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Since many of our families are traveling for the Thanksgiving holiday, I wanted to post this week's assignment as quickly as possible. We are going to take two weeks to write an "in-depth" article; this week will be the preparation stage for what will eventually become your student's in-depth.
Today we talked about why it is important to reach beyond our personal experiences and write about things that might be unfamiliar to us and out of our comfort zone (it challenges us, we learn something new, we need to learn how to write about bigger issues). Each student listed one thing that makes them angry, one thing that makes them happy, one thing they heard other students or adults discussing this week, one thing their family discussed this week, and one thing they don't understand. We formed three teams that compiled individual answers into a central list. We then eliminated any topics that we did not think were right for our paper. Each student then chose one topic from their group's list and formed a broad question about that topic. From there, each student prepared a two - three sentence rationale for why this topic should be covered in our next issue, along with three sub-topics that will eventually help them develop their main story. An important part of in-depth reporting is interviewing sources. Students wrote down at least three sources they could potentially interview regarding their topic. Homework for next week is to type (or neatly write out) a proposal for their in-depth. It should include:
Next week we will share our questions with our groups for critique and discuss research and reporting. We finished up the day with a mock interview session involving a fictitious spill in a chemistry lab in a theoretical middle school and played a round of J-Jargon Challenge. Good work, everyone! Have a great Thanksgiving week! Today's lesson focused on lateral solutions. What is a lateral solution, you ask? Lateral solutions involve problem solving through an indirect and creative approach, using reasoning that might not be immediately obvious or requires us to put aside our unstated assumptions to arrive at an alternative answer. We started the day by walking backwards into our classroom, solved mazes backwards and played reverse tic-tac-toe (the person who gets three in a row loses!) I handed out a two page homework sheet with different lateral thinking puzzles. If you have time this week, have your student work on them. We'll discuss the answers in class next week! Also, here are this week's "fun links":
Finally, two of our students shared some fantastic snowflakes that resulted from our symmetry class last week. Good work, guys!
The Art of Debate - Immortality?  Should people live forever? This was the important topic of debate this week in class, as our discussion of Tuck Everlasting continued. Students divided into teams and were given the task of developing a two minute opening statement to summarize their teams position, and a list of arguments to support that position. We discussed what a sound, logical argument looks like, and the importance of their points addressing the 'good of all', and not just individuals. I also reminded them that during their preparation time, they should put some thought to what the other side may argue, and be prepared for rebuttal. The students quickly got to work developing their strategies, and spent about half the class brainstorming and writing up their points. The team that chose to argue for immortality quickly realized they had the harder position, and struggled initially to think of non-selfish reasons why all people living forever would be a good thing. However, with some guidance, they were able to develop a strong, creative position. I acted as moderator for our debate, and the students did a great job articulating their opening statements and list of positions. I gave each side several more minutes to elaborate on each argument and then asked for rebuttal from the other side. The students learned that a debate requires patience, self-control, and order, as everyone was very eager to share their opinions! All of the students did a great job defending their positions, and showed wonderful teamwork and cooperation. In the end, the consensus among all of us was that immortality would probably not be beneficial to the planet or to individuals. However, the official winning team was the one that had argued for immortality, chiefly because they had a much tougher job to do and provided a strong oral argument and defense of their points.  Toward the end of the debate, I asked the class to dig deeper and posed this question: Would it be a good idea if select "special" people be given immortality? People with talents and gifts that could really continue to benefit the world (Albert Einstein? Mother Teresa?). The students pondered this for awhile and seemed to think that perhaps that might be a good idea. But who to choose? How to choose? Students quickly realized this becomes a sticky problem of defining "special" and "value" with regard to people. And we ended our class contemplating this dilemma...
Great job everyone! At our next class we will identify the major Themes in Tuck Everlasting, and begin to develop our final class projects - News Broadcasts for Tree Gap "TV"! The Mosaic Monthly Yesterday, despite hurricane and snowstorm, the inaugural issue of "The Mosaic Monthly" made its debut as scheduled!
Congratulations to the students on a successful first issue. This issue is the product of five journalism classes where students learned about the basic elements of a newspaper, how to write a news article, how to write a feature article, how to write an editorial, and peer editing. Please have your student compare their article(s) they wrote for the paper to the final article that appeared. There were not many edits for punctuation or grammar, but mainly for content or wording. Reviewing the final printed version should give them a sense of what corrections were needed. Our December issue will see added pages and sections. We'll be taking on world and national news and learning how to write an "in-depth." We'll be revisiting interviewing skills so we can question possible sources for our articles. Conducting research will be a critical element of our next issue. On Monday, we discussed the differences and similarities between proofing and copy editing and practiced both in class. We learned about AP Style and why it's important to adopt a style for a publication such as ours. For homework, students were given an article and an instruction sheet on how to revise the article for content. We edited for style and conventions (grammar and punctuation) in class. The students will need to incorporate those corrections into their edits for organization and content. While this is an actual article that has been re-arranged for the purpose of this exercise, there can be many good "answers" and I encourage the students to incorporate their individual creativity into their re-writes! Welcome back to Creative Thinking! It has been three terribly long weeks since we last met and took time to question the why, the what, the how. Yesterday's topic was Symmetry. We talked about "What is symmetry?" and made visual representations of our ideas about symmetry. Most children understood line or mirror symmetry, but rotational symmetry was a new concept to some. Here is a wonderful web-site that will give the student another visual on rotational symmetry: ROTATIONAL SYMMETRY We played a game that involved placing cards with pictures of different types of symmetry (both line and rotational) on a Venn diagram. The children were very thoughtful during this activity and worked in two teams to arrive at the correct answers. They grasped this concept extremely well as both teams were very close to 100% accuracy!  We drew asymmetrical and symmetrical faces and laughed and voted on the ones we thought were the most attractive, the most un-attractive, and the most interesting. This led to a deeper discussion of why symmetry matters to humans, birds, and even insects. We completed a couple of puzzles and a mirror activity -- ask your student to show them to you and see if you can see the answers, too! As an activity for home, I gave each student a circle. Fold the circle in half, in quarters, and then eighths. Within the 1/8 circle, draw jagged edges up one side and down the other. Cut only these inside lines out. Unfold and see what you have (instructions if you need them).  For more fun and practice with symmetry at home this week, please see:
Symmetry Artist Ambigram Symmetry We use curriculum from Art of Inquiry, LLC  We began our journey into the world of Treegap and Winnie Foster and the Tuck family this week with a discussion of the first five chapters of "Tuck Everlasting". The highly descriptive style of writing used by the author is a marked contrast from our previous book selection and most students are finding it harder to read and relate to the story for this reason.
