Agenda: Week of 9/13/2010 to 9/17/2010

Quote of the Day:  "Texans 34 - Colts 24"

Agenda:
Monday - 
1.  ePrep student information & AVID Student Information form (for those students too confused, lazy, or unfocused to have already completed the online form).
2.  Socratic Seminar on "Study Habits" NYTimes article.
3.  Mr. Duez will walk around and do a quick binder check for all.

Tuesday - 
TUTORING

Wed/Thu - 
TUTORING first 1/2 of the period

Friday -
We will work on the college handouts that the students had while there was a sub last week.  We will work on identifying a list of 5 colleges to apply to and understanding the deadline.
We will also do a "Survival" team building exercise.

Agenda: Week of May 24 - May 28, 2010

Quote of the Day:  "What is one to say about June, the time of perfect young summer, the fulfillment of the promise of the earlier months, and with as yet no sign to remind one that its fresh young beauty will ever fade."  ~Gertrude Jekyll

Agenda:
MONDAY:
1.  Goal of the Week - we'll work together in groups to do these and discuss them.
2.  Juniors will look at this video:

Sophomores will do a socratic seminar on the first chapter of their US History AP book for the summer: "Lies My Teacher Told Me."  They will annotate the text, ask and answer questions and read through the chapter in groups.  We'll discuss as a big group at the end.
3.  ALL - Plan tutor celebration on Tuesday.  Cards?

TUESDAY:
Last day of Tutoring for the year!
View our end of the year AVID Video with the tutors.

FINAL EXAM SCHEDULE

WED/THU:
Discuss final exam essays.  Give the students time to organize their essays.  They will do them in class for the final for a timed writing.

FINAL EXAM DAY:
We'll do our final exam timed writing essays over these choices:
1.  AVID Summer Institute Speech (The What has AVID done for me speech)
2.  Roadtrip Nation - Write about the experience and how it impacted you.  What did you learn?
3.  Life Goal.  This is the AVID Life Goal Essay.
4.  College Trip Essay - Students can pick a college trip from this year and write about the trip and what they learned.

Agenda: Week of Monday, May 16, 2010 to Friday, May 21, 2010

Fact – As each bird flaps its wings, it creates uplift for the bird following. By flying in a "V" formation, the whole flock adds 71 percent greater flying range than if one bird flew alone.

Lesson Learned – People who share a common direction and sense of community can get where they are going quicker and easier because they are traveling on the strength of one another. [Source]

MONDAY:

Goal of the Week.  We'll work on goals in our tutoring groups and discuss them with the Geese Quotes and Teambuilding information from this site:  http://www.teambuildinginc.com/article_geese.htm

Socratic Seminar Project

Then we will do a small group socratics seminar on the following articles: 

Group 1:

New York Times article:  Plan B: Skip College By JACQUES STEINBERG

WHAT’S the key to success in the United States? May 14, 2010

Group 2:

US News & World Report article: 5 Do's and Don'ts for College Students Using Social Media

There are ways to use social media and ways not to--make sure you know the differences.

By Jeff Greer, May 12, 2010

Group 3:

US News & World Report article: Most High Schoolers Cheat—But Don't Always See It as Cheating

Study examines prevalence, perceptions of cheating May 13, 2010

Group 4:

Time Magazine: Why Do Women Still Earn Less Than Men? By Laura Fitzpatrick Apr. 20, 2010

Each group will read their articles (10 minutes), annotate the text and write at least 1 question (5 minutes), then they will discuss in their group.  One person in the group will write out the two most important things that they have learned from the article and write an overall summary of the article and reflection of their groups work.  

We will rotate these 4 articles through each group over the next week and then present the findings of each group to the class next week.  

TUESDAY:

Tutoring

WEDNESDAY/THURSDAY:

Tutoring first 1/2 of the period.  Then we will do our group socratic seminar project on the 4 articles above.  We will rotate the next article through the groups.

FRIDAY:

Socratic seminar: we will do our group socratic seminar project on the 4 articles above.  We will rotate the next article through the groups.

**We may have a guest speaker or two from college over the next couple of weeks.  AHS students are returning from colleges and universities all over the country and some have asked to come in to address our AVID classes. If we have a guest speaker, we'll postpone the socratic discussion groups until the next class period.

Top of the Class Socratic Seminar

Today we will be doing a socratic seminar that revolves around valedictorian speeches of 2009 New York City students.  There are 7 of them so we will have 7 small groups.  Each group will read the main article from the New York Times.  Then each group will be assigned a different valedictorian speech.

Your job as a group is to discuss the article and speech and to find at least two very important things that you learned.  You will bring that back to the class at the end of the period and we'll discuss as a whole group.

TOP SCHOLARS From left, Jenae Williams, Jordano Sanchez, Adam Sealfon, Kristina Arakelyan, Christian Monsalve, Adrienne Edwards and Muhammad Safa on Grand Avenue in Brooklyn.

The main article:  "In Uncertain Times, Valedictorians Look Ahead."  by By LIZETTE ALVAREZ

Published: June 26, 2009

Speech 1:  http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/flash/nyregion/20090628Valedictorians/Muhammad_Safa.pdf

Speech 2: 

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/flash/nyregion/20090628Valedictorians/Christian_Monsalve.pdf

Speech 3:

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/flash/nyregion/20090628Valedictorians/Adam_Sealfon.pdf

Speech 4:

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/flash/nyregion/20090628Valedictorians/Adrienne_Edwards.pdf

Speech 5:

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/flash/nyregion/20090628Valedictorians/Janae_Williams.pdf

Speech 6:

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/flash/nyregion/20090628Valedictorians/Jordano_Sanchez.pdf

Speech 7:

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/flash/nyregion/20090628Valedictorians/Kristina_Arakelyan.pdf

Agenda: TGIF October 09, 2009

Quote of the Day:  "What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but rather what is woven into the lives others."  - Pericles

Learning Targets:
* Students will learn cooperative text analysis through text based discussion - Socratic Seminar
* Students will understand the meaning of the English novel they are reading (Awakening or Lord of the Flies)

Agenda:
1.Discuss Field trip to UTSA (for Juniors). We leave at 6am on Tuesday.
(5 min total)
2.  Expectations for Socratic Seminar:

You will be assessed as follows:
50% on the Annotation and Questions written on the Funeral Oration text.
50% on the Notes on a separate sheet of paper and your reflection at the end. 
I will collect both the packet and separate sheet at the end of the period.

