*All Assignments and Lessons may be modified and/or changed without notice. Changes will be updated as soon as possible.
26 April 2017
Classroom Lesson: -You will not have to share these quickwrites . These quickwrites will help you start thinking about the topic of bullying. Pick one of the quickwrites listed below and write a full page response. Title your paper "QW1" or "QW2" depending on your choice. Quickwrite 1: Have you ever been bullied? What happened? How did you deal with it? What were the consequences? Quickwrite 2: Have you ever bullied anyone or been an onlooker when bullying was happening? What did you do? Why did you do it? What did the person who was bullied do in response? What happened afterwards? -Activity 3: Surveying the Text: Text--Agatston et al., “Students’ Perspectives on Cyber Bullying” Use the questions below to help you survey Agatston et. al., “Students’ Perspectives on Cyber Bullying.” 1. Note the title and headings for the article “Students’ Perspectives on Cyber Bullying.” What are the major issues about bullying that this article seems to address 2. Read the first sentence of each paragraph in the article. Now what do you think the article will be about? 3. Who are the authors? Do the authors seem qualified to write about bullying? Why or why not? Where and when was this article published? 4. Read the abstract. What is its purpose? 5. What is the purpose for the headings in the article? 6. What is the section labeled References? How do the references work?
25 April 2017
Classroom Lesson: Peer review on essay on Chrome Books
24 April 2017
Classroom Lesson: Peer review on essay with Chrome Books.
21 April 2017
Classroom Lesson: Write essay on Chrome Books
20 April 2017
Classroom Lesson: Write essay on Chrome Books
19 April 2017
Classroom Lesson: Write essay on Chrome Books
18 April 2017
Writing Assignment: -As you read the assignments below, make note of the type of writing you are required to complete, the sources you may need to describe and discuss in your writing, and the audience for your writing.
-Respond to one of the following prompts as your final assessment of learning for this module.
Prompt #1: So far in this assignment sequence, we have heard a numberof different voices giving insights into the value of life. Hamlet’s soliloquy offers an emotional, metaphor-laden glimpse into the thinking of a young man contemplating suicide. Chris Jones’s interview with Roger Ebert uses first-hand observations and excerpts from Eberts’s blog and movie reviews to convey how the film critic thinks about life. Amanda Ripley’s article from Time magazine provides insight into the problems involved in translating theconcept of valuing life from abstract terms into actual dollars and cents. A Human Life Value Calculator establishes specific criteria for assigning monetary value to a person’s life. You might not fully agree or disagree with any of the texts’ essential claims about the value of life. This makes your voice an important contribution to this discussion about how we should value human life. Where do your ideas fit into the terrain mapped by the other texts we have read? Is it right to assign dollar values to a person’s life? Do suffering and illness impact how we should value life? Assume that the audience for your piece consists of intelligent citizens interested in this issue—the same types of people, for instance, who would read Time magazine. As you write your essay, think about the different ways the authors we have read make their points about valuing life. Depending on the points you are trying to make, you might want to use some metaphors for life, as Hamlet does, or share observations and anecdotes the way Chris Jones does. On the other hand, you maychoose to include some words from people you interview, as Ripley does in her article, or you might even decide to establish some criteria for how human life should be calculated in monetary terms. As you construct your essay, make conscious choices about theways you can represent your ideas to your reader about how society should assign value to human life? Be sure to refer to and cite the readings. You may also use examples from your personal experience or observations.
Prompt #2: The following excerpt is from Steve Jobs’s 2005 Commencement Address at Stanford University. Read the passage carefully. Then write an essay in which you explain Jobs’s argument and discuss the ways in which you agree or disagree with his views. Support your position, providing reasons and examples from the readings in this module. You may also choose to include personal observations and experiences when appropriate. Organize your essay carefully. “Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choicesin life. Because almost everything—all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure—these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart. About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor onmy pancreas. I didn’t even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor’s code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thoughtyou’d have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it willbe as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes. I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I’m fine now. This was the closest I’ve been to facing death, and I hope it’s the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept: No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is asit should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.”
Prompt 3: The phrase has become cliche - “You don’t know what you have until it’s gone.” It is in our human nature to take people, abilities, material things, opportunities, our own senses, for granted. We think we are invincible and nothing tragic will happen to us, so we say and do things thinking we will have the time to make it better, to appreciate the person in front of us more, to say we are sorry when we are ready, to take a leap of faith and move and do something that we have always wanted to do, because we think that time is on our side. Unfortunately, many of us have had to face unfortunate and sometimes tragic circumstances where our lives were turned upside down from one day to the next. Life’s unfortunate and tragic events remind us that our lives can change instantly and time is not on our side. Roger Ebert can’t remember the last thing he ate. He can’t remember the last thing he drank, either, or the last thing he said. Of course, those things existed; those lasts happened. They just didn’t happen with enough warning for him to have bothered committing them to memory — it wasn’t as though he sat down, knowingly, to his last supper or last cup of coffee or to whisper a last word into Chaz’s ear. The doctors told him they were going to give him back his ability to eat, drink, and talk. But the doctors were wrong, weren’t they? On some morning or afternoon or evening, sometime in 2006, Ebert took his last bite and sip, and he spoke his last word. Ebert’s lasts almost certainly took place in a hospital. That much he can guess. His last food was probably nothing special, except that it was: hot soup in a brown plastic bowl; maybe some oatmeal; perhaps a saltine or some canned peaches. His last drink? Water, most likely, but maybe juice, again slurped out of plastic with the tinfoil lid peeled back. The last thing he said? Ebert thinks about it for a few moments, and then his eyes go wide behind his glasses, and he looks out into space in case the answer is floating in the air somewhere. It isn’t. He looks surprised that he can’t remember. He knows the last words Studs Terkel’s wife, Ida, muttered when she was wheeled into the operating room (“Louis, what have you gotten me into now?”), but Ebert doesn’t know what his own last words were. He thinks he probably said goodbye to Chaz before one of his own trips into the operating room, perhaps when he had parts of his salivary glands taken out — but that can’t be right. He was back on TV after that operation. Whenever it was, the moment wasn’t cinematic. His last words weren’t recorded. There was just his voice, and then there wasn’t. In a personal essay, you will write about your last words (and your “lasts” in general) if you had one last statement to make to the world (or your small world/people). Your legacy is what you leave behind, and the words and language you use, weigh heavily. We do not know when our time will come, so if you had to use your voice and words to be remembered, what would they be, who would you address them to and why are these words so important for you? Use evidence from the value of life unit to justify your response.
