Voices From the Front: Student Voices Authenticating Academic Experiences

In closing last week’s blog entry, I wanted to include the voices of students’ trace fossil papers. On Friday, I asked students if they would volunteer their favorite line or concept from their paper to represent a voice from the intellectual battle to reach “the good, the true, and the beautiful.” Featured below are words from your children, my students, our sojourning and emerging scholars:
“I believe that my trace fossil represents a good blending of who I am in today’s culture and artistry that I value from the past.”
“We fight until our toes bleed… Show them the wisdom our people had.”
“It has a lot of scratches in it. My mom hates the scratches, but I think they show the good use and the past of that piano.”
“Running my hands along the side of the piece, I notice a feel akin to that of bunched fabric: there are layers of protruding convex areas that create hills and valleys and a rippled, rhythmic effect, altogether affecting the smooth, contoured craftsmanship and appearance as a whole.”
“In my younger and more vulnerable years, my father gave me some advice and now that advice has made me the happiest person in the world.”
“Music is an essential part of my culture. Drums enhance the ideas, emotions, and traditions that are being conveyed in music.”
“ The ocean waters still remember Phyllis and me, but now it is I who am trying to get back to where she was.”
“I was very excited because it was one of the coolest phones I’ve ever seen.”
“Memories can be good or bad, but no matter what, they are there.”
“Time stands still for no one, but my pictures- my memories- they do.”
“It likes like an ‘Ollivander’s’ for dancers with boxes of pointe shoes stacked everywhere.”
“ In my younger and more vulnerable years, my father gave me an item, red and small, but it filled my tiny heart with joy.”
“My crocs mean so much to me- I cannot imagine life without them.”
“My culture needs my racquet. I need my culture. Everything is connected.”
“My dad bought it for me.”
“Today, it has a chipped coat of hot pink coloring and one nose grip.”
“The surface of it looks like dozens of children have roller skated across the surface, leaving scuff marks at their tracks.”
“It’s black, it’s about the size of two shoe boxes, and it’s mine.”
“It looks like an overcooked quarter pound hamburger.”
“When people look at my trace fossil, they usually smile… unless they are Duke fans.”
“I share a love/ hate relationship with my pointe shoes.”
“To the red country and part of the gray country of Oklahoma, the last rains came gently and they did not cut the scared earth. If it were only true- the day I got my trace fossil.”
“To be or not to be- that is the question and my answer is to be.”
“Once upon a time, and a very good time it was, I received a small red item of which is now very precious to me.”
“It was a moment of complete and unutterable fulfillment which could not be described in words.”
“Your culture is not only what country you are from or what your traditions are, but what you believe yourself to be.”
“A fear of my culture is the breakage that I know one day will come.”
“The music beaming from every speaker and everyone dancing, laughing, having a good time; as a child not knowing a thing, I could feel the melody of the music playing and the loud sound of the radio.”
“It’s as if Gabi is sill in the past, even when the world around him is battling the future.”
“One word: Scars. And I will never fix them.”
“As Toni Morrison says, ‘All water has perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was.’ I feel like the water always has a memory of me.”
“Music is a world of its own, a temporary escape from reality, and a way to express and deal with problems.”
“This is the bud of the bud, the root of the root, the sky of the sky, of a tree called liked that holds the force of keeping us together.”
“October is the cruelest month.”
“It simply crashes like a plane without warning.”
“Music makes us feel like we can do anything.”
“But, THUD… RRRRRRROSSSSSCCCCRRRR… This sound I could live without.”
“It’s simple. Black, silver, and very shiny.”
“It saved me.”
“There it was- bright and shining; a white polar bear.”
“I love my cell phone culture.”
“My trace fossil is not just a trace fossil, but an elusive spyglass to the unknown.”
“Fading memory. It is a fading memory.”
“I play like it won’t be there anymore.”
“Do what you love and do it good no matter what.”
“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.”
“In 300 years, my trace fossil will be a piece of junk.”
“My iPod is my shrink.”
“As I change, my trace fossil changes with me.”

