Final Triptych

Something to keep in mind: We are always, even on the last day of the year, still making the makerspace, not just using it. We can always learn more about how to use the Humanities to build a better version of ourselves. There will always be meaningful problems to solve and new ways to learn.

On the course calendar, this was the shape of the next and final part of the school year:

That remains a helpful framework — red for collective test prep, green for autonomous makerspace work, and yellow for your Pareto Projects. But you could also set your own schedule. This is not just the last panel of this quarter’s triptych of studies, but a triptych itself, split unevenly between three focuses.

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Pareto Projects

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From September, when we started these Pareto Projects:

Pareto Project Guide (2017-2018)

This year, you’ve used 20% of your time to work on a project of your choosing. You have set (and often reset) the goals, schedule, parameters, etc., with time in class every week or so to work.

It’s time to showcase what you’ve accomplished. We’ll partner with the high school’s Media Specialist, Mr. Breen, to share some of your work online and in the iLC. We’ll fill the walls and shelves of our classroom. If we can, we’ll spread into other areas of the building. It’s up to you.

In fact, figuring out how to showcase your project is part of the project — a problem to solve, as we would any other problem, through collaboration and experimentation. This moment is about you and what you have created.

There won’t be a Google Classroom assignment for these projects. They are part of your final profile score, though.

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Writing Life Retrospective

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Meanwhile, you are encouraged to create a writing life retrospective, which is exactly what it says on the tin: a look back at your writing life. The scope and sequence of this retrospective are up to you. The form is up to you. It could be a portfolio of essays and other writings from this year, but I’d encourage you to think bigger.

Whatever your exploration looks like, you need to pull together an essay that bills itself as a retrospective answer to a question about your writing life. That will be the assignment on Google Classroom, available from May 21 on.

The essay should follow Paul Graham’s idea of “err[ing] on the side of the river,” or mining for insight and interesting perspectives. You’ll want to think creatively. Scour old folders in Google Drive, boxes of work your parents have kept, the corners of old Internet haunts — wherever you might gather unique details and meaning.

And think of your writing life as much more than just essays written in school. Your writing includes anything written, from essays to poetry to online posts to the occasional bit of bathroom graffiti. Use it all.

We’ll shape this work as we explore it, same as we will for the Pareto Project showcases. Keep Piet Hein’s idea in mind: “Art is solving problems that cannot be formulated before they have been solved. The shaping of the question is part of the answer.”

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Regents Exam Triage

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On the other end of the educational spectrum is the Regents Exam, for those of you who must take it on June 12. There is no art to test prep, at least not as Hein or any other creative person would define it. Think of it as triage — self-directed, teacher-assisted triage.

Castle Learning has also been set up for each of you. You’ll need your login information, which I’ll provide in class. Here is the main site:

• Castle Learning

I’ll help you through the registration process, if you need help. Once you’re registered, you’ll find these five assignments:

• 8/16 Practice: Part 1 – Passage A
• 8/16 Practice: Part 1 – Passage B
• 8/16 Practice: Part 1 – Passage C
• 8/16 Practice: Part 2
• 8/16 Practice: Part 3

This practice all comes from the ELA Common Core Regents Exam given in August of 2016. Follow the directions carefully. For each assignment, there is a CR — constructed response — that asks you to be metacognitive about your choices and performance.

These metacognitive constructed responses are essential. They turn cursory work into meaningful work, and they force you to take the test seriously, even if you are burned out on tests.

For each reading passage, the metacognitive prompt in Castle Learning is this:

Use teacher feedback, your peers, and the correct answers that are provided by Castle Learning to engineer an understanding of how these questions and answer choices work. Write metacognitively about the passage, the questions, and your problem-solving efforts.

And for both writing responses, the metacognitive prompt in Castle Learning is this:

Identify and analyze several writing choices you made in this response. You can focus on your use of detail, your arrangement, your central meaning, or your rhetorical manipulation of grammar and style.

All five assignments will be open until June 11 at 11:59 PM. Your overall diligence and effort in preparing will be part of your final profile score, so try not to wait too long to do this.

If you are in P1 English Regents Prep

You have these five assignments already. Your role is that of a proxy teacher: Use your experience and our work in P1 to help your peers. That’s the kind of collaborative work that boosts your profile score, and it’s the best way to continue to improve your own skills.

If you are in AP English Language & Composition

You also have access to the most recent Regents Exam, which was prepared for you here:

Test Prep: Endgame

This one is not on Castle Learning. Copies are in our classroom. You can choose between the two versions of the exam. Both will force you to learn the format of the test, so it’s more a matter of personal preference.

You should also keep in mind that the Common Core ELA Regents Exam is a lot like the AP exam you take. If you’ve prepared well for the latter, the former will feel far easier. Avoid overconfidence, and you’ll be fine.