Learning is Change

Cores 1+4:

1. Guided Write-On: Fill out the book meme handout.
   • book-meme.doc
2. Check AR Contracts
3. Go to the library with your ID Card and a good idea of what kind of book you are looking for.
4. Extensions:
   • Have a good book checked out from either the LMC or your local library for ELT tomorrow.
   • Core 4: Have the DOC revised for tomorrow.

Cores 2-3:

1. Write-on: How do books change the way that we look at the world?
2. Go to the library with your ID Card and a good idea of what kind of book you are looking for.
3. Check AR contracts.
4. Extensions:
   • Have a good book checked out from either the LMC or your local library for ELT tomorrow.
   • Have all three of your Identity Document parts in class tomorrow.

Core 1:

1. Write-on: Where do you feel most safe? AND Where do you feel most engaged (excited, elated, energetic)? Why aren’t these the same places? (If they are the same place, explain how this can be.)
2. Use Google Documents to edit the Discovery Online Code using the Academyofdiscovery account.
3. AR Introduction.
4. Extensions:
   • Get your AR contract signed.
   • Show your parents their letter.

Core 2+3:

1. Write-on: How do you think that going outside influenced what you wrote on your Object Analysis?
2. What kind of feedback would be important for revision on your Object Analysis?
3. Sticky note walk. (Giving feedback on Object Analysis…)
4. AR Introduction.
5. Extensions:
   • Get your AR contract signed.
   • Show your parents their letter.

Core 4:

1. Orient-on: Sit according to your position on the debate for or against the new type of literacy in the classroom.
2. Debate and Podcast.
3. AR Introduction.
4. Extensions:
   • Get your AR contract signed.
   • Show your parents their letter.
   • Revise the DOC according to our debate.

Core 1+4:

Before we embark upon a journey of authentic learning through technology, we must first ask ourselves why we would want to do it in the first place. With that question in mind, we will be expanding our ideas of literacy, technology, and community.

1. Brainstorm-on: What does it mean to be literate?
2. [flash http://www.teachertube.com/flvideo/3978.flv]
3. Debate-on: Write down all of the pros and cons that you can think of for doing the following in the classroom: having an online identity, using the internet to post your own content (writing, podcasts, images), and collaborating through online tools.
   • Decide which side you will be supporting and move to that side of the classroom to start debating the merits of using the internet in the classroom.
4. Extensions:
   • Read the DOC and rework it to incorporate your ideas.

Core 2+3:

1. Write-on: How do you give an object the weight and worth it really deserves in your writing?
2. Introduce objects.
3. Find a spot outside to do some free writing with your object.
   • How does it feel in your hands?
   • What do you think of when you pick it up?
   • Why did you bring it in instead of any other object?
   • Where were you when you first received your object?
   • Who else is involved with this object?
   • Where do you use this object?
   • What are the actions you go through with this object.
4. Reconvene.
   • How will you organize all of your thoughts on this object into a cohesive Object Analysis?
5. Extension:
   • Write your Object Analysis as a well put together piece of writing that explores all of the different angles of your object.

Class Notes:

[flash http://s3.amazonaws.com/slideshare/ssplayer.swf?id=96042&doc=object-analysis2577]

Core 1+4:

1. Write-On: How do you measure how good a piece of writing is?
   • Does it matter the type of writing?
   • Is this piece of writing different than others?
2. Assess your ocean question writing piece according to the Cresthill Writing Rubric.
3. Turn-in your ocean question writing piece.
4. Discuss expectations sheet.
   • Final questions about the year.
   • Presentation to parents.
5. Extensions:
   • Get the expectations sheet signed by a parent or guardian by back to school night.

Class Notes:

[flash http://s3.amazonaws.com/slideshare/ssplayer.swf?id=94961&doc=measure-writing4668]

Core 2+3:

1. Write-on: What does it say about you that you picked the location you did for your Location Vignette?
2. Read your Location Vignette to at least two people and ask them what they believe the location you are describing is.
   • Volunteer to read your piece if you both people realized exactly where you were.
   • Read your post slowly into the iPod.
     • Three volunteers to draw your piece on the boards (smart and non-).
3. Vote on best picture and most descriptive vignette.
4. Extension:
   • Bring in one thing that represents you tomorrow.

Class notes:

[flash http://s3.amazonaws.com/slideshare/ssplayer.swf?id=94962&doc=location-vignette-drawings-gt335]

[flash http://s3.amazonaws.com/slideshare/ssplayer.swf?id=94953&doc=location-vignette-drawings-8th4116]

Core 1+4:

1. Discuss-on:
   • Describe an experience with reading out loud in class, either good or bad.
2. How do you read out loud well?
3. What kind of feedback should we give one another on a piece of writing?
   • How do we give constructive feedback?
   • How do we discuss student writing like we discuss books that we read?
     • Asking questions?
4. Extensions:
   • Type out answer to the question and go through one more revision to be turned in on Monday.

Class Notes:

[flash http://s3.amazonaws.com/slideshare/ssplayer.swf?id=94470&doc=yourwritingvspublished472]

Core 2+3:

1. Share-on: Share out with at least 3 other people your anecdote and discuss whether or not you can see it.
2. Share out the ones that received three “Yes I absolutely can see it” responses.
3. This is the first part of your identity document. The Anecdote of Being. You are these stories, or at least they are a part of you. The next part of your Identity Document is a Location Vignette.
   • What is a Vignette?
   • How do you describe a location well enough so that it really seems like a part of you?
4. Extension:
   • Write out a draft of your Location Vignette.

Class Notes:

[flash http://s3.amazonaws.com/slideshare/ssplayer.swf?id=94472&doc=location-vignette1244]

Core 1+4:

1. Write on: Describe the writing process that you went through in order to create your draft of your first Ocean question answer.
   • I write for the first paragraph. Everything a good piece of my writing has going for it is contained in the first few lines. The cadence, the flow, the humor, the ideas; they are all there. In writing the first paragraph, I give my writing life so that it may go forth and multiply. Fourteen first paragraphs later, my writing still seems flat and unimportant. But, this doesn’t faze me. I do not become flustered when the right words don’t come.  This is my outline. This is where I list my grievances against the king. This is where I get lost and find myself time and again. I see my first paragraph through the hundreds of almost beginnings I leave behind my blinking cursor.  It is there as I formulate what I’m going to write in paragraph three right after the quote and what I want my reader to question upon finishing a particularly well worded sentence. This is the process I chose, one which allows me to constantly backtrack and retabulate the sum of my ideas. I write for the first paragraph because it is the only way I know that works.
2. Discuss “a perfect writing process” for you.
3. Read your draft to a partner and ask for him/her to try and pick out the most and least specific/detailed parts of your response.
4. Share out these most and least specific excerpts.
   • How do you make something more specific?
5. Extensions:
   • Revise your least specific moments so that each one could have only been written by you.

Core 2:

I am a pen pulsing with ink. I am a whirring motor, well oiled and running fast. I am open door, swinging in a summer breeze. I am a wild dog, rabid for something good to feast on. I am a car right off the lot, shining chrome in everyone’s face. I am lightening, not thunder. I am the sweet afternoon ice cream that rolls around in your mouth with cream so smooth that it aches to swallow. I am a writhing pile of wind-up toys trying to come untangled. I am a bucket, a pail, a recycling bin; waiting desperately to use what others find unimportant. I am the single circular node, connecting all that I want with all that I am.

[flash http://s3.amazonaws.com/slideshare/ssplayer.swf?id=92669&doc=i-am-paragraph1983]

1. Share-on: What is the best single idea/line that you put into your “I Am” paragraph? Why?
2. Narrowing your focus to the single idea/line.
3. Discuss the anecdote to support your best line.
4. Tell your anecdote to at least one other person in your table group.
5. Extensions:
   • Write down your idea and anecdote in a paragraph.

Core 3:

I am a pen pulsing with ink. I am a whirring motor, well oiled and running fast. I am open door, swinging in a summer breeze. I am a wild dog, rabid for something good to feast on. I am a car right off the lot, shining chrome in everyone’s face. I am lightening, not thunder. I am the sweet afternoon ice cream that rolls around in your mouth with cream so smooth that it aches to swallow. I am a writhing pile of wind-up toys trying to come untangled. I am a bucket, a pail, a recycling bin; waiting desperately to use what others find unimportant. I am the single circular node, connecting all that I want with all that I am.

[flash http://s3.amazonaws.com/slideshare/ssplayer.swf?id=92669&doc=i-am-paragraph1983]

1. Share-on: What are the best few ideas/lines that you put into your “I Am” paragraph? Why?
2. Narrowing your focus to the truly important ideas of identity.
   • What do you want to be identified with?
3. How will you support your identity ideas?
   • Anecdotes
   • Examples
   • Metaphors
4. Extensions:
   • Revise your identity document to include only the truly important ideas and at least one valid support.

Core 1+4:

1. Write-On: Write out one of the anecdotes that made note of in the “Dear Students” essay as a paragraph story. (Describe one of the times you felt a barrier in your life, one of the times that you ignored a barrier that other people have, or one of the times that someone put up a barrier for you.)
2. Tell our barrier anecdotes.
3. Analyzing text by asking questions:
   • Puddle
   • Lake
   • Ocean
4. Analyze “Dear Students” by asking questions.
5. Extensions:

• Write a draft of your answer to your Ocean Question about Barriers.

Class Notes:

[flash http://s3.amazonaws.com/slideshare/ssplayer.swf?id=92238&doc=dear-students-analysis3016]

Core 2+3:

1. Introduction of Personal and Classroom Identities.
2. Everything-on:
   • Who are you?
     • What is your identity?
     • When people look at you, what do they see?
     • Where do you come from?
     • Where are you going?
     • What role do you play in your family?
     • What role do you play with your friends?
     • What role do you play at school?
     • What culture are you a part of?
     • How have you changed over time?
     • What big choices have you made that have affected who you are?
     • What are the big events of your life?
3. Extensions:
   • Write one paragraph of who you are that starts off with “I am…”

Class Notes:

[flash http://s3.amazonaws.com/slideshare/ssplayer.swf?id=92244&doc=who-are-you-identity3004]

Core 1+4:

1. Write-On: How can what you expect affect what you receive?
2. Share your expectations with your group and create a master list of expectations that you will want to hold the class, the teacher, and yourself to. (They may be the same.)
3. Compile and vote on expectations to go on our syllabus.
4. Discussion: What are the barriers to reaching your expectations?
5. Begin Reading dear-students-orginal.doc
6. Extensions:
   • Finish reading “Dear Students”
   • Take anecdotal notes in the margins or on another sheet of paper(notes that show you relate to the subject, notes that tell little stories; in this case, notes about how you have felt barriers between yourself and learning, yourself and others, or you and your true self.)

Class Notes:

[flash http://s3.amazonaws.com/slideshare/ssplayer.swf?id=91891&doc=class-expectations-7th4655]

Core 2+3:

1. Totally Wired Teacher of 2007
2. Changes to the Classroom Environment.

It is strange that it only take one repetition of an action, just two moments, to create a tradition. It is altogether odd that doing one thing twice means that it becomes an expectation that you will do it again. Tradition can challenge us to be great, but it can also box us in. Because I have had (nearly) all of you for two years, we are faced with the unique opportunity to continue the valuable traditions and discard the useless ones. It is our job this week to decide as a class which expectations we are going to hold fast to and which ones we are going to leave in rubble of last year’s classroom.

1. My new traditions/non-negotiables:
   • Class time is sacred.
   • Everything for a reason.
   • Community and individuals in balance.
2. What are the traditions that you want to preserve or drop for:
   • Mr. Wilkoff
   • The Class
   • Yourself
3. Extensions:
   • Revise the traditions that think are essential for the three categories of our classroom to be voted on tomorrow.
   • Buy/bring a spiral notebook to be placed in the folder.

Class Notes:

[flash http://s3.amazonaws.com/slideshare/ssplayer.swf?id=91888&doc=traditions-8th3000]

Welcome to the best two years of your life. This is not an overstatement. It is not hyperbole. Up until this point your life has either been pretty great or somewhat bland, but at this moment, you become a part of something so much bigger than yourself. You become a part of the Academy of Discovery at Cresthill Middle School. You are the first class to be bestowed with such an honor. Take it and run with it.

Core 1+4:

1. The Academy of Discovery
2. Discuss non-negotiables for Mr. Wilkoff’s Language Arts Class.
   • Class time is sacred.
   • Everything for a reason.
   • Community and individuals in balance.
3. The Write-On, Talk-On, Discuss-On, Search-On, Question-On phenomenon.
4. Write-On and Search-On: Using the keen powers of observation and deductive reasoning, what is important in this classroom? Why do you think it is important?
5. Discuss three types of expectations: For the Class (others), For the teacher (Mr. Wilkoff), for yourself.
6. Extensions:
   • Write out your three categories and a list of at least 5 expectations for each, to be discussed tomorrow.
   • Draw on and label your Language Arts Folder
   • Buy/bring a spiral notebook to be placed in the folder.

Class Notes: