Author: Mr. Eure

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Quarter 2, Day 3

  By All Classes (2016-2017), AP English Language & Composition (2016-2017), English 10 Regents (2016-2017), English 11 Regents (2016-2017)
Image borrowed from this blog post.

Image borrowed from this blog post.

The Stuff of Growth

On Monday, regardless of class and grade level, you were given a checkpoint assignment. Below are three anonymous, exemplary submissions, presented with minimal commentary. Carefully read the exemplar for your class’ assignment. Then type up an actionable analysis. That bolded phrase breaks down like so:

  • actionable | Your analysis must indicate actions you can take in the future. Focus on what you did or didn’t do in comparison to the relevant exemplars, and then use that to discuss what you will do next time.
  • analysis | You need insight into precisely what makes this work exemplary. Talk about specific elements: use of detail, arrangement of ideas, meaningful insight, overall approach, etc.

This is peer ETA work, or an attempt to learn by analyzing and emulating a peer. It bolsters and in some cases supplants individual and group feedback. With that in mind, today’s submission — what you submit to Google Classroom later — should meet certain criteria:

  • It must be significantly developed, which means you can’t write a few sentences and call it a day.
  • It must be significantly detailed, which means you need to cite specifics from the exemplar.
  • It must have some sort of shape, which means you can’t just throw your thoughts on the page haphazardly.

If you have questions, ask them (quickly!) in the comment section at the bottom of this post.

Quick FAQ

Q: Why include all three exemplars in one post?

A: Same answer as last time: The skills and traits of this course are universal. The goal of peer ETA work isn’t to copy the exemplar; the assignment is over, and “corrections” aren’t a thing in here. You can only benefit from today’s writing if you look beneath the specifics and focus on actionable analysis — in this case, what the best kind of metacognitive and reflective writing looks like, regardless of the assignment. A junior can learn a lot by reading the most effective work by a tenth grader, an AP student could benefit from the work done over in Regents, etc.

10R Exemplar

Tenth graders wrote short stories, which is a bit more fun than a traditional essay1. The most important step, however, was their understanding of authorial choice. This exemplar identifies specific language and elements that create everything from character motivation to suspense. It’s quite good.

[pdfjs-viewer url=”http%3A%2F%2Fsisypheanhigh.com%2Fmalachite%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2016%2F11%2FQ2D1-RE10-EX.pdf” viewer_width=100% viewer_height=400px fullscreen=true download=true print=true]

11R Exemplar

Just like all of these, this brief bit of metacognition was attached to a copy of the central writing response itself, and that response was developed enough to need a bit of analysis moving forward. If you don’t invest in the first part of the writing process, this reflective and metacognitive loop won’t work, and that top GAP tier will stay out of reach.

[pdfjs-viewer url=”http%3A%2F%2Fsisypheanhigh.com%2Fmalachite%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2016%2F11%2FQ2D1-RE11-EX.pdf” viewer_width=100% viewer_height=400px fullscreen=true download=true print=true]

AP Exemplar

This last one is thoughtful and specific, and it weaves in our reading and writing background authentically. It also references K-pop, which still surprises me by being a thing. Why, I remember when it was just S.E.S. and Drunken Tiger, and everything had to be imported on CDs from YesAsia. Now it’s as ubiquitous as any genre of music. (It’s strange, by the way, to date oneself through Korean pop music.)

[pdfjs-viewer url=”http%3A%2F%2Fsisypheanhigh.com%2Fmalachite%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2016%2F11%2FQ2D1-AP11-EX.pdf” viewer_width=100% viewer_height=400px fullscreen=true download=true print=true]

  1. Not that we write traditional essays, but the comparison still stands. ↩

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Quarter 2, Day 2

  By All Classes (2016-2017), AP English Language & Composition (2016-2017), English 10 Regents (2016-2017), English 11 Regents (2016-2017)
A graph you've seen before.

A graph you’ve seen before.

