“Cracking the code:” 7-1 Students and Learning Styles

I found it to be a fascinating week. The lesson on learning styles encompassed a great deal of uniqueness and compelling ideas. I realized the validity of this when many of the conferences in which I participated used the potential discussion of student learning style and a springboard to conversation about student strength and areas of improvement. I thought this to be powerful. I further realized the magnitude of the lesson when I heard students initiating conversations that strove to analyze how they and their colleagues learn. When a teacher hears students express where they are on the axis of perception, or in what arena of judgment greater success can be found, a note of redemption is heard. My original projection was that while we lost a week of history based instruction, we were going to gain much more in learning a system of analysis and thought that would help to frame our path to scholarship. I believe that such a projection held validity given what I experienced this week.
We now find ourselves in a very challenging time. It is a time where we will have to learn new patterns of recognition in addressing the very tests that will help to define our mettle and our intestinal strength. It is a time where the great ones will differentiate themselves from others. It is a time for great ones, now. While one could sense this as describing the last week of current national political campaigning, I think it has just as much meaning in articulating where 7-1 students are. After an open note learning style quiz this week, students will engage in the domain of the chapter 5 writing tasks. Learning styles will play a prominent role in the composition of these writings. Students are being asked to compose two writings on the intellectual concepts presented in chapter 5 and then prepare two “defense pieces” which explain how each writing task and student writing represents a specific style of learning. In composing four writing samples (two on American History, two on specific learning styles), students will be utilizing the writing process in the hopes of achieving 400 points worth of work. This week students will receive a timeline for completing the tasks with incremental benchmarks that should be reached throughout the work phase. As mentioned at conferences, rough drafts can be submitted at multiple points in order to enhance student composition of work. At any and all points of this process, students are encouraged to “reach out” for help as “I’ll be there” for assistance.
I believe that this will be the most challenging endeavor we would have encountered. I know that our students, emerging scholars, will reach for these heavens in expanding their understanding, their strength, and their intellectual honor.

Happy hunting!
Mr. Kannan

“Hold on to your seat belts- It’s going to be a bumpy ride!” Learning Styles and 7-1 Students

When I originally conceived of the lesson on Multiple Learning styles and how they filter into the lives of 7-1 students, I confess that my original idea was to hold a brief talk for a day and progress from there. Yet, as I began to delve into the notion of making this a meaningful experience for students and started the process of analyzing the story I wanted to tell, it evolved into a life of its own. The organic growth and evolution of a singular item into so much of educational consciousness became something that I tried to contain, but could not stop. From distilling the four learning styles, I drove deep into the heart of models of learning, patterns of brain recognition, and determining how students can be empowered, I felt that this became too important a lesson to “gloss over.” When the opening starts with, “To ‘crack the code’ of how students learn becomes the essence of teaching and the root of all power,” it becomes evident that this lesson is larger than a mere explanation. I redid a pair of syllabi, changed a timeline on a writing task, added a quiz, and am ready for what will come out of it. This lesson might be one of those lessons where its ideas prove relevancy outside of the classroom and to all domains of learning and interpersonal dependence. I believe in a great deal of what I do, but I feel passionately about this particular lesson.

