Map Quiz on Indians & Geography - Debate Prep

Our students today:

• Did some last-minute study for the Map Quiz - (Kudos to student 12345 for producing another study guide, this time on the Indians of Texas in 1600 & 1800!)
• Took the Map Quiz
• Prepared for the Indians Debate by reading and color coding the strong points & weak points of their tribe and their opponents' tribes.

After-Class Learning Opportunities (A-CLO, aka "Assignments") for Friday

1. Finish color coding the Strong Points/Weak Points for your tribe and each of your opponents' tribes (Jumanos vs. Comanches vs. Wichitas vs. Caddos . . . gee, I wonder if any of the central and southern tribes are feeling left out; sad, man). The color coding is being done (AS YOU WELL KNOW) on the Chart - Indians of Texas.
2. Read and write questions over Ch. 8 of Lord of the Flies: "Gift for the Darkness." Follow the Question Formulation Technique we've been using this week. Post your questions at your blog and include a picture.
3. Have a wonderful Rest-of-Thursday!

RalphnJack Chronology Challenge - Natural Features of Texas - Predictions About Indians

Today our 7th Graders learned through the following:

• Did a RalphnJack Chronology Challenge, placing pictures in plot order and analyzing Golding's development of the two characters in Lord of the Flies
• Briefly analyzed key natural features of Texas as seen on this map and this map - They were given the option of taking a quiz over either or both of the two maps. There was no wild stampede to sign up.
• Made Predictions About Indians of Texas Based on Geography - We're working on this collaboratively, as seen in the embedded map below. View full-size here.

Assignments for Friday

• Finish the PPT on RalphnJack, upload it to Google Docs, & embed it in a blog post.
• Finish your part of the collaborative Google Doc on the Indians & Geography
• Read Ch. 4 of Lord of the Flies and post 5 good discussion questions in a blog post. 

Quiz over Rivers - "Wrong-Way Rivers" - Ralph & Jack in LOTF

After chapel, students:

• Did some last minute review for the Quiz over Rivers of Texas
• Speculated as to why Texas rivers are sometimes called "wrong-way rivers"
• Were given an analysis handout on "Wrong-Way Rivers"
• Took the Quiz (& did spectacularly WELL!!)
• Had the analysis handout postponed due to time constraints
• Began working collaboratively on a Google Document analyzing The Relationship Between Ralph & Jack as presented by author William Golding in Chapters 1-3 of Lord of the Flies. Here is an embed of the table.

Assignment due Thursday

• Finish collaborating on the Google Document on The Relationship between Ralph & Jack.
• Be sure to color code each character, as seen in the directions. I haven't noticed anyone's doing that so far.

Lord of the Flies, Day 3

How accurate do these maps seem? I chose these two because they might help you visualize the island without giving away too much of the plot. The originals are here and here.

Today students:

• Went to one another's blogs and read the 5 questions over Chapter 2 of LOTF
• Chose any 3 questions and wrote 3-4 (or more)-sentence responses
• Discussed their responses with their classmates
• Viewed and discussed a British video giving tips for writing an essay on LOTF - all 6 videos can be found here.
• Viewed and discussed two one-minute videos from a series called 60second
• Viewed the first 30 seconds of a Spark Notes video on LOTF but decided it might give away too much of the plot and decided to watch it some other time
• Chose to continue discussing LOTF rather than using some class time to review for tomorrow's quiz over the Rivers of Texas (& the Gulf of Mexico)

Assignment for Wednesday

• Study for the Quiz over the Rivers of Texas (& Gulf of Mexico)
• Read Ch. 3 of LOTF - "Huts on the Beach" & post 5 good discussion questions on your blog
• Be noticing how the relationship between Ralph & Jack develops in each of the first 3 chapters - we will analyze & write on this on Wednesday.

Lord of the Flies, Day 2 - Texas Rivers

Lord of the Flies

• Discussed some of the Vocabulary Words in Chapter 1
• Students assumed character roles they'd chosen and discussed various aspects of LOTF from their characters' points of view
• Discussed some of the students' interpretive questions
• Wrote predictions as to future developments in LOTF (See student blogs.)

Texas Rivers

• Analyzed a map of the major rivers of Texas - See PowerPoint for excellent student insights.
• Began using animated slides to learn names and locations of rivers for next Wednesday's quiz

Assignment for Tuesday

• Enjoy your 3-day weekend!
• Read Chapter 2 of LOTF and write 5 interpretive questions into a blogpost.
• Study for Wednesday's Quiz over the Rivers of Texas. Use the PPT previously referenced.

Shipwrecked in Outer Space - Began Lord of the Flies: Vocabulary - Assigned Characters - Began Reading

Students today:

• Did an excellent job of ranking and discussing the 16 options in "Shipwrecked in Outer Space"
• Attempted to reach a unanimous decision for each step after arguing vigorously when their ranking differed from a classmate's.
• Demonstrated excellent logical reasoning in defending their rankings
• Were so thorough we didn't have time to finish; you can see what they accomplished here.
• Discussed Vocabulary for LOTF
• Were given the names of several characters in LOTF and chose a part to play as they read and discuss the novel. 

• Wingboy = Ralph
• Jaycolt = Piggy
• 12345 = Jack & Samneric
• Teacherman = Simon
• Began working together on a sheet to help Piggy (the character, not the student playing the character) improve his grammar.
• Read the first several pages in character

Assignment for Friday:

• Read the rest of Ch. 1 of LOTF.
• Read it from the point of view (POV) of your character
• Come prepared to discuss the events of Ch. 1 from your character's POV
• Write 5 good interpretive questions from Ch. 1

Regions Debate-Day 2

You did exceptionally well in the cross-examination phase of the debate, students. I watched you grow intellectually during the debate and found it thrilling. I was particularly pleased by your use of the evidence you had gathered and your use of logic in defending your region. Outstanding!

Regions Debate - Day 1

Great job on Day 1 of the debate, students. You presented strong cases and took good notes on your opponents' arguments and evidence. Study back over your notes and be formulating strategies you can use tomorrow during the cross examination phase of the debate. Each of us will be cross examined (questioned) by the other three, so be prepared to defend your own region and "attack" the other three. This is your assignment for tomorrow.

Vocab Quiz - Texas My Texas, cont'd - Inquiry Exercise on Regions of Texas

On this day, students:

• Did 5 minutes of last-minute study for the Vocab Quiz over "The Most Dangerous Game"
• Took the Vocab Quiz - Good job, students!
• Finalized their Texas My Texas table/map from yesterday
• Did the first two steps of an Inquiry Exercise on the Regions & Sub-Regions of Texas
• Dragged names of the 4 Main Regions to what might be their correct locations on a map
• Wrote possible names of the 11 Sub-Regions based on their location and pictures of them
• Drew for and chose one of the 4 Main Regions to defend in next week's Regions Debate: "Which of the four main regions of Texas is the best?"

Assignment - Due Monday: Have your final, revised copy of the History of a Classmate completed. Turn in, stapled together or fastened into a folder:

• Title Page
• Final Copy
• Rough-Draft Copy (the one turned in last Monday)
• Research Notes
• Instructions for Essay

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.