English 11 Research Project Underway!

The English 11 Research Project is underway, and everybody is off to a solid start.

For this project, students are to find a work of American literature published between 1750 and 2000, OR an American author who has created a significant body of work (in this case, short stories, essays, or poems).

In the project, they must make a solid case that the author’s work (or the author) was 1) influenced by the history preceding its publication OR 2) had a significant influence in American following its publication.

In other words, there is a real history à literature à history connection being made by the students.

The deadlines for this project are as follows:

2/22: Book Selected

2/29: Research Completed

3/7: First Draft Due (to VW at beginning of class

3/14: Second Draft Due (peer review)

3/21: Final Revision Due (peer review)

3/28: Final Paper Due

 

 Here are the authors/works that the students are working on:

19^th Century

• Manvith Sama: Edgar Allan Poe, 1830, LIT à HIS
• James Beck: Herman Melville/Moby Dick, 1851, HIS à LIT

Early 20^th Century

• Kevin Hsieh: Jack London/White Fang, 1906, HIS à LIT
• Huang Xue, Bryan Ruygrok: Upton Sinclair/The Jungle, 1906, LIT à HIS
• Tim Lee: Ernest Hemingway/Farewell To Arms, 1929, HIS à LIT

Mid 20^th Century

• Noah Clay: Richard Wright/Black Boy, 1945, HIS à LIT
• Dobrynya Konopolev, Kalli Rapaport, Lexi Kaputsos, and Caylin Zerr: Theodor Seuss Geisel, 1950, LIT à HIS
• Gina Chung, Sweety Sebastian: J.D. Salinger/Catcher in the Rye, 1951,           LIT à HIS
• Nat Pettipaw, Claire Endres: Harper Lee/To Kill A Mockingbird, 1960,          HIS à LIT
• Laura Roth: Rachel Carson/Silent Spring, 1962, HIS à LIT
• Jenn McCarthy: Kurt Vonnegut/Cat’s Cradle, 1963, HIS à LIT
• Amy Adams: Robert Frost/Selected Poems, LIT à HIS
• Becky Rout: S.E. Hinton/The Outsiders, 1967, HIS à LIT
• Michael Lake: Kurt Vonnegut/Slaughterhouse Five, 1969, HIS à LIT

End 20^th Century

• Darby Sinunu: Jerry Spinelli/Stargirl, 2000, LIT à HIS

If You have any questions at all about this project, please do not hesitate to contact me at chsrvw@gmail.com.

Thanks for all of your support!

Did I Skip A Day? Or 40?

How embarrassing… It feels like I was just here yesterday, and over a month has passed since I last posted.

My sincere apologies!

On to the updates!

ENGLISH 11 HONORS:

We have become poets, learning from the greats and reciting our favorites in preparation for the first two rounds of Poetry Out Loud, a national competition sponsored by the National Poetry Foundation. Students have chosen two poems from hundreds and are busy memorizing them to present this Thursday and Friday.

Not only are students memorizing the poems, they are also researching the authors and the reason why the poems were written. This, I hope, will give them a better understanding of the poem, and thus allow them to read with greater meaning and purpose.

On Wednesday, we will review/cover presentation skills that will enhance their overall recitations. This is just one opportunity of many coming up for students to get more involved with public speaking and presentations. These skills, I believe, are so essential, especially as technology keeps making it easier for us to communicate without being face-to-face…

Once presentations conclude on Friday, students will select the top three performances to move to the next level, which is the schoolwide competition in the first week of December. From there, winners will move on to the county competition in January.

WINGSPAN AND EYRIE:

These two groups never cease to amaze me this year. They are both dedicated to each student’s best interests in documenting the school year as accurately as possible. For Wingspan, they put their October issue online. You can access it at chswingspan.wordpress.com. As always, we welcome feedback and letters to the editor. They are now working on a special holiday issue, which will be distributed the final week of school before winter break. The team is doing holiday shout-outs (100 characters for $1), and they will have a table set up outside the lunch room on Tuesday, 11/15, and Thursday, 11/17. If you would like to send in a shout-out, please let me know! Simply email me at chsrvw@gmail.com.

