"Harrison Bergeron," Day 3

Administrative Details

• Be sure to check Assignments each day; go back through and see what you're missing. They are highlighted in yellow, usually at the end of each post.
• Respond to my correctives comments & notify me by email that you've improved your work on that assignment. I will regrade your work.
• Visit classmates' blog posts and write comments. When you compliment them on something, go into detail about what you liked. Tell why it was very good, excellent, or superb. Add detail when you make suggestions as well.
• Use Labels on your posts. Notice that I use them regularly. You'll find them at the end of each post. For example, if there's an Assignment, I'll add the Label "Assignment." On the left side of the page are all the Labels I've used. Clicking a Label shows you all the posts that have a particular Label. So to find all the Assignments, click the Label, "Assignments." Gee, that was kind of wordy, but I hope you see how Labels can be useful.
• Students spent the first part of the period attending to these matters, getting organized, making sure assignments were turned in, etc. Computers aren't always completely cooperative, and sometimes allowances must be made for the amount of time consumed.

Bergeron Discussion, cont'd

• Students discussed the question, "Would the United States in 2081 have been better off if Harrison Bergeron had succeeded in becoming emperor?" 
• In the story the kinds of equality enforced by the government primarily deal with athleticism, physical attractiveness, and intelligence. Author Vonnegut seems to suggest it was absurd to try and enforce these kinds of subjective equality. Students considered the question if there are some kinds of equality that could be considered "good" and therefore worthy of being protected by the government.
• Students were asked to point out relationships between this story and the Time article on Texas.
• Thanks go to today's class historian, 12345, for taking notes during the discussion.

Picture Analysis of Characters in "Harrison Bergeron" - We barely got started on this when, alas, classtime ran out. The PowerPoint is available here.

Thank you for another excellent week, students. Have a great three-day weekend. No new assignments are due, but do try to complete any you still haven't turned in. Happy Labor Day.

"Harrison Bergeron" - Discussion - Scenarios - VideoNot.es

Class Discussion - "Harrison Bergeron"

• We began with some student questions:
• Wingboy:: Did everyone have a handicap bag and a mask?
• 12345: Why would the government stop people like George from taking unfair advantage of his brain?
• One student had taken the initiative to copy and paste pictures illustrating HB and provoked interesting analysis relating to the story.

Timeline of Possible HB Scenarios

• Students collaborated on a GooDoc tracing possible scenarios that moved U.S. society from the inequality of 1961 to the completely equal society of 2081. 
• One student cleverly took it beyond 2081.

VideoNot.es on Trailer to 2081 - Instructions:

1. Set up another gmail account.
2. Go to VideoNot.es. - Log in with Google account. Grant the permissions.
3. VideoNot.es lets you take notes while watching a video.
4. It saves your notes and video in your Google Drive.
5. Copy and paste the URL to the trailer to the 2081 movie trailer into VideoNote.es. - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FE_nr2t6fKQ
6. Watch the video and demonstrate your knowledge of the story in the Notes section. Pause to point out connections between the Vonnegut story and what we see in the 2081 trailer.

One student's VideoNot.es on the trailer can be viewed here.

Assignment - For tomorrow:

Finish up the VideoNot.es and any preparation needed to continue the discussion of "Harrison Bergeron."
Add to the 1961-2081+ scenario you worked on in class.
12345 - You need to make up for the time missed in class!!

Pre-Reading Prep for "Harrison Bergeron"

Pre-Reading Discussion Related to Vonnegut's "Harrison Bergeron"

• HB deals with a futuristic society in which the government enforces equality. (Students were not specifically told this before beginning what follows.)
• Students dealt with the issue of equality step-by-step as follows.

1. Wrote on a GooDoc everything that comes to mind when they think of the word "equality."
2. Discussed and commented on one another's ideas.
3. Began reading HB.
4. Learned how to use the online app Scrible to highlight and color code web pages.
5. Began reading HB.
6. Raised questions about the story as they read. Most of the questions were fact-based, and students were directed to the web to find answers.

Assignment: By tomorrow:

1. Read "Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt Vonnegut.
2. Write in complete sentences at least 5 good open-ended questions, one per page. Your questions should be about

• Anything you didn't quite understand or
• Something you found interesting and would like to discuss with your classmates.

If you haven't caught up with all previous assignments, do so by tomorrow. I am going to assign grades based on what you have completed so far.

Followup-Questions on "Texas as Future" - Wordle

Followup Questions

In response to the excellent questions posted by some students, we discussed two further questions from the Time article on Texas:

"What does he mean by Texas has acquired a 'cool factor'?"