3.  Socratic Seminar on "Novel Essay" with Edmodo.com.  Students will be placed into 6 groups and then 1 facilitator/captain of each group will have a laptop that is logged into Edmodo.com.  As you discuss the text, add questions and comments through Edmodo and reply and help other groups through the laptop.
4.  Debrief on "Novel Essay" and Edmodo.  Collect Annotations, Questions and Reflections at the door.

Tips for Friday's Socratic Seminar w/Edmodo

Some tips for Friday's Socratic Seminar.

Reminder: Socratic Seminar w/Edmodo for Friday.

TO DO: Read the text, underline, circle, highlight things you think are important or that you do not understand. Write at least one question on the handout for class on Friday.

I will be choosing captains (facilitators) to lead the groups based on your questions and annotation of the text.

The texts that we will use are associated with your English classes and the novels you are reading.

Looking forward to seeing how it goes on Friday.

Some things to consider:

Listen actively.
Build on what others say.
Expose/suspend your assumptions.
Do not step on other’s talk. Silences and pauses are OK.
Emphasize clarification, amplification, and implications of ideas.
Converse directly with each other, not through the facilitator.
Let the conversation flow without raising hands, as much as possible.
Make references to the text and encourage others to do the same.
Watch your air time for how often you speak and how much you say when you speak.

Question 1—Agreement: Which parts of the text do we agree with in terms of our work?
Question 2—Aspiration: Which parts of the text do we aspire to or want to work toward?
Question 3—Alignment: What is the current reality, and what is the gap between where we are and our aspirations?”
Question 4—Adjustments: What needs to be done for us to succeed?

Debrief (5 Minutes). When everyone has spoken, the facilitator closes the discussion about the text and poses the following questions for open discussion:
· What did we learn?
· What new insights did we gain as result of this protocol?
· What worked well?
· Did we follow the protocol? If not, why?
· How could the process be improved?

Agenda: Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2009 & Thursday, Sept. 17, 2009

Quote of the day: "You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell if a man is wise by his questions." -- Naquib Mahfouz, 1988 Nobel Prize winner in literature from Egypt

Today is 80's dress up day. Pop your collars and peg your jeans. Yeah. (this is bring back bad high school memories for Mr. Duez - graduate of the year 1988!)

Agenda:
1. Tutoring
2. Socratic Seminar on the text from US News & World Report: "Which High School Students Are Most Likely to Graduate From College?
A study finds surprising evidence about which students are really on the path to a college degree"
By Kim Clark
Posted September 9, 2009
Here is the link if you were out of class: Socratic Seminar Text - Which are most likely to graduate

We will annotate the text, read in class, and then come up with 2 questions as we read. Then we will have a circle to discuss.

AVID Skill and Tecnique - Socratic Seminar

Socratic Seminar

Socratic Seminar - "Good Boy Beau"

Tomorrow we are going to be doing our first Socratic Seminar of the year. We are going to use our tutors to facilitate the discussion in small tutoring groups. The text I have chosen is a column by Anna Quinlen of Newsweek Magazine. It is about her old dog Beau. It is a touching article that dives into the meaning of what it is all about to live life to it's fullest and then realize life has a way of wearing us all down.

I am hoping the article can pose a few questions about all of our humanity and make us realize that life is to be lived to the fullest.

Anna Quinlen's "Good Boy, Beau. Stay."
Put a pork roast in the oven, and the guy still breathes as audibly as an obscene caller. The eyes and ears are gone, but the nose is eternal.
By Anna Quindlen | Newsweek Web Exclusive

excerpt: I once had an editor who hated dead-dog columns. (I did one anyway.) This is a live-dog column. It's a shame that obituaries and eulogies come only after people are gone and unable to appreciate them. How many times after a memorial service have you said of the deceased, "She would have loved it"? Rumor has it that certain celebs, knowing The New York Times writes important obits well in advance, have tried to get a peek at their own. The expressed rationale is fact-checking, but I suspect it has more to do with self-esteem. Beau, of course, will have no idea what is said about him. But he does seem to know that a laptop in its case near the front door means a trip to the country, which even now, gimpy as he is, sends him into a fandango.

The life of a good dog is like the life of a good person, only shorter, more compressed. Beau started off wild and crazy. My most enduring memory of his youth is of him galloping around the yard, purloined needlepoint yarn streaming from his mouth. One summer he was skunked three times and spent weeks studded with spines after indulging his taste for advanced decomposition by rolling on a dead porcupine. He did not learn to swim until he realized it was the only way to keep geese off the pond.

But he also ran with his master every morning, posed in front of the fireplace in winter in a recumbent position like an insurance ad, and suffered the addition of a female yellow Lab to the household six years ago. He stayed off the furniture and did not jump on guests. People admired his self-control, on the street and at dinner parties, although one New Year's Eve he was discovered with his muzzle buried to the ears in a bowl of chocolate truffles.

What did you think of the article and our first Socratic Seminar? Would you like to do more?