Eyrie’s first big deadline is coming up the end of this week. The editors are working diligently to get the spreads ready for production at our Herff-Jones plant in Gettysburg, PA. Talk about shout-outs…. Editors Hannah Ouellette and Sadie Rockefeller, Production Managers Lauren Rosenberg and Anna Kelly, Photo Editor Megan Wallenhorst, and Digital Expert Preston Bencivenga have worked miracles in these first few months. They are doing a superb job leading our team in creating a book that is stunning in every way.

YEARBOOK I AND JOURNALISM I

Yearbook I has already completed two major projects this year, and they are working hard on a third– nine teams are each producing a 32-44 page mini yearbook that is unlike any project we’ve ever done. In addition, another team of 4 yearbook I members is creating a 150-page publication that is archiving every sports record and accomplishment for Centennial’s first 35 years. This pub will serve as the school’s definitive record. We hope that, in 35 years, another group will pick up where we left off and secure the legacy of the school’s sports programs!

In Journalism I, writers are deeply involved in their fourth series of articles, Arts & Entertainment. First drafts of these articles are due this Thursday for peer review, and final articles (~400 words) are due on Monday, 11/21. This group is insanely consistent with their writing, and many of them have already published their work on our online newspaper. I am thrilled with our future in both of our pubs!

That’s it for now…. I promise I won’t let another 40 days go by without an update!

vw

English 11 Opportunities for Publication

Greetings, all:

Our local publications in the Howard County/Baltimore/MD region all have great publishing opportunities for you. Here’s a list with some links to each publication. Remember, all of my English 11 Honors students must submit something for publication to one of these pubs by December 12, 2011. More information about HOW to submit is forthcoming!

Baltimore Review: http://baltimorereview.org/
The Baltimore Review has TWO opportunities:
–SPRINT, which is the name for their call for submissions of works under 750 words
–ROOM, which is the theme of their upcoming issue.

Deadline for both opportunities is November 30.

Little Patuxent Review: http://littlepatuxentreview.org/submissions/
The Little Patuxent Review’s next issue has a theme of SOCIAL JUSTICE.

Deadline is November 1.

Maryland Voices: http://www.marylandvoices.com
Maryland Voices has three opportunities:
–True Tuesdays, which is a weekly prompt posted on its website encouraging writing across the state (and sharing)
–A Day In The Life, which occurs on October 20 (The National Day on Writing)
–CULTURE, which is the theme of their upcoming issue.

Deadline for A Day In The Life and CULTURE is November 30.

The Urbanite Baltimore: http://www.urbanitebaltimore.com/baltimore/what-youre-writing/Content?oid=1462768

The Urbanite publishes “What You’re Writing” (submissions at or under 400 words) on a monthly basis. The next three themes are:
–SILENCE, deadline is October 10
–ANCESTORS, deadline is November 14
–SELLING OUT; deadline is December 12.

Please pass along to all who you think might benefit from these opportunities for publishing prose or poetry.

Our State of Room 701 Address

Ladies and gentlemen: I am happy to report that the state of Room 701 is stable, thriving, and productive!

The first four weeks for all of my classes have been such a wonderful experience, and as we head into the second half of the quarter, I am enthusiastic about the progress of all of my teams.

In English 11 Honors, students are “in-process” of working on several projects:

• Unit 2 vocabulary
• Argument essays
• Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close reading
• One completed draft revised for publication
• Portfolio assessment

So far, our English 11 students have written over 7,000 words in these first four weeks (3,250 total vomit draft words, 19 daybooks @ ~200 words each), and they will be writing another 1500 words for their argument essays and 4,000 words in additional daybook entries before the end of the quarter. From these drafts, students will be taking THREE of these pieces to publication (vomit draft of their choice, argument essay, and daybook entry), which will require several stages of revision and editing. This is in addition to any writing they will be doing for Extremely Loud. I am beyond thrilled with all that they are accomplishing. One student, as he was leaving class this morning, took the time to share this with me:

Writing this last vomit draft was so easy. I got so into it that I didn’t realize that I had written 1,200 words until I stopped. I don’t even worry about word count anymore.

This is exactly how it is supposed to work: frequent drafts, where risks are being taken with writing in an environment that does not demand perfection in the early stages of drafting. The students know fully well that, when they take selected pieces to publication, they will “dress them up” for their intended audience. Right now, though, they are falling in love with writing all over again. And that’s the first big hurdle: You have to love what you write to convince your target audience that they should love it too.

In Journalism II-IV, they just completed their first issue of the year and uploaded the paper on Wednesday afternoon at 2:15 p.m. Folks, this is an OUTSTANDING issue with solid, in-depth writing that should wake up some judges when we submit their stories for state and national awards at the end of the year. I am so proud of this team’s ability to “keep it professional” in the pub room and stay focused on the quality of the product. Our paper will be released today. If you would like to SUBSCRIBE to the paper and have it delivered right to your home or office (or to relatives who live out of state), just drop me an email and let me know. Cost is $25 for the year to cover mailing costs.

a HUGE thank you to all of our Pub Parents who supported our team this week with snacks and positive words! I cannot tell you what a difference it is to have you give them the boost they need to manage a deadline and still tend to their other five classes. We are so very grateful!

In Yearbook II-IV, this team is serious. They have all of their production schedules, deadlines, table of contents, templates, and artwork done already for the entire year. The leadership is strong, the morale is high, the quality of work is exceptional, and the team is so very supportive of all of its members. They are currently workin on their first 54-page deadline, which is due next month. I could not be more proud of this group as well as they continue to work hard to make sure ALL students are represented fairly and accurately in the book. They really do care about all students in this school, and I know our book will reflect that.

In Journalism I, we’ve got some writers who have already published on the Wingspan website! Congratulations to our newest Eagle journalists for working so hard to see their words published. We’ve even invited two of them to begin writing hard news for the print paper beginning with the October issue. This group may be small, but they are powerful and ready to document this school year with integrity and accuracy. Our future is extremely bright in news writing!

In Yearbook I, students continue to tackle the challenging task of the highly mathematical language of layout and design: 12 points to a pica, 5 picas to a column, 8 columns to a page, and so on. Working on their spreads by hand on “Roughing It” sheets first and then transferring that to our InDesign software program takes a great deal of concentration and effort. This group is doing all of that– and more. I am thrilled with their creative thinking, already pushing the envelope with design elements. The best question is: “How do I create this concept in InDesign?” I’m hearing it more and more from our newest yearbook team members. This initiative to learn how to bring to life their own creative designs is EXACTLY what we need for our yearbook program to improve year after year. This is a great group, and I look forward to seeing their “All About Me” projects that they publish in the next few weeks.

Thanks for all of your support in this first month. If you ever have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me at chsrvw@gmail.com.

Enjoy the weekend!

Rus VW

 

 

English Updates, Deadlines

Our English class has a few deadlines this week:

• Vomit Draft #3 is due on Friday. Students are to select one entry already started in their daybook and expand to ~1,000 words. Drafts should be typed. This is the third of four drafts the students will create before they select ONE to take through the writing process and publish their final product.
• In Extremely Loud, students should read through page 141 for Thursday’s class. They are currently working on timeline graphics to chart the storyline for the first half of the book. This is not an easy task, as there is no “right” way to complete this activity. Students need to determine the relationships between time, character, setting, and plot and present them visually in the timelines. As they continue to work on this activity, they should begin to see some emerging themes in Extremely Loud that they might not otherwise fully appreciate in a straightforward lecture. If your son or daughter (or YOU, wonderful student) is a little frustrated by this activity, that’s ok. It’s supposed to be challenging! I do not have any “one right way” for them to do this. It’s in the process where the A-Ha moments should happen, and not necessarily the final product….
• NO Vocab this week! Woohoo! We’ll pick up with Unit two next week.

Finally–the English class spent the morning in Student Services learning vital information about colleges, junior interviews, and other important and relevant items that they need to know for their junior and senior years. Please take a few moments and discuss this with them and see what they got out of it….

Thanks, all! Enjoy this Wednesday!

as always……………vw

Congratulations Miranda and Caroline!

Miranda Mason and Caroline Lawrence, two journalism 1 students, recently had their first articles published on the school newspaper’s website, chswingspan.wordpress.com.

Miranda and Caroline join our veteran writers who have already published on the Wingspan website: Amy Farb, Jamie Imperial, Andie Henneberg, Salman Hashmi, Kyle Simpson, Kari Dunagan, Meghan Coble, and Ayesha Ahmad.

Congratulations to all of our writers and photographers who have already published their work! Also, special thanks to Cheri Wang for being the site’s WebGoddess and working so hard to make sure the articles are posted in a timely manner. Awesome job, Cheri!

Be sure to check our site daily for updates and breaking news…

Why I Love Teaching at Centennial

There are so many reasons why I love teaching at Centennial. Today, though, something wonderful happened in our Yearbook I class that reminded me once again just how special the students are.

Emily, one of Ms. Brewer’s students in my yearbook I class, has spent every day in our classroom working with me and with two paraeducators. Today, when Emily was working quietly at her seat, three of our students got up, moved their materials to Emily’s table, introduced themselves, and started working and interacting with her.
These girls are not part of Best Buddies, and they have not worked with Emily in the past or in any other class.
The picture above is Emily with Destanee, working together.
Every year, I see this happening where our students embrace others with special needs. I think Ms. Brewer and Ms. Shipp do such a great job here, and I am so proud of our children for getting involved with all of our students, especially when they are not prompted to do so.

Here’s another picture from today’s class…. This yearbook I team is phenomenal!

A Huge Thank You!

Thanks to all of the parents who came out to school last night to join us for our annual Back To School event. It was a pleasure meeting all of you, and please do not hesitate to contact me with any questions you might have about the curriculum, the various publications we are working on, or the class of 2015.

As one of my colleagues mentioned last night, this event seems like our school-year solstice, the gateway to the true beginning of the school year. I’m glad that our feet have already hit the ground and we are entering mid-September in full stride in all of our classes.

All best, Mr. VW

Post added on the Pubs Page!

For all Freshmen Parents, I just posted the details about the limited-time offer for yearbook subscriptions. You can read the post here. Thanks!

 

Week Three Begins!

Greetings, all:

English 11 Honors: I am thrilled with how participation is picking up in class and more people are sharing their thoughts about the content we are covering. Over the last few days, we’ve spent some time looking at the events surrounding 9/11/01 as we begin to read our first novel of the year, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. This continues to be one of the favorites among my high school students, and I look forward to the in-depth discussions and writings that we will share in the coming weeks.

In addition to beginning a new book, students are preparing for their first vocabulary quiz on Friday. This will be on Unit 1, and the students have had the words since the early part of last week. I allowed them to take the books home tonight to brush up on the definitions that they are not as familiar with. The quiz on Friday will be application, where students will be asked to use at least 10 of the words (of their choice) in an original piece of writing done in class.

On Wednesday, the juniors will be spending the period in the Student Services Center for a critical discussion in all things related to college preparedness. I encourage you to talk to your son or daughter that evening about what was covered, and what is most relevant for all of you to consider in the months ahead. If there’s anything I can do to support your son or daughter, just let me know.

And, of course, on Tuesday night, I hope to see all of you at our annual Back To School event. In the brief 8 minutes I have to spend with you, we will cover a general overview of the curriculum, my belief in empowering students to be authentic, lifelong learners, and maybe even do a little writing ourselves. I look forward to seeing all of you!

For my publication teams, the best news of the last week came today when our computers became fully accessible to all of our writers, designers, photographers, and editors! They showed remarkable poise and patience in these first two weeks, finding other ways to keep the work flowing despite our limited computer time.

Today, though, marked another milestone for the yearbook team, as the editors conducted a well-run meeting on the new design of the ’11-’12 book. There is a great feeling of respect in this room for each other, and I am honored to witness the growth of this team (even if it is every other day when we meet!).

More in the mid-week… Take care, all!

vw

Questions? You can contact me at chsrvw@gmail.com.

You can also visit the English 11 Honors “Life in 180 Project” at http://alifein180.wordpress.com/