Learning is Change

Core 1:

1. Write-on: What is the one thing that has gone differently for you in your second essay, as opposed to your first essay?
2. Share a few good things that are going on in your second essay (good points, valuable quotes, reflections on your writing process)… on the smart board if possible.
3. Take a closer look at Rebuttals and Points of Information:
   • How do you refine your points without simply repeating them?
   • What is the right time to use a POI?
4. Extensions:
   • Continue to work on your essay (Due Friday) and debate prep.

Core 2:

1. How is your social action measurable? Is your measurement biased because of your own hypothesis?
2. Take a look at the Freakonomics blog by professor Steven Levitt and author Stephen Dubner: The Science of Insulting Women
   
   • What did they measure?
   • How did they measure it?
   • Did they create any social action based upon their data?
3. Design your measurement device (table, survey, etc.) so that it measures only what you want it to on Google Docs.
4. Start Chapter 12
   • How does peace come from chaos.
5. Extension:
   • Finish the book for Thursday.

Core 3:

1. Discuss the extension question from last night with a few other students and try to establish what is unique about your answer.
2. Discuss as a class, each response must add something new, not just emphasizing a previous point.
3. Frame Analysis:
   • Page 26 – The Number
   • Page 29 – The Dress Code
4. Start Chapter 2:
   • What is the symbolism of the masks, the bodies under his desk, his shrinking, and the flies?
5. Extension:
   • Write a paragraph about what it means to survive. What is survival in the face of adversity?

Core 4:

1. Write-on: What is the one thing that has gone differently for you in your second essay, as opposed to your first essay?
2. Share a few good things that are going on in your second essay
   (good points, valuable quotes, reflections on your writing process)…
   on the smart board if possible.
2. Create the following diagram on a piece of paper (or computer if your prefer… Notebook or Word would probably be quickest) to show your
   opinions of what should and should not be allowed of the following
   remixing or mashup situations:

Isn’t Illegal Is Illegal
Should be Illegal
Shouldn’t be Illegal

1. Creating a collage using a famous piece of art and some of your own drawings.
2. Hacking someone’s computer game and making it better then selling it.
3. Taking someone’s direct quote from a book without citing it.
4. Taking someone’s ideas from a book and listing them as one of your biggest influences in the bio.
5. Using two pieces of different music to make a new one.
6. Creating a replica of a building in Google Sketch-up.
7. Creating a parody of the latest blockbuster film and putting it up on YouTube.
8. Typing out a chapter of someone’s book and putting links to pictures of all of the places it mentions.
9. Taking the beat or melody of a famous song and looping it to create
   something new to sing or rap over, without asking for permission to use
   the sample.
10. Using a well known movie clip, and dubbing you and your friends
    making up funny, rude comments over top of it so that it looks like
    they are saying what you want them to.

Discuss each situation with your neighbors when you are finished.

• Use the these definitions and real life situations and in order to complete your 30-minute-expert blogging session on the following debatable topic: Solved: Any idea or work that you create should be able to be remixed, modified, and repackaged for the purposes of another person.

Extension: Finish your 30-minute-Expert blogging session in the resources, facts, and opinions format.

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Core 1:

1. Brainstorming Write-on: How will you know which points to refute in which ways while the debate is going on?
2. What is a Flow Sheet?
   • What should you write on it?
   • What kinds of codes/shorthand can you create for yourself?
3. Practice a flow sheet with the Video of Television is a Bad Influence
4. Extension:
   • Continue to work on your essay and work toward a good list of resources for your debate.

Core 2:

1. Share-on: Share your responsibility and blame pictures with at least two other people. Discuss and come to a consensus on who blames others, him/herself, or takes responsibility.
2. Discuss each character and how their outlook on blame and responsibility continues to drive the story.
3. Start Chapter 11:
   • Is T.J. responsible for his actions?
   • How do the children see this issue differently than the adults?
   • What do you think the Sheriff’s intent is when talking about lynching?
4. Extension:
   • Finish Chapter 11 for Wednesday.

Core 3:

1. Write-on: How do you think that Vladek’s experience in the camps changed his outlook and actions with his son after the war as seen through the first chapter of the book?
2. How did this type of organized prejudice spread?
   • Nazi Propaganda Film: “Der Ewige Jude”
     • Extension: How did this film and other propaganda help the camps to exist?

Core 4:

1. Write-on: If I told you that there were three elements of any good
   argument, what would they be called? Create a workable acronym for them
   as well.
2. Watch Television is a Bad Influence and talk about official debate format.
3. Use the resources at MiddleSchoolDebate.com to practice making Arguments.
   • Are the opinions you have been voicing in your 30-minute-expert sessions arguments?
   • Would the facts in your 30-minute-expert sessions fit into this type of structure?
4. Extensions:
   • Finish your ARE arguments on the back of the handout.

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Core 1:

1. Select-on: Read your thesis statement options to three other students. Have them rate the statement based upon three criteria:
• Provability
• Interest
• Originality
2. Come together and discuss the thesis statements and their influence on your final essay for the quarter.
3. Get out the direct refutation and ARE argumentation packets.
• What was the best piece of direct refutation that you were able to come up with?
• What is indirect refutation, and how can it be accomplished in a debate?
4. Extensions:
• Start writing your essay (If you use docs, you can share it with as many people as you like). Continue to collect resources and ARE arguments and ART refutations for your debate topic.