What is a "Sun Belt"?

Here are some of the hits we got while searching.

Cool Factor

We then discussed in what ways Texas might have "the cool factor."

The Sun Belt

We discussed why this region is called "the Sun Belt" and what the students notice about the Sun Belt..

Wordle

We copied and pasted the entire Time magazine article into Wordle, learned how to do Print Screen and use the Snipping Tool (and Mac equivalents), uploaded it into a blog post, and did a written analysis of what we learned about Texas and the article from the Wordle.

Here are the instructions for doing the Wordle. The document also contains email addresses students used to give Dr. Carpenter and CCS teachers access to their blogs.

Assignment due tomorrow: Finish your Wordle analysis post.

• Be sure to show what we can learn about Texas and the article from the results of the Wordle.
• If you'd like to narrow the Wordle down to the 10 or 20 most used words, that could be interesting. Click Layout---Maximum words... to do this.
• Point out specific facts or concepts from the article that the Wordle illustrates.
• For example: As we noted in class, California is often mentioned in the article because millions of people have emigrated from The Golden State to The Lone Star State.

3 Maps Analysis - Mini-Debate on Time Article

Today we:
1. Followed up on the 3 Maps from Memory activity from Friday.

• Students compared and contrasted the 9 different maps of Texas they had made. (BTW, I know you're supposed to spell out numbers when writing sentences and essays and such, but these blog posts aren't formal essays and are mainly for conveying instructions, information, summaries of daily activities, giving assignments, etc. Numerals are easier to spot and deal with than worded numbers; sorry, just had to get that out of my system. Thanks.)
• Identified common elements among the maps and why they are more easily remembered
• Inserted the revised photo of the wall display
• Wrote blog posts analyzing the 9 maps

2. Continued our discussion of the Time article, "Why Texas is the Future"

• Students had been asked to write 5 discussion questions over the map
• Several of their questions were raised and discussed, including what are"per capita income" and "globalization." Students were shown how to use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl-F to search/find the words in a Word doc or on a webpage. By using the feature, students figured out answers to the two questions and applied them to Texas as presented in the article

3. Held a Mini-Debate over the question, "Will it be good or bad if the rest of the United States becomes more like Texas?"

• As time was running short, students spent 5 or 6 minutes planning and then debated for approximately 10 minutes. 
• Both sides made cogent arguments and defended them effectively.

Assignment - Due Tomorrow - In a blogpost:

1. Write and illustrate the 5 most important things you learned about Texas in the article. Illustrate with an appropriate picture.
2. Write a one-paragraph (okay, sometimes I'll write it in words, if it somehow feels right) answering the questions, "Will it be good or bad if the rest of the United States becomes more like Texas?" Be sure to offer convincing evidence to support your thesis (main argument). You don't have to illustrate your paragraph.

Time on Texas Discussion - 3 Maps Drawing

Guess who???

Today we:

1. discussed the Time magazine article, "Why Texas Is Our Future," beginning with an excellent student-raised question as to what the author meant by the sentence, "The first thing to understand about our more Texan future is what's happening to the American workforce on the whole: average is over." Students offered excellent insights, including hand gestures illustrating the concept of the shrinking middle class. 
2. examined several key terms on page 1 of the article, including "median household income, the Great Recession & the Great Depression, the business cycle (illustrated by graphs students found online), and libertarianism. Tyler Cowen, the author of the article, stated he is "an economist and a libertarian."
3. discussed the concept of point of view and found evidence in the article of Cowen's emphasis on economics from a libertarian perspective.
4. read part of an article in today's Temple Daily Telegram by libertarian columnist John Stossel and identified libertarian principles in the article - The article can be read online at another periodical's site here.
5. went through a 3-step process illustrating how each of us pictures the map of the great state of Texas - First students drew a map of Texas from memory, then drew one while looking at a map of Texas, and finally drew the map a second time from memory. See the results below.

Click to enlarge or click here to download. Zoom in and out for details. 

Zooming in, I see some of the maps got distorted when I was taking the Panorama photo. I'll retake this on Monday and hopefully get a better shot. Apologies! . . . Accepted? The new photo is now in place.

Assignment for Monday

1. Finish reading the Time article
2. Continue color coding the good & bad aspects of Texas, according to Cowen
3. Write - in a blog post - 5 discussion questions over the article for use in class on Monday

Thank you, students, for an excellent beginning to the school year. You have cooperated superbly, done excellent analysis and evaluation, and raised and discussed a number of pertinent questions.

Have a great weekend!

