Category: 2019-2020

Updates and general feedback for students taking the course in 2019-2020.

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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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February 24, 2020

  By 2019-2020

Take today’s class period to reset your focus. Start with a review of the updated instructional website:

You must read every instructional post. Every modification and individualized element for the next three months will be built on your understanding of these lectures and lessons.

If you have questions, you can help yourself and others by leaving comments online. The ability to leave comments may be blocked in school, but you show more initiative by asking those questions at home, anyway.

Tomorrow, we will look more closely at statements of purpose. You should write a statement of purpose for each of these projects. You might start with that instructional post:

Statements of Purpose

You’re really after the habit of using these posts as references and guides. You should return to them continuously.

You can also use today to reset your in-class focus and productivity. Remember that your use of class time will determine your success, especially the success we translate into a grade. GAP Q3A ends on Friday, February 28.

It may help to think of it this way: You must tally up 35–40 minutes of productivity in class every day. You can manage that during the class period. If you don’t use the time in class, however, you must make up all that lost time somehow. You could be given a study hall in 210, a tutor in the Learning Center, required meetings after school, and so on. There’s a post on this sort of motivation:

Feedback: In Shambles

It’s almost certainly preferable to do the work during class.

 

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February 3, 2020

  By 2019-2020

End of Q2

This week is the last week of the first semester:

Provisional Q2 scores will be posted today. As necessary, we will meet throughout the week to review evidence, discuss progress, and make adjustments. Scores will be finalized on Friday, February 7.

Be sure that you review the following feedback before reacting to your provisional or final GAP scores for Q2:

Static GAP Score Feedback

Start of Q3

Meanwhile, you are beginning the assessment panel for Q3A, which covers the following dates:

For each of the following reading assignments, focus on solidifying your understanding. Take notes, ask questions, chase down links, etc, to the extent that you need the review. Every student needs some review, however, and you should spend at least an hour or so on Monday, February 3, reviewing these posts.

First, review how you’ll be motivated, rewarded, and encouraged for the remainder of the year:

Feedback: In Shambles

The next post covers the idea of a feedback chain, including examples of how one works. You need to focus on your use of feedback as much as your in-class focus during the second semester, and this explains how:

The Feedback Chain

Finally, review the lessons and activities on organization that we covered explicitly earlier in the year. Organize yourself for the second semester:

Organization: Getting Things Done

We will review the major projects for the second semester throughout the week of February 3. You will be set up to complete those projects according to your own timeline. Use the posts embedded above to prepare for that kind of student-driven learning.

You can ask questions about any of this information below.

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January 22, 2020

  By 2019-2020

This is a brief overview of where you should be on Wednesday, January 22. It has been cross-posted to your Classroom Materials section and as an announcement on the Google Classroom stream. A third version was posted as a formal assignment: After you’ve reviewed this information, together with me in class or on your own, mark the assignment as done and continue with the writing work. You don’t need to create or attach any additional responses.

Brief Overview for Wednesday, January 22

You’ve read two nonfiction texts on the subject of akrasia — why we don’t follow through on our best intentions — and procrastination. A video based on the second nonfiction piece was given to clarify some of its concepts. You’ve examined those pieces through a worksheet, available in class and online, that invites process analysis and analysis of big ideas and essential questions.

You were then given a prompt to write a shorter essay about the big ideas and essential questions in the nonfiction. You were reissued the universal guide to writing for this. Peer-to-peer narrative feedback sheets were printed for use as you finish the writing, as well.

All other missing work from this quarter should be jettisoned in order to focus on this shorter essay. The only exception is if you have been reassigned the reader-response essay, in which case you should prioritize that work. We can edit and adjust expectations and deadlines through individual meetings.

