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.

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.