Category: AP English Language & Composition (2016-2017)

Interstitial instruction, feedback, and discussion for students in AP English Language & Composition for the 2016-2017 school year.

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Academic Update: AP11

  By AP English Language & Composition (2016-2017)

The following updates cover current and upcoming course work and are written to help you organize your time as you begin your Pareto Project on Thursday, December 8. Read this information carefully. Then ask any clarifying questions in the comment section below.

Ongoing: Personal Journey Essay

It’s been a while, so you may need to jog your memory:

Journey Writing

The majority of you will not return to this, especially with more essays and a Pareto Project upcoming. Some of you, however, have continued to meet with me and/or work on your own toward a final draft. This minority will now be tasked with publishing their work on Medium. Then they will use our nascent atelier format — essentially a souped-up form of proxy feedback — to teach their peers how to use Medium when we get to that step of the Pareto Project.

If you are in the group that will continue to work on these essays, you will need to make that part of your Q2 plans. Schedule time to conference with me, share works-in-progress, collaborate outside of class, etc. There is no formal deadline, but you will need to have learned how to use Medium before you return from the winter recess, if you plan on helping folks with their first Pareto Project posts.

Regardless, everyone in the course will need to account for their choice to continue working on the essay or not. That reflective writing will not have a formal assignment issued; instead, you will need to have read this post closely enough to know that you must sit down for 15-20 minutes to answer the question, “What happened with that journey essay?”

Ongoing: Q2 Novels

For future reference, here is the list of Q2 novels embedded in an earlier post:

Remember that each of those is available, for free, online. We have some copies of Stevenson’s novel and one or two copies of The Invisible Man, but only 1984 is stocked.

You should continue to read these novels. Keep the original post in mind:

Quarter 2, Day 5 [Juniors]

Just as important is John Holt’s essay and his criteria for reading a novel: Give each one 20-30 pages, and if you don’t want to finish, just make sure that your decision is deliberate and based on the text, not a lack of time or a general dislike of reading. Account for that choice metacognitively.

One note: Please push 1984 up in your schedule, as another teacher needs 50 copies of it to teach it to her class, and we should accommodate her. This might give us an opportunity to partner juniors with sophomores who are reading the same book, too, which could be interesting.

Ongoing: Regular Metacognition

This is simply a reminder that you need to reflect and be metacognitive regularly. Spend 15-20 minutes at least once a week analyzing your choices, your progress, and your subsequent goals. This is the best way to develop the skills and traits you need for the future and to generate evidence for your grade abatement profile.

If you struggle to think of how to frame this regular reflection/metacognition, respond to these three basic questions:

  1. What have I accomplished?
  2. What have I learned?
  3. What’s next?

Answer #2 by referring specifically to the skills and traits of grade abatement (e.g., organization, amenability, assiduousness).

Upcoming: In-Class Activities

Meanwhile, there will be in-class activities that bring us together in a more traditional way. (Well, our version of traditional.) You will retain choice from period to period — you can spend the time in whatever way is most productive or effective — but certain days will be dedicated to an activity or focused lesson. The vast majority will be provided interstitially a few days in advance, so you’ll be able to plan accordingly. Some examples:

  • A divergent-thinking activity about capturing the Invisible Man from The Invisible Man
  • Poetry reading with Maya-Angelou-inspired hip-hop
  • Poetry reading with Bob-Dylan-inspired hip-hop
  • Dialectical discussion of topics from, e.g., The Pig that Wants to Be Eaten

For lack of a better way to phrase it, think of these as one-off lessons.

Upcoming: Formal Units

Once the Pareto Projects are in motion, we will return to more formal units. This needs to be mentioned, because it would be easy to forget that Pareto refers to only 20% of our work. You will need to plan your time around the reading, thinking, and writing that has characterized all of our learning this year, as we study specific ideas and answer specific essential questions.

The next unit, for instance, will build on the questions you’ve recently answered and the novels you are currently reading. We will learn about lying — how it works, how we learn to lie, the types of lies, and the nature of systemic/societal lies like the myth of Santa Claus. After that, we are likely to do a smaller unit on memory itself — how it works, how we construct collective memories, and how your individual memories function.

As always, you will need to watch this space and Google Classroom for instructional materials, assignments, and feedback.

Upcoming: Test Prep

Before the end of Q2, we start exam prep. Everything else on this list is makerspace learning — student-driven, creative, exploratory, iterative, even fun. Exam prep… not so much. Still, it will take up time, and you need a sense of how much effort and attention might be required of you when it comes to timed writing, timed reading, and multiple-choice analysis. Read this essay when you can:

View at Medium.com

That will give you an idea of how we’ll approach test prep: as an act of gamesmanship steeped in critical thinking, collaborative planning, and logic.

