Adhere to the Works Cited requirements carefully and completely (URLs are not required);
- Utilize more than web sources, and not rely on Wikipedia, About, or Infoplease as end sources;
- Use traditional BC and AD time references, rather than BCE and ACE (Remember that BC comes after a year, and AD comes before);
- Read their own work to themselves aloud at each stage of their progress, slowly and deliberately.
Why are format, citation, and sourcing so important? Here’s the University of Arizona’s Code of Academic Integrity I showed you in class. Read it. Any post-secondary institution will have its own (roughly similar) code that you’ll be responsible for knowing.
Be aware that not addressing each worldview component somehow in your paper, and/or lacking any sources (including the interview), and/or relying solely on all web sources, and/or poorly formatting your Works Cited page, will tell me that you’ve not taken the project seriously, and you’ve wasted the days and months given you to attend the task appropriately. The most you’ll be able to receive on your final paper is a 4 if I observe one or more of these in your work. Do not let what work you’ve done be in vain. See me if you’re unsure about anything to ensure you earn the best grade possible.
You have a reading for next class, and I will be collecting your note review for The Merchants of Cool. It’s too rich a text for you not to spend some time reviewing.
English 9 Class Notes
Freshmen, you were to have continued your study of The House on Mango Street today under the care of your sub. I’ll check your progress next class and we’ll proceed with our study of the text in preparation for a composition next week.
APELC Class Notes
Juniors and seniors, in my absence today you were to have finished watching The Merchants of Cool and reviewed the questions associated with the film. We’ll see where you left off next class; readings relevant to the documentary are listed on your class page and should be attended before we meet again. They, as well as the following two articles, will inform your understanding of what we watched and where teens are now in this media-age:
- “The Amazing Media Habits Of 8-18 Year Olds”
- “Kids Increase Their Media Consumption, But Many Mysteries Remain”
We’ll again head to the liberry after discussion next class, where I’ll discuss with each student his or her progress on the worldview project.
English 9 Class Notes
Objectives: Freshmen identified and explained literary concepts in a novel.
We continued with The House on Mango Street, first by discussing your answers to initial questions I asked you to attend Wednesday, and then I set you to working in your groups answering more questions over the chapters that followed. I monitored groups’ progress and discussed story details with each, and importantly, as I made my way around the room, the story’s structure became a topic. After some questioning, you came to the conclusion that the story reads more like a journal of the protagonist’s thoughts, and though you initially thought the story lacked a conflict unlike other of our stories in the past, we eventually discovered that the conflict of this text isn’t external necessarily, but are the internal conflicts of growth and maturation. Finally, I assigned you homework over the chapter “Our Good Day”; you all should’ve copied the questions I assigned you over that chapter, but they’re on your class page just in case.
See you Monday, kids.
APELC Class Notes
We continued with The Merchants of Cool and we headed to the liberry with a still a few minutes left in the video. We’ll complete it on Monday and discuss your answers to the questions I akst you to think over and write about. Check Tuesday’s notes for more details and objectives.
APELC Class Notes
Period 1 and 3 juniors and seniors, in a twist in the normal chronology of the week, we did the same as your peers yesterday. Please check their notes for objectives and details, and be ready to discuss The Merchants of Cool further on Monday. You might prepare by answering the questions I’ve given you as part of your notes.
I pointed out this article to third period on Tuesday, “Buying 30 min. of primetime: Modern Family becomes iPad ad”, and I thought it worth posting here because it reminded me of what commentator Robert McChesney asserted (correctly, I believe) in the video:
Everything on MTV is a commercial. That’s all that MTV is. Sometimes it’s an explicit advertisement paid for by a company to sell a product. Sometimes it’s going to be a video for a music company there to sell music. Sometimes it’s going to be the set that’s filled with trendy clothes and stuff there to sell a look that will include products on that set. Sometimes it will be a show about an upcoming movie paid for by the studio, though you don’t know it, to hype a movie that’s coming out from Hollywood. But everything’s an infomercial. There is no noncommercial part of MTV.
This should remind you of The Persuaders, particularly the segment which detailed the advertising-as-story marriage between Absolut Vodka and the program Sex and the City.
What are you being sold in the programs and movies you watch today? Take a look at the Worst Product Placement blog to see some examples.
We’ll discuss this more next week.
ONE MORE THING. Here’s more on addiction (and various theorized models) and personality disorders. Look them over; I’ll be curious to hear what you think.
English 9 Class Notes
Objective: Freshmen identified and explained literary concepts in a novel.
We began discussing The House on Mango Street. We spent more time than I’d anticipated we would on the opening chapter, it was worth it because of the rich reflection and sharing it engendered.
Here’s a clip in which Sandra Cisneros, the author of the our current text, talks about her story:
You can leave your big texts in your lockers for now, but remember to bring The House on Mango Street each day along with an independent reading book, too.
See you Friday.
APELC Class Notes
Objective: APELCers processed a film.
Second and fourth, we began watching and discussing The Merchants of Cool. During the segment on the birth of MTV, I mentioned The Beatles ‘role in the creation of the music video as an art form. Below are the promotional videos these-gods-who-walk-as-men created for “Rain” and “Strawberry Fields Forever”. Please dig them:
See you next class.