These lines are but a small sampling of the work presented in students’ trace fossil papers. There were wonderful and compelling lines, thoughts, clauses, and ideas presented in each students’ papers. It was an honor to read, and while extremely challenging to grade in a weekend, the papers turned out to be a success. We take another step on our journey with the Road to the American Revolution. I invite all stakeholders to examine the handouts for this unit by clicking the hyperlink, "Upcoming tasks and assessments/ handouts for 7-1 Social Studies with Mr. Kannan" on the top left hand pane. Students should expect an exam on Chapter 5 to be administered the week of October 13. The writing task for this chapter will commence soon thereafter.

From trace fossils to Scholarly Sparknotes, to Concept Attainment and Polar Opposites, this will be an interesting unit with interesting challenges to all students.
Progress Reports in Language Arts and Social Studies were distributed out last Friday and the signed cover letters are due on Wednesday of this week. Midterm progress reports in all classes will be sent home with students on October 10. Finally, those students who will be having their Student- Led Portfolio Fall Conferences with me will be receiving written confirmations this week. My Conference List is posted under the "Upcoming tasks and assessments/ handouts for 7-1 Social Studies with Mr. Kannan" hyperlink. For those who wish to meet with me and have conferences with another team 7.1 teacher, you can examine which times I have open and contact me so that I can expect to see you.
Writing extensions, exams, authentic assessments- To quote the great football coach, “Is this fun or what?

All best and Happy hunting!
Mr. Kannan

One mountain climbed, another awaiting: The Road to Revolution

I want to open this week’s blog with an expression of gratitude to all of those who were able to attend Curriculum Night last Thursday evening. I appreciated all of you who came into my classroom and allowed me the chance to explain to you my philosophy, its implications, and the manner in which how I plan to deliver our students, your children, to the pantheon of scholarship. Although I found myself hoarse by the end of the night, I felt it was a wonderful opportunity to meet and greet you all, the parents who will accompany your children on this journey we call American History, the quest we call 7.1 Social Studies. If you need an additional copy of the Powerpoint Lesson I delivered, please do not hesitate to check on the Julian website, under “Parents/ Community” or on this blog under “Recent Powerpoint Lessons.”
In terms of what is transpiring in the class, the trace fossil writing tasks have been graded and will be submitted back to students on Monday, September 21. I will make general comments tomorrow, but I can state with certainty that this was the year that the records did fall by the wayside. This year’s 7.1 students posted the highest number of A’s and B’s on this particular task. What was even more inspiring was that the papers delivered represented a high quality of craftsmanship and inspiration. It was not unusual to read papers open with a quote from Dante or Toni Morrison, Shakespeare or Steinbeck. It was not an isolated incident to see students discuss elevated notions of cultural identity and delve into personal experiences that represented the essence of authenticity and sincerity. Students delivered papers that rose to the challenge. Many papers were submitted and resubmitted in the drafting process and this resulted in a higher caliber of work. Being the ever present realist/ cynic that I am, I will be explaining to students that now that many of them have done well, the challenge will be to keep doing work that represents the best of their abilities (One is reminded of the Aristotle quote of “Human beings are what they repeatedly do.”) Students who wish to pursue the avenue of revising their work, regardless of the grade, have until Friday, October 3, to revise their work. A revision would involve rewriting the paper with the needed corrections included and submitting both the original and the new version by the deadline. Successful revisions will receive half of the points originally lost. Students who demonstrated success on the trace fossil writing task should find Social Studies Progress Reports that are being sent home on Friday, 9/26 a relatively pain free process. All students will need to have these reports signed by a parent/ guardian and returned back to Mr. Kannan by Wednesday, 10/1.
The next two to three weeks will be critical in our advancing journey. As we temporarily close the books on the trace fossil writing task, we open our textbooks to the Road to Revolution. We will be starting this week with a review of the French/ Indian War and supplement this with Chalk Talk, an open forum where students post messages of intellectual context in the hopes of starting a transparent dialogue open to all. Scholarly Sparknotes will follow this, where students will be responsible for charting out a section of the text, creating a visual that possesses multiple components, and then explaining this visual to the class. After our presentations, we will engage in a reciprocal reading task on the steps towards war. Once the reading from chapter 5 is completed, we will engage in a study of intellectual metaphors that might allow our examination of the road to revolution to gain further complexity. Agent Smith’s idea of inevitability, from The Matrix, and Salman Rushdie’s conception of midnight, from Midnight’s Children, will form the basis of our first two historical metaphors. There will not be a cumulative exam on chapter 5, but we will have an assessment on the material presented. Prior to this, we will step into the terrain of educational training by examining the four dominant learning styles and which methods of understanding best represent our students at this time in their academic careers. Grasping such a conception will allow them a strong footing to make judgments as to which of the chapter 5 assessments will be best suited for them to demonstrate success.
One mountain fades into the distance while a more daunting one stands in front of our students. I imagine that they will express the some of the same sentiments they expressed the last time an impressive summit obstructed their path. Two weeks ago, students felt disgust, reticence, fear, and some level of academic confusion regarding the trace fossil paper. Yet, fourteen days of crafting, and recrafting, draft and multiple drafts, frustration and elation have led to one of the best batches of graded papers on record. Many will feel comfortable with how they fared on this paper. They will express some level of satisfaction at having scaled such a height. It is because of this that I have confidence that if they demonstrate the same tenacity and relentless nature for academic success, they will climb this summit, as well and experience even greater pitches of prosperity.
Ask your student how they fared on the trace fossil writing task. If it went well, congratulate them and ask them to identify where they think they “got it.” If it could have better, ask your student to identify where they think they needed to devote more attention and encourage them to revise it. The lessons they take from the trace fossil writing task will enable them to find greater success on that which lies ahead.
Next week’s blog will include lines from student papers in order to validate the presuppositions I have put forth in this missive.

