Update #1: Deadlines
The assignment titled “Self-Control” is now due October 19, 7:00 AM. You aren’t in class on Wednesday, which gives you some time to finish reading and draft a response. Photocopies of the post for this assignment (The Fatal Flying Guillotine) will be available in class on Tuesday. Here is a section of the prompt as it appears on Google Classroom:
Read the instructional post below carefully. Then you must work together and with Ms. Olson and me to write a response that deals with
(1) your close reading of this post;
(2) metacognitive analysis of HOW you read;
(3) your self-awareness with regard to your self-control; and
(4) the assiduousness and self-efficacy you believe it will take to master self-control.
The assignment titled “Gestalt Suite: Getting to Know You” is now due October 20, 11:59 PM. You have had the instructional post (Gestalt Suite: Getting to Know You) since October 8. Because of the particulars of the assignment, no photocopies have been made. Here is a sectIon of the prompt as it appears on Google Classroom:
As you make your way through these instructions, the explicit self-assessments, and the other data-gathering work in that post, you should be writing to make sense of what you discover. This is the metacognitive and reflective writing that comprises the upper-tier profiles. You can attach copies of this writing here on October 17. Otherwise, mark this assignment as done on October 17 — not before — to indicate that you have opted out of this part of the work.
Update #2: Grade Abatement Profile Scores
The deadline for the GAP assignment titled “GAP Score: Q1B” was pushed from Friday to Sunday night, October 15, 11:59 AM. As a result, it will take 3-4 days to process your evidence and self-assessments.
Continue to use the profiles, skills and traits, and other tools of learning and assessment on a daily basis. Here is a copy of the “Other Daily Resources” section on our homepage:
[expand title=”Click here when you need direction(s).”]
| Three Steps to Repeat | Semester Calendar | Classroom Posters |
|---|---|---|
 |  |  |
[/expand]
Those documents are right below this direct link to a printable version of the profiles, skills, and traits themselves:
Grade Abatement Profiles with Universal Skills/Traits
If you know you haven’t internalized these ideas yet, now is the time. Ask for help, including here, in the comment section of this post.
Update #3: Interstitial Learning
Starting soon1, I am going to try to have a “word of the day” for us. The first word will be interstitial. Here is a link to the Wikipedia page for the word:
I use this term metaphorically, but you should pay attention to this section of that page: “Interstitial art [is] any work of art whose basic nature falls between, rather than within, the familiar boundaries of accepted genres or media.” As Piet Hein said, art is solving problems while we figure out the questions. That’s a Humanities makerspace.
Anyway, I call this classroom interstitial for exactly that reason: The instruction and discussion does not fit into the familiar boundaries of your learning. You must retrain yourself to access learning interstitially, or in the spaces between other structures and objects. You must also see that each bit of instruction, in or out of class, connects:
The entire post is an explanation of what we’re doing, written as thoughtfully and clearly as I can make it. And while it all teaches you something, you could do worse than to focus solely on this section:
To recap, you can access the interstitial teaching of this course in many ways, at almost any hour, and almost anywhere. Because of that access, your default action in class can no longer be to read these posts. To help you with this choice, there is now a corner of our classroom where you can temporarily store your computer, phone, tablet, etc.
Moving on, you use the first few minutes of each class period to decide clearly and consciously how you will spend the time. If you keep your computer in front of you, it should only be so that you can create. Even leaving comments online gets away from the kinetic act of creation we need to embrace, because that’s a part of interstitial instruction. Think of it this way: You have access to Google and this website anywhere, but you only have access to this physical space once a day for 42 minutes.
It’s about using your time in class more consciously, not abandoning technology. Your default action is the one we need to question; for some of you, the class period might remain the best time to read a post and make sense of it. For most of us, however, the classroom should be a space of interaction, discussion, and creation.
To do that, you must read interstitially, in the moments in between other responsibilities and events. You can also think of this as good ol’ fashioned homework: the reading you need to do at home to prepare to write, think, and read further in class.
Well, this site tracks how many times each page is viewed. Here are the numbers for the week ending at approximately 11:30 AM on October 16:
They seem normal enough. It’s a little low, perhaps, because there are about 100 juniors who should be reading instruction on here regularly, and a quick look at the comments page suggests that some students are visiting pages many, many times. Those numbers should be much higher, if everyone is doing their homework throughout the week.
Now look carefully at this chart:
Just like you did with the first image, you had to click on that image in order to see it. Well, there’s something interesting about that: Every click on these pages is logged. When you’re given a link to the definition of a word you might not know, clicking on it is logged. If you load a separate essay that is required reading, that’s logged, too.
Over the last week, it certainly seems as if no one is clicking on these links. I can’t be sure if these data are 100% inclusive, since I don’t have access to the program that WordPress uses to collect them; it’s possible, therefore, that more students are doing what they’re required to do. But what can the percent margin of error really be? The conclusion is the same: You have to read more closely.
Maybe you don’t click on a link the first time through. That’s fine. When you load the instructional post again, you have another chance to read more deeply. That’s the requirement: To force yourself to slow down, click on links, connect information, and develop the hooks that Paul Graham talks about here:
To some extent it’s like learning history. When you first read history, it’s just a whirl of names and dates. Nothing seems to stick. But the more you learn, the more hooks you have for new facts to stick onto– which means you accumulate knowledge at what’s colloquially called an exponential rate. Once you remember that Normans conquered England in 1066, it will catch your attention when you hear that other Normans conquered southern Italy at about the same time. Which will make you wonder about Normandy, and take note when a third book mentions that Normans were not, like most of what is now called France, tribes that flowed in as the Roman empire collapsed, but Vikings (norman = north man) who arrived four centuries later in 911. Which makes it easier to remember that Dublin was also established by Vikings in the 840s. Etc, etc squared.
The more you read, the more you make connections between ideas, the more you learn. That’s how the site was built initially, and its the logic that drives every iteration of it.
If you aren’t currently one of the few students pushing into these instructional posts, interacting with the lessons, clicking on links, etc, you need to become one of those students immediately. Let me help you, too. It’s not as much of an adjustment as you’d think, and it’s going to pay off in every class and course and job in the future.
This originally said “tomorrow,” which was wishful thinking on my part. Thursday is possible, but I want to do this the right way; it could be a week before we start this. ↩