Weekly Update Issue 4
“What we want to see is the child in pursuit of knowledge, and not the knowledge in pursuit of the child.” -George Bernard Shaw
Last week, the students worked hard doing research for their “A Brief History of Violence” research project. For this assignment, the students are responsible for writing a 5-7 page paper that analyzes a period of history and how it directly relates to one of our learning goals, specifically how crime affects our communities. The students wrote a thesis statement to summarize their topic and organize their research, and they located 8 different sources that would provide additional information to help them in their analysis.
We also worked on our television station project, “The Shield.” The students formed groups and wrote rough drafts of scripts for their shows. The shows will demonstrate in an entertaining and informative way the various learning goals that we have been addressing in advisory throughout the trimester.
Exhibition Preparation: How you can best help your student to adequately prepare for exhibitions and final assessments.
As I’m sure most of you already know, your student will be expected to present a 30 minute exhibition demonstrating everything that they have learned throughout the trimester. These serve as a sort of “final exam,” but instead of asking a student to simply answer a few multiple-choice questions, we actually want them to demonstrate their knowledge for us.
In order to accomplish this great task, the students must reflect on their learning from the whole semester (both orally and as a written assignment) as well as to prepare a way to visually represent these reflections, analysis, and explanations.
The students will present for a panel of 10 people, a mix of students, advisors, parents, and school-community members. A parent of family support member MUST be present for the student exhibition, and afterward, we meet to discuss the student’s learning plan.
You can help set your student up for success by holding them accountable to completing all of their independent project assignments. Currently, each student is responsible for a 5-7 page “Brief History of Violence” research paper, a 10 page Personal Narrative, a 3-4 page “Looking at Books” book report, a group project television show (filming will take place on the days before Thanksgiving break), as well as a collection of their work from each learning goal in the form of a portfolio.
Exhibition Schedule and Expectations
Schedule
Exhibitions will be held on Dec 2-9, and there will be four presentations per day (9:30-10:30 am, 11-12 pm, 12:30-1:30 pm, and 2-3 pm).
Expectations
Destiny Statement
Personal Narrative
Who Am I Essay (sub-culture)
Independent Reading Log
RWL Work
Phone Script (LTI)
Informational Interviews & Shadow Days
Who Am I? Project
Project Proposal
Art Work
Portfolio of Work: COM, SR, ER, QR
Competency Exercises
Visual Representation