Please remember that all Social Studies grades are available online at mygradebook.com and that progress reports in Social Studies will be sent home with students this Friday, 9/26. The signed cover letter will be due back to me, Mr. Kannan, by Wednesday, 10/1. If I can be of any further assistance, please do not hesitate to contact me at school via email or at my home phone number.

Climb Ev’ry Mountain and Happy Hunting.
Mr. Kannan

Postmodernism, Lennon/ McCartney, and Questioning Identity: Just another week in 7.1 Social Studies

This week brought another week of strong progress, measurable growth, and the bourgeoning intellectual inquiry that will prove to be useful in 7.1 Social Studies. The trace fossil papers approached and moved past the halfway point. They will be due Friday of this week.
As students reached this critical point of construction, the questions and dialogue reflected advancement. Students were asking questions such as, “What is culture?” or “What is my culture?” Many were critically dissecting the question of who they were, in what they believed, in which social setting does their identity lie. These are the questions that not only help form the definition of the trace fossil paper, but also help to form the constitution of who we are as people. For seventh grade students to engage on this journey is powerful to behold. Students also began the examination of their trace fossils. From literal descriptions and striving to find the different ways to express physical reality to emotional connections and resurrecting memories that might have lay dormant, students demonstrated a great deal of progress and improvement in articulating objects that represent their voice, their experiences, their narratives. In philosophy, the post –modern movement emphasizes that human beings are the authors of their own stories. If this is true, then we have many writers on team 7.1 for many are continuing that tradition of seeking to establish authorship of who they are and in what they believe.
This process comes to its summit this week. Monday will be the last mini lesson. The topic will be leads, symbolic meaning, and time capsule. From this point, students will be on their own to complete their handwritten or typed final draft by this Friday. It is my hope that all papers will be submitted on this day. Progress Reports in Social Studies will be going home the following Friday, and the Trace Fossil Writing Task will be included on this report. After this, we will begin our study of American History- a living, breathing trace fossil. Our first unit will be the Road to Revolution, a study of events leading to the American Revolution. A short term goal will be to be at the construction of the Constitution by January.
This week marks the annual celebration we call Curriculum Night. Thursday evening at 6:45 in your child’s Advisory classroom or area will commence this yearly tradition of PowerPoint slide shows, handouts, and the wonders of navigating through student schedules. It is my hope that all of our 7.1 parents will attend this year’s Curriculum Night. Those who attend will receive first opportunities to sign up for conferences and will also receive their child’s log in password and classword for all student grades via mygradebook.com. To quote Lennon and McCartney, “a splendid time is guaranteed for all.” Of course, they were talking about a circus. On the other hand, some would argue that Curriculum Night might fit such an interpretation.
As always, if I can be of any assistance to students or parents, I encourage both sets of stakeholders to contact me at school via email or at my home number. This week is a very big week for us. I am confident that like so much I have thrown at students in this embryonic stage of the year, they will rise, endure, and triumph over what is presented.

