We only had the computers for two days this week to continue the 1965 research project and video production. You may wonder why this seems to be taking awhile to complete, but, as I said before, they are learning to research, evaluate sources, and use WeVideo. These are skills they will use all year, but they are very new to some students. It was so exciting this week to see one of the students who at the start said there was NO WAY she would ever learn how use a complicated video production app say on Thursday, "I'm a whiz at this!" and begin to help other students who weren't picking it up as easily.
It's also been revealing to me to see students learning to do research by approaching it hands-on first and then having me point out mistakes and successes. For example, they need to complete an MLA-formatted Works Cited page of their sources after they finish their videos. I shared a sample document to show them how to format and complete it. One of my students said, "But I never actually went to any websites." I was stunned, then asked how she'd gathered her information. She had searched the terms, then collected the information she saw on the search results page and never went to the sites! It would never have crossed my mind that anyone would try that, so we were able to discuss why that was inadequate research. Another student swore only Wikipedia contained the necessary information. I sat down with him and found out his keyword searches weren't very targeted (another SOL that will be tested on the writing SOL in March). He started targeting his keyword searches more and began finding what he needed. I also reminded them of how to use Wikipedia to find other information: the links for the Wikipedia articles are at the bottom, and the student can click on those to go straight to the sources.
In addition to continuing the projects, they were busy in other areas:
All classes were introduced to how to complete analogies, another 8th grade SOL, which is introduced in 7th grade. It's one of the most missed on the exam, so I wanted to make sure we began early on it. I used EDI (explicit direct instruction) to introduce the definition and review the concept, then I put up a Powerpoint with analogies that each student had to complete, and I called randomly on several to answer each one. If they disagreed on the correct answer, I polled the class.
C1 and C3 learned another new word this week, plausible/implausible/plausibility. We continued reading and discussing The Outsiders.
C2 completed a "quiz" on The Outsiders containing ten questions based on the VDOE's format from the Reading Practice SOL Tool. When they finished it, we went over it, and they had to write on any question they missed what they were thinking when they chose the incorrect answer. This was a quick check for me to see how on track they were with our standards, and I discovered nothing surprising: the most missed question was related to vocabulary and the second was identifying theme, two that are weak nationally. I extended their performance assessment on The Outsiders (writing the first five pages of a sequel to the novel) to October 10. They said they wanted to do a marvelous job and some of them want to go beyond five pages, so I thought the extra time would allow them to do a better job.
This class also read "The Gift of Cochise" by Louis L'Amour and discussed it as we read it aloud. Each student randomly was called upon to go to the podium and read a page. I recently discovered this story and was impressed by how the story was put together with changing point of view, symbolism, characterization, etc. We finished it on Friday and next week will begin pulling its elements apart. We did start to discuss the characters and whether there was a gender bias, which was a heated discussion! They said they really enjoyed it and were inspired to write sequels or plot twists to it later! Looking forward to those if they do happen! (You can read the entire story here--click on the book, and it's the first story.) Because they were busy with the story, we didn't do the vocab word, but they'll pick that up next week.
ECO finished the angry customers, read a real Food Lion job application from Timberville and completed the online application on paper. We then introduced our community colleges as sources of job training through two introductory videos and began looking at LFCC's Workforce Solutions website.
Encore continued Honus and Me. We were almost up to the part where Stosh is able to visit the 1909 World Series, so I found a short newspaper article from a 1909 newspaper that talked about the rivalry between Ty Cobb and Honus Wagner. We discussed if it's good or poor readers who re-read, and one student was able to exactly identify that poor readers DON'T re-read and why. We then took turns reading the newspaper article aloud three times, then learned the meaning of two words in it (prowess, supremacy) and wrote a sentence for each using good context clues. Before returning to the novel Friday, we re-read the article one more time. They could see that their comprehension was much better by the fourth time while it was almost nonexistent on the first.
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