antiselfie @graduation

after the AP test

We all know motivating our students is difficult, but near impossible at this time of year, now pair that with the main reason that the kids take my course -the AP test and you have a Mount Fuji hurdle.(sorry for the strange allusion but I am personally in the midst of reading Haiku Murakami's 1Q84-loving it!!!)However, thanks to some technology and creative writing-my students had the best time and there was so much 21st century learning going on, I waned to spread the word.-so, we just finished reading Song of Solomon, a character experiences revelation, and Everything is Illuminated- of course some revelation(illumination in the Ukraine)-we hadn't done much creative writing, bound by literary analysis needs, but for the end of the year, we did something different: Many of my students take AP Gov next year so in collaborating with that teacher, I had them do some research on one of the countries they will study next year, also exposing them to some of our databases available here. Then they had to create a memoir of a character from that country that revealed setting and culture. They were fantastic!! I wish we could have done more creative writing. Then on to their own memoirs- we looked at the qualities of good memoir writing and they were to create a snapshot, an illumination. But then they took those pieces and created a graphic memoir with pixton comics and shared on Edmodo-I let them go with this project in the lab, watched them problem solve-I didn't tell them how to use the tools, they had to learn and teach each other-miracles-I have never seen any of my classes so engaged. The products were cool, but really the learning was cooler! A great way for me as a teacher to end the year-success is invigorating and I am so lucky to have such great students

May 9

well the big test is over. Whew, nothing I can do about it now, but hope they did their best. But I wanted to share a great activity I did today with my "tested out" kids. It is adaptable in any discipline that has words-it is a version of found poetry called "Blackout Poetry". I isn't new, just new to me and my students. They had a great time. There was no sushing and they were on task the whole time. The products are miraculous and it was great for them to stretch their creative muscles. I will try to post one here but the text is so small it's difficult to read them. I hope all of you readers take the time to go here to get an idea. It was a real breath of energy for them and for me.

We also did "Sketchnotes" last week based on Mike Rohde's illustraed guide to visual note taking-I was trying to teach them that using the part of your brain that enables you to synthesise and create an illustration for an idea helps them to remember.-It's a great book and I love the idea. We practiced by using a video lecture about "Why Read". Then we posted our notes in Edmodo. I am going to use this idea in their final this year by having them do 1 or 2 sketchnotes on one of the books we have read this year. -to include major themes, characters, what stood out to them -check out an example from my class