Category: English 11 Regents (2016-2017)

Interstitial instruction, feedback, and discussion for students in English 11 Regents for the 2016-2017 school year.

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On Empathy and Blame

  By All Classes (2016-2017), AP English Language & Composition (2016-2017), English 10 Regents (2016-2017), English 11 Regents (2016-2017)

In designing your lessons, I cling to this idea, from the GAP protocol you’ll need to review before Friday:

We may take as our guide here John Dewey’s observation that the content of a lesson is the least important thing about learning. As he wrote in Experience and Education: “Perhaps the greatest of all pedagogical fallacies is the notion that a person learns only what he is studying at the time. Collateral learning in the way of formation of enduring attitudes… may be and often is more important than the spelling lesson or lesson in geography or history… For these attitudes are fundamentally what count in the future.” In other words, the most important thing one learns is always something about how one learns. As Dewey wrote in another place, we learn what we do.
~Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death

The most important thing is always something about how you learn, and you learn what you put into practice. We need more “collateral learning” in our lives. Keep that in mind as you watch these next two videos and prepare to write a response.

Prompt #1: On Empathy

Prompt #2: On Blame

Your Response

Take the next 48 hours or so, in and out of class, to write a response to these videos. Use these three ideas to guide you:

  • These videos obviously connect to the skills and traits of this course. What do they add to your understanding? To what extent can you use these as part of our learning?
  • Last week, the entire building spent P1 looking at the idea of accountability, and the second video above especially connects to that lesson. How do these videos on empathy and blame tie into what you saw last week?
  • Your personal reaction matters as much as the course and the building. To what extent do these videos resonate with you? What will you take away from them to put into practice?

Write something that weaves those three focuses together, if you can. Consider your response an essay in the true sense of the word, and attach a copy of that response to the post in Google Classroom.

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Getting Things Done

  By All Classes (2016-2017), AP English Language & Composition (2016-2017), English 10 Regents (2016-2017), English 11 Regents (2016-2017)

From the profile of an INTJ, or “Architect.” Click for the website by NERIS Analytics Limited, which includes a free test and explanation of these personality classifications.

 

Getting Things Done, Part 1

Load the following calendar in a separate tab or window:

That calendar will be plastered everywhere it can be this week. It organizes two major components of our course for the rest of the year:

  1. Grade Abatement | You will pause every three weeks to complete a Google Form, which will be used as it was in Q2 and Q1 to generate a GAP score for that three-week period. You’ll have three GAP scores by the end of the quarter. They will be averaged together for your quarterly grade.
  2. Pareto Projects | On the Fridays indicated, we’ll set aside the period for focused Pareto work, including as many trips to the iLC as we can manage. Ignore the previous calendar for now1.

Remind yourself that there is a protocol for grade abatement that will, if followed specifically, allow us to post a GAP score every three weeks. Load a copy of that protocol here, or through any of the half-dozen links on this site. There are always extra copies in the classroom, too.

That protocol, like every iteration of every element of this course, focuses on how skills connect and concatenate2. And like every iteration and element, it emphasizes one skill as the one on which the others depend:

This screenshot includes the surrounding page material from the document, because it lets me emphasize again the need to “explore, create, learn” in here. (It also reminds you that the document is nine pages long, which means you have nine pages of information that you should have internalized months ago.) That is our focus, but it’s the less-exciting work of organization that gets us into that maker mentality.

