Huddle Up: Working in Groups

Having gotten the impression that most Freshmen were getting sick of 50 minute lectures on English, today was a day for practicing recently-acquired skills in small groups.

First, students evaluated (Bloom's Level V!) each others' responses on the IBS practice from last night, and compiled a "Best Of..." set of I-VI questions.

Having completed this step, it was time for the groups to apply Bloom's to a small piece of "new" material.

Armed with one of six children's fables, students had to work together to A) process the reading, and then B) formulate a question (with answer) or task for their story at each level of Bloom's Taxonomy before the end of class. I collected each group's sheet before the final bell.

HW for Friday:

• Bring your composition notebooks to class tomorrow, so we can set them up.

Learning Blooms...

...see what I did there? Little play on words in the title. Heh.

Today students got a crash course in something called Bloom's Taxonomy. What is it, you ask? Well...

It's a framework that scaffolds a student's understanding through increasingly complex levels.

Don't worry, I tried my best to explain what that meant today.

• First, students got a breakdown of what Bloom's is, and how it features 6 levels of understanding. We also annotated it.
• Then we took a look at resources for drafting Bloom's-oriented questions.
• Here is an additional bonus resource that I didn't give out in class.

Honestly, this was kind of a lot to digest. So we needed to examine Bloom's Taxonomy applied to a specific story: Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Certain students did the voices for the characters in each class. Archie's rendition of Papa Bear was awesome.

I also asked students to respond to the Goldilocks examples on p.2. Things took a turn for the amusing around the "Formulate a theory as to why Goldilocks went into the bears' house" part.

"But Mr. Tidyman, what's porridge?"

Now that students had gotten a glimpse of how Bloom's works in action, it was time for them to demonstrate their fledgling understanding of this framework by drafting their own questions. Which I sincerely hope they do, tonight, for HW.

HW for Tonight:

• Read The Itsy Bitsy Spider
• Complete the Bloom's chart on the front (you don't have to answer your own Q for level IV)

Bonus Round!

If you made it this far you don't have to read any more. Here are some additional offerings from today:

Copyright Natalie Dee.

Like this picture? Look up Marxism.

Maddy mentioned an awesome word to describe Goldilocks.

You should learn it.

During a conversation about the bears protecting their house with guns, Emeline made the "Right to bear arms!" joke. It was glorious.

During a conversation about the bears not being at home (what were they out doing?), Kendall and Lily pretty much simultaneously made the "They had to go get the...bear necessities!" joke. More glory.

Treat yourself:

Personalized Annotations

Today, Freshmen (but not 2nd period, sadly -- there was a Grade-Level Meeting then) corrected wrong answers on their first Summer Reading Assessments. I had to drop two of the questions, for reasons I explained using THIS handy (and short) Powerpoint.

While the students worked on those, I reviewed students' annotations that I asked them to complete for HW last night (see post below), on their own personal current event articles.

I saw some really good work!

Alexandria in 3rd did a great job of writing comments, questions, and reactions to her article in the generous right-side margin of her page. She graciously allowed me to post her article as an example:

• Alexandria's Page 1, Page 2, and Page 3.

Kendall in 7th did something that was popular among those students with several colorful writing instruments: she used a bunch of different-colored annotations for different parts of her article.

But what set Kendall's method of annotation apart is that she included a Key explaining what each color was used for. It was organized and eye-catching. She also allowed me to post her work as an example:

• Kendall's Page 1+ Color Key 

These two students weren't the only people who did a great job, but they're the two who I asked if I could post their work. If you also made stellar annotations, I'm sure I told you so when I gave these back to you.

We'll go over popular problems/misconceptions/mistakes tomorrow.

And speaking of tomorrow...

HW for Wednesday:

• Bring back your annotated Current Event article/media for a lesson on Question Building.

Mid-Day Update: Emergency Vocabulary Lesson

I'm noticing a disturbing trend as I examined students' current event article annotations.

9/10 students have circled, underlined, or highlighted the phrase "pro bono", and put a question mark by it.

But when I asked 3rd period what pro bono meant, no one uttered a peep.

You know what this means?

It means nobody looked it up, despite not knowing its definition.