Doki Doki Panic

It’s 1:50 PM, and school is almost over1. Your homework tonight involves the test you took earlier:

  • List the sixteen skills and traits used for GAP assessments. Put them in the prescribed eight pairs, too.
  • Define interstitial in terms of this course.
  • Define galvanizing in terms of this course.
  • Explain the criteria for a third-tier grade abatement profile.
  • Explain the criteria for a fourth-tier grade abatement profile.
  • Explain the criteria for a GAP score of 9.
  • Briefly describe Joan Didion’s perspective on writing. (Juniors only)
  • Briefly describe Paul Graham’s perspective on writing. (Juniors only)

A test of this sort has been mentioned in the past, but it was written about on this site only in the footnote of this AP post. We can call them DDTs, either for direct diagnostic tests or doki doki tests, depending on how weird we’re feeling. The origins of the stranger version of the acronym are here:

View at Medium.com

Some of your predecessors eventually came up with doki doki as the onomatopoeia. You, too, should take an active role in shaping this sort of assessment. That starts with today’s assignment, which is to write insightfully about your performance, especially what it means for you moving forward.

Before you write, think about some of what today’s DDT performance reveals:

  • your previous close reading of instructional posts and central texts;
  • your internalization and recall, especially of the language of grade abatement;
  • your critical thinking and understanding of how the course works;
  • your integrity and character.

Then write specifically and introspectively. This is a moment captured in writing; it is reflective and metacognitive in equal measure, covering both the wider narrative of your learning and the narrower focus provided by a single day’s lesson. What do you know about this class? How much have you studied its particular requirements? How carefully do you read the central texts?

On my end, this allows for a kind of triage. Patterns emerge. What have you internalized? Which ideas are unclear? How many students are in a position to teach others? How many need an intervention? The answers help me adjust for the rest of the calendar year.

Quick FAQ

Q: What do we do about the Pavlovian “cheating” that occurred immediately as students sat down to take this test?

A: I don’t know, but it was alarming to see students cheat out a copy of, e.g., the GAP checklist in order to copy answers. That betrays such a fundamental misunderstanding of the course that even my empathy is staggered. I saw a hundred versions of this:

Maybe I need a stick like Miss Wormwood has there.

Maybe I need a stick like Miss Wormwood has there.

The point of these diagnostics is to diagnose. Cheating on them would be like cheating on a test for strep throat: I guess you didn’t get bad news now, but if you’ve got strep throat, you probably want to know. Treatment seems important. And in here, pretending to know things sets you up to be embarrassed and humiliated later, when you’re called on to demonstrate that expertise or internalized understanding. We care so much about growth that it makes no sense, except as a reflection of a system that batters students into these pathologically frightened creatures, to cheat.

Q: What do we do about students who wrote for nearly 39 minutes in response to a test that should take about ten minutes?

A: I don’t know this answer, either. In a way, that level of panicked overkill is more troubling than the student who drew a picture of a flower instead of doing any work. None of these prompts requires much in the way of writing. They test a student’s understanding and internalization of straightforward concepts and ideas. Here’s a key:

  • The sixteen skills and traits used for GAP assessments, in their respective pairs, as seen in a half-dozen handouts and posts:
    • Collegiality ⇆ Empathy
    • Integrity + Character
    • Close Reading ⟹ Internalization
    • Critical Thinking ⟹ Metacognition
    • Effective Communication ⟹ Writing
    • Amenability ⇆ Self-Awareness
    • Assiduousness ⇆ Self-Efficacy
    • Organization ⟹ Autodidacticism
  • Interstitial, in terms of this course, means to learn and to create in those brief, spare moments we have during our hectic and often overscheduled lives.
  • Galvanizing, in terms of this course, means to teach others what you’ve learned from some expert source. The protégé effect is a significant factor in how we galvanize others.
  • Third-tier grade abatement profiles “reflect varying degrees of incomplete work, disengagement, and misunderstanding.” That’s lifted directly from this guide. The class period matters significantly more than anything else, and we can almost quantify student work at this level.
  • Fourth-tier grade abatement profiles require a little more explanation, but still less than a half-page. Look at the top of page five in that same guide:
Fourth Tier GAP Criteria

That’s only about 250 words.

