Keep Calm and Blog

I have been reticent to start blogging after being away from it for so long. I love to share my work with others but I hesitate to write it down - very often because I spend too much time thinking about using the right words. Tonight I have decided that the best way to begin is just write and hope that the ideas that I want to express are clear. It is after all what I tell my kids to do all the time.

 I had a great day with my students today. We decided that we didn't want to write another essay before our break and so we settled on doing a slow chat on Twitter. Instead of writing essays comparing and contrasting Zeffirelli and Branagh's Hamlet, we would instead respond to a series of questions about the films in a Twitter slow chat that would last about three days. Though the students who were not yet on Twitter were a bit hesitant to start - they agreed that working together and sharing our ideas with others outside of our class would be a great way to "celebrate our learning". The questions for the chat are linked here .

 With our questions in mind, we watched the first of the films today. While we watched we used a back channel site - TodaysMeet to live blog our ideas about the film. We commented on the director's techniques - lighting, mood, genre; on casting and on characters' speech, costume, and accents; on sound, music and language; on colour, icons, and themes; and we looked on the way the themes were developed. Finally, we also blogged about how we felt about the film generally and in relation to Shakespeare's play and we blogged about the director's interpretation of the play and how it came across in the film.

 Notwithstanding the student who wrote "Fifty Shades of Hamlet" in the scene where Hamlet attacks Gertrude, the comments were insightful. Students noted ideas and observations that I hadn't noticed in the film before. It was amazing to be present as they "made their thinking visible". Students who would have otherwise been hesitant to share their ideas did so enthusiastically. They had the option of writing their names or blogging anonymously and so they were not pressured or put on the spot to share their ideas. Each response was on equal footing - all students could respond at once and didn't have to wait only to see their ideas "taken" by the student who went before. To say that they enjoyed it would be an understatement. We had a great time. The transcript of the meeting can be accessed here. The meeting room was easy to set up and that was the icing on the cake.

 Tomorrow we will watch Branagh's version of Hamlet and continue our conversation. Today, I am happy that I am teacher.

Child Soldiers

Please watch the following interview and complete the activity described below: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kEL_LRBSqk 

The 4C's

Connections: What connections can you draw between the text and your own life or your other learning? Read the article "Teaching Kids to Kill" and describe any similarities or differences in the concepts.

Challenges: What ideas, positions, or assumptions do you want to challenge or argue with in the text?
Concepts: What key concepts or ideas do you think are important and worth holding on to from the text?
Changes: What changes in attitudes, thinking or action are suggested by the text, either for you or others?

Guidelines for Posting and Responding

Your goal for responding to the posts of your classmates should be to add to the direction of their responses by elaborating on the evidence they have given, or to offer an alternative idea or concern. You do not need to weaken the arguments in your classmates' blogs. You should be respectful and polite. While you may offer an opposing viewpoint, please do so cordially. Your responses should be written in a well-written paragraph of approximately five sentences.

Your work will be evaluated using the following criteria:

Initial Blog Post

• How well does the blog post address the prompt?
• Is the point of the blog clear?
• How well does the blog provide the necessary context?
• To what extent does the student support his/her thoughts with references to the core text or material?
• How well does the blog provide a space for response?

Response Blog Post

• How well does the response address the issues raised in the earlier blog?
• Is the point of the response clear?
• To what extent does the response provide necessary content?
• How well does the responder support his/her thoughts with references to the text and the initial post?
• How well does the response incorporate ideas or thoughts from the other person's blog?

Media Project 1

Select a news article that is connected to our theme, War and Conflict. Link the article to your post. Summarize the article. Make a connection (text to text, self or world) and describe how the connection extends your understanding.