Monthly Archives: February 2009

Due Thursday:

•  Complete the handout on Triangle Factory Fire internet investigation.  Use the website on the handout given in class and be prepared to discuss your findings
• Make progress with your sustainability project.  If you have not yet visited a location, YOU MUST get moving on that.  The quality of your final grade will depend on the effort that you put into this project.  Again, talk to Sarah or I, your parents, friends’ parents, make calls, do whatever you can to volunteer at an organization of your choice.  

Due Next Wednesday (plan ahead because I want quality, thoughtful poems!)

• Using inspiration from today’s writing workshop (either Love That Dog or “Metaphors and Similes”) write THREE poems, type them on separate sheets of paper and be prepared to share them in class.  Your poems my not be skimpy four liners.  They must have depth, meaning, a voice, humor or seriousness, a mood, and meaning for you.  Try your best and get started early.  We will have a “poetry slam” celebration in class and read our poems in he next few weeks.

Due Wednesday:

•  Three poems typed and printed (by 8:20!) that are inspired by our last writer’s workshop – either Love That Dog or “metaphors and similes”.

Due Thursday:

•  Completed “investigative research” on Triangle Fire using the handout as your guide.  Be prepared to discuss and share. 

Due Monday:

Read the excerpt from Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the American Meal (the book the film was based upon) by Eric Schlosser. This is nonfiction, and is an example of investigative journalism. Complete questions on handout.  (Please note that the due date on this sheet is incorrect, and the blog is not letting me correct it! It’s due Monday, Feb. 23).  It was started in class on Friday when I was out.  **If you were absent, this is an easy book to get a the library or bookstore, and I recommend doing this so you are not behind.  Excerpts: Chapter 8: “The Most Dangerous Job,” pages 169-178 & 187-190
Chapter 9: ”What’s In the Meat,” pages 204-205.

Due Wednesday:

Using our models from Writing workshop, write 3 odes to ordinary, everyday objects using unexpected and vivid similes and metaphors. Typed and with proper headings, please!

O N G O I N G:

By now you should ALL have a sustainability visit (1 or more!) and a blog post up! Many of you do not.  If you have not spoken with me, I can’t help you set something up! Email me with questions or concerns and keep being unstoppable in setting up visits! Remember, your posts are PUBLIC and must be respectful and professional.  The directions for posting are on the blog–follow the format.

To post go to blog.lrei.org/greencore/wp-admin.  The password is something you can find out from your classmates–hint: it’s the reverse.  NOTE: WE DIDN’T TELL YOU THIS BUT YOU MUST ALSO CLICK off the 2008-2009 box above your name and then click the box in front of your name as well on the right after you compose the journal entry. Look it up under Blog Post Directions for more clarity.

IMPORTANT NOTES:

1. If you have not visited a sustainability organization and posted, you MUST!  See Sarah tomorrow with questions and concerns.

2. Disc Dance tomorrow at Friends Seminary!  Bring in your signed permission slip (Lynne emailed a copy to your parents if you were not here to get the handout) and your $6.00!

 Due Friday:

“Fast Food Nation: The Film:” questions and comparisons to The Jungle.  Assignment attached. 

**If you were absent, you will need to catch up on viewing this.  The film is rated R and is graphic; we sent a letter home letting your parents know it has swear words in it.  It is a dramatization, using real footage in some parts, of the book, which is a true account of the meat processing industry.   We only watched the following clips or chapters from the DVD, as the rest is not relevant to our course of study (and is inappropriate for in-school) . Fast Food Nation: The Film: See Chapters 3, 7, 8, 12, 14 (just first half), 18, 19 (just first half), 22, 23, 25, 26, 27 (& 27 has a VERY intense animal slaughter–kids chose to leave the room today; watch at your own discretion but NOT NECESSARY)

Due Monday:

Read the excerpt from Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the American Meal (the book the film was based upon) by Eric Schlosser, and complete questions on handout.  It was started in class on Friday when I was out.  **If you were absent, this is an easy book to get a the library or bookstore, and I recommend doing this so you are not behind.  Assignment covers only pages 169-178 and 187-190 and 204-205.

Due Wednesday:

Using our models from Writing workshop, write 3 odes to ordinary, everyday objects using unexpected and vivid similes and metaphors. Typed and with proper headings, please!

You have  a 4-day weekend! Yesterday was Lincoln’s 200th Birthday. Happy Birthday, Lincoln!

