Reading history

Reading History –

The purpose of this assignment is for me to get to know you a little better, and for me to know your reading history. You can either answer the questions or create a PowerPoint or Prezi, or do anything else creative.  

 

1. In general, do you like reading? Why or why not?
2. Do you feel like reading is “too hard?” If so, what’s hard about it?
3. What do you do when you don’t understand something you read?
4. Has anyone ever tried to teach you a “reading strategy?” If so, what strategies do you know?
5. How did you do in your English/Language Arts class last year? Did you do well? Why or why not? 
6. What is the last book you read from front to back?
7. In the last year, how often have you gone inside a library or bookstore, for whatever reason?
8. What are 3 reasons people read?
9. Have you ever read to learn how to do something?
10. What’s the difference between fiction and non-fiction?  
11. Do you read magazines or newspapers? Which ones?  
12. Do you read stuff on the Internet, like soccer sites, or ESPN.com? What? 
13. Do you read anything for fun? Comic books/anime/that kind of thing?
14. Are there people in your family who read a lot? Who? What do they read?  
15. Did you read a lot when you were younger, and then you stopped? What happened?
16. What kinds of things do you remember reading when you were a kid?
17. Did someone read to you when you were little? What do you remember about that?
18. What is a good memory you have of reading? (for example, your mom reading to you when you were younger before you went to bed)
19. What is a bad memory you have of reading? (for example, being put on the spot to read in front of a class and you failed)

Where to go to read up on White Center news

1. Go to www.whitecenternow.com.

2. Read up on what's going on in White Center.

3. Summarize 2-3 items that are interesting to you (a couple sentences each) .
   - This could be something that you didn't know before.
   - This could be an issue that's interesting or meaningful personally.
   - This could be something that you were wondering about when it happened.
   - This could be something you want to know more about.

4. In your summaries, use one of the vocabulary words from your test.
   - Brazen
   - Prosecutor
   - Forfeiture
   - Laden
   - Indictment
   - Conspiracy
   - Allege
   - Coalition
   - Haven
   - Revitalize
   - Displace
   - Arterial
   - Jurisdiction

Two (More) Crimes

Read about the Machak case, and the Tinney case

Machak - court case
Machak - what happened


Tinney - forgiveness
Tinney - what happened

Photo Editing/Black and White and Puppet Warp

Two Crimes

Hello,

We're going to talk crime for the next few weeks.

To start, here are four newspaper articles. They are all pretty short. They involve two youth crimes involving a bunch of teenagers. They both have love triangles and grisly murders at the end. Hopefully, that's got you interested.

The first two involve a kid named John Jasmer. The last two involve a kid named Lashonda Flynn.

For each case, learn the facts and summarize the most important ones on a blank piece of paper. Then, create a Venn Diagram where you compare and contrast the two cases. Look especially hard for the big differences between the two cases.

By the way, who's the author?

See you soon.

Mr. Ko

John Jasmer 1
John Jasmer 2

Lashonda Flynn 1
Lashonda Flynn 2

Photo Editing/Changing Color

Photo Editing/Manipulating the Truth/Ethics vs. Aesthetics

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Today's powerpoint

Ansel Adams

Ansel Adams was a famous outdoor/nature photographer. We're going to see some of his work today.

For your entry task, please check out this website and click through some of his pictures:

http://www.anseladams.com/

After you're done, let's talk about:

1. What did you notice?
2. What made his pictures stand out/appear distinctive?
3. Why do you think this guy is famous? (He is, by the way, famous).

We're going to examine the idea of "making a photograph" vs "taking a photograph" and see what we can learn from Mr. Adams.

Portrait photography

Entry task:
What did Mr. Lok say about taking portraits, or pictures of people?

Objective:
Practice taking portraits/self-portraits.

Working with props
Working with light
Going beyond the basics

Questions to answer:

1) As you look, find 3 ideas that connect with you because they fit your style/you like the creativity. Copy and paste those pictures into a Word Document and explain why they fit your style/you like the creativity.

2) As you look, find 3 more ideas that connect with you because of some technical issue, like lighting. Copy and paste those pictures into a Word Document as well, with explanations of what strikes you technically speaking.

3) What prop do you want to use for your self-portrait?

4) What lighting will you use?

5) Draw an initial sketch.

Photojournalism assignment

Good morning.

You are going to prepare for your photojournalism/photo essay today.

Take a look at the 1 in 8 million series again for a few minutes. You will be creating a photo slideshow like one of the ones you see.

