Tuesday, October 2, 2012
It's baaaaacccckkkk! with some changes
I missed postings for the weeks of 9/10 and 9/17, so I’m already slipping behind on my beginning-of-the-year commitment to post every week. I apologize to those of you who have been checking this blog only to find nothing new. It’s been just a bit crazy with me the last couple of weeks, owing mostly to my role as Yearbook Advisor. I have a young and inexperienced staff this year, which means I’m having to take on the role of senior editor. But, I guess it keeps me humble; I’m going through what my student staff has gone through for years.
(Shameless promotion: Speaking of yearbooks--you can order books online for a mere $75. The price goes up to $85 on January 1; unsold books will cost $90 after the books arrive in mid-May. I’ll post instructions separately on how to order.)
Both Freshman CP and Junior CP English classes have been going well. As a matter-of-fact, I think September was one of the smoothest starts to a school year that I’ve had in a long time. I’m enjoying all the students a lot. They’re making class time enjoyable for me, and I hope that I’m keeping their classroom experience more-or-less positive.
In the past, I’ve posted about both my classes--what they’ve been doing and what’s sheduled--in a single entry. Starting with this post, I’m going to begin writing separate reports for each class. I think it will make it easier for you to find the information that you’re interested in. But, as always, let me know if I can improve this blog in any way.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
2nd Semester, Spring 2011
It feels a little odd writing “spring semester” since today is a snow day. Four snow days in four weeks! As much as like getting out of school on time, I have to say that I do enjoy having a day in the middle of the week to catch up on work (and sleep).
Second semester starts tomorrow (only three days late). The big change for me is the start of my two sections of Language & Media, A & B blocks. This will be the second year of the revised curriculum that emphasizes group and individual work over teacher-centered instruction. While last year was a “learning year” in which I tried out several strategies in developing the new approach, I nevertheless was pleased with the overall results. One of the problems with taking a serious look at the media is that much of it is a moving target. Consider that, when I was a boy, there were three networks, cable TV was only used in rural locations where signals couldn’t reach, AM radio was more popular than FM, telephones were hung on the wall & were connected by wires to a human operator, and most people subscribed to a newspaper. All this has faded into history. Today we are more interconnected in more ways, and have more options for information, news, and entertainment than at any time in human history. Moreover, the pace of change seems to be increasing as well. So, how does one approach the study of media?
The short answer for my classes is that we will take a focused overview of several of the dominant media in today’s society: the visual media (film, TV, YouTube, photography, cgi, etc.), the aural media (radio, music, podcasts, audiobooks, etc.), and the written media (books, magazines, newspapers, blogs, databases, etc.). But understanding the functions of a specific medium is only part of the story; we also have to look at the workings of the medium (how a “media product” is created, its strengths and weaknesses) and the social aspects of its creation (economics, politics, etc.). And all this in around 77 class days! Needless to say, we can’t go into much detail on any single topic; however, we can develop the skills that will allow us to approach any media product with a critical outlook. This, I believe, is a critical skill for living in modern society.
As far as Freshman English goes, the pace of study will increase again. We will begin the semester with more grammar and vocabulary study; these will be a regular feature several times a week throughout the second semester. On Friday, we’ll also begin reading The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, our second work of 19th-century literature this year. Our emphasis will continue to be on the application of literary terms and concepts for analyzing written works, with a particular emphasis on the development of themes. Responding to literature through essay writing will also continue, but as we take more specific looks at grammar, usage, syntax, and vocabulary, the quality of the writing should be seen to increase.
We will also have an in-class writing assignment that will be a mid-year “check” on each student’s writing development that begin with our first assignment in September (the one in which we read “The Possibility of Evil”).
Jekyll & Hyde will be followed (end of Feb/early March) by To Kill A Mockingbird. I expect to follow this with a short story, “By the Waters of Babylon” in early April. This will cap off our work in the fiction genre, progressing next to non-fiction. The main work here will be Hiroshima, the story of the atomic bombing of that city. After a couple of short works of non-fiction (TBA), probably around the end of May, we’ll close out our year discussing poetry.
One addition to the curriculum will be occasional lessons on film and television production elements. I intend this mainly as another way to apply the means of literary analysis that we work on with the printed texts. This reinforces those skills while at the same time beginning to develop the critical skills necessary to the study of media that are developed further in Language & Media. Even though many students probably will not take that class in the future, I again believe that this is time well spent given the media-saturated world in which we live.
So that’s an overview of the semester ahead. One change in my teaching, though, will be dropping the web presence I’ve maintained in the past--www.mrsapp.net. As our school is encouraging its faculty to transition to the Moodle “Learning Management System” (http://moodle.org/about/), it’s become too time consuming to maintain both a web and Moodle site. However, since the Moodle site is only accessible by students, I am going use this blog to post assignments & information that may be relevant to parents & guardians. If you would like to keep on top of what’s going on in class, I encourage you to “Follow” this blog by clicking on the button at the top of the page.
Please feel free to posts comments of e-mail me with feedback. I want to make this a meaningful resource for all concerned. Thanks!
Second semester starts tomorrow (only three days late). The big change for me is the start of my two sections of Language & Media, A & B blocks. This will be the second year of the revised curriculum that emphasizes group and individual work over teacher-centered instruction. While last year was a “learning year” in which I tried out several strategies in developing the new approach, I nevertheless was pleased with the overall results. One of the problems with taking a serious look at the media is that much of it is a moving target. Consider that, when I was a boy, there were three networks, cable TV was only used in rural locations where signals couldn’t reach, AM radio was more popular than FM, telephones were hung on the wall & were connected by wires to a human operator, and most people subscribed to a newspaper. All this has faded into history. Today we are more interconnected in more ways, and have more options for information, news, and entertainment than at any time in human history. Moreover, the pace of change seems to be increasing as well. So, how does one approach the study of media?
The short answer for my classes is that we will take a focused overview of several of the dominant media in today’s society: the visual media (film, TV, YouTube, photography, cgi, etc.), the aural media (radio, music, podcasts, audiobooks, etc.), and the written media (books, magazines, newspapers, blogs, databases, etc.). But understanding the functions of a specific medium is only part of the story; we also have to look at the workings of the medium (how a “media product” is created, its strengths and weaknesses) and the social aspects of its creation (economics, politics, etc.). And all this in around 77 class days! Needless to say, we can’t go into much detail on any single topic; however, we can develop the skills that will allow us to approach any media product with a critical outlook. This, I believe, is a critical skill for living in modern society.
As far as Freshman English goes, the pace of study will increase again. We will begin the semester with more grammar and vocabulary study; these will be a regular feature several times a week throughout the second semester. On Friday, we’ll also begin reading The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, our second work of 19th-century literature this year. Our emphasis will continue to be on the application of literary terms and concepts for analyzing written works, with a particular emphasis on the development of themes. Responding to literature through essay writing will also continue, but as we take more specific looks at grammar, usage, syntax, and vocabulary, the quality of the writing should be seen to increase.
We will also have an in-class writing assignment that will be a mid-year “check” on each student’s writing development that begin with our first assignment in September (the one in which we read “The Possibility of Evil”).
Jekyll & Hyde will be followed (end of Feb/early March) by To Kill A Mockingbird. I expect to follow this with a short story, “By the Waters of Babylon” in early April. This will cap off our work in the fiction genre, progressing next to non-fiction. The main work here will be Hiroshima, the story of the atomic bombing of that city. After a couple of short works of non-fiction (TBA), probably around the end of May, we’ll close out our year discussing poetry.
One addition to the curriculum will be occasional lessons on film and television production elements. I intend this mainly as another way to apply the means of literary analysis that we work on with the printed texts. This reinforces those skills while at the same time beginning to develop the critical skills necessary to the study of media that are developed further in Language & Media. Even though many students probably will not take that class in the future, I again believe that this is time well spent given the media-saturated world in which we live.
So that’s an overview of the semester ahead. One change in my teaching, though, will be dropping the web presence I’ve maintained in the past--www.mrsapp.net. As our school is encouraging its faculty to transition to the Moodle “Learning Management System” (http://moodle.org/about/), it’s become too time consuming to maintain both a web and Moodle site. However, since the Moodle site is only accessible by students, I am going use this blog to post assignments & information that may be relevant to parents & guardians. If you would like to keep on top of what’s going on in class, I encourage you to “Follow” this blog by clicking on the button at the top of the page.
Please feel free to posts comments of e-mail me with feedback. I want to make this a meaningful resource for all concerned. Thanks!
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