It is at this point where students should be rightly scared. I know I would be.
We start the lesson on Monday. Students will receive the scores from their exam at that time as well as the Chapter 5 Writing Extensions. Both can be revised, with the former being able to be revised during Tuesday and Wednesday lunch and the latter at any time until October 31. Students will receive updated progress reports on Tuesday, but all grades can be accessed online. We will be engaging in lecture driven instruction on Monday and Tuesday, and then profiling students based on their learning patterns on Wednesday. We will continue this process by profiling teachers on Thursday and Monday of next week. Students should expect a quiz on this material next week, and the unveiling of the Chapter 5 Writing Extensions to follow by mid next week.
I will be the first to claim that it is a time investment to sacrifice a week of instruction on a concept that is not directly linked to American History. However, I believe that our students are ready to receive a lesson that can serve as a snapshot of where they are at this moment in time and perhaps foreshadow where they will be in the future. I sense that this lesson will have meaning for several reasons. The first would be that a greater sense of understanding will result if students can identify their dominant and secondary learning style. Instead of saying, “I didn’t get it” or “Yeah, I got it,” there might be a stronger and more relevant discussion if they can explain why based on personal learning styles. Additionally, affording the opportunities to articulate why some find greater levels of success than others might help to bring a healthier notion of learning to our students. Too often I have heard students acquiesce to defeat and bluntly say, “I am not good at school.” While I have admired the honesty, this lesson on learning styles might offer some refutation to such a cynical claim. If students can understand where success might lie and where challenges might be present, they can appropriate a domain that seemed unreachable. I believe that we sense a greater level of meaningful and differentiated instruction for all if we can teach the idea that every learner possesses dominant as well as an equally compelling inferior learning style. The challenge placed upon the broad shoulders of all students is to not be afraid of their auxiliary or inferior learning style, but rather take ownership of it. This lesson might tear the mask of student ineffectiveness by giving them a vocabulary to articulate where their strengths and areas of improvement lie. In doing this, our students become stronger, taking one more step on the path of scholarship. They also become tougher and, in doing so, represent the spirit of the “Jayhawk”- a creature that binds and connects and compels us all to “master success.” Finally, I think a greater level of knowledge will unveil itself to students when they are able to take the lesson taught and apply it to their teachers. I plan on explaining to students the same learning styles that govern their understanding also govern their teachers, as well. To understand the learning styles that lie in their hearts and minds will give students power. Yet, to grasp the learning styles that lie in the hearts and minds of their teachers will give students access and control of their own academic destinies.
Yes, students should be mindful of this week. In the attempt to make something difficult a bit more approachable, I have uploaded the lecture notes to this lecture on this blog under, “Recent PowerPoint Lessons.” The file name is "Learning Styles 2008." It might help students to have a copy of the lecture notes so as to assist them.
I look forward to seeing many of our stakeholders this week during conferences. I also look forward to hearing about how your children, our emerging scholars, begin the process of better understanding themselves and the world that not only surrounds them but awaits their arrival.

Happy Hunting all you feelers and thinkers!
All best.
Mr. Kannan

“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.

Clocks, Matrixes, and Historical Ideas: Rushide, Neo, the American Revolution and 7-1 Students