Please answer the following and turn in to the substitute teacher before the end of the period.
1) Who is the subject of your photo essay?
2) Why is this person newsworthy?
3) What kinds of pictures do you hope to capture?
4) Where will you take pictures of this person, to make the photo essay more authentic?
5) What will you do to elevate your pictures from amateur to more professional status?
6) List at least 10 interview questions you have for the subject, that will get them talking like they do in the 1 in 8 million series.

When you're done, please check out this site for some more photographic inspiration.

Bullying Informed Opinion

My expectation is by now, you have developed a more informed opinion on the topic of bullying.

Today, you're going to start writing your informed opinion.

The question is: What should this country do about the bullying problem?

You can tackle the question directly or you can tackle a smaller portion of the question, like cyberbullying, or bullying by girls, or the role of bystanders, or bullying by coaches, or what are the schools' responsibilities?

Aim for about a page. You should back up your arguments with evidence.

Here are the sources you've been exposed to in the last couple weeks. Use this as evidence, along with personal experience:
- the readings about Phoebe Prince
- the cyberbullying stations
   - cyberbullying facts
   - how much are schools responsible?
   - when do words become a crime?
- the poem you read today
- the discussions we have had in class about bullying
- the bullying facts you found from making the video
- the two exemplars (Carrie Ann and John Amaechi)
- empathy you have from making the video
- what you felt/heard/said at Town Hall
- the bullying book you read/are reading
- the documentary we watched, called "Submit"
- the TV show we watched with Anderson Cooper about bullying
- other notes in your folder

Bullying poems

Students will read a poem about bullying.
Students will understand the definition of empathy.

http://www.bestteenpoems.com/poems/bullying/

Find a poem that speaks to you, for whatever reason.
Read it. Copy and paste it to a Word Document.

At the bottom, answer:

1) Why'd you pick it? What about it "conects" with you?

2) What is empathy? Look it up in the dictionary.

3) Try to "walk in the shoes" of someone who is being bullied. What must it be like to feel like you have no hope, or to be that much in despair?

Print it out and put it in your folder.

fairty tale links

Jack and the Beanstalk
Three Little Pigs

Life Photo Essay formula

Some examples of Life photo essays:

Nurse Midwife
Country Doctor
One Ride with Yankee Papa 13

LIFE was a famous magazine a generation ago. People don’t really read it today, but it used to be a great source of photos and history. A lot of families read LIFE together to learn about the world.

As you might guess, LIFE employed a lot of photographers.When the photographer would go out, he or she made sure to come back with certain pictures. This was the formula that the magazine makers wanted photographers to use:

1) Introductory picture – a wide angle or aerial shot that establishes the scene.
2) Medium – a picture that focuses on one activity or group.
3) Close up – zeroes in on one element, like a person’s hands, or an intricate detail.
4) Interaction – people conversing or in action, doing something.
5) Signature – a picture that summarizes the situation with all the key story telling elements in one photo – often called the decisive moment.
6) Portrait – usually a dramatic, well-focused picture of the subject’s head so you can see it clearly, or the person in his or her “natural” setting.
7) Sequence – can be a how-to series of pictures, a before or after, or a series with a beginning, middle and end. Gives the photo essay a sense of action.
8) Clincher – a closing picture that feels like the end of the story.

Go to life.time.com, click through the different decades, or go to life.time.com/history.

Find a slideshow that really connects with you. 

Identify the best picture from each of the 8 categories. Copy and paste them onto a Word Doc file.

Links to some good stop motion

Today's objectives:
- Check out your practice stop motions from last week.
- Find a "style" of stop motion that really connects with you.
- (If we have time), select a fairy tale that we will make as a class with stop motion.

http://spyrestudios.com/stunning-inspirational-stop-motion-videos/

What makes a great photograph? Part 3

Check out any of the pictures from this search.

Check out these pictures of food

Today's objectives:
- Look at examples of great still-life photography.
- Practice taking INTENTIONAL pictures, or pictures that have a purpose.
- Try to get in the mind of professional photographers.

What makes a great photograph? Part 2

Objectives:
- Get in the mind of a photojournalist.
- Read the story of a photojournalist in Syria, and about his award-winning work.
- Examine his work and try to figure out what makes it great.
- Understand a little bit about what's happening in Syria.

(Background: The Pulitzer Prize is awarded every year. It's the highest honor and award in journalism. Think the MVPs of journalism. Winners get $10,000 in addition to widespread recognition. On Monday, yesterday, the Putlizer Prizes were awarded for work done in 2012. One of the categories is photojournalism.)

