Final Project

                                                                   Final Project

                                              Due by 9 am on Tuesday, January 17^th

            Because this is not a traditional English class, we are not going to take a traditional final.  Instead of coming in for a long test for which you have (hopefully!) studied ahead of time, you are going to plan for, complete, and blog about a project of your choice.  This project should be based around an interest that arose during your reading for the semester.  Everything that you do in relation to this project (research, planning, execution, and reflection) must be posted in your final blog of the semester, by 9 am on Tuesday, January 17^th.  Please take this blog post extra seriously, as it is the representation of a project that counts for 20% of your semester grade.  This means that you should write an outline and an initial draft, then self-edit and additionally have someone else look it over before you post a final version for me (and any other viewers) to read. 

             

Guidelines:

There are three stages to the project:  research/planning, action, and reflection.

Between these three elements, your project will take approximately 20 hours.

Requirements:

1.      The project must justifiably relate to one of your quarter topics. 

2.      Evidence of research, planning.

3.      At least ten hours where you take action and do something.  Action must be recorded in written testimonials from other people, photographs, or videos.

4.      Reflection/Blog Post (1,000 words):  This reflection should first lay out what you set out to do and why.  Feel free to post excerpts from your planning and link in articles that relate to your topic or goals.  Next, explain not just your project but the results, the way that it affected you (or didn’t), and its connection to your reading.  You may also discuss any challenges that you faced in completing your project.

Because this assignment takes the place of your final, it is worth 20% of your grade for the semester.  That means that if you get a zero on it, your grade will go down 20 points.  You have weeks to complete it, so please make sure that you complete it to the best of your ability.

            I hope that it will be a great experience for all of us.  I’m really looking forward to seeing what you come up with and especially for witnessing how choosing your own topics to study has affected you both personally and intellectually.  As usual, please contact me with any questions. 

                                                                 Good luck! J

Surprise in the Mail

     We're winding down on first quarter, and there have been many, many successes this far.  One of my favorite work-related tasks each week is reading student blogs.  I have to admit, the Tuesday ones are the most enjoyable for me because I love seeing how the quotations relate to students' lives and why they chose them.  I know this class can have many positive outcomes: that students read and write more, that they follow a passion, that they make connections with others about that passion.  Yesterday something really cool happened that supports that idea.  When I checked my school mailbox in the morning it contained a package.  I didn't recognize the name or address of the sender, but when I opened it, I found the following note:

It turns out this author (of the book Meeting Tom Brady) discovered my student Cam's blog, on which he was writing about what it takes to be a great quarterback.  Mr. King commented on Cam's post, which started an e-mail exchange between the two, and an autographed copy of this book, with the note above, ended up in my mailbox.  How cool!

      This was just the latest of tons of examples of why I am so happy to be teaching this class, and I hope I'll have more to report as the semester proceeds.

                                                                                                                    :)  CJF

Read, Read, and Read Some More

     Topics in Literature is off to a great start!  With two sections and forty five students, there is a lot to learn and a lot of reading and writing getting done.  When I looked at the first reading and vocabulary blogs, I saw that, at least partially because we hadn't had any other posts due in the previous week, students read way past the eighty to one hundred pages I'd assigned.  Out of curiosity, I asked my instructional aide, Julia, to add up just how many.  And the number she came up with? 5,446! That's an average of 121 pages per student.  I'm excited; I hope they are, too.

     What have I been reading lately?  Well, my daughter really likes that book she's holding called Jet Set Babies Wear Wings, so I've read that a few times. :)  And I also just started a book recommended to me by both my grandmother and one of my AP Literature students, The Boston Girl, by Anita Diamant.  The narrative voice in it is great, so I'm looking forward to seeing where the plot goes. Next post I hope I have an awesome quotation blog to post as an example!

First Quarter Plan

       Though this is an independent class, there are certain requirements I've set up to make it optimally successful.  One of the main guidelines is that while you choose a topic, you aren't just going to wing it for the rest of the quarter.  I want you to know where you are starting, where you are going, what you want to learn, and what resources you're going to use.  Therefore, the first thing that we have to do to have a great experience in this class is to make a plan for the quarter.  The plan has four requirements:

1.  Introductory paragraph with your topic and your reasons for wanting to study this topic.
2.  Essential questions for the quarter (remember that essential questions are open ended).
3.  List of books that you will read for the quarter (must equal at least 80-100 pages a week).  It's better to have too many books rather than too few.  I'd say minimum of four.
4. Schedule of reading.  For this you can download a calendar or simply type a list of weeks and which books/pages you plan to be on each week.