  • The most important criteria for a GAP score of 9 are “a precocious strength in metacognition” and evidence of being “consistently, insightfully reflective,” both in person and in writing. The other, obvious criteria are to teach others, make the learning environment better, and develop discernible strength in every skill or trait.
  • The juniors read Joan Didion’s “Why I Write” as a preface to this journey essay. Her perspective on writing is nuanced, but I especially like this section of the essay:

[I was] simply a writer, a person whose most absorbed and passionate hours are spent arranging words on pieces of paper. Had my credentials been in order I would never have become a writer. Had I been blessed with even limited access to my own mind there would have been no reason to write. I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means.

  • Paul Graham’s perspective on writing is so important to us that it got its own post and series of assignments. He’s nuanced, too, but we could get away with a list of at least some of what he suggests:
    • Observe carefully, looking for what is most interesting and surprising about a subject.
    • Let the essay take its own course toward what is most interesting, like a river seeking the sea.
    • Clean up your thoughts as you write, keeping an audience provisionally in mind.
    • Ignore all the rote, repetitive, literature-dependent habits you learn in English classes.

Q: Why is this cross-posted to all courses?

A: Because the skills and traits of this course are universal. How we develop and apply them differs from grade to grade and level to level, but it also differs from student to student — hence the focus on individualizing the curriculum. The terms we use help give clarity and direction to the work we do. The only way a makerspace (really, an atelier; more on that later) works is if the participants know the basics, and that goes for everyone.

Q: Why is the post available only at 1:50 PM, not during every class?

A: Because you need the occasional period without Chromebooks in front of you, and because you need to see the importance of work done at home. Remember this essay on the chambers of your day? We used that to emphasize the importance of our 39 minutes together, and those 39 minutes do determine your profiles to a significant extent. Your learning should continue at home, however, and today’s writing assignment forces you to do that.

  1. The post is up a little early to give P9, when the siren call of home is strongest, some added support. This is our equivalent of lashing Odysseus to the mast. ↩

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Quarter 2, Day 1

  By All Classes (2016-2017), AP English Language & Composition (2016-2017), English 10 Regents (2016-2017), English 11 Regents (2016-2017)
Screenshot of Google Classroom assignment

Screenshot of Google Classroom assignment

WIP into Shape

Except for the number of students on the right, the image above is exactly what was posted to your individual class stream this morning at 6:09 AM, and the text that follows is a transcript of what was said to you at the start of the class period later that day.

Today, you must submit your progress on our current assignment to Google Classroom. This is a record of the work you’ve done before this moment — a snapshot of a work-in-progress. You are not submitting it for feedback; that will happen in class, in small groups and individually, throughout the rest of the week. Your submission simply locks in place a piece of evidence. Among your choices:

  1. Create a copy of your work in Google Docs (File ▸ Make a copy) and attach it to the Google Classroom assignment.
  2. Take a picture of your handwritten work, upload it to Google Drive (New ▸ File upload), and then attach it to the Google Classroom assignment.
  3. Write a metacognitive reflection on your work and attach it to the Google Classroom assignment.

A metacognitive reflection also generates evidence necessary for a fourth tier profile at the end of the quarter. Find the time to write one, regardless of your progress on the central assignment.

Examples:

  • 10th grade students have had enough time to finish this assignment. They should attach a copy of each step: the outline, the short story, and the metacognitive analysis. Additional reflection and metacognition should be written during the class period and for homework.
  • 11th grade students have had enough time to start the essay dictated by this prompt. They should attach any outlines or brainstorming work, plus a copy of the essay in its current state. Additional reflection and metacognition should be written during the class period and for homework.

Ask questions in any of the usual places, and take the time to teach others what to do.

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Enigmas and Their Opposites

  By All Classes (2016-2017), AP English Language & Composition (2016-2017), English 10 Regents (2016-2017), English 11 Regents (2016-2017)
From "The Enigma of Amigara Fault"

From “The Enigma of Amigara Fault”

Q1 GAP Reports

For all students, the protocol of assigning a GAP score is the same:

[pdfjs-viewer url=”http%3A%2F%2Fsisypheanhigh.com%2Fmalachite%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2016%2F11%2FGAPProtocolv3.1.pdf” viewer_width=100% viewer_height=1360px fullscreen=true download=true print=true]

The process, however, should be individualized. Grade abatement stresses individual learning, and it would undermine our philosophy to treat the end of each quarter as a high-stakes event. It would turn us back toward the warping pressure of the old model of learning, and none of us — teacher absolutely included — benefits from the wearying push through 140 essays, reports, or conferences.

