Five-minute Feuds

We had fun today with our first "Five-minute Feud." The two sides debated Tablet computer use as the main learning tool in class. The idea here is to get us into persuasive writing, which is the new writing task for this week and next. We should be choosing a writing topic this week - one ways is if one of these topics strikes your fancy, then you can choose one side or the other. Mostly you will state your opinion. I also like it when you say something about the other side - probably to attack, rather than concede - which is (or has been) "in vogue" in persuasive writing. That means I've heard a lot of teachers say you should say something nice about "the other side" near the end of your paper when trying to persuade. Perhaps, if done well, but equally effective can be a proper take-down of the other side's probable viewpoints. One thing is certain, before beginning to write, or speak, in persuasion or persuasive writing, make sure you consider both sides of the issue.

I'd like you to keep your eye on "the follow-up," or anchor, of the teams, who is the third person to speak. That person has a hard job because he or she can do anything - keep on stating the position of the team with additional points, summarize only points that have been said so far, better attack points brought up by the other side, or just add support to what was said by the team before. It is as if too much freedom is just enough rope with which to hang yourself! Each person just gets 50 seconds, so plan accordingly.

Just to refresh your memory, three people on a team do the following:

Lead - states the team's position

Second - attacks the other side

Follow-up (or Anchor) - summarizes or attacks, may add a new point

I almost termed the third person "clean up" because the person sort of cleans up whatever messes are left over by the others, and also sorts out anything from the other side left unsaid. This person should be keeping notes on what the other side is saying. People on his or her team should be feeding him things to say at the end that were forgotten.

The second person really should stick to attacking whatever the first person from the other side said. So pay attention to that and keep it simple! Try to make suggestions to your team while they are freaking out.

The first person on each side is important too - just make 2 or 3 short points clearly and well, then stop.

The most memorable things are what comes first and last,  so use images, humor if you can, and be polite.

Avoid attacking the other person or people speaking with personal comments (ad hominem attacks) - or, for that matter, fancy terms that others may not understand. But knowing or reviewing logical fallacies is very helpful - I have some on my classroom Kindle for people to see and we will get to them later in the year.

Go here for the definition of fallacy, and other mental handicaps such as cognitive bias, and for a list of fallacies, go here. Oh, wow, I just saw an awesome link I highly recommend called Purdue Online Writing Lab Logical Fallacies and you really need to see that one, because it's super-clear.

"Later in the year" may be sooner than expected!

Five-minute Feud One – Using Tablet computers in Class

1.     Should tablet computers become the primary way students learn in class — for classwork, homework and educational games? What would be the benefits? The downsides?

2.      Do you think students will learn more, and faster, with a tablet computer at their desk? Will this technology engage more students than old-fashioned teaching?

Handout

Source article: Should Tablet Computers Become The Primary Way Students Learn in Class

Five-minute Feud Two – Does Keeping a Messy Desk Make People More Creative?

1.     Should students be encouraged to doodle in class and “decorate” their lockers, or even be slightly untidy inside their lockers, in order to foster more creativity?

2.     Does the environment where we do our work provide a glimpse into our creative process?

Handout:

Source article: Does Keeping a Messy Desk Make People More Creative?

Five-minute Feud Three – Can a library fire a beloved librarian for publicly praising a good reader?

1.     Should a student who “hogs” a library reading contest every year by winning step aside?

2.     Should the library be able to fire a librarian/worker who praised the winning student in the newspaper?

Handout

Source article: Beloved Librarian Claims She was Fired

Five-minute Feud Four – Should people who are not willing to kill their own animals for food become vegetarians?

1.     Should people who are not willing to kill their own animals for food become vegetarians?

2.     Is it wrong for someone who is morally against killing animals, or finds it distasteful, to pay for someone else to do the killing by buying the food in a supermarket?

Handout

Source article 

Five-minute Feud Five – Should the Government Spy on Private Citizens to Protect the Public?

Handout 

Source article 1 (Where to Draw the Line Balancing Government Surveillance with the Fourth Amendment) 

Source article 2 (Living With the Surveillance State) 

1.     Can the government use drones in the sky to search for criminals or watch borders, use facial scanning technology to spot terrorists and know who is attending crowded events, or use GPS cellphone tracking to follow people suspected of wrongdoing?

2.     Can the government search emails or collect DNA of non-criminals if the overall effort helps prevent terrorist acts and lower the rate of violent crime?