       To make this more clear, I hoped to insert two example plans from students from last year's class. However, the student blogs "expired" with the Pentucket e-mail addresses. Therefore, you will simply have to follow the instructions above. Ms. Costello has them also and is in the library ready to help. I am so excited to see what you choose and post by Tuesday. Feel free to get this done far earlier and begin your reading as you have your first posts due soon after! (See School Loop for these dates.)  Good luck! :)

Course Syllabus

Topics in Literature

Ms. Fichera

Fall 2016

Overview:

Welcome to what I hope will be a great new opportunity to explore literature in a way that you’ve never quite before.  I am so excited to get started!  As I think you know, this class is not going to function in the same way that your previous three years of high school English have.  Instead,   First of all, each of you will be designing your own curriculum for the semester and pursuing it independently (with my support, of course).  The idea is this:  each quarter you will choose a particular area of literary interest to study.  You will come up with a plan:  essential questions, books, and a schedule.  Once this plan has been submitted and approved, you will pursue this area of interest until the end of the quarter, reading daily and posting to a blog bi-weekly, then you will do the same for the second quarter of the semester.  We will meet daily in my classroom, but we will also communicate via the class blog that I keep.  

Requirements:

1.      Read and write about your area of study five days a week.  This should total approximately 80-100 pages of reading and three pages of writing per week.

2.      Keep a composition book for each quarter.  In it, log the pages of your reading, take notes (this should be done in your  own way, perhaps with thinking routines or quotations but should not only be facts, though I imagine that there will be some), and record and define at least ten new vocabulary words each week.

3.      Keep a blog for class and post to it three times a week.  You will have three different types of posts due. 

a.       Friday blog – This is the simplest entry, the most factual.  Please tell me the name of the book and author you have been reading this week since the previous Friday; our reading schedule will run from Friday to Friday (example Heading Home with Your Newborn – Laura Jana and Jennifer Shu), what pages you read (example: 1-113), and list and define ten new vocabulary words from your reading and what pages you found them on (example: colic – persistent crying in an otherwise healthy baby – p. 113).  

b.      Tuesday blog – Relatively informal entry.  500 word minimum. This entry needs to be based around a quotation that you read over the course of the week that inspired you to think and reflect, ideally on something personal.  There should be three parts to your entry.  The first should provide some context of where you are in your book, the second have the quotation and an analysis of the quotation, and the third should be a personal connection or reflection to your life, your school, society in general, etc. 

c.       Thursday blog – More formal, though you can still use “I.”  500 word minimum.  This entry should be more intellectual, analyzing a particular element of your reading for the week. You might choose a symbol, motif, theme, something about the style of writing, etc., but this one will be more typical of what you would write about in an English class. 

Your blogs are due by the time class starts on Tuesday, Thursday, and Fridays.  However, I would not necessarily recommend that you work on these entries during school on the day that they are due as they make up 100% of your grade for the semester. 

I’m hoping that your blog is something that you will be really proud of, so make it interesting!  Add pictures, links, music, etc. (and make sure to cite them! Ask me or see Ms. Costello if you need help with this).  It should not just be type with no “extras.”  In that case, you would be doing the work in a notebook.  So instead, make it informative, but most importantly make it your own. :)

4.      Be passionate and independent. 

Final Thoughts:

If this seems like a lot, remember two things:  the topic is one that you have chosen yourself, so reading and writing about it should not feel like traditional work, and you will be using our class time (fifty minutes per day) in addition doing homework (about thirty minutes per day).  That’s a lot of minutes learning about something that you care about, and I’m sure the time will fly by.  You might have noticed that my examples above were about having a baby, which I do, so that’s a topic that I have been reading a lot about in the past year.  Because I have a personal connection to the topic, I’m motivated to read about childhood and parenting, even when I’m tired or busy.  I want you to choose two topics that you will be similarly excited about and which will make you feel like English is not work so much as something that is enriching your life.

            I had been dreaming about teaching a class like this for ages, and we’re now on our third year of offering it.  Of course there have been some bumps in the road, like in any new experience, but I know that my previous students read and learned a lot more (and about topics that really interested them) than they ever had before.  I hope that you will, too, and that you are genuinely excited to get started.  Please keep an open dialogue with me about topics/books you are considering, any trouble you are having with the blog posts, or anything else that needs clarifying.  We will also use Ms. Costello and the library as a regular resource. I’m excited to return from my maternity leave to two sections of this class, and I genuinely look forward to reading about your projects (and learning from you!) every day. :)

"One person with passion is better than forty people merely interested."

 — E. M. Forster