APELC Class Notes
Objectives: APELCers 1) processed a film, and 2) researched their worldviews.
First and third periods, we began viewing and discussing The Merchants of Cool, and I asked you to think about what “cool” is, what it means. We’ll get into it more next class.
Here’re two stories that’re relevant to recent class discussions, both from All Things Considered:
See you next class.
English 9 Class Notes
Objectives: Freshmen made connections to and predictions about a novel.
Freshmens, we began The House on Mango Street today, and I asked you to judge the book by its cover (and its insides). You began to read and I gave you several questions to get you into the first parts of the book. This one should go quickly, so stay on task.
Read through “And Some More” which begins on page 35, and don’t forget to use that shiny new bookmark I gave you.
APELC Class Notes
Objective: APELCers processed a book excerpt.
Great discussion today about TV addiction and addiction in general. Kristin in third admitted her sometimes-desire to “be addicted” to something in an effort to distinguish herself from her peers; I don’t think this is at all uncommon. Being an “addict” brings attention to one’s self, and we’re fed the addiction-as-disease motif often; witness Hollywood where addiction and rehab are currently in vogue.
Issues relating to the interaction of man and technology is very current and will be much discussed in your college classes. Here’re a few of the news items I mentioned recently that are challenging our culture except for the last in the list, but I thought it was relevant; have a read:
- “Report: South Korean couple starved child while raising ‘virtual baby’”
- “Tokyo man marries video game character”
- “Woman arrested after virtual murder”
- “‘RapeLay’ video game goes viral amid outrage”
Your revisions for timed-writing 7 and cover sheets are due Tuesday by 3:05 pm, so remember:
- Writers must have conferred with me over their initial paper to submit a revision;
- Papers must be accompanied by a cover sheet detailing its writer’s revision process (under Class Materials)—no cop-outs;
- Papers must be typed and formatted according to MLA style guidelines (I mean it)—use the template (under Class Materials)—and should be no less than two and half pages and no more than three pages long;
- Cover sheets are to be attached to the revision, former on top of the latter, with one staple, horizontally, in the upper-left hand corner;
- Papers containing more than four obvious errors in conventions and usage for formal, written, academic English or that deviate from MLA style (including not embedding quotations) will lose 7% from the final grade (I have several style books you can reference.);
- Writers who did not confer with me over their initial drafts or who chose not to revise their essays must still submit a cover sheet, blank except for name, date, title, and initial score and “I choose not to revise timed-writing X” in number 4, signed;
- Revision scores will replace initial in-class scores if merited.
See you next class.
English 9 Class Notes
Objective: Freshmen wrote expository-analytical paragraphs about theme.
You worked hard today, freshmens, tying all of the short autobiographical pieces into a single three-chunk paragraph. Many of you approached me with great questions about how to choose and present the best evidence within the limits of the paragraph frame. This is, as always, a challenging task because I’ve essentially placed boundaries on your ideas with the template. This may seem counter-intuitive to what you think about writing: Writing’s supposed to be about expressing one’s self freely, right? Wrong. Writing is about evaluating, synthesizing, and controlling ideas, thus the exercise you’ve been engaged in.
Your finished product is due Monday when you walk in the door; you’ll also bring The House on Mango Street to class. I encourage you to type your work if you can, but please use the MLA template on the APELC class page I showed you in class (it’s under Class Materials).
Enjoy your weekends, kids.
APELC Class Notes
Period 2 and 4 juniors and seniors, again, we did the same as your peers, so please check their objectives and notes from yesterday. Attend your homework, and don’t forget to search for the terms “addictive personality” and “addictive personality disorder”, maybe talk to your parents or peers about them. Some of you were familiar with these very popular terms, and I’ll be curious to hear your results. (Of course, they’ll be the same as mine, so I guess I’ll be more curious to hear your reactions to what you find.)
Finally, thank you Sierra in first for allowing me to post the thesis you crafted for the timed-writing revision you and your peers are currently working on. I’ve recommended Sierra’s work to lots of APELCers this week as an example of how to create a highly evaluative and connotative thesis statement without listing logoi.
John Barry’s fascination with the Mississippi River is clearly evident and his passion for its complexity is directed toward the audience to inform and convince them of its mysterious power.
It’s broad enough to allow room for development in the body of the paper, but it’s still focused on the task in the prompt.
See you Monday, juniors and seniors.
APELC Class Notes
Objectives: APELCers 1) processed an essay, and 2) researched their worldviews.
We spent much of first period talking over attitudes toward alcohol and addiction rather than drugs-proper, but it was enlightening; third period attended the Vidal text a bit more. Interesting stuff and we’ll continue in this vein with our next piece, so check your class page for homework details. Here’re some texts that revolve around the issue of drugs and arguments for and against decriminalization:
- “UN: Afghanistan Is Leading Hashish Producer”
- “States high on pot tax as budget cure”
- “Decriminalizing pot would devastate cartels”
- “What Would Happen if Marijuana Were Decriminalized? A Freakonomics Quorum”
I’ll see you Monday, kids.