Current Resources

Delineated below are the resources that are hyperlinked above:

http://sisypheanhigh.com/malachite/?p=2339 | Unit on Akrasia and Procrastination
https://tinyurl.com/sisyphus-writes | Universal Writing Process

https://tinyurl.com/scoreless-feedback | Peer Feedback Sheet

https://tinyurl.com/simple-analysis-01 | Text Analysis: Directions
https://tinyurl.com/simple-analysis-02 | Text Analysis: Online
https://tinyurl.com/simple-analysis-03 | Text Analysis: Offline

http://sisypheanhigh.com/malachite/?p=3714 | Reader-Response Updates and Feedback
http://sisypheanhigh.com/malachite/?p=3736 | Notes on Late and Missing Assignments

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January 11, 2020

  By 2019-2020, Triage

This post concerns itself mostly with the reader-response essay on The Things They Carried, which is part of the writing work outlined here. It is also an important look at how the average student handles deadlines and directions. It should be read with both concerns in mind.

Reader-Response Essay: Background and The Things They Carried

We began reading The Things They Carried in mid-November. The formal writing assignments were posted online on December 3 at this address: http://sisypheanhigh.com/malachite/?p=3517. The details of the required essay, the titular reader’s response, were posted on December 5: http://sisypheanhigh.com/malachite/?p=3514.

To help students write the essay, they were given essential questions to answer by December 6. Three days later, on December 9, they were given model responses to these essential questions to use in the writing process: http://sisypheanhigh.com/malachite/?p=3683.

The formal essay prompt was also posted to Google Classroom on December 6. The deadline was given as December 19.

For students who did not do the required reading of The Things They Carried, multiple alternative options were provided: the four chapters spanning pages 118-130; “Speaking of Courage,” which starts on page 131; or “The Ghost Soldiers,” which starts on page 180.

Collected in the formal essay assignment were a bevy of resources. Students had access to an instructional post detailing the reader-response process (http://sisypheanhigh.com/malachite/?p=3013); a printed and online guide to writing a reader-response essay (https://tinyurl.com/maker-readres); and a modified chart to use to brainstorm and outline (https://tinyurl.com/reader-res-chart).

Students were also given multiple digital resources for the novel (http://sisypheanhigh.com/malachite/?p=3514) and another copy of our universal writing guide (https://tinyurl.com/sisyphus-writes).

One of the last requirements for this assignment was to submit a copy of the essay to Turnitin.com. Directions for this were covered in class, included on Google Classroom, and posted online: http://sisypheanhigh.com/malachite/?p=1434.

Adjustments and Modifications: “Speaking of Courage”

On December 17, two days before the deadline for these essays, a work-in-progress grade was posted to Infinite Campus. All students and stakeholders were sent a letter explaining these WIP scores and detailing the current assignment: https://tinyurl.com/stakeholders-121719. A copy of the letter was also shared on Google Classroom:

The deadline came on December 19. Students who failed to meet this deadline were immediately given the chance to advocate for extensions and modifications. These meetings took place on December 19 and December 20.

If the assignment was modified, students were required to read only one chapter, “Speaking of Courage,” in order to write their reader’s response. The essay parameters remained in place; because of the nature of O’Brien’s novel, however, a single chapter can be used for a reader-response essay without losing too much effectiveness.

Here is a screenshot of just one class period’s modified assignments as they were posted:

The deadlines were selected by the students themselves, with a hard cap of January 10, which is the start of Q2C. The complete schedule of GAP panels (as in the panels of a triptych) is here: https://tinyurl.com/gap-calendar-19.

Results: January 11, 2020

On January 11, a complete report was run for all student submissions. This deliberately coincides with the Q2B grade abatement profiles posted that weekend to Infinite Campus for the time frame/panel of 12/10/19–1/9/20.

There are 116 senior students in the makerspace this year. For this assignment, ten students had (or have) individualized expectations — extensions through the end of January; exemptions due to unique circumstances; alternative assignments developed in meetings with Guidance, parents, and administration; and so on.

106 students were, therefore, responsible for the reader-response essay that was due at some point between December 19 and January 10. Every student had the opportunity to request an extension or modification, per the rules of a grade-abated Humanities makerspace.

It is important to emphasize this timeline: January 10 was five weeks after the reader-response essay was assigned and two months after students began reading The Things They Carried. After the original deadline of December 19, we were all off for a two-week winter break; there were no other ongoing assignments for English 12 over the break, given students even more time to complete late work.