We discussed how the author uses abundant figurative language to paint a picture of the settings in the readers mind and weave a rich, suspenseful tale of fantasy. (Students should specifically look for examples of personification as part of their homework this week.) We re-read the Prologue together which introduces a major theme of the book - the circle of life, with a fixed center. The author explains that the year is like a Ferris wheel with a fixed hub, ever turning until it reaches the apex in August (the opening of the story) - a strange month of heat, stillness, and a propensity to make wrong decisions. I invited students to think of the wood and the spring in the story as a "fixed hub". How might life change if this hub was discovered and disturbed? We began looking at the characters introduced in the opening chapters and discussed what we know about them and how we feel about them so far. Everyone enjoyed sharing their stories of times they "almost" ran away from home (as Winnie is contemplating doing in the novel). The man in the yellow suit has really captured everyone's attention. What is he up to? Who is he looking for? Is he immortal, like the Tucks? Toward the end of class, we broke out the watercolors and colored pencils so that students could sketch and/or paint the huge ash tree and the spring, which are central to the theme of the book and Winnie's journey. Understanding that Natalie Babbitt was an illustrator long before she was an author helped the students better appreciate the powerful imagery of her writing style. Students should read at least through Chapter 10 for next week. My guess is that once they get drawn deeper into this story, they will not be able to put it down! (The book makes a wonderful read aloud as well.) Next week we will debate the value of immortality. Would it be a good to be able to live forever?  The last two weeks we have been focusing on preparing our articles and sections for publication and discussing what makes an editorial or opinion column effective and meaningful.
A detailed email was sent last night listing each student's remaining editing responsibilities before final articles are due for submission, as well as any additional homework. After receiving their edited articles on Monday, October 29th, all written pieces, photography and art, and advertisements, must be emailed to me no later than November 2nd (preferably before, if completed). On Monday, we held a staff meeting workshop, which gave editors a chance to look over some of the articles and make suggestions to the reporters and authors. Our Comics writer staged two of her original comics frame by frame and we photographed them with the hopes of presenting a "real-ilfe" comic strip with Mosaic students as the stars! Several students who had written editorials shared their work, and other students volunteered to write op-ed pieces or letters-to-the-editor (either disagreeing or agreeing with the editorials) to be published in a future issue of The Mosaic Monthly. We then split into groups of two and challenged each group to write a suitable "hook" for an opinion piece on using the internet for educational purposes. We discussed some pros and cons of the issue and tried to use one of four techniques for writing a hook (description, startling statistic, question, or anecdote). Some students struggled with this a bit, but several nailed it on the first try. We are truly tackling some different writing styles in this class, and I know it has been a challenge to continually shift gears from week to week. We still have much to cover and will be publishing two more issues of our paper, so that all students will get a chance to write, edit, and create. If your student is having trouble editing their assigned work, it is acceptable to assist them at this stage. We will be spending an entire class on editing in the near future, in addition to many other topics that relate to writing and journalism. Next week we will decide on layout and placement of articles and sections, and start talking about our next issue. We may even learn about advertising and create some fun ads of our own. Spolier alert: There may be a J-Jargon challenge next week, but you didn't hear it from me!
 Students worked in small groups in class this week to finalize their prototypes of USEFUL inventions. Each group then developed and presented a marketing pitch to convince classmates of the usefulness and value of their item. All three groups, working separately, ended up building clever devices for holding... snacks! The Snack Glider is a combination snack/drink holder that doubles as a toy car - you can play for hours without the interruption of running to the kitchen for sustenance. The Float-A-Snacks is a nifty (waterproof) snack holder that floats along with you in the pool, so you can snack as you lounge, swim and sunbathe. The Snack Carrier 5000 is a three compartment snack caddy, with a convenient carrying handle that could come in handy at home, in the car, or even at the movie theater.  Could it be that snacks are a mainstay of the 11-13 year old crowd? Probably! But a strong contributing factor to this 'snack theme' was certainly the fact that one of the everyday items provided as building supplies were plastic cups. We discussed once again the importance of divergent thinking, and how thinking "outside the box" could have led them to utilize the cups in more creative, non-standard ways. Other elements of their designs reflected greater creative use of the supplies - the use of two cups together with the paper plate as the body of the car, the use of popsicle sticks and tape to create a waterproof lid for the snack cup, the use of straws and pipe cleaners for structural elements and handles, the balloons as a sturdy, balanced floatation base.
All three groups did a fantastic job with their presentations, which were very creative and entertaining, especially for the short time they were given to develop and practice them. Each group was then ranked by their classmates in three categories: usefulness, creativity, and overall presentation. Congratulations to all groups for their outstanding creative collaboration! No take-home problems this week - get outside and enjoy these beautiful autumn days!
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