Five-minute Feud Six – Should students be able to move from public schools with public money to private or religious schools?

Handout
Source document 1 - 11 Facts about High School Dropout Rates
Source document 2 - High School Dropout Statistics
Source article 1 - (One in Three Top Companies Can't Fill Graduate Vacancies)
Source article 2 - (U.S. Students still lag globally in Math and Science)
Source video - Malcolm London - "High School Training Ground" - TED Talk


Guns and Coffee article - maybe we will use this for a 7th Feud

A Modest Proposal

When I was attending The Allen-Stevenson School in New York City from first through fifth grade, at the beginning of one year they had a proposal for all of us that I still remember - two months with NO television. They asked all the parents to get involved and for all families to support the effort - so all TVs were either removed from our homes or covered over with cloth so the screens could not be seen for two months early in the year - probably September and October. It made a pretty big impression on me and my classmates. I'm not sure if I did more homework, but I think I did more talking to my family and reading.

Years later, in Taiwan, my television broke down, and I decided not to spend the money on repairing or replacing it. So there were immediate savings, but what I still remember was having much more time to talk to guests and for reading. Then I went several years with no television by choice up until the last two years or so - and now once again I am choosing to not use cable TV at home. At this point I am watching some movies or downloaded TV shows on occasion, but gone is that daily habit. It frees up lots of time!

I wonder what would happen in your home if your TV got removed, covered over with cloth for two months, or the decision was made to simply not have it anymore? Would the sun not rise tomorrow, or would the rivers run dry? I doubt it - no, the world would keep on turning.

My Modest Proposal for you right now is not exactly that you should just take a sledgehammer to your TV, although that might be fun to watch or perhaps do once in your life, but rather to examine your use of time. If you take away all the time spent at school or work, sleeping, transporting yourself, eating, washing, exercising - you may find you only have about three or four free hours per day. How many of those hours are used by watching TV, playing computer games, or surfing the Internet for fun? Do you have fun before you finish your work, or after? Do you go to sleep at the same time every night, or at different times?

All right, for those that manage their time well, and spend some of that time reading, there is on offer the chance to convert our course into an honors course. First, keep in mind that we should normally read about two books anyway per year. My thoughts on that for the regular class are this - you should aim to read about a chapter per week of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass using links on this blog, and if that works, we can put questions on those books on the quarterly exams - especially the second one at Christmas time. Then, in the Spring 2014 semester, we would like to have a second book, and I am thinking about asking the class to read Pride and Prejudice, which was something we encouraged you to read independently last summer. If anyone has the questions from last summer on that I would like to receive them, by the way. But my idea is to go through the novel as a class and not read it independently as I am suggesting you read Alice in Wonderland. Oh, so by the way the questions for Alice on the quarterly exams will be extra-credit oriented, at least in part, so this book will not be one I cover much in class, but help you with if you ask me. I am reading it myself. Pride and Prejudice would be discussed every week, quizzed, and tested.

Now, for an honors student, you can expect to read about 4 to 5 more books per year, have at least one more presentation per semester beyond what the other students are doing, and one more longer paper per year. I have put thought into a reading list, and here is what I came up with:

1. V.S. Naipaul – (British; Nobel Prize for Literature in 2001) – A House for Mr. Biswas

2. William Golding – (British; Nobel Prize for Literature in 1983) – The Lord of the Flies

3. Alan Paton (South African) – Cry, the Beloved Country

4. Aldous Huxley (British) – Brave New World

5. Shakespeare – Macbeth reader planned; add original Macbeth or King Lear (see below)

Other possible choices:

Somerset Maugham (British) – Of Human Bondage

James Joyce (Irish) – A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, maybe Ulysses

Robert Graves (British) – I, Claudius

George Orwell (British) – 1984, Animal Farm

Agatha Christie (British) – And Then There Were None, Mousetrap
Jonathan Swift (British) – A Modest Proposal, or Gulliver's Travels