Due Wednesday, April 18:

1. Visit with your Sustainability Organization and post on the blog!

To post go to blog.lrei.org/greencore/wp-admin.  The password is something you can find out from your classmates–hint: it’s the reverse.  NOTE: WE DIDN”T TELL YOU THIS BUT YOU MUST ALSO CLICK off the 2008-2009 box above your name and then click the box in front of your name as well on the right after you compose the journal entry. Look it up under Blog Post Directions for more clairity.

2. Packet on The Jungle– the excerpt from the novel is posted–it’s about 10 pages long.  The assignment is at the top and the excerpt from the novel follows it.

• You Must Complete Part A
• You have a choice to complete part B or do an optional C choice explained here.
• Option C: Select a 1-2 paragraph excerpt that is particularly visual and striking to you. Type that out on a sheet of paper with the proper heading (Book title, chapter, page number if possible and author).  Then, to accompany this selection, imagine that you must create a visual representation to this excerpt for a magazine publication.  Create that visual representation in drawing or photo montage.  This must be posting quality, have colors and meaning with the text.

***Congrats on finishing your last ERBs of Middle School!!!!Due Friday:

•  Read the two-sided handout with excerpts from various muckraking/investigative journal articles PLUS the story on the backside.
• Complete the answers to the questions on our handout and be prepared to discuss tomorrow.

• Tenement Museum trip is scheduled for tomorrow. We will leave school at 12:30 and return by 3:00.  Please where comfortable shoes and clothes.  Dress appropriately for the weather as well. 

 *Great job today on the first of our ERB’s! Don’t forget to eat a good breakfast and come tomorrow by 8:20.  Also, remember to bring your independent reading book. **Due Thursday: Age of Extremes. Ch. 23 & 24.  Complete the vocabulary and questions on the handout.

•  O N G O I NG
• *** Sustainability Project:  You must have COMPLETED one visit (or more!)  and written a blog post about it by Wednesday, Feb 18.  

Due Tuesday: 

• First. Reflect on our Socratic Seminar on Lady L.  (separate sheet of paper)

1. What did you like/not like about the “Lady L” discussion and why?
2. What did you learn about what makes a good discussion from the two socratic seminars we’ve had so far?
3. Make at least one suggestion for what the class, as a whole, needs to work on to build better conversations. 
4. What ideas do you have on new “tasks” that the outside circle could track?
5. Choose one of the readings from “Lady L”, the one that you found most striking or affecting.  What did you want to say about it that didn’t get said? Use a quotation from it in your writing. 

• B.  Second. Look at the “Sustainability Blog” from last year.

1. Review the blog posting requirements under the “Project Expectations” link in the left-hand side column.
2. Find a good blog posting from last year’s eighth grade and cut it out, paste into a word document and print out to turn in tomorrow. (Make sure that your name is on this)

• **** Change in first Blog posting deadline:
•  FIRST BLOG POST DUE ON TUESDAY, FEB 17.  This will give you more time to make contact and a visit to an organization!!!! 
• You must have had a conversation–via email or by phone–with a sustainability contact and set up your first visit by Tuesday!  You should also be educating yourself about your issue and collecting information. 

***Great job on the first round of our Socratic Seminar! Looking forward to our second round on Monday in Core All.***Continue contacting or re-contacting your organizations.  Please seek out new organizations if you first choices have hit a dead end.

• Due Monday:
• Read the packet called “Tenement Life” with four readings.  (I suggest you to annotate while you read so that you can absorb as much detail as possible from these texts.)
• Read the sample business letter to a “Building Manager” (or owner) of tenement houses.
• Write a letter of your own to a pretend “Building Manager” as if you were an inspector from the NYC Department of Housing.  In your letter, expose the conditions under which immigrants were living in tenements in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s and make suggestions about how to improve those living conditions. Use at least three direct quotations from the texts. The assignment and model letter are here. Make this a good one! Must be typed. 

Wow! Great job with the film today; I was thrilled with the response. (from Sarah Barlow!).

• Due Thursday:

1.  Write a 3/4 of a page, typed response to the film, “Fuel.”  Use the responsive writing rubric, if you find it helpful. If you want to get some more info,  here is a link: http://thefuelfilm.com/. 
2. Make at least one NEW sustainability contact by phone or email.Be able to prove you have done this!  By Friday, you should aim to have a meeting or visit set up. 

Due Friday:

• Read “Lady L” chapter in the Age of Extremes book.  Go on to look up & define the words in the packet, and annotate the packet (make mad amounts of notes on questions, on connections to you, to the world, to core, to current events to history and literature, capture things it makes you think of, wonder about, just really dig in deeply to the texts) for a Lady Liberty Socratic Seminar on Friday. Your annotations will be GRADED, so go wild!