Do you think people come out to their car, out in the parking lot, notice they have a flat tire, and say, 

"Welp! That sure looks like a flat tire!"

And then jump in their car and drive away?

No.

1. Identify the problem.
1. Ex.: "I don't know this word/phrase."
2. Take steps to fix/solve/address it.
1. Ex.: "I'll just look it up right here on my phone that has the internet (and/or) that has a dictionary on it."

Def. of "Pro Bono"

Word of the Day: Annotation

Good Afternoon!

Today, Freshmen received some direct instruction in the time-honored practice of Text Annotation:

an·no·ta·tion ˌanəˈtāSHən 

noun

noun annotation plural noun annotations

1. a note of explanation or comment added to a text or diagram.
   • the action of annotating a text or diagram.
   Synonyms: note notation comment gloss footnote commentary explanation interpretation

Several students indicated that they had heard this term before, which was good news. I then led a Annotation Demonstration, after giving students a copy of a USAToday article with which to practice this skill.

• Here is a link to the USA Today example article.
• And here is a link to an example of the annotations we did in class.
• Page 1
• Page 2

While I led the majority of the demonstration, students were invited to ask questions, as well as contribute their own annotations.

I then checked to make sure students had successfully obtained their own, unique, current event article from over the weekend (see post below for details.) Because, and you can probably tell where I'm going with this...

HW for Tuesday:

• Annotate YOUR OWN current event media that you hunted down over the weekend.
• Students who chose a video can make video annotations with:
• VideoNot.es
• Problems? Check this out: http://blogs.bedfordstmartins.com/bits/traci-gardner/videonot-es-for-analsis-peer-review-and-grading/tgardner/
• This web-based annotation tool is forcibly compatible with Google Drive.
• The bright-green MTA Bus Pass form is due to the basket in Guidance tomorrow.
• From everyone. Fill out the front to obtain a card, fill out the back to decline. But return it, regardless.
• First Day Packets are due TOMORROW to your first period teacher!
• Tomorrow morning, students will attend Grade Level Meetings in the Auditorium, with theoir grade level.

If Today Was Friday, Why Did It Feel Like a Tuesday?

Hello!

Today, students accomplished the following objectives:

• They found their new seats for Q1 (after attendance. Spoiler alert: it's alphabetical order. It helps me learn names.)
• Students took their first Summer Reading Assessment, over both Speak and Enrique's Journey.
• If you missed this, see me to make it up ASAP!
• Freshmen, both familiar to MLK and new-to-the-school, got a brief meet-n-greet window of time in which to "break the ice."
• "Break the ice" is an idiom. Literally, there was no ice that was broken. They just talked to each other and introduced each other to each other.
• Idiom is a Literature Term. BOOM! Learning.

While students took the SRA, I tried to learn everyone's names. We'll see how well that went on Monday. (Right, Fernando?)

HW for the Weekend:

• Bring in a current-event piece of media that concerns itself with the main topic of Enrique's Journey: children immigrating to the U.S.
• By "current" I mean that this piece of media must have been published in 2014.
• By "piece of media", I of course mean news articles. But I also mean interviews, TV specials, propaganda, songs, editorials, YouTube clips...pretty much any media.
• How to submit:
• Print it and bring it to class!
• Save it on to a thumb drive and bring it in!
• E-mail me a link! (Include your full name and class period, plz.)
• Questions about the assignment? E-mail me, or ask it here by posting a response to this post.
• Don't forget about your First Day packets! They're due BY Tuesday, 8/12.
• If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times. Finish your Summer Reading.
• Get an agenda/assignment book. Srsly.
• If you haven't yet -- e-mail me. 

"But Tidymaaaaan, I can't do these things! I'm going to see Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 'cause it opens tonight!!"

Good. Fine. Go see it. But before you do: #getonmylevel.

See y'all Lunes.

Welcome Back!

Or, in some cases, just plain Welcome!

Today, students received my Class Rules & Supplies List, which we went over.

We also enjoyed a brief ice-breaking activity, before allowing some time for general questions and answers about schedules, the MLK building, and school life in general.

HW for Friday:

• Complete the Summer Reading
• Write me (Mr. Tidyman) an introductory e-mail
• Here is a link to the assignment guidelines!