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Provisional Answers: Analysis

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

Gibson is always good.

Pattern Analysis

Load the following:

That should show you the complete set of responses to the essential questions given to you in our last post. If it doesn’t work, let me know in the comments or in person, and I’ll see what I can do to flip a PDF of the responses.

Your assignment: Read your peers’ responses, identify patterns, and offer insight into the collective thinking for each question.

If we break that sentence down, you have three things to do:

  1. Read your peers’ responses.
  2. Identify patterns in those responses.
  3. Write down something insightful about those responses.

This kind of pattern analysis needs a lot of data to work well, and you’ll have it: more than 100 students will have given provisional answers to seven essential questions. The obvious problem? You have to read 700 responses.

Speed Reading

Actually, you don’t need to read 700 responses. First, there won’t be 700 responses; we’ll be using what we have at different points over the next few days. Second, you only need to read enough responses to identify a meaningful pattern. You are meant to skim your peers’ writing. This is also a time to practice your reading speed — how quickly you can push through a wall of text while still understanding what it says.

You should apply your regular metacognition to this speed-reading to see how your brain handles it. Note which questions generated responses that you find interesting, too. You should even start to see patterns in the writing itself — in the use of specifics, the development of ideas, the repetition of phrases, and so on.

If you have questions about how to approach the assignment, ask them below. Otherwise, bring your observations and insights to Google+ and group discussions in class.

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Questions and Answers

  By All Junior Classes (2016-2017), AP English Language & Composition (2016-2017), English 11 Regents (2016-2017)
From the 1933 film version of The Invisible Man.

From the 1933 film version of The Invisible Man, which is quite different from the novel.

Essential Questions

In education, the sort of question you’ll find below is often called essential. The Greeks called these discussions dialectics. In brief, they are the reason we read and think and write: to answer questions that matter. Or, at least, to start to answer them. I don’t think any of us ever find the truth Socrates sought.

But you have something like a foundation now. You know what is expected in a learning environment like this one1. So you can take a few days to work on a set of questions that relate to the reading for this quarter:

  1. To what extent can any of us trust our senses?
  2. To what extent can any of us trust our memories?
  3. How do ignorance, knowledge, and happiness interact for us2?
  4. To what extent and in what ways does power corrupt?
  5. In what ways are any of us ever alone?
  6. To what extent are people self-destructive?
  7. At what point and for what reasons should a group stop an individual from doing whatever he or she wants?

Define terms, seek examples, and, above all, talk to each other. Ask clarifying questions below in the comments. Use Google+ to anchor your in-class conversations and to continue conversations that require more thoughtfulness and precision. Share your observations and insights as often and widely as you can.

We will also add to these questions as we continue, shifting the language and focus as necessary. As you read and write, new questions will occur to you. This is Piet Hein’s idea: “Art is solving problems that cannot be formulated before they have been solved. The shaping of the question is part of the answer.”

One more thing: While I will guide you through activities and lessons built around those four novels, they are not required. Strongly encouraged, yes, but not required. Nor will we drive our learning through prescribed readings. There are hundreds of other texts that tackle the same subjects, that lend themselves to the same discussions, and while these have many advantages, we must remember the lessons of Paul Graham and John Holt.

The point is that we’ll take all quarter for this, and that means you should read because the readings are interesting and edifying, not because some teacher told you to do it. Keep your eyes out for other texts, too; taking that sort of initiative can only help you in here. I’m thinking of introducing “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” for instance, because of its powerful connection to these ideas, and there are several short stories and poems that we could read together3.

Throughout all of this, work in writing as often as possible. Sketch out ideas, take notes, write metacognitive responses — whatever it takes to generate understanding and GAP evidence, since those are one and the same in this course. Look to Google Classroom for formal assignments, as always, and advocate for yourself when you feel lost.

Here are the readings again, as reminder and encouragement:

  1. Which is an atelier model, by the way — a specific kind of makerspace that centralizes creativity and expertise through the ripple effect of teaching others. We’ll talk more about it later this week. ↩

  2. I don’t like the phrasing of this, but I want to avoid the cliché: Would you want to be ignorant and happy, or have knowledge and be miserable? It’s not a binary consideration like that. The idea is to consider what you know, how you know it, and whether you’d prefer not to know it. We’ll talk more in class. ↩

  3. I love “Funes, the Memorious,” if you want a beautifully strange story about memory. ↩

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Quarter 2, Day 5 [Juniors]

  By All Junior Classes (2016-2017), AP English Language & Composition (2016-2017), English 11 Regents (2016-2017)
On future maps, though...

On future maps, though…

1984 and Other Dystopias

Warning: I am going to talk about the election.

Well, not the election exactly — I’m still digging pitchforks out of my back from the end of Q1; I don’t need torches added to the mix — but an idea related to the election. We’re going to look at maps.

In the runup to November 8, an article in the Times used a map to discuss the country (and attempt to predict the election):

What This 2012 Map Tells Us About America, and the Election (Published 2016)

The 2016 Race It’s not just a map. History, race, religion, culture, ethnicity, geography: The 2012 presidential election county-level results map has many stories to tell. Nate Cohn, The Upshot’s elections analyst, and Toni Monkovic, an Upshot editor, discussed some differences we can expect for 2016, and posted a lightly edited transcript of their written exchange.

In the aftermath of the 8th, there haven’t been quite as many nuanced discussions (Twitter, as always, is a nightmare), but we do have this site to show us a 2016 version of Purple America:

countymappurple1024

Why does this matter to us? Because we began the year with empathy, and empathy is what we need now1. Societal shifts and societal divides affect all of us. It matters, too, that Brewster identifies itself as exurban, an uncommon word that refers to a commuter town located past the suburbs:

Putnam County’s Brewster Central School District is committed to educational excellence and the success of every student. This exurban community of 18,000 values its natural beauty, while priding itself on advancing a progressive educational agenda.

That’s from our school’s website. It means that Brewster, to some extent, defines itself by its proximity to New York City.

In this course, I would like you to read a few books that might help us to think about these probably false dichotomies: urban and rural areas, cities and countrysides, science and nature. These books aren’t solely about those aspects of society, nor are they all focused on conflict of that kind; they are related, though, and worth reading, regardless. The list:

Each of those is available, for free, online. 1984, however, shouldn’t be, because it’s still under copyright. (The rest are public domain, which is how we ended up with excellent and allusive stories like this.) We have copies of 1984 the classroom, so I’ll ask you to use those, if you read that one.

The if in that last sentence is crucial: You are not required to read any of these novels. You are not being assigned any of them. What we will do is to encourage reading, to celebrate it as it happens, and to make it possible for you to explore and expand and share your experiences. But we won’t mandate literature. Nothing ruins reading — and writing — more quickly than forcing it through the traditional English machine2.

Instead, we want to chase down a reading experience like this one:

[pdfjs-viewer url=”http%3A%2F%2Fsisypheanhigh.com%2Fmalachite%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2016%2F11%2F1984Essay.pdf” viewer_width=100% viewer_height=500px fullscreen=true download=true print=true]

Read that essay. The author has offered to talk to any junior who is interested in reading 1984, both to follow up this essay and to try to convince you that, yes, it’s worth reading. Let me know if you would like to speak to her.

So… What Is Today’s Assignment?

Read that senior’s college essay about 1984. Then poke around the list of novels you’ve been given. You don’t need to read any of them yet, but you should start thinking about them. You might go back and read John Holt’s essay or Paul Graham’s essays, too. (They’re in a footnote, if you need the links.)

On Monday, we’ll set up our next few weeks, which will be driven by your interests and energy. I have lessons to teach you, tangents to take you on, and probably too much hope that we’ll enjoy some of it; it will all come back to you, however, now that you’ve got the substructure  in place.

Over the weekend, reacquaint yourself with your most recent essay, too, and think about how close to an ending you are. We’ll make that writing process part of our plan on Monday, too.

To be clear: You don’t have anything to submit today. Take notes, reflect, be metacognitive, etc, according to your own needs.

  1. I originally thought to lead this post with an article written in October by David Wong, because it offers powerful insight into the belief that rural areas are at odds with urban areas. It’s far too profane, though, so let’s bury it in a footnote. ↩

  2. See John Holt and Paul Graham for a reminder of what that means. ↩

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Quarter 2, Day 4

  By All Classes (2016-2017), AP English Language & Composition (2016-2017), English 10 Regents (2016-2017), English 11 Regents (2016-2017)
Instead of Pavlov's dogs, here's a video about Schrodinger's cat.

Instead of Pavlov’s dogs, here’s a video about Schrodinger’s cat.

Unlearning Lessons

Today is Thursday, November 17. For the last three days, you have taken stock of yourselves through various lessons and assessments. As a result, you have a wealth of evidence to consider. You also have to unlearn two dangerous lessons.

First, consider what you were asked to take home after finishing Tuesday’s diagnostic test:

You weren’t given a deadline for this reading. It’s your responsibility to find the time to read all three documents, because they provide you some context for this class, whether you are a senior challenging yourself in AP or a sophomore still wondering whether this high school thing is worth it.

So these documents will tell you why it matters if you know, for example, what “assiduousness” means. The terms we use give shape to the work we do, and this work is the work of the world — the work valued by the 21st century, including the people who will eventually hand you that college acceptance letter or job offer. When we read literature, it won’t be to ruin it the way it was ruined for Paul Graham; it will be to learn empathy and to develop a better understanding of the world, because those traits lead to a better life. When we write, it won’t be to earn a grade; it will be to clarify our thoughts, because that makes us better human beings.

The second dangerous lesson to unlearn is about “failure” on a test like the one you took on Tuesday. Of course it matters if you couldn’t remember ideas covered repeatedly throughout the first quarter. It matters more, however, that you now improve — and that’s why there is no grade or grade book in this course. That test was a diagnostic. It might spark a revolution in your work ethic or another branch of our main skill tree. It might further validate your hard work from Q1. It might shine a spotlight on the need to strengthen your memory. That’s the point: To individualize what happens next.

You need to let go of the Pavlovian part of yourselves, because that part of you wants a treat when it does well. It expects a shock when it screws up.

Pavlovian Part 1

Most of you have been institutionalized. You have confused clarity with simplicity. When you are given complicated directions, you give up almost immediately and become frustrated. Over the past few days, student have

  1. called the work “stupid” after a cursory read;
  2. argued that an assignment wasn’t given, despite evidence to the contrary;
  3. claimed that Snapchat isn’t distracting during class, despite evidence to the contrary;
  4. given up and fallen asleep.

Every choice you make matters, and you can choose to embrace what we’re doing in here, which is to prepare you for the rest of your life. That’s why you were given those excerpts and essays this week: to show you that we are about more than turgid literary analysis and test-driven busywork. This stuff matters.

But you lack grit, many of you. You lack that particular kind of assiduousness that allows you to cope with difficulty. Until you develop that trait, you will never improve. No one can force you to be patient. No one can make you resilient. If our goal was for you to vomit out an essay that I would then mark up with that red-pen pathology so unique to English teachers, sure, we could force all of you to the goal line. But you’d learn nothing, least of all the grit necessary for success.

That doesn’t mean that you can’t change your future in here, however, and that plasticity may be the most important lesson this week. Since change starts with an inventory of sorts, that’s your assignment: to do an inventory of the evidence you’ve generated this week.

It’s not enough to have completed the work, of course. It’s one thing to be succinct, to think that less is more, but reflective and metacognitive writing benefits from length. More is more, in most cases.

Which means that you need to consider the quality of your work over the last three days, too. What did you learn from Monday’s writing? What did Tuesday’s diagnostic teach you? How do you plan to utilize Wednesday’s insight in the future? Consider, too, the substructural skills and traits of grade abatement. Think about your organization of resources, your reliance on peers and peer feedback, your amenability to explicit and implicit feedback, and so on.

Pavlovian Part 2

Students who earned an 8 or 9 in Q1 are in a slightly different position: You need to teach others how to learn, how to generate evidence, etc. And you cannot be arrogant or condescending, even for a second; being either is evidence of a 4, if you want to look at it through the lens of GAP scores.

Read this older addendum to the grade abatement process:

[pdfjs-viewer url=”http%3A%2F%2Fsisypheanhigh.com%2Fmalachite%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2016%2F11%2F03-GradeAbatementAmended.pdf” viewer_width=100% viewer_height=400px fullscreen=true download=true print=true]

What you do is all that matters. That idea was clarified in Section X (“Faking It”) of this essay, too. Be collegial and supportive. Share your understanding. Take pride in your accomplishments, of course, but separate that pride from egotism. From that hyperlinked essay:

There is no game to play and no gamesmanship to lean on. This course does not care how naturally gifted you are. It does not care if you play sports and play them well. It does not care what your parents think of you. It does not care what you look like, how charming you are, or how much latitude you have been given throughout your life to do what you want. It cares only about what you do.

Today’s Assignment Again

Since we got sidetracked from today’s assignment for a bit, I’ll clarify what you must do:

Your assignment for Thursday is to spend 30-40 minutes writing about your progress toward a top-tier GAP score in Q2. In just three days, you have created a small body of evidence. What does it look like? More importantly, what do you need to do now?

In the future, you won’t have many formal assignments that require you to be metacognitive and reflective to this degree. Instead, you will need to find time every week or so to think and write like this on your own. We might take a class period here and there to revisit and refine that metacognitive and reflective process, or to talk about the protégé effect and its impact on your learning, but that would be no different from taking a period to talk about organization or timed writing or critical thinking. We’ll deal with skills and traits as necessary.

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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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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.