Special Weapons and Tactics

*Stock image by way of the website of Blaz Kos, who has a phenomenal name. Would it have been a contender for Name of the Year? I don’t know. I just want an excuse to link to Deadspin’s NOTY. That will be time well spent.

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Progress Reports

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Junior S.W.O.T. Analysis

Our course intends to be a makerspace, which means that we intend to be flexible and responsive in what you are assigned, what you are taught, and what you create. Over the last two weeks, the divergent paths in Regents English 11 and its AP counterpart have repeatedly returned to the same concern:

Back to Basics

That’s a post written for the AP classes, but it contains some of the texts assigned to Regents students last week. We need to revisit how juniors are sorted and tracked at a later date; for now, it’s enough to note that you all need to grapple with procrastination, focus, stress, and time management.

On a not-unrelated note, Friday is the day marked by the high school for progress reports. Since our course is grade-abated, there will be no numbers to obsess over in Infinite Campus; instead, you will receive feedback of a different kind. You’ll need the profiles and tiered explications of grade abatement, and then you’ll need to read these:

• Personal SWOT Analysis: Making the Most of Your Talents and Opportunities
• MindTools: SWOT Infographic

Those two links instruct you in how to create a personal SWOT analysis. The acronym stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, which are sorted according to whether they are internally or externally derived. Note that they tend to be less about specific actions and decisions, and more about the traits and habits that lead to those decisions.

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An Aside: Big Brother Is (Sort of) Watching

We are focusing on assiduousness and akrasia now in all junior classes for a number of reasons:

1. Your choices are central to grade abatement.
2. These choices are correlated with academic success — as well as stress and anxiety.
3. The essays and videos you’ve been given recently help you practice close reading.

Another reason? A few of you are off-task. Habitually. Not in the sense that you are briefly distracted, either. In the sense that you wile away the period discussing the way a drunk friend vandalized your property over the weekend, or in the sense that you spend more than a half-hour doing your AP US History homework instead of, you know, what I’ve asked you to do.

Last week, one of you packed up with five minutes remaining, took the small hair trimmer from your purse, and began trying to sculpt a friend’s eyebrows. That’s the sort of thing that I will stop you from doing, and not just because it is obviously inappropriate. Like throwing an inflatable shark across the room (also from last week; Spirit Week makes you all vaguely insane), it’s disruptive to others. If you don’t cross that line, however, I am likely to let you go. It’s your grave to dig.

Still, I see you. Your peers see you. We see your disrespect and disregard for the freedom of the class — a freedom that is best expressed in this way:

1. If you need to talk or even to write about a friend’s drunken vandalism, this is the class that can probably make that fit your learning process. That’s rich subject matter for an essay, especially during a study of akrasia and empathy.
2. If you desperately need to finish US History homework, I’ll probably let you use the class period, because we can turn that into a closer look at your organization, assiduousness, stress, integrity, etc. It’s worth delving into why you’re in that position. It might be reflective of the system, of your personal life, of a misunderstanding of grade abatement — all things that lend themselves to a feedback loop.

That’s freedom. If, however, you decide without discussion and sanction that you aren’t going to do our work, you might just fail this course. Look at the language of a GAP 2, which”may indicate a deliberate and systemic disengagement from the learning process.” The first time you choose to disrespect the classroom to that extent, you’ve deliberately disengaged. You’re halfway to a 2.

I don’t have time to redirect you every time you make a bad choice, especially in classes with 30+ students. If sharks or nose hair start flying, yes, I’ll intervene; in most cases, however, you need to be very, very afraid of what will happen if I have to take time to deal with you.

TL;DR: Don’t disrespect the class period. If you do, you’ll fail, and not just in the traditional sense. Train yourself to think differently about the environment.

End Aside

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Junior S.W.O.T. Analysis (Continued)

Your next step is to determine how to adapt this tool to meet your needs. You could use the worksheet MindTools designed, or you could head over to Google to search for other templates, models, and approaches to SWOT analysis. There are dozens. I will offer you this one, which will be shared individually with each of you through Google Classroom:

• Student SWOT Analysis

Find a format that makes sense to you, and then adapt it to meet your individual needs. Complete that SWOT analysis with as much insight and detail as possible. Keep in mind what you’ve learned over the first month of school, too; the subjects of our lessons and your learning (empathy, assiduousness, stress, procrastination, etc) should directly inform this sort of thing.

The deadline is Tuesday for this work, but you’ll want to have it done well before then. This is your progress report, and it will be far more edifying than a range of numbers and a canned comment — if you do it well.

You’ll need to submit your SWOT analysis through Google Classroom (where the directions and links are cross-posted), so if you’re doing the work by hand, start thinking about how to get a copy of it online.

Ask questions about the assignment, including the particulars of a SWOT analysis, below.