Monday, 11/12/09

Agenda
1) Welcome to our new room
2) New seating chart
3) Introduce Extreme Earth
4) Sample presentation

Homework
None


Happy New Year and welcome back to our students. As of today we are in a new classroom, E125. The primary reason for the move was so that Journalism, which I also teach, could take advantage of a mini computer lab we set up in a room that adjoins E125. But all of my classes will benefit from the new room, which is much bigger than my old room and a much better fit for my typically large classes.

Today we introduced the Extreme Earth project, which is an oral presentation. Each student will get a category, for example "hot." This student will then research the hottest place on Earth, and present a 2-minute oral presentation about it. This is the last project in our Research unit.

To help the students get up to speed I gave a sample presentation about The Deadliest Lake in the World. Lake Nyos, in Cameroon, killed 1,700 people in a single day. Ask your kids how.

Wednesday, 12/17

Agenda
1) Book Club
2) Gallery

Homework:
Book Club report due Friday.


Today the Feature Article was turned in. We put them up on the wall and each student read them and voted on which one they thought was best. The top vote getter in each class got an automatic A.

The winners:

Period 1: Brandon Slater
Period 2: Luke Chayo
Period 5: Jessica Valice and Kiersten Boyer
Period 6: Darian Nejad

Congratulations.

Tuesday, 12/16

Agenda
1) Book club
2) Peer Review

Homework
Feature article due tomorrow
Book club report due Friday

Today students shared their drafts and gave each other feedback.

Monday, 12/15

Agenda
1) Warmup
Write your article
2) Book Club
3) Write your article

Homework
Feature article due Wednesday
Book Club report due Friday

Today students worked on writing their article, which is due Wednesday. If any student brings in their first draft tomorrow I will proof it during class.

Friday, 12/12

Agenda
1) Warmup
Write three leads (see below)
2) Book club
3) Surprise endings

Homework
None, but remember that the Feature Article is due Wednesday 12/17, and the book club elements report is due Friday 12/19.


Today we worked on writing a lead, or introduction, for the feature article. During the warmup students wrote three leads, one each of the following three types:

News Lead
Sum up the story (who what when where why how) in at most two sentences.

Example: The Philadelphia Phillies ended their long wait for a World Series title with a short burst of baseball last night as they clinched the crown by completing a rain-suspended 4-3 win over the Tampa Bay Rays.

One Fact lead
Start with the one most important or amazing fact.

Example: The Philadelphia Phillies are World Champions again.

Mysterious Lead
Start with a quote or fact that doesn’t make sense until you read more.

Example: “It’s kind of weird, kind of odd, that the game is going to start with the seventh inning stretch,” said the Phillies’ Brett Myers, who exaggerated by an inning, but made his point nonetheless.

Feature Article Instructions

Here are the final instructions for the Feature Article.

The Feature Article is due on Wednesday, 12/17. Don't be late!

You will interview an adult who was threatened by a natural disaster—like the recent brushfires—and write up their story as if it were an article in a newspaper. You will also research the disaster and include information about the disaster itself—separate from the person you interviewed—in the article.

Your article must include
❏ A headline
❏ Eight paragraphs
One paragraph introduction
Three paragraphs telling the story of the person you interviewed
Three paragraphs telling about the disaster
One paragraph conclusion
❏ Article must include at least three quotes from your interview
❏ Quotes must be integrated into the story with correct punctuation
❏ Article must include at least three facts from your research
❏ Facts must include parenthetical citations in the article
❏ Must include a works cited list with all entries in correct MLA format
❏ No wikipedia, ask.com, or search engine (google, blackle, etc.) in your works cited list
❏ Article must be written in third person—no I, me, we, my, etc. (except in a quote)
❏ Article must be typed on the computer
❏ Article must be written in 12-point Palatino or Times
❏ Article must be printed in black ink or toner

Special note about plagiarism:
If you plagiarize any part of your article you will receive a zero for this project.


Here is a pdf file of the grader.

Agenda
1) Warmup
Tell me about the disaster you researched.

Alternate warmup for kids who haven't done their research yet:
Write a letter to your parent/guardian telling them why you do not do your work.

2) Book club
3) Feature article instructions and grader

Homework
None

Today we had an extended warmup, designed to help kids get a head start on the part of their feature article that discusses the disaster itself. I also handed out and went over the final instructions for the article, including the visual rubric that will be used to grade the final product.

The Feature Article is due on Wednesday, 12/17. Don't be late!

Wednesday, 12/10

Agenda
1) Computer Research

Homework
Finish research (if necessary)

When we come back from winter break, our class will move into classroom E125. This is my new classroom because it has an attached workroom which we've been able to make into a mini computer lab for the Journalism class (which I also teach). Today we met in classroom E125, so kids would be able to familiarize themselves with the room. The workroom has 14 computers, so everyone got a 15-minute block to do some research.

This may not be enough time for every student to finish their research, but it was enough for everyone to get started and to get help from me if they were unsure how to proceed. The rest of the research, if necessary, can be done as homework.

Tuesday, 12/9

Agenda
1) Warmup
Tell me the story of the person you interviewed.
2) Book club

Homework
Write 5 research questions that you need to answer to write about the disaster.