Equally important: The reader-response essay is an assured experience for English 12 students. So is the novel. These are two ineluctable elements of the English 12 curriculum. They are required. Even without student self-advocacy and a self-selected extension deadline, late work would have been accepted and given feedback.

And, again, students themselves selected the due date for their modified assignments. Any alterations to those self-selected deadlines were honored. All it took — all it ever takes — is student initiative.

The results: As of January 11, 48 of 106 students had not written a reader-response essay. 45% of students did not complete a required assignment.

It is notable that fully 100% of these 48 students have applied to college and, in many cases, been accepted. They plan to matriculate, each and every one, in the fall of 2020.

That statistic, 45%, lines up with what we know about students who aren’t ready for college. In 2014, most college students didn’t earn a degree in four years; more recent studies have the official six-year graduation percentage around 60%:

The official four-year graduation rate for students attending public colleges and universities is 33.3%. The six-year rate is 57.6%. At private colleges and universities, the four-year graduation rate is 52.8%, and 65.4% earn a degree in six years… Looking at national figures, you can see six-year graduation rates:

– Full-time, first-time students: 59.2%
– Transfer, full-time students: 58.9%
– Transfer, part-time students: 37.7%
– First-time, part-time students: 17.7%

The 40% or so who haven’t done an essay for their English 12 class match up with the 40% or so who don’t graduate from college. It’s why this makerspace leans so heavily on universal skills, traits, and knowledge: Without those basics, students won’t be successful next year. So we use these data to adjust, reassign the work, and forge ahead until we have 100% compliance.

What This Means

Every student who failed to complete it the first time will be given until January 17 to write a fully developed reader-response essay on a single chapter (“Speaking of Courage”) of The Things They Carried. This will be reassigned through Google Classroom to those students. All the original resources will be included.

After that assignment is reposted, separate revision assignments will be given to those students in the 55% who need to revise. This revision assignment will require students to seek and apply specific feedback about their work. The work must be sufficient, and that threshold has been repeatedly defined: http://sisypheanhigh.com/malachite/?p=2409, http://sisypheanhigh.com/malachite/?p=3658.

One other note: Any student who failed to submit the essay to Turnitin must complete that step by January 17. Turnitin submission is required. If there is no Turnitin submission by January 17, the student will experience the same repercussions as those students who do not finish an essay at all.

As to those repercussions: Students who fail to meet the new deadline of January 17 will be moved into the Learning Center for tutoring and/or have Senior Study Halls replaced with regularly scheduled Study Halls. This has already been explained in great detail in the following essential instructional post:

Feedback: In Shambles

As the student’s schedule is changed, the reader’s response will be assigned again with a new deadline. The work will be required to be monitored by a teacher and/or tutor. This will continue until the essay is completed. There will be no exemptions from other ongoing work.

There will also be the usual gamut of messages and meetings. The GAP score for Q2, at that point, will also default to the lowest tier — to remain there until the student finishes the required work in full.

Thumbnail for this post taken from Brian Kesigner’s Instagram.

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December 6, 2019

  By 2019-2020

Stay Organized

Circle back as often as necessary to the organizational resources from our mini-unit in November:

The most important resources are time in class and feedback from a teacher. Advocate for what you need. You’ll never be denied help.

For a while, some of the printed resources will be fanned out like this: Workshop Materials – Copies. You can zoom in on that image to see the wide range of choices available to you, from essay guides to copies of posts.

Below is another rundown of what to do. Remember that all course-wide feedback, updates, and instructions are dated and posted here: 2019-2020 Specifics.

GAP Q2A

Monday, December 9, is the end of the first panel of Quarter 2. Here is a screenshot, taken on Friday, December 6, of all the formal work due through Google Classroom during that panel:

You were also given digital and physical copies of a December Resource Pack that bridges Q1 and Q2. It’s posted to Google Classroom, the front page of this website, and the side menus. Here it is again:

DECEMBER RESOURCE PACK

Student Calendar [December]
Student Resources
Artifact Feedback Worksheet
GAP Worksheet [Q2A]

The GAP Worksheet [Q2A] lists out every assignment for Q2A as a self-assessment exercise. It contains a checklist. The only change is that the optional revisions of the last river essay were moved to Q2B.

As scores for Q2A are finalized, you’ll be given feedback based around the ideas in this post:

Feedback: In Shambles

You must read this carefully. You should also read the instructional post on sufficient and insufficient work.

The “shambles” post will be printed and distributed for in-class review on 12/9 and 12/10; the rest must be read on your own time.

Reader’s Response Essay

During the two weeks before winter break, you must complete a reader’s response, the specific requirements of which are found in two instructional posts:

  1. The Things They Carried
  2. Required Writing: When the Truth Isn’t Sufficient

The deadline is December 19 for the draft and a Turnitin.com submission. Here is a screenshot of the assignment on Google Classroom:

Note that there are options for students who did not complete the novel. All students can write this reader’s response, regardless of their progress on the novel.

As a component of the writing process, you must also answer five essential questions, which are outlined in the “Required Writing” post. Your responses will fuel discussion, which will shape the reader-response writing.

Copies of the reader-response guide are printed. Here is a direct link: tinyurl.com/maker-readres.

Pareto Projects

Your secondary focus, after the reader-response essay, will be to give feedback to select Pareto Projects. Be sure you have carefully read this post:

The Feedback Chain

You must give feedback in the way you want to receive it. The Golden Rule still applies.

Note that the students presenting or otherwise showcasing their projects this month have volunteered to do so. These works-in-progress will be featured on Fridays, but you will have access to them on other days.

These peers have put themselves out there, and you must respect that effort. You are not required to give feedback; if you do give feedback, however, it must be constructive and empathetic.

This worksheet is a good default mechanism for giving other students feedback on their Pareto Projects: Artifact Feedback Worksheet. Many copies are available in class.

As an example of how to approach this, consider this project:

If that file doesn’t load, here is a direct link to Google Drive: Student Short Fiction – 12/6.

Zoom in to see the extraordinary work done by this student. They created the feedback sheets you see for each piece, just like they prepared the folders and photocopies. All of it is available to anyone interested in reading and providing feedback.

This is where the language of the top-tier profiles comes into play. The eights, those who see a 95 in the gradebook, will embrace the chance to help out a peer with their writing:

An 8 reflects a systemic investment in the course and a desire to do more than just what is required. These students are also collegial, curious, and amenable in ways that galvanize their peers and demonstrably improve the learning environment.

If you want to improve the learning environment, give other students good feedback. Encourage their passion projects. Help them write the reader-response, sure, and keep them focused in class — that galvanizes, too. Pareto Projects are personal, though, and deserve special attention.

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December 3, 2019

  By 2019-2020

Resource Pack

Use what you learned about organization to sort this set of resources, which were posted to Google Classroom and distributed in class during the weather-related weirdness of the first two days this week:

That was the best use of our shortened schedule on Tuesday, so it’s being reposted here. As a reminder, here is what you were told on December 3, via what wsa cross-posted to Google Classroom:

River Essays: Feedback and Revision

This is a two-part exercise. First, we need a writing response. In this case:

River Writing: On Empathy

The writer has to find someone to read the work and give feedback. The writer also needs to prompt the reader with a preface of some sort — the Artifact Feedback Worksheet posted above takes care of this.

Second, the reader fills out the worksheet to give specific and actionable feedback. This has to be done by hand, at least for now, to make collection, redistribution, monitoring, etc, a little easier.

Since you’ll hand in a hard copy of this feedback worksheet, you’ll mark the upcoming Google Classroom assignment as done. That online version exists to give you the deadline and copies of the worksheet.

Q: What if you haven’t written anything?

If you haven’t written a response to this assignment, which was assigned a month ago, you can only give feedback. You’ll have to track down people who did the work to ask if you can read and comment on their writing. The students who share their work so that others can practice giving good feedback are creating evidence for a higher profile, so the reward is both the ability to improve the writing and a higher profile score.

