Thursday, April 17, 2014

Don't believe the hype...even on the day before vacation we are teaching and learning

"We don't do anything on the day before vacation" is a phrase heard by some parents and guardians, invoked by students who want to start a scheduled vacation a day early.  In case you were tempted to believe the hype, thinking that teaching and learning was taking a day off at East Greenwich High School, below are just a few of the activities, assessments, discussions, essential questions, and other instructional methods that students were privy to on the day before vacation.

My best wishes to all members of the EGHS community for a fun and safe April vacation, you deserve it! 
  • All of my classes took tests/quizzes before vacation.  In AP I gave out the test prep book.
  • Mass communications class had an extended discussion about news bias as they reflected on the documentary Outfoxed. Many students provided their personal insights about how they themselves never realized just how much they were manipulated by certain media exploitations. We settled on the essential question "where does one go to get pure, objective news?" and settled on the fact that this may be unattainable in our current society. Thus, it is up to the consumer to be discerning and questioning viewers. 
  • Freshmen classes had a discussion of the movie "On Golden Pond" and provided insight into the deep, valuable benefits of the older generations learning from the young and the young learning from the  older generations. We closely examined why the frustrations of generations generally occur and the ways one might ease those frustrations (through introspection and the need for outside inspiration)
  • honors physics A- began lab to measure the speed of sound
  • honors physics B- finished speed of sound lab and then finished taking notes on ch 12 (sound)
  • Geometry - took the quarter 3 test.
  • Q3 cumulative exam in all classes
  • Hands on lab activity and application of content discussed all week! Students seemed to really enjoy the lab and the opportunity to ask questions in an informal setting.
  • All of my classes were finishing/working projects that were due today. Any students who had finished early were required to work on an independent piece and those were due today as well. 
  • The students in the Life Skills program organized all the school's Lost & Found articles.  They washed, dried and folded the laundry from the Ceramics classroom.  The students copied, collated, stapled and delivered copies to several teachers.  All the pencils that will be used by the guidance department for testing were sharpened, counted and bagged by the students.  Besides all this, the students worked on their math, reading and writing skills and participated in "Snack Shack" with their OT.  Quite a busy and full day!
  • All of my classes took their 3rd quarter exams today
  • Directed learning at a Speech given by Elie Wiesel.
  • Four scenes from Merchant of Venice discussed.
  • Completed Act IV in Henry V with class.
  • Three classes handed in Final Drafts of Research Paper .
  • Deconstructing Swift's ""A Modest Proposal"" -- studying his use of ad hominem attacks and irony to bolster the satire. 
  • Working in small groups to tackle confusing poetic devices...arguing over the differences between metonymy and synecdoche and why a poet would bother with either in the first place. 
  • Algebra 2 - Quarter 3 Common Test
  • Advanced Precalculus - Strategies for Verifying Trigonometric Identities
  • Freshman classes: Took a test and wrote and essay about Chapters 20 and 21 (Slavery and Division of the Union) 
  • Junior Classes: Wrote a Document Based Question  essay about the Montgomery Bus Boycott. This was a common core assessment
  • Today all of my classes had a quiz about a particular grammar point.  After that we chatted in Spanish about their vacation plans.  The conversation was all in Spanish and very productive!
  • French V unit test on Cyrano de Bergerac
  • French I instruction and practice on questioning/answering techniques in pairs and whole class
  • French IV discussion of 3 scenes of a Moliere play and introduction to oral proficiency testing
  • French III.  Team work to summarize,present and paraphrase a section of Notre Dame de Paris
  • In chemistry, we discussed the results of the data collected in yesterday's Electrolytes lab. The students completed a graphic organizer characterizing different types of solutions  then shared out with the class. Finally they learned how to analyze a Solubility curve. 
  • Senior Project
  • finish tests, quizzes that are outstanding before vacation
  • DBQ's…common tasks
  • UNIT projects: Regionalization, Satire 
  • Q3 unit math tests
  • Algebra II classes completed the quarter 3 common test today.
  • Test on the food chapters of the Spanish 1 curriculum, quiz on the preterite of the verb ir, quiz on the present perfect, cultural activities in which students made their own "ojos de dios" crafts
  • Worked on the Second Suite in F Major by Gustav Holst, transcribed Radioactive by Imagine Dragons and arranged it for String Orchestra, small group work composing 8 measure original folk songs.
  • Art Studio 2: class critique of current projects
  • Art Studio 1: students worked on finishing their surrealist paintings
  • Foundations of Art: students began final drafts of their still-life drawings
  • AP & Portfolio Art: discussed future plans and art careers, began brainstorming for next projects, visiting artist shared graphic design logo work
  • Students completed a collaborative in class essay using Google docs.  The essay was an analytical thematic analysis on the novel Moby Dick.
  • Students previewed vocabulary such as cerebellum, frontal lobe, & cortex to read, and apply reading strategies, to a book about the curious case of Phineas Gage, the man with the hole in his head. 
  • Rock Identification Lab Practical (lab quiz), physical science
  • "Freshmen English - read and acted out the final scene in Romeo and Juliet, then compared the original text with clips from the 1968 Zeffirelli film interpretation and the 1997 Luhrmann film interpretation.
  • Origins of Fantasy - met in small groups to discuss the Lord of the Rings trilogy; also read a scholarly article and its analysis of Buffy the Vampire Slayer as an example of 'dark fantasy' - watched a clip from Buffy and discussed metaphors, symbolism, themes, etc."
  • Talked about, read primary sources about, and tasted food, all in the target language. All prepared and executed by students, for students.
  • Formative assessment on intercepts and integration, discussion of past quizzes, small group discussion regarding a higher-order question about slopes.  Some new material also presented.
  • poetry salon--students chose, present, and discuss poems
  • review unit terms
  • introduce new concept
  • 9 and 11 PE :  a seeded singles badminton tournament. Each period ended with a  class champion.
  • quarter 3 common assessments
(This post will also be cross-posted eghssuccess.blogspot.com and will be updated as more teacher responses come in)

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