Instead, you are required only to read the embedded document above (here is the up-to-date Google version), and then to complete this Google Form:

A copy of it has been assigned to you through Google Classroom, which is where you can also submit further evidence, if that helps. Note, however, that how you submit evidence — if you submit evidence — is up to you. The next steps of this process are, to a significant extent, yours to take.

Ask questions in the usual places, and take this opportunity to teach each other what you learn. Fight the predictable, learned helplessness that comes with a difficult task. Focus on the universal feedback in this essay:

View at Medium.com

The end of a quarter should be a validation and a celebration, and then it should pass quickly. If you have struggled, it should be a moment of reflection that spurs greater effort and focus — and then it should pass quickly.

One more note: Included with this assignment is an evidentiary matrix of sorts. Here is an embedded image of it:

gap-evidence-01

I realized far too late that giving students this kind of document immediately overrides everything else. You rush to fill it in, to “complete” it, and neglect the context. But at the bottom of the printed and Google versions of this thing, it tells you how it should be used:

This is not a mathematical chart, which you might guess from the emojis creeping across the top. (I blame/thank former students for that contribution.) It can’t be used to generate a GAP score. Instead, it is designed to help you to think about the quantity, quality, and category of what you’ve done in class. You might mark more than one circle in each row, for instance, depending on the kind of evidence you’ve generated.

The guide is important. The many branching links in that guide are important. What we’ve done for the past quarter is important. This emoji-laden handout is about as ancillary as it gets.

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Essay: Narrative Writing

  By English 10 Regents (2016-2017)
Art by Angelica Alzona, from the annual "Scary Stories" post on Jezebel. Click to read.

Art by Angelica Alzona, from the annual “Scary Stories” post on Jezebel. Click to read.

The Assignment

Create a complete narrative modeled on the 50-word or half-page ETA texts from last week’s flash-fiction reading. Then analyze the choices you made as the author through a separate, metacognitive essay. Specific instructions are below.

Note: You must write a story at least 50 words long, and it may be best to write a story that is at least a half-page in length. The less you write, the harder the required metacognition will become. If you want to write a six-word story, go ahead, but be sure to write a longer one for this assignment.

Step #1

Create an outline of the story before writing it.

Use this handout to help you focus your thinking. Use this handout, however, to produce the two-part thumbnail sketch of your story and its characters. Then use that sketch to write a short response for each of the following prompts:

  1. Describe the protagonist.
  2. Describe the setting(s).
  3. Describe everything (i.e., the people, places, objects, and concepts) with which the protagonist will interact.
  4. For each item in that list, determine where you will create a conflict, and describe the antagonist.
  5. Describe the nature of the conflict(s) using the language from this handout.
  6. Describe the resolution of your story’s central conflict.
  7. Explain the theme or moral you will explore through this story.

Step #2

Use your outline to write the story.

You should use Google Docs to do this, but you will have class time to write by hand, if you choose. You will also be able to share your work with your peers and teachers in order to get feedback. Here are the steps:

  1. Create a new document in Google Docs.
  2. Share it with any group members (your choice) and your teachers. You can wait for directions in class or read this guide.
  3. Type your story.
  4. When you are done, ask your group to work on the story with you; they will make suggestions by leaving comments on your work. You can wait for directions on leaving comments and having discussions, or you can read this guide.
  5. Edit and revise your work. Be sure to change the title of the document in Google Docs to your title.
  6. Repeat the previous two steps for each other member of the group, unless you are working alone.

Your narrative itself must convey all the elements indicated by the outline. Choose words and images that have strong connotations or that imply considerable detail in a small space.

Step #3

Finally, write a metacognitive response that explains your choices as an author and what each choice implies. 

