Author: Mr. Eure

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April 9, 2020

  By 2019-2020, Distance Learning

René Magritte, Elective Affinities (1933).

Two quick updates this afternoon.

Q3 GAP Scores and Grades

Q3 grades will be finalized on April 17, not the pre-COVID calendar date of April 24.

Your final Q3 grade will be the average of three scores: the two GAP scores posted on March 27 and a final profile score based on the distance learning from March 25 through April 15.

We’ll stop the Q3 assessment process on April 15 to give us two days to clarify your profiles through evidentiary discussion and analysis.

This last GAP score will reflect the same universal skills, traits, and profiles. The process is the same, minus any consideration of in-class focus.

You have been — and will be, through next Wednesday — responsible for checking in each day with a goal, filling out the weekly self-assessments, and advocating for any feedback you need. You should also have shared any relevant evidence related to your current project.

The language of the profiles can be applied to any circumstances, including distance learning. That language is student-centered and flexible. Think of it as a perpetually aggregate model: It rewards you for what you’ve done well, adding that evidence up until it fits a profile.

There will be a Q3C profile report, just like there usually is at the end of the panel, but it will not be part of Q3. Instead, it will be another way for you to take stock of your progress, sort through your work, and communicate your progress. We will use it in Q4.

In other words, that final GAP report will be given next week to start a discussion, not as the last required assignment of this strange last panel of the quarter.

Before Q3C scores are posted, you’ll have two days to discuss them with me. Right now, the plan is to post scores on April 17. Keep in mind that this situation is constantly changed, however.

Pareto Projects

Back in September, which feels like it was at least several years ago, we started your passion projects. These 20-Time or Pareto Projects were designed to lead into the Senior Talk, but only as one potential outcome; the real focus, as with any passion project, was to help you explore and learn and create.

This week, Apple posted the following:

If you have an Apple account and device, that list of apps is worth a serious look. The same apps are available through Google, for the most part. But you don’t need apps to set aside some of your free time now for a project of your own design.

This kind of thinking has always been part of our makerspace. The assessment and instructional innovations have allowed us to dedicate time to you as an individual, and the prime example has always been the Pareto Project.

So this Apple store story is an authentic validation of our space. The most important thing you learn is something about how you learn, because you can always learn something new. The more you learn, the more you’re likely to find your own passion.

Your final projects are going to need some tweaking, and you can predict what that means: We’ll need to prioritize the projects, organize your time based on the latest news from Governor Cuomo, and adjust your final products to work within distance learning limitations.

A passion project is about you, though. Fortunately, if you find something you want to study/create/etc, it’s likely to fit into a required project. It might even replace a requirement entirely, depending on the scope and sequence of what you want to do.

Remember, your work in the Humanities is about reading and writing as a way to develop universal skills and traits. It’s the study of you, though, more than anything else. It’s about what makes you human, what connects you to others, and how you can build a better version of yourself through the work we do.

These passion projects have always been a way to pursue those goals, so don’t ignore the opportunity to start one, even if it’s already April 9. You’ll find, again, that a Pareto Project makes it easier to generate whatever required projects are left. We’ll find a way to fit that passion into our final two months.

Ask questions about this below. Tomorrow, you’ll get an update with more feedback and instruction, and that should be followed on Monday by a post that simplifies and streamlines your second-semester projects.

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Distance Learning: Week 3

  By 2019-2020, Distance Learning

Image: René Magritte, Decalcomania (1966)

Self-Assessment: Week 2

Remember that these instructional posts set up the next week. The self-assessment for Week 2, which is the week that ended yesterday, is being folded in to help clarify the process.

You must complete the following form over the next few days:

This is a weekly form that updates you and your teachers on your progress and sense of self-efficacy. It is a way to strengthen the feedback chain. Here is the relevant instructional post from earlier in the year:

The Feedback Chain

If you did not read that earlier this year, last week, or at any other point when it was brought back into focus, you must take the time to read it now. Your self-advocacy is essential during distance learning.