Q: What about revisions?

The original December calendar required them by Friday, December 6. Due to snow cancellations and delays, that will become an optional revision due during Q2B (2/10–1/8). We’ll adjust the GAP worksheet and related resources together in class.

Essential Questions

We’ll finish our study of The Things They Carried this month, starting with a set of essential questions on themes explored by the novel. Note that some of these questions come from Facing History and Ourselves materials, including the FHAO resources for Elie Wiesel’s Night.

  1. What is the relationship between our stories and our identities?
  2. To what extent are we all witnesses of history and messengers to humanity?
  3. To what extent will the decisions we make now affect us and others in the future?
  4. How does an individual keep his or her humanity when surrounded by inhumanity?
  5. To what extent can we make the “right” moral decision when faced with adversity?

You will answer those five questions in two parts. First, you will complete this Google Form, which is also posted below. These responses will allow us to look, as a class, at all responses in an anonymous, collaborative fashion. Second, you will use what we gain from group discussions to expand on the original, individual answers.

The form: Essential Questions. Look to Google Classroom for the deadline, and mark that assignment as done when you’ve finished the form itself.

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November 18, 2019

  By 2019-2020

Notes and updates for Monday, November 18, 2019, which is the start of the second quarter. Read carefully, take notes, and ask questions.

Skill Building: Organization

We are going to take a few days to work on organization as an essential skill. The reading and writing components are here:

Organization: Getting Things Done

It’s worth noting the SWOT analysis assignment that is given context within that post. You may also benefit from reading this post, which is also another example of how feedback works best:

Exemplary Feedback

Don’t drag your feet about this organizational work until a formal assignment is posted to Google Classroom. Show that you can take steps forward before then. Let the posts guide you.

Soft Reboot: Q2

You need to make better use of the physical space, starting with the following directions.

The whiteboard table needs to have a more limited number of students using it at any given time, and those students need to be working on an assignment that requires a whiteboard.

The office chairs need to stay by the touchscreen TV for small-group instruction, which can be expanded to include the conference table lined up with the TV.

The rest of the furniture needs to be spread out — no more bunching up in groups of five or six just to be near each other. If it’s not a conscious decision to improve collaboration, rethink it.

If you don’t need your phone for reading or writing, it should be stored somewhere else. If you do need it for an assignment, you also need permission. Any other use is distracting you.

You can still choose to work with any peers you’d like to work with. If you’re not productive in those groups, that will be reflected in feedback and assessment.

Start of Class

The information from this handout/post is required:

This is posted to Google Classroom, right above the required daily calibration. It’s on the front page of this website as direct links:

It’s on the walls by the cell phone cubbies, too, and you will be using those more frequently.

You need to learn self-reliance and self-control. It starts with goal-setting. Do the daily calibration form every day until it’s a habit.

You also need to get to work immediately after any announcements or directions are given. You need time to transition into the right headspace, but you must be moving in that direction.

Feedback Chain

You should have a printed copy of this post on feedback:

The Feedback Chain

It is required reading. The post is obviously a better place to read this information, because you can enlarge images, click on links, etc; it’s been printed so that you can shut down your screens and read without distractions, if you need to.

Snap&Read Universal and Co:Writer Universal

This is part of the organizational mini-unit, but it needs to be isolated here. It will help with the amount of instructional reading you must do.

Review the plug-ins Snap&Read Universal and Co:Writer Universal. You can use them to eliminate distractions, define words, look up references, and so on. If you don’t already have these from last year, we can take a period to install and review them as a class.

The Things They Carried

Continue reading the book. Don’t stop reading it. Don’t ask what page number you have to reach — the answer is that you should keep reading until you finish.

There will be a post on what you’ll do with this novel, but not until we’ve completed a soft reboot of the course through an organizational mini-unit.

The next few weeks of Q2 will be spent studying The Things They carried or incorporating it into other lessons. Keep reading.

River Writing: On Empathy

Continue writing the essay. Here again is the prompt:

River Writing: On Empathy

Don’t wait for another deadline to be posted to Google Classroom. One will be there, but not until we finish these organizational lessons.

Just keep writing. Set up conferences, ask questions, and collaborate with each other. Show that you can be self-directed.

Pareto Projects: Q2

We had a chance to talk last week about sharing progress through structured discussions, small presentations, and other showcases. Starting in December, we’ll use the occasional Friday to do this.

Note two things:

  1. This low-stakes work will be good practice for the end-of-year senior talks.
  2. You will only have to share out your progress according to your comfort level.

Interstitial Instructional Posts

Lastly, another reminder to read actively and interstitially — that is, when you have a few minutes to dedicate to it — every post like this one.

If you aren’t clicking on links and actively taking in information from these posts, start clicking on links and actively taking in information. Every post will teach you more than what’s indicated in its title or subheading. Most posts will review important skills, traits, and knowledge, if you read actively and deeply.

Mostly, though, you can’t be lost if you read and click and think a little bit. These posts are the textbooks, packets, and lectures of the course. They also provide flexibility for every assignment. But you have to read them.

If you have questions, including questions about these updates, ask them in the comment section, where other students can benefit from the answers.

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November 13, 2019

  By 2019-2020

Quarter 1 ends on Friday, November 15. Let’s use the next three days to assess your progress.

The most powerful and consistent feedback is, as always, the GAP score you receive. It indicates a profile, and that profile is a cipher for universal skills and traits that were honed and tested through various assignment from the panel or quarter.

The next most powerful and consistent feedback is found in instructional posts like this recent one. These posts improve your ability to self-assess through exemplars, general discussion, and the practice of deep reading.

The third level of feedback is what happens in class. The caveat is that the power of that face-to-face feedback is almost entirely dependent on how well you use the kinds mentioned above. If you have some clarity on grade abatement and read deeply on this website, you have the foundations for bell-to-bell work in the makerspace.

11/13/19 – 11/15/19

Over the next few days, you will self-assess through another GAP report, submit evidence of your current writing process, and share your Q1 Pareto Project progress. Except for the GAP report, these submissions will be part of the evidentiary process for Q2A, which ends on December 9. The focus will be on growth and improvement.

You should also focus on reading as far as possible in the current novel, The Things They Carried. There is no page number you need to reach, because the goal is now to finish. Demonstrate through your actions that you are hitting your potential, not an arbitrary page number. This weekend, after we’ve wrapped up Q1, you will receive a instructional post with more context.

Finally, we need to collaborate to improve your use of class time. I think this starts with a soft ban on phones. Read this updated guide to the start of class, and note the emphasis on how you set up your physical workspace: What to Do at the Start of Class.

Some of you will need direct, written feedback about your use of class time. This may be written to groups, not just individuals. Others may need to be separated physically from their self-selected groups in order to build better habits.

Remember that many people struggle to be disciplined at work. The Dunning-Kruger effect is one reason for that. Whatever the reason, you need enough self-awareness and self-control to stay focused when required to, especially when the requirement is only 30-40 minutes at a time.

These are the habits and skills everyone needs. If you read this instructional post carefully, you learned that colleges and careers desire self-control and self-efficacy as much any job-specific skill set of academic knowledge.

I believe that part of what’s happening is, first, that jobs are increasingly automated and outsourced, which means that the more important skills are human ones, like empathy and creativity. The analog in academics is the extent to which knowledge is externalized and crowdsourced. The more important skills are, again, the ones that can’t be programmed, like collegiality and creativity.

And at the base of that collaborative and creative skillset is the capacity to focus and regulate yourself. If you’re competing with machine learning and automated productivity, you can’t get distracted every five minutes by gossip or your phone. You have to be disciplined and serious. The difference between you and everyone else will be your capacity to conquer what is called akrasia.

Right now, far too many of you are undisciplined and unserious. You can call it senioritis, blame it on the system, etc, but it comes down to habits of mind:

Ongoing Discussion: Grain through the Body of a Bird