“The Train Keeps On Rolling:” Writing Extensions, Exams, and Metacognition

A shortened week brings with it a great deal of work. It is odd how so much can be compressed into so little time. A concept that embodies relativity, time becomes our powerful adversary and our success becomes contingent on how well we can navigate through what it presents us. With the field trip Tuesday, Wednesday becomes a critical day. Writing extensions on chapter 5 will be submitted by the end of class. Students will have either composed a Top 5 List of the Causes of the Revolution or a Newspaper Editorial from the time period. Timely submission of writing extensions will result in a 4x 6 index card that can be used as a reference during Thursday’s exam. Thursday will also be Stuffing Day for Student Portfolios. The exam will last two days, so students should be mindful of using Thursday night as an evening of focus to help shore up curricular support to make Friday a worthwhile day, the concluding day of the 55 question multiple choice exam. Indeed, in three days of teaching and learning, much will be undertaken. When one week contains close to 200 points of work, it becomes understatement to say it is a “big week.” Time becomes our worthy adversary, one where battle is waged and swords clash in pursuit of those things that are "good, true, and beautiful." Within such a collision of values, the journey towards scholarship continues.
The week after our shortened week will not only mark conferences, but also our foray into metacognition. In order to approach the writing tasks for chapter 5, I wanted to spend some time discussing the four dominant styles of learning in students. My hopes are to engage students in an intellectual dialogue about the nature of how they learn. Oftentimes, when asked why a particular option was chosen, students respond with the ubiquitous quip, “I don’t know- it sounded cool.” After this week, students should be able to give more in terms of how their particular learning style meshes with a chosen task or assessment. Driving the train from this point, students should be able to engineer an assessment of how their teachers learn, as well. This would play into them gaining a stronger understanding of how to “read” their teachers as well as themselves. Such discussions will lay the groundwork for the completion of the chapter 5 writing tasks, to commence next week, conference week. It is a challenging time to be a 7.1 Social Studies student, indeed.
I will be sending out updated progress reports on the week of 10/27, once the writing extensions on chapter 5 as well as the Chapter 5 Exams have been entered. I remind all stakeholders that utilization of this blog, as well as accessing student grades online through http://www.mygradebook.com/ are recipes for success in times of challenge, as we are immersed within at this particular moment. Finally, I look forward to seeing as many of you as possible during Conference Week. If you have a free moment (and if I have one), I certainly hope our paths will cross to engage in meaningful discussion. If time becomes an adversary for us, as well, I will have a box outside my room for comments, questions, and concerns, and will respond to each query with all possible dispatch.

Here is to defeating the forces of time. Happy Hunting!
Mr. Kannan

P.S. If you are interested in previewing some of the questions featured on the chapter 5 exam, please examine the link on the top left hand corner entitled “Upcoming Tasks/ Handouts.” Examine the Table of Contents on the first page and test question stems await.