My Historical Interests, cont'd - Pre-Time Mag Padlet

Your GooDoc from Yesterday

1. First we're going to get the URL to the GooDoc you made yesterday, "Student Survey: What Interests You Most About History?" (I'm going to walk you through this, but if you get lost, click for the instructions at Google.)
2. Go to that doc and click on Share (upper right-hand corner).
3. Copy the URL under "Link to share." It should already be selected (highlighted) in blue.
4. Find "Private - Only you can access." Click Change.
5. Click "Anyone with the link " - Save - Done

Back to the Blog

1. Now go to your first blog post on what interests you most about history (the one where you inserted an image & a link).
2. Skip a line or two under your last sentence and add something like: "Please click here to see the rest of my ranking of history topic preferences."
3. Select "click here" and add the link you copied for the GooDoc.
4. Voila! Now visitors to your blog can see your ranking from yesterday.

Visit & Comment

1. Visit one another's blog posts, read their ranking, and write a Comment of at least three good sentences. 
2. Please compliment them on something(s) in their ranking and politely criticize something else.

Now we'll shift gears and do some preparation for the Time Magazine article we're going to read.

Padding Over to Padlet

1. Open any kind of document (GooDoc, Word, etc.) and list "5 Things I Really Like About Texas."
2. Then list "3 Reasons People in the USA Might Want to Move to Texas."
3. Now go to Padlet, double-click under the appropriate box, and copy and paste your lists on the "wall."
4. Beside your classmates' boxes (called "posts" at Padlet) write comments.
5. Embed the Padlet in your blog.

Be sure to drop down below this Padlet widget to see instructions for reading and analyzing the Time magazine article.

Created with Padlet

Assignment for Tomorrow: Begin reading & color coding Time Magazine Article - Click here to download the Word document..

1. By tomorrow, read and come prepared to discuss the first textual (words) page of the article.
2. As Comments, write down questions about anything you didn't understand in the article and/or anything you found interesting and would like to discuss. You could do this in the Word document by highlighting the word(s), clicking Review--Insert New Comment, and writing your question or insight into the Comment box.
3. Color code the Good Things about Texas & the Bad Things about Texas (according to the libertarian economist who wrote the article).
4. If you don't understand certain words, right click and click Look Up or Synonyms.
5. I'm looking forward to an interesting discussion tomorrow.
6. Oh, and BRAVO for finding the online lists of reasons why U.S. citizens might want to move to Texas!

Practice Post to Learn Blogging: Insert Image & Add Links

Of the various aspects of human development, I most enjoy studying the history of culture.

To Insert an Image:

1. Place the cursor where you want to insert the image.
2. Click the Insert Image icon in the Menu Bar & follow the steps.
3. Click on the image to adjust the size, position, etc.

To Link:

1. Select the word(s) to which you want to link.
2. Click Link link in the Menu Bar.
3. Paste the URL of the site to which you want to link.
4. Click OK.

Welcome to Day 1: Introduction to History & Blogging

Welcome, students, to our first day together in Grade 7 History, Literature, and Logic. I'm eagerly looking forward to learning with you and from you during this school year.

Today we will begin a general introduction to history and Texas, set up your student blogs, begin to use various creative online tools, and, as time allows, do some pre-reading activities leading up to reading a Time magazine story, the cover of which you see to the left.

We will be using the inquiry approach, which means I won't be telling you a bunch of facts and information but will set before you various activities that prompt you to think for and express yourself.

The first thing I'd like to do is to get an idea of what kinds of history interest you the most. Please click the title of the Google Doc, Student Survey: What Topics of History Interest You Most?, and follow the directions provided. We will then examine and discuss what you've written.

Next we will set up your student blogs. I'll walk you through this.

I'm sometimes not sure how long activities will take, so I'll be adding instructions and links here as needed.

Wrapping Up: Okay, we got as far as showing your historical preferences, setting up your student blogs, doing your first post, and learning how to insert images and links. Thank you very much for your concentration and cooperation.

Assignment For Tomorrow:

1. Finish your first post on what kinds of history interest you most.
2. Practice blogging: experiment, play around with various fonts, colors, etc. Use the Menu Bar in the post editor to experiment with different colors, text sizes, and other available features.

Welcome to Grade 7 History, Literature, & Logic

Welcome to our blog for Grade 7 History, Literature, & Logic. Students, parents, and others will be able to access this blog to keep up with classroom learning activities, assignments, and links to useful resources. If you would like to receive notification each time a post is published, add your email address to the "Follow by Email" widget to the right. I am very much looking forward to learning together this year.