This metacognition will cover the specifics of your story, what each implies, and how you made your authorial choices. Follow these steps:

  1. Identify several key details in your story. For example, identify a verb, adjective, adverb, noun, or sensory image; you might also identify paragraph breaks, punctuation, or dialogue.
  2. Write a short response in which you explain what element of narrative writing this detail creates and—more importantly—how it implies that element.
  3. Repeat for three or four other specific parts of your story. The more you choose, the better.

For #3, after you’ve isolated a specific detail (e.g., images that appeal to the senses) that creates meaning, be specific about what you did to imply that meaning. Don’t simply summarize your story, and don’t simply repeat what you wrote. Instead, analyze your story as if it was a stranger’s, or one of the ones we studied as a class.

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Journey Writing

  By All Junior Classes (2016-2017), AP English Language & Composition (2016-2017), English 11 Regents (2016-2017)
From the video game, Journey, by thatgamecompany.

From the video game, Journey, by thatgamecompany.

Essay Prompt

The following document contains your essay prompt in full, plus some context and direction for what you will write.

[pdfjs-viewer url=”http%3A%2F%2Fsisypheanhigh.com%2Fmalachite%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2016%2F10%2FJourney-Essay.pdf” viewer_width=100% viewer_height=800px fullscreen=true download=true print=true]

Other links to the assignment are listed below. Additional materials, deadlines, and requirements will be posted here and announced in class.

Use the comment section on Sisyphean High and/or the Q&A section on Google+ to ask questions about the prompt and process.

Update #1

The following document introduces you to the universal language we’ll use for writing: bishop composition. This is the most recent iteration of the collected materials found on the main Sisyphean High site. It explains the elements found in all writing, which is often enough to give you more control over what you do; there is also a series of questions to ask in writing a response, however, that could be answered one after the other.

For now, read and take notes. Google Classroom will be updated with more instructions later this week.

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Flash Fiction

  By English 10 Regents (2016-2017)
Click here for the story behind the six-word short story in this post.

Click here for the story behind the six-word short story in this post.

Telling a Story

In our course, you will write what you read and read what you write. We call the process emulation through analysis, or ETA writing. It means that you pick apart a text because you want to emulate it, not because of a “mean-spirited, picky insistence that every child get every last little scrap of ‘understanding’ that can be dug out of a book.”

That quotation comes from John Holt and his essay, “How Teachers Make Children Hate Reading,” which you’ve now annotated a bit. Keep his ideas in mind as we move forward. Your first writing assignments were descriptive — simple enough not to need an ETA focus. We could focus on simply writing. Now we turn to another mode of discourse:

Narrative writing: A mode of discourse in which a sequence or series of events, real or fictional, is relayed or described. More simply, narrative writing tells a story.

For a piece of writing to be considered a complete narrative, it has to have certain elements. You are given these elements every year in English classrooms, because you primarily study fictional narratives. That’s why you’ll recognize everything in this document:

Now that you’re going to write a narrative, you’ll need those terms. Let’s begin using them by exploring some of the shortest fiction out there.

How to Respond

Below are stories of increasing length. For each story, there are three stages:

Stage 1:

Read the story quietly to yourself, and then read it aloud with a peer. Discuss your reactions for a bit. Then write a short response to the story by referencing specific elements. This is not literary analysis, but you can’t respond to a story’s ideas without a sense of its plot, characterization, etc. You might need to make reference to symbolism to talk about how something moved you, and you’ll certainly have to discuss conflict to talk about how a story is resolved.

Stage 2:

Ask questions about the stories in the comment section here or over at Google+. Talk to each other about them in that Community, too. Offer your observations, share your thoughts, analyze the story — and then check back regularly for the next week to see what your peers have to say. You will generate the evidence you need for grade abatement this way.

Stage 3:

Find other examples of short stories this length. If the story is six words long, track down more six-word stories; if it is about 50 words long, look for more 50-word flash fiction narratives; if it is a half-page in length, search for stories about that long; and so on. Share these with your peers online and in class.

The transparent goal here is to expose ourselves to as many short narrative as possible, responding to as many of them as possible in thoughtful, specific ways. It’s about sharing good stories with each other and explaining why we respond to them the way we do. Eventually, it will be about about emulating one of them.

ETA: Six-Word Short Story

Author: Ernest Hemingway

For sale: baby shoes, never worn.

ETA: 50-Word Short Story

Author: Michael Lawrie

First Impressions

Beth: Socialist, vegan, Amnesty volunteer, and generally lovely girl. Her band wore the Swastika, SS badge, and the Totenkopf — so she did, too.

Walking home after a gig, she felt the blade slide in, cold then warm.

The police dismissed her as just another dead Nazi. Her killer was happy to have done his bit.

first_impressions (1)

This is the original, unedited version. Click on the image to load Michael Lawrie’s website.

ETA: Short Fiction

Author: Stuart Dybek

Sunday at the Zoo

We decided to stop drinking and spend Sunday at the zoo. It was going nicely until she worked herself up over the observation that it was a horrible thing to cage the animals.

“That’s not very profound,” I said, “everybody who goes to the zoo feels that sometime.”

“Oh, you cruel ********1,” she screamed, “I’m not everybody!”

She bellied over the guardrail and flung herself against the bars of the wolves’ cage.
Three wolves had been circling and as soon as she touched the bars they froze, fur
bristling along their spines.

She had her arms stuck in between the bars up to her shoulders and as much of her face as she could wedge in yelling, “Eat me! Eat me!” to the wolves.

Just that week the newspapers had carried an account of how a small girl had an arm gnawed off – she’d reach in to pet them and one wolf held it while the other ate. It was, in fact, what had led us, along with the crowd, relentlessly to the wolves’ cage.

But the wolves held their ground, snarling, stiff-legged.

An attendant came running down the aisle between the fence and cages and grabbed her by the hair and throat, wrestling her back. She locked her arms around the bars and he kept
slapping her face with a thick, purplish slab of meat he must have been feeding to one of the animals. 

“I’ll give you, ‘Eat me, Eat me,’” he grinned, kicking her down.

At that instant all three wolves rushed against the bars so that they shook, and you could hear their teeth breaking on the metal. Their bloodied snouts jabbed through, snapping at air.

“Stop abusing that woman,” I shouted from the crowd.

Here is a PDF of the original story, with a second bit of flash-fiction attached: “Billy’s Girl,” by Gordon Jackson. Your assignment only corresponds to “Sunday at the Zoo.”

  1. This bit of profanity has been edited out, with sincerest apologies to Mr. Dybek’s original text. We have to tread lightly; this is a high school, which means we inhabit the murky area between childhood and adulthood. C’est la guerre, as they say. ↩

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The Age of the Essay

  By All Junior Classes (2016-2017), AP English Language & Composition (2016-2017), English 11 Regents (2016-2017)
Dante at the river Lethe in Purgatorio. Print by Dore.

Dante at the river Lethe in Purgatorio.

Our Approach to Writing

Our writing philosophy in this course is best expressed by Neil Postman:

Writing makes it possible and convenient to subject thought to a continuous and concentrated scrutiny. Writing freezes speech and in so doing gives birth to the grammarian, the logician, the rhetorician, the historian, the scientist — all those who must hold language before them so that they can see what it means, where it errs, and where it is leading.

That quotation, along with an overview of what we’ll call emulation-through-analysis work, is in this PDF overview. As that document notes, we also pay attention to Paul Graham and his theory that essay-writing in school focuses on literary analysis through “a series of historical accidents,” with the end result that most school essays are “now three steps removed from real work.” (If you are an AP junior, by the way, you’ve already seen this stuff.)

Except when test prep is necessary, you will read what you write and write what you read. You must understand how an author writes in order to emulate her, of course, but we are focused on using what we read, not doing what David Foster Wallace described as “the literary equivalent of tearing the petals off and grinding them up and running the goo through a spectrometer to explain why a rose smells so pretty.”

This essay, while focused in part on one particular quarter/class, explains more of what analysis means to us:

View at Medium.com

Find the River

Our focus early this week is on “The Age of the Essay,” which was written in 2004 by Paul Graham. You have a hard copy of this text — here it is in Google Drive — but it was originally published online:

Whichever version you read, do what seems most effective to you as you go. You don’t need to annotate the text, unless that’s what you would naturally do. You simply need to understand it. That is most often helped by interacting with the text, of course, and annotating is one way to do that.

At first, you should read this essay individually and silently. The reason: Sometimes you need to sit with your own thoughts, free of distraction, in order to find meaning. The collaborative chaos you create on most days is vital, and I think we will always be more inclined to spend our time that way than any other; it’s important, however, that you occasionally let silence into your life, especially while you read. It deepens the experience and allows you to get a bit more out of the text.

Look to Google Classroom for further instructions and any required assignments for this reading. After tackling Graham on your own, you should focus on the protégé effect, which we will define most often as proxy feedback. Read alone, and then talk to me and to each other.

One more thing: English 11R students began reading Graham last week; AP students will begin today, Monday, with a day to catch up. (That’s the burden of a college-level course.) You can and probably should work together, because the cross-pollination of ideas is a powerful part of collaboration.

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Habits and Habitats

  By All Classes (2016-2017), AP English Language & Composition (2016-2017), English 10 Regents (2016-2017), English 11 Regents (2016-2017)
Pictured: A typical classroom setup.

Pictured: A typical classroom setup.

The Stuff of Growth

Ken Robinson on Education

This video appears elsewhere on this site, which tells you how important it must be to our work:

Every time I come back to this speech, another idea resonates with me. I’d like to know what resonates with you, especially as you continue in our classroom. My explicit goal is to make Robinson’s ideas actionable — to do more than just agree with him. I believe that grade abatement is the key. It helps, though, to consider another luminary:

Dan Pink on Motivation

This is another RSA Animate video:

Again, I find that different ideas in this speech resonate with me each time I watch it. I’m drawn to the idea of autonomy right now, because we’ll be attempting a Genius Hour from Q2 on. I’d like to know what resonates with you, too.

Talk to me in the comments below, and extend your own conversations to your specific course’s Google Classroom.

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I Know Why the Caged Bird Cannot Read

  By AP English Language & Composition (2016-2017)
maya-angelou-quote-1

Origin unknown (at least, unfound through a cursory Google search).

Update, Oct. 18: I’m giving you the corrections/exemplars guide for the Prose ETA questions. The normal assignment protocol — complete the work, check your answers, revise — may not be the most effective approach, and the stated purpose of this week’s lessons is to put you in charge of learning. You’ll find the “answer” key attached to your Google Classroom assignment, and I’ll stack printed copies on the bookshelf by our textbook.

Emulation through Analysis

The following is a version of this document. It has been reformatted for the website.

Overview of the Concept

In 1946, George Orwell noted that

an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely. A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.

Later, he summarizes this idea: “But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.” Our work isn’t so negative, though. We are focused on a feedback loop that builds strength in thinking through strength in writing. We listen to Orwell but invoke Neil Postman:

Writing makes it possible and convenient to subject thought to a continuous and concentrated scrutiny. Writing freezes speech and in so doing gives birth to the grammarian, the logician, the rhetorician, the historian, the scientist — all those who must hold language before them so that they can see what it means, where it errs, and where it is leading.

In here, we also pay attention to Paul Graham and his theory that essay-writing in school focuses on literary analysis through “a series of historical accidents,” with the end result that most school essays are “now three steps removed from real work.” Even non-literary assignments lose authenticity in the pursuit of academic emulation.

The path forward has you read what you write and write what you read. You must understand how an author writes in order to emulate her, not to produce the sort of analysis that a cursory search of Google would reveal. It’s the difference between applied and theoretical science.

So we arrive at emulation-through-analysis (ETA) work, which is designed to teach you how to answer analytical questions while you answer them. You should define new terms, look up new concepts, and enlist peers to help you. Getting the right answer is a goal; understanding how to use the strategy or technique is the goal. And the substructure is comprised, as always, of the universal skills of grade abatement, especially the three that most often lead to external artifacts:

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Because you must know how to create in order to create. A makerspace requires granular expertise before experimentation and iteration will yield results. Otherwise, it’s just a sandbox.

Meanwhile, keep another idea from Orwell in mind:

A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: What am I trying to say? What words will express it? What image or idiom will make it clearer? Is this image fresh enough to have an effect? And he will probably ask himself two more: Could I put it more shortly? Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?

The following ten questions deconstruct elements of an essay by Francine Prose. Copies are available in the classroom. Focus your response process on speed, clarity, and insight. Ask questions about the ETA process or these questions in particular in the comments.

ETA Practice: “I Know Why the Caged Bird Cannot Read”

  1. Discuss three appeals to ethos in this essay. What different roles, or personae, does Prose use to establish her ethos?
  2. Prose’s opening paragraph includes such words as appalled, dismal, and dreariness – all with negative connotations. Why does she start out with such strong language? Does she risk putting off readers who do not share her views? Why or why not? What other examples of strongly emotional language do you find in the essay?
  3. Prose makes several key assumptions about the role and impact of reading literary works in high school. What are they?
  4. What appeals does she make to logos?
  5. Prose cites many different novels and plays. Does she assume her audience is familiar with some of them? All of them? Explain why it matters whether the audience knows the works.
  6. According to Prose, “To hold up [I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings] as a paradigm of memoir, of thought – of literature – is akin to inviting doctors convicted of malpractice to instruct our medical students” (para. 13). Do you agree with this analogy? Explain your answer. What other examples of figurative language can you find in this essay?
  7. Toward the end of the essay (paras. 35, 39, and 43), Prose uses a series of rhetorical questions. What is her purpose in piling one rhetorical question on top of the other?
  8. Would Prose have strengthened her argument by including interviews with a few high school students or teachers? Why or why not?
  9. According to Prose, why are American high school students learning to loathe literature? Try to find at least four or five reasons.
  10. Does she propose a solution or recommendations to change this situation? If she does not offer a solution, is her argument weakened? Explain your answer.

The next two sections offer you more context for this assignment. Read both carefully.

Organization ⟹ Autodidacticism

These questions are an unusual test, in that they don’t test knowledge you’ve learned. They teach that knowledge through process of answering each question. You’re going to have to look up terms, define concepts, and collaborate. To be most effective, though, you should start with an inventory of the resources available to you in and out of the classroom.

Google, as ever, is your friend. And like some friends, Google doesn’t always know what it doesn’t know — it just acts like it has an answer. Certainly you could learn a lot by searching Google and Wikipedia. I will suggest, however, that there are two compelling reasons to use a textbook, instead:

  1. The information has been vetted by an expert.
  2. The information is organized and indexed.

There is an erstwhile textbook for this class. We have 32 copies of it sitting on the bookshelf in the corner of the room. It’s called The Language of Composition, and one of my favorite facts about it is that it was written in part by a former Brewster teacher, Larry Scanlon.

The opening chapters of the textbook walk you through the three appeals that are mentioned several times in these ETA questions. Whether you are versed in these Aristotelian appeals or not, the textbook is an excellent review. You’ll also glean a dozen more helpful strategies and techniques through those first few chapters.

You have probably guessed by now that this next week is as much about proving that you can utilize the resources of a space like ours to learn as it is about deconstructing and emulating Prose. Before we can start writing earnestly and frequently, you need a foundation. For some of you, it will be review; for others, it will be a crash course. Remember that I am here to help.

Postscript: Occam’s Razor

Good. You’ve gotten through this post, and with some luck, you feel a little more clarity than you did 30 minutes ago. You have one more test this week:

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Eleven perspectives on Sisyphean High

Read that. I will read it, too, in order to update any sections that need updating. Then we’ll come together in mutual understanding — or we won’t, and I will know who hasn’t read by the way your ignorance undermines your choices and interactions over the next week.

Understand that the greatest strength of this course is its 100% transparency: If you want to know what to do and how it all works, you only need to read. When I direct you toward something specific to read, that should be an immediate priority. We learn by doing in here, but the explanatory and instructional posts are a prerequisite; trying to create something meaningful without that background would be like trying to use power tools without any safety precautions. You’re going to lose a limb.

On the subject of losing limbs: If I’m not convinced by the end of the first-quarter that you belong in this AP class, then you don’t belong in this AP class. Does that mean you’ll be kicked out? No, of course not. But you should emerge from a close reading of that “Occam’s Razor” essay with an understanding of what it does mean.