-Students will answer the following questions in regards to their prompt that they were assigned (Students will answer the questions on a paper title "Prompt ______": -What is the prompt asking you to do? -What will/could you use to answer your prompt? -Open a Google Doc and save it as "VOL Prompt ____" put your prompt number in the blank space.
17 April 2017
NO SCHOOL. ENJOY!
14 April 2017
NO SCHOOL. Enjoy!
13 April 2017
Classroom Lesson: -Watch Kutcher Speech (link to video on title page). -Give a summary for the beginning, middle and end of the Ashton Kutcher speech. -Create a similarities and differences chart for the Jobs and Kutcher speech. -Students need to turn in the Jobs/Kutcher assignment before the end of class. -Students need to give 3 annotations for the speech "What Is the Value of a Human Life?" -Students need to put the above stated article in their notebooks as assignment #94
12 April 2017
Classroom Lesson: -Watch Jobs Commencement Address. (link to video on title page). -Give a summary for the beginning, middle, and end of the Steve Jobs speech
11 April 2017
Classroom Lesson: -Jobs article (Activity 15). Highlight where Jobs speaks about his thoughts on the value of life. At the end of the article, students will write a response as to if Jobs is a pessimist or a optimist, and they will explain why.
Classroom Lesson: -Finish VOL: Activity 13 -VOL:Activity 14: The previous two texts (the soliloquy and the interview) both provide very personal approaches to the idea of valuing life. The current text, though, is an article from a respected national news magazine. The following questions will help you work through some of the implications of the text’s structure and features on the interpretation and understanding of the text. 1. Most news articles such as “What Is a Life Worth?” try to take an objective, unbiased approach. Would you agree that this text is unbiased, or do you think it favors one perspective? Explain your answer. 2. What kinds of evidence does Ripley, the author of the article, use to get across the key ideas and issues associated with the compensation of 9/11 victims and their families? Are any specific types of evidence more compelling to you as a reader? Less compelling? 3. How accurate do you think the information in the article is? In other words, do you think Time magazine and Ripley are to be trusted? Why or why not? 4. Does the article use logic, emotion, or both to make an impact on the reader? If so, describe how. Compare that use to the way logic and emotion are used by Shakespeare, Ebert, or both.
5 April 2017
Classroom Lesson: -VOL: Activity 13 continued.
4 April 2017
Classroom lesson: -Present VOL Activity 12 -Visit the text of the article on 9/11. (VOL Activity 13) -Choose two highlighter colors: two colors will be used to mark two different aspects of the article. -With the first color, highlight the words, phrases, and sentences from the article that describe valuing life in legal and financial terms. (Underline, if no highlighter). -With the second color, highlight the words, phrases, and sentences that describe valuing life in human and emotional terms. (Circle, if no highlighter)
3 April 2017
Classroom Lesson: VOL Activity 12 -Write 1/2 page about something that you enjoyed about spring break. -On the back of the page, list three things that you value in your life. -For each of these ideas that you listed above, write three sentences that expand on your idea. -Create a Google slides document with at least four slides. -You must have a cover slide that gives your name and the title "Value of Life" -On each slide you must include what you value, why you value it, and a visual image that represents that thing that you value. -Share the slide with me when you are complete (or anytime I suppose). Make sure to title it with (your name: VOL Slides)
25 March 2017 - 2 April 2017 Spring Break
-Enjoy Your Break
24 March 2017
-Notebook Organization -Finish Activity 11 and life calculator assignment
23 March 2017
Classroom Lesson: -VOL: Activity 11 (Highlight main idea in the paragraphs.) -put in your information into the Human Life Calculator (link provided below) -Write a couple sentences on the back of your article about what the calculator told you and how you feel about that.
Classroom Lesson: -TSW continue and present Group Activity 2 VOL: Activity 3:
8 March 2017
Classroom Lesson: -TSW Continue Group Activity 2 -Once your group has presented the Group Activity, Make sure to complete this evaluation. Group Evaluation below:
7 March 2017
Classroom Lesson: -TSW Continue Activity 2 -TSW Start Group Activity 2 Group Activity 2:
6 March 2017
Classroom Lesson:
-TSW complete and submit the Google Form below (Activity 1)
-TSW Interpret Hamlet's Soliloquy (displaying interpretation through annotation on printed document.)
-TSW Start Activity 2
-The teacher collected the soliloquys today (highlighted by students)