All best and Happy Hunting.
Mr. Kannan

Tonight’s Homework for Social Studies: Successfully embody the traits of a classical hero

Our journey into the deep recesses of scholarship continues with the explication of the trace fossil writing task. Students were able to receive its introduction well. We analyzed the notion of culturally historic artifacts in Aztec, Mayan, and Incan culture. Then, we analyzed objects from a culture that seems to reside in ancient desolation: That of the Social Studies Teacher on Team 7.1. Students gained much insight into how this culture operates, in what he (as the sole member of the culture) believes, and the values of such a bizarre setting. It was insightful to read about how Mr. Kannan believes in “dressing nice for work” or in how “he believes in scholarship” or the fact that “he believes everyone chooses their own culture.” Absorbing such insights into their own mind, students were able to turn their high powered lens of precise insight and analysis on themselves. As they greeted the trace fossil writing task, our students seemed to paraphrase the words of Dr. Lecter as they “looked deep within themselves.”
The lambs might not have stopped screaming, Clarice.
Certainly, our focus for the next week is the hopeful progress of our writing tasks. We have mapped out the dates and times for completion of this task. In the process, students have been reminded that nightly and incremental completion of this paper, as outlined in the timeline for completion, is a critical component for success. Each day, our in class focus will be on some new aspect of the paper’s growth and development. Students have been reminded that they should expect that their sole focus in Social Studies should be on the successful completion of this paper. To that end, students should know that the copies of the mini lessons I will feature are online, under the “Recent PowerPoint Lessons” link on this blog. Each day’s notes will address the topics as outlined on the timeline for completion. I believe that if students access these files and can possess hard copies of the notes prior to class, they might be able to use their in class time with greater autonomy. I will be encouraging students to access these files this week. Should computer usage be a challenge, I will also be inviting students to utilize my computer or those in the Media Center.
There is a theme in literature about the notion of the hero. Part of the heroic archetype is that when faced with a seemingly insurmountable quest, the hero retreats to some type of meditative and reflective location. This locale is either a physical place of solitude or a mental place of rumination. Such musing allows the hero to gain insight on how to approach the challenge that lies ahead and how to eventually claim triumph over a daunting adversary. Eventually, the knowledge gained on how to achieve victory rises above all, like a phoenix from the ashes, or as a house of worship towers over an entire population. I imagine that nightly homework for our students should be to find this place of intellectual sanctuary where they can reflect and mentally map out what they are going to do to slay this demon, a force that will dwarf in comparison to the forces that lie further on in our journey.
Now that would be a great assignment to write in student daily planners: “Tonight’s homework: Be like brave Hector, be like strong Ulysses, approach the paper like Dante, slay the demons of doubt as Lord Rama, and avoid repeating the mistakes of Faust.” (I can only surmise as to the emails I would get as a response to such an assignment. Talk about answering voice mail!)
Nevertheless, it is one of my hopes that in the successful completion will lie some of the elements of strength and austerity that I seek to impart consistently and repeatedly in all of our emerging scholars. We will construct temples of intellectual worship that will tower over all.
Final red tape issues need to be integrated into this missive. I look forward to seeing all of you at Curriculum Night on September 18 at 6:45 PM. Information should be forthcoming. Please also be aware that the Trace Fossil Writing Task is due on September 19, with Progress Reports in Social Studies going home with students on September 26, 2008.

Happy hunting and even happier ruminating! Go find your trace fossil!
Mr. Kannan