This week will mark an intellectual delving into the American Revolution. We have spent the last week analyzing specific events’ impact on this moment in American History, but this week will mark a point where we discuss the intellectual merit of this essential nanosecond in historical time. We will begin by concluding our Scholarly Sparknotes presentations on Monday, and then Tuesday will mark our discussion of midnight and inevitability. Wednesday presents a moment where we become the intellectual freight trains that cut like a razor blade as we “walk the line” with polar opposite statements and assess where we as individuals and community members stand. Our week will conclude with working on our writing extensions, writing tasks that will be worth 80 points and will be due on Wednesday, October 15. The exam on chapter 5 will be on Thursday, October 16.
The post modern philosopher Friedrich Nietszche has been credited with uttering the line, “Truth is a mobile army of metaphors.” I have always been fascinated with such a concept. The notion of describing historical truth through metaphorical analysis allows both students and me to frame history in a paradigm that allows for greater understanding, stronger analysis, and more critical thought. It helps to bring students closer to understanding that the currents of intellectual thought underwrites all historical advancement. I have always believed that ideas have roles and possess power, and that expressing these ideas through metaphors allow a greater chance to holding, if only for a moment, an elusive notion of truth. The first two metaphors I employ in our journey are the notion of midnight and the idea of inevitability.
Salman Rushdie’s book Midnight’s Children highlights the concept of the hour when both hands meet. It is an unique and powerful moment for while the clock strikes repeatedly, the two hands touch for only an instant. This represents a moment that can last for what seems to be an eternity. Rushdie plays with this metaphor throughout his book to describe the world of Indian freedom and independence in 1947. As the protagonist, Saleem Sinai is born into a world of mystery and autonomy at the same moment as the nation of India. This notion nestled into my mind as I became drawn into the parallel between individual psychology and national history. The pain and joy of love and politics seem to be united in one metaphor: Midnight. When applying this same image to America, I found much in terms of similarity. Midnight: The stroke of time when nations and people awake to freedom and life. Midnight: When our “trysts with destiny” are met with the redemption of a promise and a pledge. Midnight: While the world sleeps, a nation and a people awake to life of freedom and the sometimes challenging inevitability of both. Prime Minister Nehru’s words serve as the backdrop to Rushdie’s work, but can also be deftly applied to the study of the colonists’ struggle for freedom. When we study American freedom, my hope is that we will be mindful of time, noting when events brought us to the moment when the clock’s hands met, and when our hands met with history and intellectual analysis.
Midnight will become a central image, a metaphor through which we will examine the colonial struggle for freedom. Accompanying this will be the study of inevitability and its role in the American historical dialectic and within individuals. This metaphor comes from The Matrix. In the narrative, there is an ongoing battle between the forces of authentic reality, embodied by the protagonist Neo/ Thomas Anderson, and the forces of controlled reality, embodied by the antagonist Agent Smith. At the pitch of dramatic tension, conflict ensues between Neo and Agent Smith. When it appears that Neo is going to fail in his desire to defeat the forces of inauthenticity, Agent Smith pins Neo down on a set of railroad tracks and, hearing a train in the distance, he utters prophetic words for both the film and 7-1 students: “Do you hear that sound, Mr. Anderson? That is the sound of inevitability- that is the sound of your doom.” When he says these words, the insinuation is that Neo will be unable to escape from the clutches of inevitability, from the grasp of what will be. As we study the emergence of the Revolution, the question then becomes whether or not we hear the same sound, namely that of inevitability? Was the Revolution inevitable? Was it bound to happen? What role do human beings play within history? Is history, itself, something that is inevitable or something that can be altered?
It becomes interesting to sense the implications of such a paradigm. If the Revolution was indeed inevitable, then the textbook based mythology is right and America is indeed a shining beacon of freedom and liberty. We, as a nation, were meant to be the city on a hill. However, this means that humans are essentially powerless when faced with the inevitability of history. Human beings seemingly become like Neo, crushed underneath the weight of the historically inevitable train. However, there is a flipside to this coin. If human beings do have a role and can exercise freedom to escape from the train, then we must embrace the reality of failure as a logical extension of our freedom. If inevitability is not present, shortcoming and sad endings become apparent. In this light, we begin to understand that justice and fairness is not always guaranteed. Monsters may walk among us and things may go bump in the night and there might not be a satisfactory explanation for either. Examining the American Revolution in the context of inevitability and midnight helps to create a stronger sense of thought. Plato’s notions of the happy ending, noble lie, and wandering into the world outside of the cave become the constant companions of our 7-1 students as they attempt to determine where they stand in the face of such intellectual paradigms. Once again, we begin to see the dominant theme of ideas having power emerge into full focus.
Some housekeeping ideas conclude this week’s thoughts. Midterm progress reports will be sent home with students this Friday. Additionally, student led portfolio conferences rapidly approach. If you have conferences with me, all confirmations for conferences have been sent, and I have posted his conference schedule on the blog under the “Handouts” link. Students will have their writing extensions due on Wednesday, 10/15, and the exam on chapter 5 will be on Thursday, 10/16. After this, we will start the process of examining the idea of dominant learning styles, which will lead to our writing tasks on chapter 5, worth about 200 to 300 points. Grades are updated each weekend and as we approach the midterm point of the trimester, I encourage all stakeholders to check grades on a weekly basis to ensure a line of clear communication being present.
To paraphrase Agent Smith, I ask all of you, “Do you hear that sound? That is the sound of academic inevitability.” I await to see how all of you stand against that train.

All best and happy hunting.
Mr. Kannan

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