Monthly Archives: April 2013

4/16/2013

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We started off the day with a pop quiz over the Bible! On my own, I earned 15/25. 1st block (Thanks to Josh A. and Felipe), earned a whopping 19/25. 2nd and 3rd Block earned a measly 14/25.

Then, we read the background of the King James Bible and discussed what the differences are between teaching the Bible as Literature (or History) and a religion class.

Then, we read Ecclesiastes 3:1 –

This was the perfect example of how the Bible can be considered a piece of literature.

Then, we read Psalms 3:1

This was an example of how the Bible can be literature and still be a religious text at the same time.

Then, we read our last bit for the day – the Parable of the Prodigal Son:

If we had time, Riley played a game where she played music and you had to find the what part of the Bible it was alluding to (one of the three things we just read), but this wasn’t a grade.

Lastly, we answered three questions in the discussion board – The Bible as Literature Discussion Board. Make sure you REPLY to each question – you can find REPLY in the lower left hand corner of your screen.

4/15/2013

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According to the e-mail I got today, the Progress Reports have been pushed back from tomorrow (4/16) to NEXT Thursday (4/25). That’s the week of TAKS testing.

I was being really nice today to try and give you some make up time today, but some people took all 80 minutes to get the foldable done.

Today, we did a foldable over the Seven Deadly Sins and The Seven Heavenly Virtues.

First, get a large sheet of construction person and fold it in half like this:

Then, fold the sides INTO the middle like this:

Then, on each outer fold, cut it into seven equal parts. This means you will need to make SIX cuts.

On the outer flap, you will need to find the Seven Deadly Sins and the Seven Heavenly Virtues. On one inner flap, give me a definition and an example.

Turn that in, and use your time wisely! If you get done early, work on zeros!

4/12/2013

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Hooray! Friday!

We started out today by watching the trailer for The Buried Life – Riley has the book in case you want to borrow ideas for your own BucketList.

Then, we used our obituaries and created a word cloud with Tagxedo.

AHOY – Here are the step-by-step instructions.

  • Click create.
  • Click the little arrow next to fonts and click USE LOCAL FONTS
  • Click Load
  • Copy and paste your Obituary text
  • Hit submit

Then, make it pretty.

You can choose the theme – which is the colors.

Change the shape by clicking – SHAPE

Play with the options – make it pretty!

When you get it just like you like it, save it.

Save it as a 4 MP jpg.

Then, go to the Carpe Diem folder in LMS and download the diorama. Replace my word cloud with YOUR word cloud, answer the three questions, and change the color of the sides to match your word cloud. Drop this off in the drop box. I’ll print in color and make the foldable for you!

Then, you download the #Carpe Diem #YOLO item in LMS. Make sure you do this Firefox or Chrome – if you use IE, you can’t open the file. This is dealing with hash tags on Twitter. #cool

A hash tag is something that help search engines in Twitter and Instagram. All of the things in that file are tweets that I found that generally have #carpe_diem or #yolo. Click the little white arrow so you can select things.

Using your mouse, drag the tweets to the hashtag you think they belong to. If you think a tweet is YOLO, drag it #yolo line.

Save, and turn in.

The last thing we did was the blog post Carpe Diem Closure. Make sure you COPY your answer before you hit submit, otherwise, you run the risk of losing all that you have written.

Carpe Diem Closure

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Today marks the end of carpe diem for us! For this wrap-up assignment, I want you to choose three of the following questions to answer. Make sure that you use complete sentences and explain yourself fully – remember GIGO!

There is no need to copy/paste the prompt in the comment box – just restate the question when you compose your answer.

Before you hit submit, make sure you copy (CTL+C) your answer in case the CAPTCHA tricks you.

  • What is the difference between Carpe Diem and YOLO?
  • Which one is most realistic?
  • Why does YOLO get a bad reputation?
  • Reflect upon the Post-It note from last week – is your post-it note Carpe Diem or YOLO?
  • What are your thoughts about carpe diem?
  • Is carpe diem a realistic way to live your lives? Why or why not?

As always, if I ask you to do something, I do it as well. Here are my three responses:

I think YOLO gets a bad reputation because most people use it to justify reckless actions that they might later regret. Carpe diem is more about living with no regrets. To me, YOLO is counterproductive to carpe diem, since most times people use #YOLO for something that will bring them shame and embarrassment tomorrow.

I think carpe diem is realistic to an extent. You can only seize so much in a day, and you need to expect that you will be around tomorrow. I don’t think wasting your entire paycheck in one night is representative of carpe diem, because you will end up suffering more in the long run. To me, carpe diem is more like the e-mail that we read in class – don’t save your perfume for special occasions – each day we are here is special!

My post-it note is definitely carpe diem rather than YOLO. I don’t want to do anything crazy, and while there are lots of things on my Bucket List that I’d like to accomplish before I die, I’d rather spend my time with family and friends rather than going out trying to drive motorcycles and dancing.

4/11/2013

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Today is a pretty easy day – we are creating our own Bucketlist. Remember last week, we created an account at BucketList? Well, we are using that site to create our OWN BucketList.

I’m giving you an option – you can just create your BucketList for 15 points, OR, you can earn up to 30 points if you create a digital poster/presentation. You can use the media of your choice:

The key here is that is s media file – hence the nugget for Media Literacy today. Just make sure that you drop the link or file off in the drop box.

You *have* to have your Obituary completed in order to do the activity tomorrow. Make sure it’s in!

4/10/2013

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Hooray! Today we are working on our poems with our partner.

There will need to be two poems, so if you opted to work by yourself, you will need to write TWO poems.

Poem 1

  • Persuasive
  • 24 lines
  • 6 stanzas
  • Rhyming couplets
  • AABB Rhyme Scheme

Poem 2

  • Rejection of Poem 1
  • 24 lines
  • 6 stanzas
  • Rhyming couplets
  • AABB Rhyme Scheme

Make sure that when you turn your poem in, you let me know who your partner is so he/she can get credit as well.

We are using The Passionate Shepherd and The Nymph’s Reply as a model, so if you need to see what the poem should look like, go look at the poems we read yesterday.

4/9/2013

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We talked about our IDEAL man/woman today in class. TJ was very easy going – he said all his perfect women needed was a face. 🙂 I talked about how after a particularly bad break up with an ex-boyfriend, I wrote a list of 100 things my perfect boyfriend would have. It took me a week or two to write it, and while it was an interesting writing activity, it was realistic. I never expected my husband to match all 100 characteristics.

Then, we read The Passionate Shepherd and took notes.

While we were reading, I dressed people up as the nymph. Isn’t this sweet and romantic?

Then, we read the response – The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd:

Aww. Sad Shepherd.

Lastly, we worked with a buddy to complete the Seduction/Shut Down Pre-Writing in the Pastoral folder.

Tomorrow, we will use this to write TWO poems – one persuasive and one rejection.

My absent students will need to make sure that they either find a partner or have to work by themselves (unless they have a card to partner with Riley!). Adrianna, we have a lot of people in first block who are solo right now. Ben, Ivan said he’s work with you.

4/8/2013

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Riley talked about a few things today – namely, grades and final exam exemptions.

If you are in 11th grade (Felipe, Selena, Matt), you will take your final exams in the following order:

Block 1 – June 4th

Block 2 – June 5th

Block 3 – June 6th

If you are in 12th grade, you will have to take your finals EARLY, so you will take your finals in this order:

Block 2 – June 3rd

Block 3 – June 3rd

Block 1 – June 4th

Regarding exemptions, this is NOT a TAKS tested subject, so you will need to make at least an 80 and have good attendance in the class in order to exempt.

Now, regarding what we did in class today –

We listened to Time by Pink Floyd and answered the ten questions in LMS about it. The first three questions will require a quote, but the last few don’t. Don’t stress. You can answer the questions in order you desire – you can go backwards.

Make sure you use complete sentences and answer the questions fully and appropriately.

When you are done, work on your obituary!

4/5/2013

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Today, we approach the first major grade of English IVB: The Obituary.

There are instructions in LMS, but I want to stress a few things – this is NOT about how you die, this is about how you LIVED your life. I’m going to look and see if your obituary exemplifies the concept of carpe diem. So don’t just focus on what you did in your life in high school – you haven’t been able to live your life to the fullest yet.

Also, I am requiring that you be old – at least 80. I don’t want to get the heebie jeebies this.

I have written my own, and it is up in LMS as an example for you to use as a model, but I’m going to be honest – the MOST helpful item that I used when writing my own obit was the Blog of Death. There are really fascinating obits in there that you can use as good models. Remember, modeling is where you use the sentence structure, not the ideas.

We will have a little time in class on Monday to finish this and it will be due on Tuesday, April 9th.

Also, most of your grades have been updated in Gradespeed. Keep up the great work!

4/4/2013

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April 4th. It’s my dad’s birthday. I guess I need to call him. Maybe I’ll read the poem from yesterday to him and see how HE likes it!

Today, we read/listened to Let’s Get it On by Marvin Gaye. We talked about the speaker and his audience (a girl) and analyzed that relationship. We highlighted evidence of carpe diem (time) in the poem, highlighted IRONY in the song, and highlighted references to LOVE in the song. We also specifically talked about how the song was contradictory and how it related to TIME (“stop beating ’round the bush”, and “this minute”).

 

Then, we read To His Coy Mistress. Make sure you get the notes from the blog or another student. The poem is a syllogism – a form of deductive reasoning, and it was also very similar to Let’s Get it On.

We create a Venn diagram comparing To His Coy Mistress with Let’s Get it On. I’m grading this based on QUALITY, not QUANTITY. Make sure you focus on significant similarities and differences.

Lastly, we did the Syllogism Pyramid foldable. You can find the template in LMS.

For each triangle, create a text box and write the following:

  • If… (1st stanza – lines 1-20) + image
  • But… (2nd stanza – lines 21-32) + image
  • So… (3rd stanza – lines 33-46) + image

You will need to ROTATE the text box. Grab the little green ball and turn it. Make sure that the text box faces the hypotenuse. Don’t worry about the text that is already on the pyramid – that will be hidden when you fold it up.