First, we will read about Syria together as a class. There is a civil war going on in that country; the people are fighting the government.

Then we will look at a series of pictures by Javier Manzano, a Mexican-American photographer working in the Middle East/Europe and Asia. He was covering the war in Syria. Here are the series of pictures Manzano took that won the photojournalism feature Pulitzer Prize:

http://blogs.afp.com/correspondent/?post/Picture-from-a-war-earns-Pulitzer

1) Look at the pictures and read the captions.
2) Read what Manzano did to get the pictures. Click Here.
3) Answer the questions. Make meaning of this job.

What makes a great photograph?

NY Times 1 in 8 million

New York Times photojournalism page

Other great photographs -
http://www.athousandandone.com/search/_views/
http://www.worldsfamousphotos.com/
http://life.time.com/

Key terms for today:
-Photojournalism
-Composition
-Lighting and color
-Focus and depth of field
-Timeliness
-Point of view/objectivity/subjectivity
-Storytelling or narrative

HSPE Writing

Click here for HSPE writing prompts from 2010-2012, and example papers.

Dog Bites and Cops

Use this story to write your practice HSPE questions.

Sample Reading HSPE tests

Sample Reading HSPEs over the past few years



What is the HSPE, anyway?

Effective Advertising Techniques

Demographic Positioning
Direct Response
Dramatic Conflict
Evoke Emotion
Exaggeration
Informercial - Billy Mays (YouTube, won't open at school)
Interesting Character
Logic/Reasons Why
Personification
Problem/Solution
Symbolism
Testimonial

Storyboard resources

http://jessica-milverton.blogspot.com/2012/10/examples-of-storyboards.html

http://jessica-milverton.blogspot.com/2012/07/script-storyboard-information.html

http://www.claytowne.com/beats-digging-ditches/storyboard-tutorial-how-to-create-storyboards-for-film-video-and-television/

The best beverages - why do they work?

Ok, now that we've made our practice videos, it's time to concentrate on drinks again. We will be using the same techniques we used for our practice videos to shoot our beverage commercials - visual variety, lots of different camera angles, action that makes sense, close ups for details and emotion.

What I'd like you to do today is concentrate on this question:

What makes a successful beverage/drink?

Check out these links first.

Link 1 - Bevnet.com

Link 2 - Best New Product Awards 2012: Food and Beverages

Link 3 - Some of the big-time research going into successful beverages.

Answer the following questions and turn them in before you leave. Thank you!

1 - Click on Link 1, and find the heading titled "Reviews" - Read through them. Summarize 3 reviews. Include the drink's name, and what the review said.

2 - Click on Link 1, and find the heading titled "News" - Read through some of the entries. Find one piece of news that you find interesting, important or informative. Explain why.

3 - Click on Link 2 (You might have to click "continue to your destination" to see the slideshow. Look through the products named the "Best of 2012" - especially the beverages. What are 3 things you notice about the products that were named the best?

4 - Click on Link 3 and read "2012 New Product Development Survey" and click on the six slides near the top. Take your time and read the whole thing.

5 - According to Link 3, what are the top things that customers want out of drinks? Clue: look at the "consumer needs/interests" slide. Why do you think that is?

6 - According to Link 3, what were the most successful flavors in 2012? Any guesses as to why?

7 - After reading the three links, what were some things that surprised you about what makes a successful drink?

8 - What are some lessons you can learn from this this information that might help you make your drink more successful?

College Presentation

College won’t automatically make you smarter, or make you more happy. But why do thousands of people sign up for college every year and pay a lot of money, sometimes $30,000 or $40,000 a year, to learn and study?

Whether or not you have any desire to go to college, it’s at least important to investigate the idea. Study after study links higher average salaries with a college education, whether that’s a 4-year university, a 2-year community or junior college, or a technical school. If you go to college, you will have the opportunity for more training, more job opportunities, and more contacts.

Your assignment is to study a 4-year college and prepare a PowerPoint or Prezi presentation that you will share with the class. In pairs, you will answer the following questions in your presentation. This is due next week (Monday for 3rd period; Tuesday for 6th period).

You must pick a college from the list. No more than 2 groups working on the same college. This is your chance to a) explore a college you are interested in and/or b) take a chance and check out something new.

You can choose your own groups.

1 – What is the name of the college and where is it located?