The form asks you to write a paragraph (or more) about your progress. Then you are encouraged to share links, documents, and other evidence through Google Classroom or Gmail.

The form also requires you to review a series of statements about this course, indicating whether or not

  • you have examined all recent profile scores;
  • you know exactly what those scores mean;
  • you know you can get individual feedback about those scores at any time;
  • you know that you must read all instructional posts in full;
  • you know that you must read everything on Google Classroom in full;
  • you know that you must set a daily goal through Google Forms;
  • you are aware of all the available resources for your project-based learning;
  • you know to share evidence of your project-based learning;
  • you are aware of how to seek feedback, in class and online;
  • you know you can always ask further questions to individualize the work;
  • you know how to ask questions to individualize work.

More statements may be added. You will have this kind of check-in every week while we are doing distance learning.

If you answer “no” to any of these statements, you must self-correct. You must read the instructional posts, seek feedback directly, organize your work, and so on.

Week 3: Resources & Assignments

This section of the post will be repeated frequently. It lists and/or links to the resources and assignments you need to have organized for the rest of the year.

For the rest of this week, you should focus on self-advocacy and feedback. We will revisit the final shape of each project, especially the Senior Talk, next Tuesday or Wednesday.

Semester Projects

Evidence Folders | Essential. If you haven’t set these up yet, do it immediately. You’ll use them for most evidentiary work and feedback requests.
• Directions: https://tinyurl.com/gap-pbl-1
• Google Form: https://forms.gle/dT3FGwzoouPk3fibA

Google Classroom Links | These are listed out as they appear under “Second Semester Projects” on Google Classroom. Load the Classwork tab, and then be absolutely certain you’re clear on each and every element here.
• Final Obligations & Assessments [Posted Feb 12]
• Final Exam: Senior Talk Reflection [Posted Feb 12]
• Senior Talks [Posted Feb 12]
• Pareto Projects [Posted Feb 12]
• Commencement Address [Posted Feb 5]
• Research-Driven Essay [Posted Feb 4]
• Self-Prescribed Book Project [Posted Feb 4]
• Second Semester Projects: Overview [Posted Feb 4]

Formative Work

Google Classroom Links | These, too, are listed out as they appear on Classroom. Look under the Classwork tab for “Second Semester Formative Work.” These are assignments that help check for understanding or set up further feedback throughout your project-based work.
• GAP Scores: Q3 Before the Social Distancing [Posted Mar 27]
• English 12: Distance Learning Update [Posted Mar 25]
• Optional Work: March 18–24 [Posted Mar 18]
• Research-Driven Essay: Models [Posted Mar 12]
• Statements of Purpose [Posted Mar 5]
• Self-Prescribed Books: Your Choices [Posted Feb 25]
• Checkpoint: February 10, 2020 [Posted Feb 10]

Flipped Instruction and Feedback

This is an updated list of the essential instructions and feedback posted since March 25. If you have not yet read any element below, including the internal links to other documents, you must make it a priority to catch up.

Start, as necessary, with the April 1 lecture that delves into the nature of feedback and your responsibilities at home:

April 1, 2020

Then review the rest of the flipped materials below:

• March 25 Letter: tinyurl.com/makerspace-update-0325
• DL Week 1 Post: sisypheanhigh.com/malachite/?p=4059
• March 27 Update: sisypheanhigh.com/malachite/?p=4075
• DL Week 2 Post: sisypheanhigh.com/malachite/?p=4079
• April 1 Update: sisypheanhigh.com/malachite/?p=4082
• April 2 Update: sisypheanhigh.com/malachite/?p=4095

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April 2, 2020

  By 2019-2020, Distance Learning

Below is a full screenshot of the computer I’m using during office hours:

Students need to look at this image carefully. Notice first that the assignment on the right — the self-assessment assigned on Tuesday and due yesterday — was completed by only 40% of you.

The next thing to notice is the Q3C gradebook open on the left. The names are blocked and randomized, so you can focus on the columns of GAP scores. Those numbers tell the story of each student’s academic progress.

Every day, my co-teachers and I are building a picture of how you’re doing. We are coordinating feedback, sharing data, taking notes — whatever it takes to give you what you need.

Distance learning makes the forms you complete essential to that progress. You must complete them. The 40% who didn’t make yesterday’s deadline aren’t penalized with a lower GAP score, however; there just isn’t any data for them.

This is true for the daily check-in, as well. Here is a document pulled together after five days of distance learning:

62 students have communicated a daily goal at least once in those five days. That is a bit more than 50%.

If you haven’t checked in each day and/or didn’t complete the self-assessment for April 1, you are missing. It’s no longer about grades and passing or failing; the potential for growth in GAP scoring should prevent that concern. The concern is that you are missing.

In other words, while we are away from the physical classroom, you cease to exist when you don’t communicate. There’s nothing for me or my co-teachers to see.

Take the next 24 hours and be sure — be absolutely certain — that you check in, complete the self-assessment about your progress, and firm up your intentions to stay in contact.

If you have questions, that’s a great place to start: Ask them here, in the comment section of this post, or send an email.

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April 1, 2020

  By 2019-2020, Distance Learning

Aucun Poisson d’Avril

The image is a reference to the French version of April Fool’s Day. It’s more interestingly a reference to René Magritte’s painting, The Treachery of Images:

If you have heard of Magritte, it’s likely to be in relationship to that painting or The Son of Man, which is another absurdist painting of his.

What This Has to Do with English

This is being posted on March 31, not April 1, but the assignment and lesson covered here are intended for April 1. The date gives us an excuse to learn about the French version of April Fool’s Day, which leads to an absurdist image, which leads to Magritte.

None of it is related to a specific project or lesson. All of it, however, is related to learning. As always, the goal of an instructional post like this is not just to tell you about the specifically English stuff; it’s to link together some interesting information and help you hone your curiosity.

Why? Because it’s good practice for the kind of reading expected of informed citizens:

Well, Why Read?

Reading online needs to be exploratory for you. It should take you down side paths and winding roads. You have all the information in the world available to you through this screen; it would be a shame to focus you solely on the Google Form posted below.

It’s also about exposure to new ideas in the Humanities, and that absolutely should include Magritte. You could do worse than to be curious about absurdist painters and surrealism. That’s a rabbit hole worth falling into.

The Specifically English Stuff

We continue to adjust to distance learning:

Distance Learning: Week 1
• March 27 Update
Distance Learning: Week 2

We are fortunate to have started project-based learning that would span the entire semester. We are much less fortunate that we lost our class time, especially given how much emphasis is placed on those 40 minutes in a makerspace.

Which brings us to your formative work for the next day or so. Start by reading or revisiting the following post on feedback:

The Feedback Chain

Consider how the logic of that post shifts with distance learning. It doesn’t shift much, but it does shift; and if you want to be successful during our time at home, you need to shift with it.

That post, “The Feedback Chain,” was a November 12 discussion of how feedback works in a Humanities makerspace. Of particular importance now is this section:

[T]he design of all creative work in a makerspace is concatenative. The word comes from the root for chain, and that’s the metaphor: Strength comes from successive links, and each link is dependent on the one before it. Weak links break the chain. The chain starts with that background work, and if it is all done with fidelity and in good faith, we have enough of a feedback loop to start.

The concept of “good faith” is more important now than ever. All of your teachers are acting in good faith. You must operate in good faith, too. You must approach every aspect of your learning honestly.

We all know that there will continue to be difficulties. Working even an hour a day would be a commendable thing. Accomplishing small goals is something to celebrate. There is purpose to project-based learning, including the overarching opportunity to hone the skills and traits you’ll need in the future.

So your teachers — not just me, but all of us — will make good-faith efforts to predict your needs and proactively help you. That is much harder without our time in class, but we will reach out as often as possible. I will write to you most days. I will reply as quickly as possible to your emails.

The key here is the verb in that last sentence: reply. You need to take the initiative now. You must build that feedback chain explicitly and directly.

To show you what I mean, look at the folders you were asked to set up in February: https://tinyurl.com/gap-pbl-1. Those folders are there to organize evidence for the moments when you need it. They help you identify your GAP score, but they are much more useful to you as you complete true project-based tasks.

On my end, those folders are not artifacts to be scoured every day. It would be impossible for anyone to go through 600 individual folders on a weekly basis looking for places to give feedback. It would go well beyond finding a needle in a haystack.

Fortunately, you do not have set deadlines, except when you must self-assess for a GAP score. It is more likely that you will use your folders to request feedback based on what you need in that moment — so, for instance, you might need help with a bibliography for the research-driven writing, with the length of a slideshow for the Senior Talk, or with your statement of purpose for the commencement address.

You set the chain in motion. As we get into April, we’ll talk about presentations and final products, but even then, the conversation will be light. We don’t know yet when or if we’ll return to school. For now, you have to be proactive.

That said, I know that you have multiple classes, plus your responsibilities at home. I know that you are experiencing distress and anxiety because of this pandemic. We all are. If, at any time, you think you need an exemption or exception, just say so.

To recap:

  • It is your responsibility to communicate your need for feedback.
  • It is your responsibility to send links to the proper folder, document, etc, or to attach the proper document, when you request that feedback.
  • You must check in each day so that I know you are working on something, but that itself does not constitute a request for feedback.

While we’re on the subject of your daily goal: That goal is set for you — not for me, not for administration, not for a grade, but for you. You are using that form to calibrate yourself, and it is a reason for you to be mindful each day. It is there to help you.

Formative Assessment: Your Progress So Far

This is posted mostly as-is to Google Classroom.

Make sure, first, that you’ve read that post from 11/12/19:

The Feedback Chain

If you did not read that earlier this year, or when it was brought back into focus at other points, take the time to read it now. Its message is more important now than ever: Seniors must initiative the feedback loop on their work directly, and they must advocate for themselves on each project.

In fact, the real work is the work of self-direction, self-efficacy, and self-awareness. You must set daily goals, organize your ongoing work, and respond to formative assessments — and the feedback chain starts and ends with you.

For this assignment, account for what you’ve accomplished since March 12 by writing a short paragraph (or more) describing and explaining your progress. If at all possible, include hyperlinks to evidence — to those evidence folders, to individual documents, to screenshots.

Complete this in the Google Form posted to Google Classroom. Then answer the series of true/false prompts as honestly as possible. You can then fill in the gaps in your knowledge based on which answers are “no.”

Submitting the form will acknowledge whether or not

  • you have examined all recent profile scores;
  • you know exactly what those scores mean;
  • you know you can get individual feedback about those scores at any time;
  • you know that you must read all instructional posts in full;
  • you know that you must read everything on Google Classroom in full;
  • you know that you must set a daily goal through Google Forms;
  • you are aware of all the available resources for your project-based learning;
  • you you know to share evidence of your project-based learning;
  • you are aware of how to seek feedback, in class and online;
  • you know you can always ask further questions to individualize the work;
  • you know how to ask questions to individualize work.

More statements may be added. You will have this kind of check-in every week while we are doing distance learning.

If you answer “no” to any of these statements, that will fly a few red flags. The trick, though, is that answering “no” means that you must now do the work you missed previously. You must read the instructional posts, seek feedback directly, organize your work, and so on.

Just answering this form is a contract of sorts. You’re telling us that you know what to do and will continue to do it — a declaration that includes your promise to ask for help as often as you need it — or you’re committing yourself to shoring up your knowledge of the learning environment as quickly as possible.

The only students who will end up on an administrative list are students who don’t write the required paragraph and fill out the form. We’ll look at those students’ daily goals (or lack thereof), overall progress, recent grades, and so on; and then we’ll do whatever it takes to bring those students back in line with this project-based learning.

For everyone, use this opportunity to ask questions and to get clarification. Also use it to demonstrate that you are reading the instructional posts, directions, etc. Show that you are engaged in these projects.

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Distance Learning: Week 2

  By 2019-2020, Distance Learning
Previous Essential Updates

Distance Learning: Week 1
• March 25 Letter / PDF
• March 27 Post

Week 2: March 30 – April 3

Continue to work on your projects. Follow these guidelines:

☈ Daily Goal: Set a specific goal each day before 1:30 PM. That would be the end of P8, the makerspace’s last class of seniors, on a normal school day.

☈ Office Hours: Still from 10-11 each morning, which corresponds to P4/P5 on a normal school day. If there is any sort of disruption to these, I’ll let you know in the daily Google Classroom announcements.

☈ GAP Evidence: Share evidence of your progress as often as you can. Put documents in the shared folders, send emails, request feedback directly — whatever will serve the dual purposes of helping your work and supporting your assessment profiles.

Note your options. You can tag teachers in comments on your own work. You can start discussions in the comment section of instructional posts. You can leave private comments through Google Classroom. You can send emails.

Keep up steady contact and ask for regular feedback. That’s the key during this second week: Adjust to distance learning, make steady progress on a project or two of your choosing, and get feedback at least once.

There are plenty of possible tools for us to consider as this situation continues. It looks like April will be spent at home, but let’s remain hopeful about May and June.

Ask questions below about the start of this week. If you want to begin with the optional analysis of your Q3A/Q3B GAP scores, read the March 27 post carefully.

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March 27, 2020

  By 2019-2020, Distance Learning

GAP Scores: Q3A + Q3B (WIP)

Later today, March 27, students will receive their grades for the first half of Q3. This post will now do two things for all stakeholders:

  1. It will contextualize those scores, which will let us use them to improve learning.
  2. It will invite us all to talk, especially in the comment section of this post, about that student learning.

First, let’s talk about March 12. On Wednesday of this week, all stakeholders got the following:

✰ English 12: Distance Learning Update (March 25, 2020) + PDF version ✰

Distance Learning: Week 1

The letter was sent separately, because it is by far the most thorough explanation of our project-based work. The weekly update that followed is a review of each project and a collection of important links.

To understand what we’re currently doing, that letter and post are required reading. To understand where we were on March 12, when school dismissed early due to the coronavirus, you need another document:

March 12 was meant to be an inflection point for us. As that letter says, March 12 was exactly three months from the end of classes, exactly halfway through Q3, and exactly halfway through Q3B. On March 13, the high school planned to send out progress report notices.

You all know what happened next. Once our situation changed, those GAP scores had to be held in abeyance until distance learning could be put into place.

The most important thing to remember is this: The GAP scores posted today, March 27, reflect only the work done between February 3 and March 11. We also had a week off in February, which complicates the calendar:

  • 2/3–2/14 + 2/14–2/28 → GAP Q3A | Posted 3/27
  • 3/2–3/11 → GAP Q3B WIP | Posted 3/27
  • 3/25–4/24 → GAP Q3C | TBD

As the letter and post from March 25 explain, that last profile score will include any distance learning we do. Students need to set daily goals, work for 30+ minutes, and share evidence of their progress for feedback. The expectations for student work have been clarified by the district and building administration, too.

Meanwhile, we have the body of evidence students produced in February and early March. The main focus for that time frame: in-class focus and use of feedback. Again, the letter meant for March 12 is your best guide:

In a world without the coronavirus, you would’ve gotten GAP scores alongside this letter. March 12 had been highlighted for several weeks prior as an inflection point, a day when you would get a lot of feedback and direction before diving back into these end-of-the-year projects. The feedback included profile scores to unpack and analyze, individual comments on your progress, and that letter, which thoroughly explains what we are doing and why.

Of course, we went home early on March 12. We haven’t been back since. It’s unclear when we will be back. We have to adjust.

Unpacking the GAP Scores

Note: This is optional. It would make a good goal, however, for any of the next few days of distance learning.

Once you have your GAP scores on Infinite Campus, you can unpack and analyze them. Focus on that first verb: unpack. Each score corresponds to a profile, and the language of that profile can be unpacked to describe student skills, traits, and knowledge.

You can only make sense of these Q3 scores in the context of our project-based learning, which in turn requires a focus on in-class learning and feedback. You can start here:

Static GAP Score Feedback

Each tier and individual score can be used to build a blueprint for improvement or continued success. That’s your job now: to take what you can from the start of Q3 and apply to the you that is now working from home.

You’ll also want the usual reference links, especially if you invite another stakeholder into this work:

Grade Abatement Profiles
Universal Skills and Traits
Step-By-Step Guide to Assessment

And I think the post clarifying what grade abatement is, how it works, and why it is so important is always worth revisiting:

Clarifying Grade Abatement

Take your score at face value. Connect it to a profile. Unpack that profile, bit by bit, to form a picture. Then use the resources I’ve just listed to build a better approach to your learning for the future.

If you do this in writing, I can help you refine your analysis. We will have to hold off on our usual face-to-face conferences until next week, when there should be more clarity on the length of our distance learning.

Ask questions below. Focus here on questions that might help others. Email individual questions, or share individual writing directly.

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Distance Learning: Week 1

  By 2019-2020, Distance Learning

Today is the first day of distance learning in English 12. In addition to this post, there will be an announcement on Google Classroom and a static link on my BHS website. The most important document is the following letter:

This letter will be attached to the March 25 announcement on Google Classroom. It will also be added as a formative assignment in that section of Classwork, sent home to your parents, and copied to administration.

Please note that this letter is designed to work on two levels: first, as a shorter reminder of what you were doing in Q3; second, as a thorough explanation of what you will be doing, whether as distance learning or back in the makerspace, for the rest of the year.

If you have not already, please read the two most recent updates from the Superintendent and the rest of the BCSD administrative team:

  1. tinyurl.com/bcsd-update-0323 | Updates on high-stakes testing and K-5 parent-teacher conferences.
  2. tinyurl.com/bcsd-update-0324 | Full update on distance learning expectations and schedule.

I am hopeful that we will return to regular instruction soon. In the interim, I will use the existing structures of our course to keep you and every other stakeholder involved and invested. Let’s start with the three most important details:

Daily Announcements | Will be posted every morning to Google Classroom. It will include reminders, links, and general feedback. Start here each day and follow instructions, just as you have all year.

Weekly Updates | Will be posted every Wednesday to this website. These weekly updates will cover any adjustments and updates to your projects. They are also a place where you can ask questions in the comment section.

Office Hours | Every morning from 10:00–11:00, I will be available to help in real time through email, the course website, and Google Classroom. I will post these to the front page of the BHS and Sisyphean High websites, as well.

Note on Synchronous Learning: We will not be using Zoom or any other form of FaceTime during our distance learning. We will focus on real-time annotations, synchronous editing of documents, and Q&A sessions through the course website and Google Classroom.

Read on for more.

Distance Learning: Week 1

Per that 3/24 update from the BCSD, the first week of distance learning requires 30 minutes or more of work per day. That is just enough time for you to return to your project-based work and build some momentum.

Your requirements each day:

  1. Set a specific daily goal by 10:00 AM. Use the same form and protocol we have used all year.
  2. Collect all evidence of your work each day and copy it into the evidence folders assigned to you on February 26.

To set your learning goal each day, do what you have always done. Load the link at the top of Google Classroom:

Remember that it will open up to give you all the resources you need to set a goal, self-assess mentally and physically, and share anything else you want to share:

Those resources:

What to do at the start of class: tinyurl.com/makerspace-start
Reformatted as a post: sisypheanhigh.com/malachite/?p=3561
Prefilled form: tinyurl.com/sisyphus-calibrates

For each day of distance learning, you must set a specific goal. I will check that goal against your progress, but it’s more important than that: Simply setting a goal will help you to stay focused.

As an example of just how much data comes out of these daily calibrations, look at this spreadsheet from Q1:

You can see how helpful this is on both ends of the learning experience. That’s why the daily check-in is a requirement. Again, it should be done before office hours start at 10:00 AM.

As you work, you will generate evidence of some kind. You must collect it, whether you worked for 30 minutes or much longer, and make sure it goes into one of the folders you were asked to create on February 26.

The assignment for setting up these project folders is under the Classwork tab, in the category for Grade Abatement:

These evidence folders will allow me to check your progress, provide regular feedback, and help you put together the final products for each project. Start organizing them. This is what you will see when you open up the assignment:

Those directions were printed and distributed in class, and you can access them through that simple URL: tinyurl.com/gap-pbl-1.

Remember, too, that Ms. Egan and I spent every class period after February 26 helping students set up their folders. If you are behind, make this your first daily goal. Get it done by Friday. We are available to help directly during office hours, but we can walk you through the process and check your work at any point during the school day.

The rest of the information you need is in the instructional letter. Make reading it a priority:

I’ll continue to remind you what to do each morning, and Ms. Egan and I will be available throughout the day to help.

Use the comment section below to ask any questions you have.

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March 6, 2020

  By 2019-2020

This will be published the afternoon of March 5, with the intention of reading through it together on March 6.

Through the weekend, your focus should be on the following instructional post:

Statements of Purpose

All projects must support a full statement of purpose. There must be an appropriate crux:

  • a puzzling or difficult problem: an unsolved question
  • an essential point requiring resolution or resolving an outcome
  • a main or central feature (as of an argument)

Your statement of purpose should further answer questions like these:

  • Why does this work matter to you?
  • Why might it matter to others?
  • What is the potential message for your audience?
  • What is the potential lesson to be learned?

These criteria are listed in the instructional post on statements of purpose, which has been photocopied for you to annotate in class.

For each project, you must submit a statement of purpose. It can be written before you begin, as you build the project, after you finish, or all of these; and it can help you revise and refine your project as often as you like.

Note: You can finish one project before beginning another, or you can move between projects according to inspiration and in-class needs. You might explore an idea for a while, write a statement of purpose, and then discover you’d like to change entirely — just keep an eye on the calendar.

Each of your statements of purpose must be entered into the appropriate form:

✰ Self-Prescribed Book Project | https://forms.gle/ufPyFt4bPWXsVjtD7
✰ Research-Driven Essay | https://forms.gle/mm2JueFFCRgUmbHQ9
✰ Commencement Address | https://forms.gle/g9RLS4UMRxBHpf5R6
✰ Pareto Project | https://forms.gle/xAxbBp2rwnJVLB1x5
✰ Senior Talk | https://forms.gle/NSpDWj5ijHxWtzYK6

The forms will require you to write 250 characters or more. That is half as long as the following example, which is taken from the instructional post:

[Blame] has an inverse relationship with accountability. Accountability, by definition, is a vulnerable process. It means me calling you and saying, “Hey, my feelings were really hurt about this,” and talking. It’s not blame. Blame is simply a way that we discharge anger. People who blame a lot seldom have the tenacity and grit to hold people accountable, because we spend all of our energy raging for 15 seconds and figuring out whose fault something is. And blaming is very corrosive in relationships. And it’s one of the reasons we miss our opportunities for empathy.

So your own statement must only be about half the length of a normal paragraph. It should furthermore not be much longer than Brown’s statement on blame.

The paragraph must be precise and effective, of course, and we will wordsmith and workshop until it is. These statements support your projects. That’s another reason to use Brown’s excerpt: It’s a reminder to take responsibility for your work this semester. Do not blame others for how your project-based learning unfolds. You must own your choices, including the choice to raise the level of your work.

Project Expectations

Speaking of leveling, review these posts on the line between sufficient and insufficient work:

All of your projects must meet grade-level expectations. The research-driven essay, for example, must reflect the standards detailed in this writing guide: https://tinyurl.com/sisyphus-researches. There are other structures and other model texts you might use, but any individualized approach must reflect the same breadth and depth required by that five-page, eight-step guide.

That means that any research-driven essay must have multiple kinds of evidence from a wide variety of sources. It must use appropriate rhetorical strategies, including appeals to logic, emotion, and ethos. It must be arranged purposefully. And it must, as necessary, cite its sources with accurate MLA formatting and the use of hyperlinks and embedded multimedia.

If you submit a research-driven project that doesn’t meet those expectations, you’ll have to revise it. Depending on your amenability and timing, you may find yourself asked to give up free periods for further feedback. Remember how your choices are tracked and how interventions are triggered.

The Senior Talk also has a guide: https://tinyurl.com/sisyphus-tedx. The seven steps in that guide are required, and your work for each step must meet grade-appropriate expectations. The public presentation or talk is just one element. The research, script, and final reflection are equally important. Think outside the box, but remember that you’re building something; box or not, it has to showcase your own intelligent design.

The default project for your self-prescribed book (or other text) is a reader-response essay, and that, too, has a guide: https://tinyurl.com/maker-readres. Any individually selected project must reflect the same skill and insight required of a reader’s response. Simple exposition — a basic book report, for instance — is insufficient for your grade level.

Remember that a reader’s response is a mixture of different writing styles and purposes, tied together by personal insight into the text. One can be written on any kind of text. That’s why there is such a rich diversity in what you’ve chosen to study this year.

Finally, there is the commencement address, which was not assigned with a guide. Instead, you have multiple examples and the skill to find more. A simple search will turn up hundreds of templates and guides, because the commencement address is a universal experience: https://lmgtfy.com/?q=commencement+address+template.

The difficulty of that address is deciding its purpose. The audience is given. Your purpose, however, is up to you. That’s why the statement of that purpose is so important: What do you mean to convey to that audience? What lesson or message are you imparting to these graduates?

Use the comment section below to ask for clarification on any of these requirements.

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March 3, 2020

  By 2019-2020

Ongoing List of Required Instructional Reading

You Must Read

You wouldn’t usually see two of these update posts in a row, but this one has just one message: You need to read everything posted, copied, or written on a whiteboard.

To help, one of those whiteboards looks like this today:

We’ll use that space for a few weeks, mostly as a visual focal point. Your immediate focus is what you should have read. You’ve had all seven project posts for a month. There are modified handouts and printed copies, too. If you haven’t read everything, start reading now.

Then focus on the updates from yesterday:

Those three posts must be read. They reiterate the same information with increasing detail, so you can work your way up to the main post over the next week or so. You should immediately read the March 2 and TL;DR posts, however.

The related essay excerpts have been posted in several places and photocopied. Make sure you’ve read them.

Finally, you’ve had a formative assignment on statements of purpose since February 13. If you haven’t read it and watched its video examples, you have until Thursday:

As that Classroom posts says, you’ll have photocopies to annotate. The more you’ve read before Thursday, the more productive your work will be.

Ask any questions in the comments below.

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Leveling Up: Level 1-1

  By Grade Abatement, Space Explainers

When you are working in a makerspace, whether on complicated work like second-semester projects or simpler work like the purpose of literature, you must be especially vigilant about how you spend your class periods. The established feedback chain will take care of the feedback you need, if you stay on task. You must follow these three rules:

  1. You must set a daily goal, and it must be clear and specific.
  2. You must steadily collect evidence, perhaps nightly, so that you can self-assess when asked.
  3. Above all else, you must, per the terms of the course, read the instructions and instructional posts completely and repeatedly.

There are always multiple levels to those instructional elements, ranging from simplest to most in-depth, for you to access.

This post is simplified. It’s the digital equivalent of an in-class whiteboard:

This is most useful as a reference point for in-class discussion. It exists to prompt further reading.

Here are two more levels of interstitial instruction for this post:

The simple version is this:

  1. You must meet a goal of almost 100% focus when you are in the physical classroom.
  2. If you are off-task or unfocused, you trigger negative consequences.
  3. If you are on-task and focused during class, you will be successful.

The idea of a hand tally, as discussed here, is more conceptual than literal, but it can be literalized:

See the instructional posts above for what happens, good and bad, as you make your daily decisions, and read the following instructional excerpt for information about “faking it” until it clicks into place: