So today we saw how the students ranked which group they wanted to be a part of.  Only 12 of 22 responded to the survey, so those kids got their first choices and everyone else kind of just got placed.  There was one group that looked at each other and wanted to disband, but by the end of the class period, they had figured out a way to change their focus to satisfy all of the members.

Everyone’s blog is up (except for one student because he has not been in class) and everyone has posted several times.  Today we talked to the kids about their posts and how to improve them including

• using meaningful titles
• putting one source per post
• using categories to organize
• elaborating on posts–posts should be longer and more detailed–this is research
  • summary of source
  • paraphrase of important details
  • direct quotation of eloquent passages
• responses should be thoughtful and answer the questions we had talked about
  • what connections can you make with other research?
  • what have your found that contradicts this source?
  • what other questions does it bring up?
  • how would you use this information in your section of the film?
• appositives–set off by commas on both sides of the phrase

ex:  Mr Landow, my favorite student teacher, uses puns in his everyday speech.

• proof-reading and using spell-check–edit under the Manage Tab if you find a mistake–don’t just leave it.
  • standard English
  • there, their, they’re
  • your, you’re
  • apostrophes
• using URL links to cross-reference and make other sites easily accessible to readers

Many students edited what they had written.  Not sure if my little speech on representing themselves, their class, their school, and American teenagers had an effect, but I hope it did.

Corinne asked if she was using the correct spelling of “effect” in her titles–she was

After we talked in a large group, the kids got in their small groups and began to read each other’s blogs and comment on them.  It’s cool to see the discussion happening both in real time and on the blog.

Kelsey, Greg, and Marty decided that their focus on “how serious is global warming?” should be changed to “causes of global warming.”  They realized quickly that they would have to work closely with the “what is global warming?” group to make sure they weren’t overlapping.  Yes, they will all soon have to figure out what they are going to do for their segments and they all need to come together in some way.

I need to figure out what kind of permission slip I’ll need to have the kids walk up to the corner strip mall for our street interviews.

I also need to help the kids figure out who they will interview as experts.  Hmmmmm.

The energy in the room is high. . . hope we can sustain it.

If I wanted to link to my edublogs page in a comment that I leave for someone else, here is the code:

<a href=“http://nhsglobalwarmingdocumentary.edublogs.org“>edublogs </a>

orange is what comes before/after the URL

green is the link that you will see

blue is the URL