For the next few days, you are looking at the academic stuff you have on you. That word, stuff, comes from a root meaning “to equip,” and that’s the idea: You equip yourself every day in order to deal with school and the work it requires. Your assignment is to assess your organization of that stuff in four categories:

  1. Physical | Start by opening up your backpack or bag, any and all notebooks you keep for your classes, your vintage Trapper Keeper, etc. You could pour this stuff out onto a table, if you have the space, or just flip through. Then assess the extent to which you have a system in place. Can you find materials you need? How ordered is your physical stuff? What does it look like?
  2. Digital | At this point in an instructional post, you should have a number of tabs open. That’s the first half of this category: How do you keep track of what you’re looking at online? Do you have a system for organizing ramiform reading? The second half is Google-driven and requires you to assess your Google Drive, Google Classroom, and Gmail organization. Do you have a system of folders in Drive to keep your work clear and accessible? Do you use a system to sort through email?
  3. Schedule | This is probably an extension of the first two, but let’s see if it helps to separate it. Do you have your schedule organized? To what extent do you plan out your days and weeks, and what does that plan look like? The calendar I’ve made for you is an example of organizing your time in this fashion. What do you do with those teacher-provided documents?
  4. Mental | Again, this is an extension of the rest, but it will probably help to keep it separate for this exercise, because we can focus in on GAP skills and traits. How do you organize your approach in this course and in other courses? What do you prioritize in terms of those universal skills and traits? Refresh your memory as necessary through this link.

Write down your observations after talking them over with your peers and/or me. The obvious next step will be to revisit and refine your systems for organization, but for now, concentrate on what’s in front of you. You will be able to put a copy of your notes and writings on Google Classroom.

Getting Things Done, Part 2

As a possibly important sidebar, let’s talk about your personalities. There is a caveat a little further down, but we should start with an introduction to the concept we’ll be using and then jump right into the test:

Free personality test | 16Personalities

Free personality test – take it to find out why our readers say that this personality test is so accurate, “it’s a little bit creepy.” No registration required!

This isn’t required, but you’re probably going to be interested in taking that test, which will give you a four-letter designation and a detailed explanation of what those letters mean. First, though, you’ll want that caveat:

What’s the Forer effect?

Have you noticed that you’re the kind of person who, while inherently empathetic, is also marked by a strong streak of independent thinking? Or perhaps you’re more the type who is a little self-critical and insecure, but can defend yourself when needed? Maybe you’re a human being, with various thoughts and feelings that sometimes contradict.

When we’re talking about how you organize yourself in here, we’re really talking about you as a whole person. That’s the universality our work drives toward. A personality test, especially one as steeped in good research as this one, might be useful. But that Forer effect is a real and powerful phenomenon.

The idea is not that a personality test is inaccurate or useless. It’s that you must be metacognitively vigilant about anything a website tells you, especially when your goal is self-improvement. I have long thought of myself as an INTJ, for instance, but I see more and more of myself in the description of an INTP these days. Without taking the test again, I can read through the differences and apply that knowledge to myself. I believe those differences are crucial to my development as a teacher, which gives me a starting point for meaningful metacognitive discussion and writing.

Approach this Myers-Briggs diagnostic with the same understanding: It’s more about how you use the ideas to organize your self-analysis than it is about being judged by an Internet test. If you do take this test, discuss its efficacy here and elsewhere in our classroom. Be sure you read everything the site presents to you, keep that Forer effect in mind, and do some reflective writing.

From the profile of an INTP, or “Logician”

  1. It’ll stay on the front page until I can insure that we’re able to use the new calendar. Remember that this sort of thing is iterative, which means it needs to be as flexible as it is focused. ↩

  2. Look that word up. I’ve always liked it because it sounds like its definition — like links being clipped together. ↩

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Tilting at Windmills

  By All Classes (2016-2017), AP English Language & Composition (2016-2017), English 10 Regents (2016-2017), English 11 Regents (2016-2017)

Picasso’s take on Don Quixote.

Q2 GAP Feedback

TL;DR | The three most important elements of this course right now are these:

  1. Consistent, effective, respectful use of every class period
  2. Consistent, careful, annotated interaction with all interstitial instruction/feedback/etc
  3. Consistent, collaborative, goal-oriented feedback looping with the teacher or proxies

Assignment #1 | Pull out every adjective from that list. You should have an immediate and intuitive sense of what each adjective means, but you’ll want a more articulated definition, too. What, for instance, does effective use of every class period look like? What does respectful have to do with your use of class time?

Assignment #2 | The following document uses data from Q2 to illustrate these elements and give you direction as you move into Q3. You have a Google Classroom assignment built around this document (and the interstitial directions you are currently reading) to force you to start doing what’s required of you. Complete that Google Classroom assignment.

[pdfjs-viewer url=”http%3A%2F%2Fsisypheanhigh.com%2Fmalachite%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2017%2F01%2FTier4LanguageandLogic.pdf” viewer_width=100% viewer_height=600px fullscreen=true download=true print=true]

 

Maker Spaces

Where you sit in a makerspace is critical. Your use of space is critical, hence the term makerspace. Small shifts in our physical setup open up new perspectives — which is exactly what happened when I moved the de facto teacher desk to the middle of the room. Two days of observing you was enlightening1.

From today onward, all junior classes will be allowed to sit where they like, but they must recognize the need to improve their in-class focus, interstitial reading, and use of resources. There are six desktop PC stations in Room 210, for instance, any of which would work well as study corrals. Our round tables should be for discussion, most likely without Chromebooks, or with a shared Google Document as the focus. The U-shaped conference tables should be for a different sort of discussion, probably led by a student with some proxy or atelier feedback to share. The high tables should be regularly moving into new configurations that reflect each group’s goals.

If you are in one of the juniors classes in Room 210, your assignment is to make better use of the space. I will be observing your efforts and giving you feedback on your choices. You probably want to keep the criteria for a Tier 4 GAP score in mind, too, since this is a formal assignment, and you know that those aren’t just given through Google Classroom2.

Sophomores will have assigned seats, with some self-selected groups allowed to stay together. That class simply isn’t focused enough when given free reign over the classroom space. We will need to shift into more teacher-monitored group work, and individuals will need to sit where they can be held accountable for pretty much every choice.

I’m sharing these decision with everyone at once, by the way, because juniors can absolutely lose the ability to choose where to sit and what to do. There is a limit to this course’s patience, and after that limit, you must be forced to work. You’ll either develop these habits on your own or be forced to develop them. You probably know that the former is almost always more powerful and long-lasting than the latter.

  1. Terrifying? Depressing? I’m not sure what the word is there. ↩

  2. They aren’t always marked in metaphorical neon lights, either. The point of this interstitial reading, remember, is to force you to read slowly and carefully. ↩

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Politics and the English Language

  By All Junior Classes (2016-2017), AP English Language & Composition (2016-2017), English 11 Regents (2016-2017)

From a recent Daily Beast article on Orwell. Click to read.

Clarity Is the Remedy

In searching the Internet for recent articles on George Orwell, I found an NPR story that was published more than a decade ago:

Most people these days think of George Orwell as a writer for high-school students, since his reputation rests mostly on two late novels — Animal Farm and 1984 — that are seldom read outside the classroom. But through most of his career, Orwell was known for his journalism and his rigorous, unsparing essays, which documented a time that seems in some ways so much like our own.

I used to teach Animal Farm, and you know, of course, that I’ve encouraged you to read 1984, among other novels1. But I agree with Paul Graham and Joan Didion and David Foster Wallace and many other smart people: The surest way to ruin a student’s experience with an author is to make the student take tests and write essays about the experience. Instead, you need to recognize that there might be a reason for Orwell’s surge in popularity over the last few weeks.

Read the rest of this NPR essay from 2006, and then tackle Orwell’s essay, “Politics and the English Language,” which is embedded below and will be photocopied as soon as possible. We’re going to go slowly, but we are going to talk about politics. Everything is about politics, after all, especially lying. As Orwell said,”Politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.”

Orwell on Writing: ‘Clarity Is the Remedy’

Most people these days think of George Orwell as the author of high school reading staples Animal Farm and 1984. But author Lawrence Wright says that Orwell’s essay “Politics and the English Language,” is the piece of writing to which he most often returns.

Politics and the English Language

Reading an essay like this in a climate like ours requires some interaction. I’ll focus your efforts later in the week; for now, take notes in a way that feels natural to you.

Sidebar: If you are in AP11, plan your week around two assignments: Orwell’s essay and the timed essay you wrote a while back. All juniors should expect general feedback on grade abatement early this week. GAP scores will be posted by Wednesday afternoon.

If you want to read Orwell online, use this link:

Politics and the English Language

Most people who bother with the matter at all would admit that the English language is in a bad way, but it is generally assumed that we cannot by conscious action do anything about it. Our civilization is decadent and our language – so the argument runs – must inevitably share in the general collapse.

Remember to enable the reader function on Safari if you’re using an iOS device, which will make the text easier to skim:

It’s a little more complicated to do this on Android, but here’s one set of directions for the Chrome browser. If there’s an easier way, leave it in the comments below. The goal is to make it possible to read this sort of essay (and this sort of post) interstitially.

If you want to print your own copy, use the document embedded below. I’ll make copies for you, however, as soon as I’m back in the building tomorrow morning.

[pdfjs-viewer url=”http%3A%2F%2Fsisypheanhigh.com%2Fmalachite%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2017%2F01%2FPoliticsandtheEnglishLanguage1946.pdf” viewer_width=100% viewer_height=600px fullscreen=true download=true print=true]

  1. I was a little too ambitious in floating so many novels at once, but that’s the point of a makerspace: Be ambitious, make mistakes, and learn something from our failures. Don’t be surprised if we randomly spend a period discussing how to catch an invisible man, though. ↩

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Second Perspectives: Q2 GAP

  By All Classes (2016-2017), AP English Language & Composition (2016-2017), English 10 Regents (2016-2017), English 11 Regents (2016-2017)

Click to see more of Felice Varini’s perspective-warping artwork.

Trompe-l’œil Learning

At the end of the first quarter, you were given this:

The process [of GAP scoring] 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.

This is still a new idea to me, but it seems more and more important as it plays out in the classroom. We can’t be a course that focuses on final artifacts over process. The experimental model — the makerspace mentality we’re trying to embrace — values results, but it shouldn’t prioritize them. The push for risk-taking and integrity is undermined by any traditional teacher-as-judge-and-jury assessment.

As always, though, your ability to provide what Tony Wagner calls “collective human judgment informed by evidence” is dependent on how much you’ve invested in the course. Your independence and individuality depend on how closely you’ve read posts like this one. I’m running out of metaphors for this — cooking still seems apt, and vaccination is never more appropriate than during flu season — but, to use a metaphor to describe using metaphors, these windmills won’t tilt at themselves.

I’d like my role at the end of any GAP process to be simple: I’m there to put you in the exact spot that lets you see yourself clearly. I help you find clarity, especially when your learning starts to seem random and unconnected, like the spatial artwork of Felice Varini:

I’m there to shed light on the evidence you’ve accrued when it looks like a pile of trash, as in the mixed-media artwork of Tim Noble and Sue Webster:

The most important step is about perspective. Varini’s artwork only makes sense if you stand in exactly the right spot. Find that spot, and the random shapes snap together:

With a bit of light in the right spot, the pile of trash transforms into this:

You need to find the necessary perspective on your body of work. The picture might not always be positive or pretty — the hammer and axe in that silhouette are a little disconcerting — so it must always be clear. 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 that, too, should pass quickly.

Q(x) Assignment

Which brings us to your GAP assignment, to be completed efficiently and insightfully and in two stages:

  1. Google Form due before 7 AM on Wednesday, January 25
  2. Google Classroom assignment due before 7 AM on Friday, January 27

The early morning deadlines allow me to read your responses throughout the day, which speeds along the triage process. The form can be done in class or in 15-20 minutes at home on Tuesday, January 24, so that shouldn’t be a problem. You’ll have Wednesday and Thursday to figure out how to solve the second prompt, which is over on Google Classroom.

Start, of course, with the protocol given to you last quarter. Read it again (or for the first time, if you haven’t quite realized how essential that sort of guide is). Then read or re-read the massive update to Sisyphean High that was delineated back in November. The links are below:

  1. Grade Abatement Protocol | How to put together the evidence and understanding necessary for an accurate score.
  2. Mind the GAP: Sisyphean High 9.3.0 | An update on the course that covers pretty much everything.

Again, if you’ve done your work this year, you’ve already seen those. You internalized enough of them to have needed only the period on Monday to jostle your brain into the right position. These links are review. If you haven’t been keeping up with interstitial instruction, however, you don’t have a choice: You need to read it all now1.

When you’re ready, you can find your assignments over on Google Classroom. Remember:

  • Ask questions in the usual places.
  • Teach each other what you learn.
  • Fight the predictable, learned helplessness that comes with a difficult task.

Good luck. Let’s settle these scores, make something meaningful, and get back to our studies.

  1. Well, you do have a choice, I guess. You could choose to be frustrated and confused and misinformed. As much as that seems to be gaining in popularity around the country, I would advise against it. ↩

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Unspoken Rules

  By All Junior Classes (2016-2017), AP English Language & Composition (2016-2017), English 11 Regents (2016-2017)

Our primary learning goal this week involves your new groups:

New Groups

That post explains why assigned groups have become important for a nontraditional space like ours. This week is the experimental step — the test of what those groups can do, with time set aside to debrief and adjust on Thursday and Friday.

The secondary learning goal this week is to analyze an author’s writing in a unique way. You’ll have an article from The New York Times that was published on Thursday, January 5. Specific instructions for analysis will be given on Tuesday, after you’ve had a day to interact with the text as you normally would.

We also have a tertiary goal1: to extend and apply the text’s ideas to our current work, including the online components of your Pareto Projects.

Monday

Start by reading the article:

Rules for Social Media, Created by Kids (Published 2017)

Another group of seventh graders (of mixed gender and in a different community) told me the rules regarding how many pictures to post from an event. There was a sense of what was acceptable and what was not.

Work with this text however you normally would2. You can take notes, annotate the printed copy, click on hyperlinks, have discussions — anything goes. We’ll use whatever you choose to do as the basis for reflection and metacognition later in the week.

Tuesday

Remaining in your current seats — that is, wherever you normally sit during a class period — spend Tuesday analyzing the text. Commit as much of that analysis to writing as possible. You need written work for Wednesday. Use these prompts:

How does the ol’ rhetorical triangle break down in this text? More specifically, what can you tell about the audience of this text, especially compared to you? I think we can make a meaningful distinction between the intended audience and you, the actual readers of the article.

Beyond the rhetorical triangle is the style of this piece, specifically its tone. What is that tone? Make a distinction between tone that is backed up by language and logic in the text and a reader-projected tone. The latter is a tone that isn’t actually present. We often hear what we expect to hear, not what is actually written.

Finally, what can you, the reader, do with this? I would call this practical redirection. Are there other unspoken rules for social media? And since the answer is obviously yes, which ones matter to our studies?

Wednesday

Get into your new groups as you enter the classroom. Find space to work with these two or three other students, and then figure out how best to share your writing and thinking from Tuesday. Then work together to revisit the text and refine your responses.

If done correctly, this day will see you editing whatever you typed on Tuesday. You’ll have a record through Google, which monitors every change like a benevolent Big Brother, of how you incorporated your new group’s feedback.

Thursday

On Thursday, sit again with your new group. I imagine that many of you will need the extra period to finish Wednesday’s assignment, so that will be first; then you’re going to start reflecting on the previous three days. Consider how your new group meshed, how well you worked together, and how different the experience was compared to your usual chambered work.

Your assignments over the next few days are (1) to submit the text-based work you’ve done, and (2) to write metacognitively and reflectively about the group work, focusing on collegiality especially among the many other GAP skills and traits.

You’ll receive Google Classroom assignments for both of those. Expect the text-based work to be due on Friday; the metacognition will probably have a due date of Monday night.

Friday

Friday’s lesson will be determined midway through the week. As always, pay attention to the interstitial hubs of the course for information.

  1. Mostly so I can use the word “tertiary,” which is one of my current favorite words. ↩

  2. With emphasis on the imperative verb there: Work with this text. If your normal approach is to ignore an assignment, try something outside the box. ↩

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New Groups

  By All Classes (2016-2017), AP English Language & Composition (2016-2017), English 10 Regents (2016-2017), English 11 Regents (2016-2017)

TL;DR: Let me know if these new groups create any serious interpersonal problems, and then expect to use them in class.

The Stuff of Growth

Back in September, we watched Ken Robinson’s speech on education. You can revisit our discussion through the first part of this corner of Sisyphean High, but we’re talking today about his idea that collaboration is the stuff of growth and that most great learning happens in groups.

The complication arises from how you form those groups, and through the end of 2016, you had almost total control over your collaborative setup. A few class periods were rowdy or unfocused enough to force assigned seats, but never for more than a day or two.

The shift we’re about to make is not an indication that you failed, individually or collectively, to work well in your self-selected groups. Some of you proved Ken Robinson right every day. Instead, this is a deliberate effort to change the classroom space, which has begun to stagnate in recent weeks. You sit in the same places and work with the same folks, and you’ll all benefit from a test your ability to collaborate outside of your circle of friends.

UPDATE, 1/11 | Your groups have been adjusted. You can access the new copies through Google Classroom. Look for the update from January 10, which has a PDF attached. These updated groups are smaller and should prevent the interpersonal problems that were brought to my attention.

If you have any more concerns, juniors should look to the metacognitive and reflective writing outlined in this more recent post. Sophomores can bring their concerns directly to me or Mr. Looby. The goal is to improve, using the resources of the room as effectively and efficiently as possible. Remember:

View at Medium.com

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Pareto Project: Process Update

  By All Classes (2016-2017), AP English Language & Composition (2016-2017), English 10 Regents (2016-2017), English 11 Regents (2016-2017)

The most obvious changes below are to the calendar for your Pareto Projects, but you will need the definition of a “process update,” too, to help you plan for those checkpoints.

Calendar Update

In the last version, the checkpoints occurred roughly every three weeks, but not on the same day of the week. That has been changed so that a process update happens every other Friday. In English 10, we will almost certainly set aside the period on those dates to work together; English 11 and AP students should not anticipate having that class period, however, since we will be using that time for exam prep.

You can load the updated Google Doc version of the calendar by clicking here. If you’d like to download and print a version, you can use this PDF copy of version 2.1:

[pdfjs-viewer url=”http%3A%2F%2Fsisypheanhigh.com%2Fmalachite%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2017%2F01%2FParetoProjectCalendar.pdf” viewer_width=100% viewer_height=600px fullscreen=true download=true print=true]

 

Process Update

For all students, these biweekly updates should follow a similar format:

PARETO PROJECTS | Click that link to load the home of our eventual/hopeful Pareto Project publication. Your assignment for every required update is to write an essay that could hypothetically be published there. That essay should be a short, insightful response that blends the answers to three questions:

  1. What have you accomplished so far for your Pareto Project?
  2. What have you learned so far?
  3. What’s next?

Answer these in a way that makes sense for your project. Include whatever images, links, digressions, etc, you want. You will not automatically be published, and many of you haven’t yet set up a Medium account. That’s okay. The metacognitive stuff is more important, so it matters most that you monitor your progress and find something insightful to say about it.

When in doubt, use the instructional posts that are available online. Delving into those posts will hone your close reading ability, and you will get better at communicating your questions and concerns only if you’re fully informed.

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Tuesday, 1/3 – Wednesday, 1/4

  By All Junior Classes (2016-2017), AP English Language & Composition (2016-2017), English 11 Regents (2016-2017)

Today and tomorrow are transitional periods for us. First, you need to finish the work that was assigned two weeks ago. Then you will write short essays that chronicle your progress toward your Pareto project goals.

Transition #1: GAP Self-Assessment and “Unto the Breach”

Use Google Classroom and the following instructional posts to review and, as necessary, to complete the last two formal assignments:

Pareto Principalities

Unto the Breach

If you submitted writing, this is an opportunity to revisit and revise. Either way, a day spent looking at where you were two weeks ago can help you to generate evidence of all sorts of important skills and traits.

Transition #2: Pareto Project Update*

Load the following document:

[pdfjs-viewer url=”http%3A%2F%2Fsisypheanhigh.com%2Fmalachite%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2017%2F01%2F2017StartParetoAnalysis.pdf” viewer_width=100% viewer_height=600px fullscreen=true download=true print=true]

There is a prompt at the start of that document. It will be cross-posted to Google Classroom at the end of the day tomorrow, at which point you will be able to upload a copy of your response for archival and evidentiary purposes. Until then, you must determine what to do by reading carefully, asking questions, and collaborating with your peers.

The rest of this embedded document is self-explanatory. Read it carefully, too.

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Unto the Breach

  By All Junior Classes (2016-2017), AP English Language & Composition (2016-2017), English 11 Regents (2016-2017)

Henry, pondering the breach. Click for one of the more famous speeches from Henry V.

Confounded Base

First, a note: You are not required to set up a social media account for this course. Read the Pareto Project guide and previous posts carefully, and you’ll see only the suggestion that using social media will give weight to your work. That’s why we cite Paul Graham’s “golden age of the essay” and stress the need for more than a teacher’s red pen and score. Your work needs to matter, and the Internet lets you reach an audience beyond our classroom.

The Internet is also, as those previous posts and guides explain, where you will live and work in your professional future. When you apply for college, those institutions will use Google to search for your name. They will scour social media sites. They will uncover any footprint you’ve left online.

Which is why your assignment today is to search Google for that footprint. Search your full name. What pops up? Visit any accounts you have that aren’t private, and look at them like a stranger would. What do you see?

Take today’s period to describe what is already out there about you, and then write about what you want to be out there. What sort of student do you hope colleges (and then prospective employers) find when they look for you? What footprint have you created?

This thought exercise is why part of the Pareto Project is publishing through Medium. On January 3, you’ll write the first essay documenting your process, and you will be strongly encouraged to craft that essay in a way that lends itself to Medium’s architecture and format. Again, you are not required to do this, nor to have a Medium account at all; nor is there some secret expectation built into this quarter’s grade abatement profiles. Instead, the hope is that you see the value in using Medium to create a portfolio of insightful reflection, narration, exposition, etc.

Many of you will also have multimedia elements to publish and share, from videos to comics to podcasts. You should consider which sites best fit those elements. Then you should consider which audiences best fit those elements.

Which brings us to Twitter. There are few better ways to publicize work, and almost no social media appears more future-proof. Once again, you are not required to use Twitter. Many folks get by just fine in life without a Twitter account. But you should not demonize it. You should not assume that it has no educational or vocational value. Used properly, it is among the best ways to establish a digital presence.

After you’ve written something significant about your current online footprint and what you want that footprint will be in the future, spend some time exploring Medium and Twitter. Find professionals you admire or hope to emulate, and observe their footprint. What do politicians write about on Medium? How do writers interact with others on Twitter? Do artists post pictures directly to Twitter, or do they link to another account online?

Take whatever you learn from this exploration, and commit it to writing. Be thoughtful. Make this a good piece of evidence of those essential skills and traits. And ask questions below, if you have them. Interacting with me, here, is as important as anything else.