2 – How big is the school? How many students are there? Men vs. women, number of minorities, etc.

3 – How much does it cost? What is the difference for a state resident, and an out-of-state non-resident?

4 – What are some things the college/university seems to be known for? Also, include here whether it’s a public/private school, or a religious/non-religious school?

5 – What kinds of things can you study here that you probably can’t study at a community college? What are some example areas of study, or majors?

6 – Do most of the students live on campus in dorms, or do they commute/drive onto campus for school, or is there a combination of both? If there are on-campus living options, what are they like?

7 – Where do people on campus go to eat?

8 – What do people on campus do activity-wise, or for fun? (clubs, sports, intramurals, hang-out spots, etc.)

9 – What is the application process like? Look at the copy of the application and include a few details about what they ask for.

10 – What kind of financial aid does the school provide? What is financial aid?

11 – Find and copy at least five pictures of the campus, of the city where the school is located, or anything else related to your college or university.

12 – Was there anything fun or interesting or random that came up during your investigation? Put it here.

13 – In conclusion, why do you think people would choose to attend this college?

Colleges you can choose from:

University of Washington, Seattle –
University of Washington, Tacoma –
University of Washington, Bothell –
Washington State University –
Western Washington University –
Central Washington University –
Eastern Washington University –
Seattle University –
Seattle Pacific University –
Pacific Lutheran University –
University of Puget Sound
Evergreen State College
Bastyr University, Bothell
Northwest University, Kirkland
Gonzaga University

So What Should You Do After High School?

Here are some options.

- Post-secondary education
   - 4-year university/college
   - 2-year community college
   - Technical/trade School
- Public Service
- Military
- Straight to Work

What is the difference between a 4-year university and a 2-year community college?
Here's one chart.
Here's another comparison.

Finally, remember the careers you are investigating. Some of them, like if you want to be a lawyer, will require you to graduate from a 4-year university. Others, like if you want to be a mechanic, will require you to graduate from a technical school.

Exploring South Seattle Community College

This is where many of our students end up going, as far as college.

When they get there, there are two paths you can take.

1) Some people desire Professional and Technical Education. These people are looking for jobs right away, or looking to get trained, or retrained, in something specific.

2) Some people go for Academic and Transfer Degrees. This path is generally for people looking for jobs that need a lot of training, or looking long term, or not sure what they want to do yet. Most of these people want to eventually "transfer" to a 4-year college.

Click here to see some of the classes you can take.

Questions:

What is an Associates Degree?  
What does it mean to “transfer” to a 4-year university?
Pick one subject you’re interested in studying from the “Professional and Technical Education” link.
Which subject did you pick?
Why? What interests you about it?
What are the requirements to complete this subject/graduate with a degree/certificate?
Summarize what you learned about this subject.

Pick one subject you’re interested in studying from the “Academic and Transfer” Degrees link.
Which subject did you pick?
Why? What interests you about it?
What are the requirements to graduate with an associates degree?
Summarize what you learned about this subject.

PSSC

Puget Sound Skills Center
- What is it?
- What kinds of programs does PSSC offer?
- What about my high school credits?
- Class Act restaurant

First read the information in the four links above.

Then, answer the following questions. Support your answers with specific examples from the readings (the 4 links above):
1) After learning more about PSSC, what is your initial impression of it?
2) Are you interested in it, or not? Why?
3) If you had to go, talk about 3 programs you might sign up for and why?
4) Do any of the PSSC offerings connect to the two careers you are interested in (that you studied yesterday)? How?
5) What do you think spending half a day (or more) at PSSC would be like? Why do you say that?
6) Who would you recommend PSSC to? Why?
7) What are the "pros and cons" (advantages and disadvantages) to spending a half day at PSSC, versus spending the same time at a traditional high school?

When you finish, you can also complete the "What do you want to be" assignment from yesterday.

What do you want to be?/Informational Texts about career pathways

Go here first.

You will pick two jobs today to investigate. My hope is that this kind of reading will relate more to what you are interested in.

Look around the page, and look at different careers. Pick 2 you want to look into further.

For each job, you will answer the following questions.

1. Pick a job and write it down.

2. Skim the summary, and write down a couple things you notice. 

3. What does "median pay” mean, and what is the median pay for this job?

4. Click the “What they do” tab.

5. Summarize what it says.

6. Click the “How to Become One” tab.

7. Summarize what it says.

8. What does “Job Outlook” mean?

9. Summarize the job outlook for this profession.

10. Anything else of interest? Write it down.