7th Video: recording monologues and storyboarding

Thurs. and Fri. we taped the students performing their persuasive arguments to the camera. Each kid was the camera person and each kid performed. While that was going on the film groups were planning production. Each group is preparing a large story board on chart paper to present to the class. I think I will do an exquisite corpse drawing exercise and relate it to working collaboritively on the movie script.

Advisory

Wed. 9/27/06
I read from Ophelia Speaks about media-fed images of the teenage girls body and asked the girls to write a reflection that adressed:
What media do you consume, and how do you think that your gender and age group are represented there, and how do you feel about it?
Friday we had Ms. G's group with us so we played board games for group work practice.

702; setting up at writely.com

We have three scripts to write, so the students have chosen the crew they will work on and now they all will contribute to the script writing process.
Here are the three writely files:

1. show off that money script
   http://www.writely.com/Doc.aspx?id=dnwpw33_1hhvztg
2. the unknown script
   http://www.writely.com/Doc.aspx?id=dnwpw33_2vdbfs3
3. diary of the dead script
   http://www.writely.com/Doc.aspx?id=dnwpw33_3ngjs7z
   
   
   

Advisory;friends and friendship

I read a quote by Margaret Sanger about friendship.
The girls had opreviously written reflectively on friends and friendship. We did a round Robin sharing on the topic. Today I will finish with notebook checks. I may need to give a couple girls conduct sheets...

7th Video: rehearsals and memorizing lines

Due to the great weather today, we had class outside in the school yard. Each student paired up and took a mat to sit on along with monologues and journals. They rehearsed and memroized with one another for about 4-50 minutes, then we watched volunteers present thier persuasive monologues. Some students took turns being the director and calling outthe cues: "quiet on th e set, 3-2-1, rollcamera and ACTION!

7th video: screen tests, camera operations,

choosing a production, choosing crew roles, scripts.

For the screen test and learning how to use the camera, the ELA teacher and I are teaming up on a monologue project. The kids will shoot and perform in a round-robin style. The first kid will learn the camera while shooting another, the just filmed kid will then be the camera operator for the next kid, and so on. She asked them to write a persuasive piece on why they should be allowed to go to a party where there will be no adult supervision.

The class chose these the four films below to produce, and now they have chosen which one they will work on and what job(s) they will take on in the crew. Each group recorded the results with chart paper and markers.

1. "Crazy in Love", romance
   
2. "The Unknown", suspense
3. "Diary of the Dead", horror
4. Fast Food exposed, documentary
   

The hands off alter-approach; alternative to me at least

So I'm learning to be hands off and let the the kids inquire of one another, and come up with solutions on their own. Amazing, they can do it!!!
I told the groups to collect certain data on the entire class as a project to use Multiple Intelligences. Chaos insued, and a coupleof them came to me to complain and get more direction. My default is to tell them how I THINK the should do it. Instead I said " you guys have to figure that out with your group, how can you getteh data?" A few minutes later one of them had a solution and asked me to tell teh class. Instead I just got them to quiet down and give their attention to th ekids with the idea, he told them his strategy, the agreed, and they all got the data. It was beautiful.
I am learning this from my boss and my other colleagues who help translate what the boss is telling us about leaving things open for discussion, and letting the kids figure stuff out. I usually have all the answers and can't walk away without a resolution. I'm also learning lots of this by watching/reading what other teachers are blogging about.

7th grade video class

These guys are great, they are up for pretty much everything! The link to our blog class is at the right>>>
Our leader said all she wants us to do this month is get to know our students as learners, so we started with Multiple intelligences, gathered class data, organized the data, presented the data, filmed the presentations, so now when the equipment begins to arrive(supposedly this week) they will have something to edit. The electricians are in the building to wire up the Video/sound broadcast studio. {Yikes, I never taught broadcast Journalism before! Wait, the Producers Project was a good start, I'm breathing now.}
Now we are starting pre-production on four class film projects. I suspect we will come to a halt for a week or so, as these kids will be setting up the laptops when they get here. So each film crew will have 6-7 members, + actors. Next week we start writing screenplays.
The 7th grade ELA teacher and I have a couple collaborations n the hopper too.

Advisory: notebook check

We had an open house for currently enrolled families. It came up that some kids aren't getting ANY homework! Shocking. So I decided to investigate, and as budding advisor I thought I could make it my job to notebook check my girls, to see who might need to better organized; of course I had my suspicions. This kind of thing falls under the 'how we do school here' section of th eadvisory guide, yes?
I made it through almost half the group and they looked pretty good. The one I was really worried about says she'll have a planner by monday and wants me to check her then...:-)

Advisory: Class banners

We share a building with an Intermediate School, our principal wants to keep the other kids from cuttingthrough our space. And since the building is a little generic, it's easy to get confused as to what hall you are in. So, my girls made a couple banners with the huge rolls of fabric that was donated to us for decorating. {BTW, we aslo got a 21"TV monitor, and 18cuft fridge, and some teacher desks donated too(mfta.org).}
They turned out good; and eventhough only a few really took charge of the project, others filtered in and out of it. Happily, the most involved one was the girl who I thought only wanted to gossip; she really shined on this task:-).
Ah, the power of art!

Advisory: Trust

13 9th grade girls.
The college Board gave us a manual full of good lessons. I decided to do 2 days on trust to try to break up a clique I saw forming within the girls. Just making them sit in a circle broke it up pretty much. They are chatty but they follow instructions, if reluctantly sometimes. I figured trust was a dramatic topic that we could bond over, and we talked about it in summer PD with regard to community building.

Day1

1. sit in a circle, each member of the group takes a turn sharing about someone they trust and why (one didn't trust anyone)
   
2. group discusion of when they might have felt their trust was betrayed
3. Each group member takes a turn sharing about whether they consider themselves trustworthy and why (only one copped to being a bit of a gossip when the person involved was someone tehy didn't like)

Day2

1. girls pair up with a group member they trust, or are willing to trust
2. one blindfolds the other and leads then around the perimeter hallway
3. the sighted leader of the pair is responsible for the safety of the Blinded one

Since there was an odd number so I joined in. It was hard to lead her, I ran her into a couple people and a wall or two as I tried to direct the rest of the class at the same time. When she led me, she abandoned me about halfway through, saying that I needed to learn to do it on my own but she would make sure I didn't get seriously hurt. I suppose the other girls had good insticts in not choosing her as a partner.

There are two doorways to go through and mostly we were bumping into one another
I want to take this into activities about making good choices, non-violent(physical and mental) conflict resolution, being a good citizen of the world.

Writing? teaching, counseling, Advisory,Yoga, meetings, relationships

Brand new School, we've got furniture, no computers. Argh, I forgot that I wanted to try to write everyday. Well maybe not having instructional computers yet is part of it. Since the kids are journaling in notebooks now (pen to paper), I am doing that too since I want to model what looking inward for reflective writing looks like. Things are going good.