As we get closer to the end of the feature article assignment, class is slowing down as I try to make sure that everyone understands what we're doing, and to give everyone a chance to do as much of the work as possible in class. Today's warmup was basically a short rough draft of the part of the article that tells the story of the person you interviewed.

Tomorrow we will get on the computer and do some of our research, so the homework is to write five research questions whose answers you'll use when writing about the disaster itself. So, for example, if you're writing about your parent who experienced the Northridge Earthquake, you're also going to be writing about the earthquake itself, or about earthquakes in general—what causes them, or how do they predict them, or what to do in an earthquake, or how building codes have changed to protect against earthquakes, etc. So write down the five questions you have about the disaster you're writing about, and tomorrow we'll try to find out the answers.

Monday, 12/8

Agenda
1) Warmup

2) Book club
3) Lessons and Kindness

Homework:
None


Today we finished analyzing "Lessons and Kindness Come From Disaster," the sample feature article. This week we will do our research and begin writing the article itself, which will be due on Wednesday the 17th.

Friday, 12/5

Agenda
1) Warmup
Tell me about the hardest thing you've ever done.
2) Book club
3) Lessons and Kindness

Homework
None


Today we continued analyzing the sample feature article about the Northridge Earthquake. No homework -- have a great weekend.

Thursday, 12/4

Agenda
1) Warmup
Write the top ten things a news story can have that would make it interesting.
2) Book club
3) Lessons and Kindness

Homework
Read "Lessons and Kindess Come from Disaster"


Today we began discussing "Lessons and Kindess Come from Disaster," which is a sample of the kind of feature article we are working on. It's very valuable to see what we're working towards.

Wednesday, 12/3

Agenda
1) Warmup
Write ten reasons why someone would put something fake on the internet
2) Book club
3) Citing websites

Homework
None


Today we did a paper-based version of the citing websites activity we couldn't do yesterday because of the technical problems in the computer lab. Not quite as much fun but still an effective way to learn the required skills, which relate to State Standard for Writing 1.5: Give credit for both quoted and paraphrased information in a bibliography by using a consistent and sanctioned format and methodology for citations.

Tuesday, 12/2

Agenda
Meet in computer lab
Do Citing Websites activity

Homework
Finish citing websites activity

Today was an exercise in frustration. We met in the computer lab to do an exercise involving doing online research and writing up the results in your own words, using proper citations in MLA format for a website.

Unfortunately the computer lab's internet connection was broken. So we switched to a different computer room, which had internet access but didn't have a printer (and half the computers didn't have microsoft word).

So we had to improvise a lesson in how to judge whether a website is a reliable source of information. And the actual citing websites activity became homework. If students follow the instructions in the Citing Websites post (right below this one) you'll get it.

By the way all ten of the websites in the citing websites post are fake!

Citing Websites

For today's assignment, you will
1) Go to any website from the list below.
2) Pick any one fact from that website.
3) Open a new document in Microsoft Word and type your name.
4) Write the fact into your word document, in your own words.
5) Write a parenthetical citation at the end of the sentence.
6) Create a "Works Cited:" list after your sentence.
7) Enter the website you used into your Works Cited list. Use correct MLA format as shown here:

Author's name, last name first. "Title of the website in quotation marks." Publisher. Date you accessed it in 2 Dec. 2009 format. .

Here's my example. I visit the website of the Glen Canyon Institute. There it says:

Due to its high desert location and huge surface area, Lake Powell loses an average of 860,000 AF of water annually to evaporation and bank seepage. Glen Canyon Dam is unnecessary and counterproductive to the water storage and delivery purposes for which it was built.

So I open a word document and type this:

When you store water in a reservoir, some of it evaporates or seeps into the ground. Every year Lake Powell loses 860,000 acre-feet of water! (Glen Canyon Institute)

Then my works cited entry would look like this:

Works Cited:
Glen Canyon Institute. "Water Supply and Lake Powell." Glen Canyon Institute. 1 Dec. 2009


Now you do the same with one of these websites:
1. The history of boilerplate, the world's oldest robot.
2. If you love dogs, you'll send your dog to dog island.
3. New genetic techniques make it possible for a man to become pregnant.
4. Now parents can choose their kid's DNA.
5. Learn about the dangers of dihydrous monoxide, an incredibly common chemical.
6. This might be the strangest addiction of all time, but this website documents how people become addicted to lip balm.
7. If you like weird animals, the Pacific Tree Octopus is one of the weirdest.
8. The most beautiful money in the world is from Antartica.
9. If you always thought Minnesota was cold, me too. But the town of Mankato is different!
10. You kids are too young to remember when Kresky was the hottest show on television.

Monday, 12/1

Agenda
1) Warmup
Write a short story with ten sentences. Every sentence must contain a quote.
2) Book club
3) Transcribing Comics

Homework
Interview transcript due Wednesday.


Today we continued our basic skill of describing events that include quotes. This addresses the state standard for:

Written and Oral English Language Conventions 1.4 Demonstrate the mechanics of writing (e.g., quotation marks...)