So the books above, 1 through 5, are carefully chosen, and let me speak of them. All authors above are British, which qualifies them for our consideration. I've avoided Canadian writers here, much to my chagrin, mostly because we have a full list already. We could have a separate class just on our Northern friends, actually. The first choice, Naipaul, comes very highly recommended. I have not read this book but am almost burning up to do so. Someone I know who devoured books right and left spoke very highly of this particular author, and this is enough for me. Number 3 on the list is similar - a good teacher friend of mine who read a lot and was into making lists of books for other people to read, spoke eloquently of the beautiful word painting we'll find in Cry, the Beloved Country. Just look on Amazon for a chorus of reviews supporting this. William Golding is one I like - one odd thing is that I first heard this book as a boy when my father read it to me. Some difference - my dad was reading my Lord of the Flies and my mom was reading my Jonathan Livingston Seagull! I suppose, looking back, Lord of the Flies had the greater shock value. Brave New World was the favorite book of one of our excellent environmental science teachers of the past, Mr. Zarubin, and I remember kicking myself for not yet reading it. I have come close with "The Giver," and read others in the genre like 1984, but Brave New World is a must-read, currently number 5 on The Modern Library's 100 Best Novel list and I am reading it now along with half a dozen other books. Finally, Shakespeare is a must, right?

So we are already reading the graded reader for Macbeth. The book also has some of the original play so we will read parts of the original. Honors students could decide to read the entire play of Macbeth in the original. However, I believe the school is also getting a graded reader that contains King Lear, so we could rip through that and then read the original, or as much as we can of it, as well.

Since the honors class is not required, the idea of 5 books - or these 5 books - is up for discussion and even negotiation. I have some other books listed that I consider pretty good choices. Usually honors students read the books on their own, confer with the teacher, then write some kind of short paper or at least answer written questions from the teacher proving they have read the books. Or we could make a small reading group or "cell," or something like a small group lesson focusing on the books. I had thought honors students would likely read the first five and then also choose one more, a sixth book, from the list below. I might suggest going for something different if you are reading a sixth book - like I, Claudius, which vividly portrays ancient Rome, or Mousetrap, a play by Agatha Christie that I saw staged in London and has a superb twist at the end which is nearly impossible to guess. I could also recommend books of poetry or short stories if you want to avoid novels. An honors student could use this sixth book and perhaps take away the Pride and Prejudice requirement if it has already been read in the past.

I hope you can see that part of what needs to happen here in your final months and years before you go off and get a tertiary, or university, education, is to a) ruthlessly analyse the way you are using your time, b) take any opportunity you can to learn more, to experience something extraordinary with learning, and c) take a long-term view. The habits you develop now will be with you for life. So learn to be inquisitive and how to become a lifelong learner. Also, looking back, do you think you will be happy you spent your time on entertainment or on reading a book that helped you know and experience life better? Will you learn to soothe the mind or expand the mind?

Which way?

Dear Students,

Sometimes I am reminded of Alice’s conversation with Cheshire cat when students are preparing to leave high school, as many of you are. Many of you view school as young Alice views Wonderland – a safe, but confusing and somewhat frustrating place where you can hide out until others figure out who you are, and after that, maybe you will decide to join the world. However, you are impatient for everything to happen according to plan – whatever that plan is. Check out this excerpt from their first conversation:

  `Cheshire Puss,' she began, rather timidly, as she did not at all know whether it would like the name:  however, it only grinned a little wider.  `Come, it's pleased so far,' thought Alice, and she went on.  `Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?'

  `That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,' said the Cat.

  `I don't much care where--' said Alice.

  `Then it doesn't matter which way you go,' said the Cat.

  `--so long as I get SOMEWHERE,' Alice added as an explanation.

  `Oh, you're sure to do that,' said the Cat, `if you only walk long enough.'

 So many of us are in a hurry to walk somewhere, but we do not think about where we are going. Others many not be in a hurry, but despite their certainty about where they are going, they are wrong. Now I'm not just saying to therefore walk around in circles, although at the moment the idea of a stroll in proper scenery is appealing, nor to just lay down and rest, although some will surely be needed. Rather, don't get too attached to one's walking, or the destination, and remember that things are not always as they seem.

Our course here should be entertaining - but there will also be those confusing and frustrating moments as in the wider theater around it. Yet while we match life we should hope to learn more about it and also to become excellent at it, so that as we walk down our successive paths in life we will have become that much richer for having shared a mutual experience.

Please come to this blog for updates on what's happening in our class, and a good time to do that would be on a sleepy weekend afternoon after I have updated a little schedule note for the following week. We'll be doing lots of reading, I hope, but plenty of speaking, writing, and even having somewhat heated discussions, if things work according to plan.

And speaking of plans.... mine  ....

                                         is......to.......slowly..............

`Well!  I've often seen a cat without a grin,' thought Alice;

`but a grin without a cat!  It's the most curious thing I ever

saw in my life!'

disappear.....

:)