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
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
No comments:
Post a Comment