Core 2:

1. Write-on: Who do you usually blame when something goes wrong in your life? Why?
2. Why does Stacey blame himself for what happened to Papa?
3. What is the difference between blame and responsibility?
4. Read Chapter 10
• Who places blame on others?
• Who places blame on themselves?
• Who takes responsibility for what has happened?
5. Extensions:
• Finish Chapter 10 for Tuesday.

Core 3:

1. Take the spelling bee written exam.
2. Start reading Maus II:
• Why choose the metaphor of humans as animals?
3. Extension:
• Read Part I of Maus II for Tuesday.

Core 4:

1. Select-on: Read your thesis statement options to three other students. Have them rate the statement based upon three criteria:
• Provability
• Interest
• Originality
2. Come together and discuss the thesis statements and their influence on your final essay for the quarter.
3. Get out your book censorship extension from last week.
• Which books should be censored? (Mein Kampf, Harry Potter, Huckleberry Finn)
• How is censorship of books related to censorship of ideas?
4. Extension:
• Start writing your essay (If you use docs, you can share it with as many people as you like).

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Cores 1-4:

1. Take the spelling bee written exam.

Cores 1+4:

1. Discuss your second multi-cultural novel using the handout as a guide.
2. Extensions:
• Write out a few thesis statements that you think will work for your second essay, so that we can check them on Monday.

Core 2:

1. Watch Save Darfur video for another school’s social action project.
2. What actions did they take for their action plan?
3. What actions are you planning on taking for your SAP?
4. Extensions:
• Finish your Identify the Problem paragraph.

Core 3:

1. Take MOV final.
2. Extensions:
• Read AR book.

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Core 4:

Solved: Online schools provide a more authentic learning environment than traditional ones.

1. Your 30-Minute-Expert Resources link is here.
   
2. You can also take a look at my blog post about the issue.

My Sub Plans are Here.

Core 1:

1. Write-on: What is the benefit of defending a position you do not personally believe in within a formal debate?
2. Choose-on: On a notecard, please write your top 3 choices of the following debate topics (and proposition or opposition) you would be most interested in being a part of. Remember, do not only choose sides that you agree with.
3. Exploring refutation:
• What are the essential parts of direct refutation?
• How does the ARE format help refutation?
4. Extensions:
• Start to gather resources for your topic.

Core 2:

1. Quiz-on: How did the school board members
   know to come in to Mrs. Logan’s classroom and look at the pasted-over
   front pages of the textbooks?
2. Discuss-On: Who should decide what gets taught in schools?
3. Discuss Chapter 8:
   • What is the worst type of coercion displayed so far?
   • Why does T.J. “turn” on the Logans?
4. Extensions:
• Read Chapter 9 for Friday.

Core 3:

1. Write-on: How would you tell a life story through images? What are the moments that you would capture?
2. Take graphical notes on Art Spiegelman’s 1991 interview:
• The Book
• The Genre (Graphic Novels/Memoir)
• The 1940’s
• The story of Art Spiegelman’s family
3. What is a Graphic Novel? And why is it the best way to express a time of absolute tragedy, chaos, and change?
4. Extension:
• Ponder: How did the world of Merchant of Venice turn into the world of World War II?

Core 4:

1. Write-on: Why do libraries matter?
2. Read the two contrasting articles on censorship in libraries.
• What facts do these two articles use in order to prove their sides of the issue?
• How are these articles both like and dislike a formal debate?
• Based upon the information, what is the biggest problem with censorship?
3. Extension: How is it possible to be better at going against what you personally believe in a debate than going for it?

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Core 1:

1. Vote-on: Which of the following debate topics will be the student selected debate?
• Solved: New Orleans should be relocated.
• Solved: The internet is a bad influence on children.
• Solved: Video games should be considered a sport.
• Solved: Everyone should know how to swim.
• Solved: The government should aggressively fund alternative forms of energy.
2. How do you search for good resources?
3. Conduct your fourth and final 30-minute-expert blogging session on our chosen topic.
• Create arguments by stating your assertion, reasoning and evidence in one paragraph on your blog (similar to the examples from the handout yesterday).
4. Extensions: Finalize your 30-minute-expert session. Start to look back and decide which topic is right for you.

Core 2:

1. Blog-on: Is it better to be recognized for doing something good (changing people’s ideas on race/gender) or to go unrecognized? Why?
2. Calling attention to your cause:
• ReacTee
• Blogging and Linking
• Other ideas?
3. Work on the computers for two purposes:
• Finish your rough draft of your Academy Authentic for Friday (share with others, not me)
• Work on your Social Action Plan
4. Extensions:
• Work on your Academy Authentic

Core 3:

1. Share-on: Share what lesson, moral, or idea you learned from reading MOV with at least 2 other people.
2. Take a look at “Why should students come to class?” and the collaborative discussion going on with our old friends from Wallingford, CT.
3. Work on the computers for two purposes:
• Finish your rough draft of your Academy Authentic for Friday (share with others, not me)
• Comment/Build upon the Wallingford-based debate on virtual classes/schools
4. Extensions:
• Work on your Academy Authentic

Core 4:

1. Blog-on: What is freedom of expression and why is it important to our ever day lives?
2. A 30-minute-expert blogging session on global censorship:
1. Mr Mayo’s Delicious Account on Free Press
   • Resources
   • Facts
   • Opinions
3. Extensions:
• Finish your 30-minute-expert blogging session and post it to your blog in the correct format.

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