Friday, April 29, 2016

Friday, April 29th

Students turned in the rough draft of their research paper. Many of the students in periods 5 and 6 got theirs back.

The class considered several themes that will be important in Persepolis: Political Changes; immigration & exile; clothing as sign and signal; social pressure & gender; Human Rights; religiosity; culture and customs; kinds of education; family; social class.

Students wrote about one of these topics.

Periods 5 and 6 discussed the opening of Persepolis.


Wednesday, April 27, 2016

Wednesday, April 27th

Students had a final opportunity to turn in their outlines and get feedback on them before rough drafts of the research paper are due next class.

Students were given a journaling assignment to work on during our study of Persepolis.

The class participated in a Tea Party introducing the characters of the memoir.


Tuesday, April 26, 2016

Monday, 25 April

Students checked Persepolis out from the library.

Students were given several short lessons on how to organize note cards into stacks with topic sentences in order to create a well organized research paper.

Students were asked to turn in an outline according to the following annotated drawing. Many turned it in and were given it back with comments in class. All students should get one to Mr. Zartler NO LATER then next class. Students should get feedback on the outline BEFORE typing their rough draft (due Friday, April 29th).

Thursday, April 21, 2016

Thursday, 21 April

Next Due Dates:
Students are to bring all (20-25) Note Cards to next class.
Research Paper Rough Draft is due on Friday, 29 Apri

Students will check Persepolis out from the library on Monday, 24 April.

Class spend time considering coming of age activities and markers; and we spent time considering the questions that keep teens up at night.

Tuesday, April 19, 2016

Tuesday, 19 April

Students turned in:

Two (2) annotated bibliographies
Showed five (5) note cards
Six Panel Memoirs and a self-evaluation that answered the questions: What change is shared? Is / do you think this is a common experience.

Next class 15 notes are due.

The class reviewed 4 visual mystery texts (5th period read expert texts) 6th and 8th periods read a provocative text. Students worked in group to create a mind map of what they knew, discovered, and learned about Iran and Iranian society.


We also reviewed how to create a hanging indent for bibliography entries:

Word: Select the entry; choose format; choose paragraph; choose special; choose "hanging".

To format a hanging indent in Google Docs, use this link for instructions.

Friday, April 15, 2016

Friday, April 15th

Today students had time to work on their 6-Panel Memoir and to work on research for their research paper.

Mr. Zartler presented lessons on MLA Format (required for the research paper) and making Note Cards.


Note cards are the best way to organize your notes, because you only have to make one Bibliography card for each source, and then by physically moving your cards into different piles you will have a pretty easy time organizing your essay.

You might begin with Google Doc entries that looks like this (3 notes and the Citation):


Our society seems more interested in sending young, African-American males to prison than to college. (2)

To Kill a Mockingbird is a book that many use as an example of how to unlearn racism. (4)

The School-to-Prison pipeline is one sign of both white privilege and intrenched racism. (18)

Maher, Steffany Comfort. "Using To Kill a Mockingbird as a Conduit for Teaching about the 
     School-to-Prison Piplein." English Journal. 102.4 (2013): 45-52. Print




In order to turn these notes into note cards, you need to make three (3) separate note cards and a bibliography cards (4 cards total). Each card would end up looking like this one:


You will also have one card that is just the MLA citation



                  Maher, Steffany Comfort. "Using To Kill a Mockingbird as a Conduit for Teaching 
                       about the School-to-Prison Piplein." English Journal. 102.4 (2013): 45-52. Print

Thursday, April 14, 2016

Wednesday, 13 April

Students met with their counselors for forecasting.

Students receive feedback on their first annotated bibliography.

Common key points are:
Annotated Bibliography
A) Purpose is to let others know if a source will help them.
B) Answers two (2) questions:
     1) What kinds of information are included (BE SPECIFIC) 3-5 sentences
     2) Is it reliable? Why? 1-3 sentences.

Students met with their counselors for forecasting.

The class also discussed the six panel memoir assignment and reviewed some of the conventions of graphic story telling.

Due date for the notes and memoir were changed: both are now due on Tuesday, April 26th. Students will have some time to work on both or either in class on Friday.

Monday, April 11, 2016

Monday, 11 April

Students turned in a printed copy of their first annotated bibliography at the start of class.

The class then worked on identifying the key words for researching: Genocide; who; when; where; what; how; why; victims/ targets; perpetrators; bystanders; key events; motivation; experts; emotional and political energy.

Students then generated and shared a number of questions that could be used be answered by their research.

Next the class began talking about Memoir; Persepolis, the main book we will focus on fourth quarter is a graphic memoir.

on 15 April, students will turn in a graphic memoir of at least six panels.

Class generated a list of topics that students could explore for their memoir. The class focused on events that often cause change: new schools; new experiences; divorce, marriage; puberty; transitions; religion; romance; love; heart break; injury; new activities.

The class began by writing about some of these events, and considering how a story arc could be translated into six panels.

Students had some time to work on their memoir.


Wednesday, April 6, 2016

Wednesday, 6 April

Class met in the computer lab to receive expert instruction on research from Ms. Battle.

Ms. Battle stressed that using the appropriate Online Databases is:

EFFICIENT & EFFECTIVE & ETHICAL

The two databases she recommends are
OSLIS @ OSLIS.org 
and
Multnomah County Library @ Multcolib.org

You will need the school password (shared in class) for OSLIS or a library card for Multnomah Co. Library (Ms. Battle helped any students who didn't have a card get one).

Ms. Battle suggested that students begin with "Opposing Viewpoints" data bases; she also pointed out that searching on the home screen would bring students to lots of information; often one will need to "narrow the results."

Ms. Battle pointed out that Ebooks are easy to search using the "control f" function.


Mr. Zartler asked students to use an online document such as Google Docs to take their notes on.

For each article write the article title then write notes: quotes; summaries; paraphrases. At the end of each source in the databases is the appropriate bibliographic citation that should be pasted into the note taking document.

The first annotated bibliographic entry is due next class!

Monday, April 4, 2016

Monday, 4 April

Night essays were turned in; before turning them in students were asked to complete the following self-evaluation activities.

1) Check for an interesting title
2) Using a pencil A) draw a single line under the introduction to each quote B) draw two lines underneath each explanation for each quote C) ensure that a page citation is used
3) Make a table that lists strengths and weaknesses of your  essay with specific examples
4) On lined paper respond to the following: What did you do better on this essay than on previous essays (include all examples)? Why?
5) Assign a grade to the essay and provide a rationale.

Class then began our Research unit. In this unit students will be researching a genocide. As background to all genocides we began by watching a short documentary on Raphael Lemkin. the video that explains that the term had to be created. Facing History: Raphael Lemkin and the Crime of Genocide

Students then did some background reading from various examples of genocide in the 20th Century.

Next class will meet in Lab #16 and include expert teaching in research by Ms. Battle.


Next class handout:
Sophomore Research Project

Name ________________________________________________ Date _____________________ Period ________

Over the next several weeks you will be working independently and in-class (some) to research a topic related to Genocide. The purpose of the research is to write a 4-6 page paper that explains the facts of an atrocity. At a minimum your expository essay should explain the journalistic “Ws” (who, what, when, where, how – ok it’s an H, and Why, but it should also go further, providing an analysis of the key events. Your essay should identify the victims/ targets; the perpetrators; bystanders; and any allies who tried to prevent or end the genocide. When it is possible your essay should identify the motivation of the perpetrators. You may also discover that the perpetrators claimed one motivation, but experts believe that there was something else in play.

As we have discussed, the emotional and political energy, surrounding genocide makes it particularly important to carefully evaluate the reliability and validity of your sources of information. As part of this you will be required to submit four (4) annotated bibliographic entries. Your annotations will describe the resource; the nature of the information available from the resource; the author(s) of the information; and the sponsors of the resource. The annotation will also state your confidence in the resource and the reason for your confidence in the resource.

You will be asked to turn in a set of note cards. There will be two main types of note cards: Bibliography Cards and Note Cards.

-        Bibliography cards should be made for EVERY source you study; it should include: Publican information for your Works Cited page: author(s), article title in quotes,  web address; magazine title, publication date/ date of visit, and page numbers.
-         
-        Note cards contain discrete bits of information that might help you:  paraphrases of  ideas, direct quotes from the article, and thoughts/ideas you come up with based on reading a source.

Due Dates
Work product that is due
Notes
11 April
One (1) Annotated Bibliographic Entry (due at start of class)


13 April
Research Topic

15 April
Five (5) note cards
One (1) Additional Annotated Bibliographic Entry (2 total now)

19 April
Fifteen (15) Total note cards
Four (4) total Annotated Bibliographic Entries








We have listed in class a number of infamous genocides; Wikipedia provides to lists appropriate to remind yourself.  
The first lists recent genocides by numbers murdered: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_genocides_by_death_toll

The second lists genocide by time:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocides_in_history