Hello my most-wonderful-intelligent Team Vista students!

This semester, we are going to try a new format for Reading Journals, that I think will help us read actively and will also help us learn how to comment on our reading with more, shall we say, efficiency.

It is called the "Q-Q-C format" [insert ominous music here].

I am going to post a Reading Journal on my own reading today, so you can get a feeling for how it's done.

"But the easy and the simple are not identical. To discover what is really simple and to act upon the discovery is an exceedingly difficult task. After the artificial and complex is once institutionally established and ingrained in custom and routine, it is easier to walk in the paths that have been beaten than it is, after taking a new point of view, to work out what is practically involved in the new point of view."

To me, this means that there is a great division between what we THINK and what we DO. This quotation comes from the book Experience and Education by John Dewey, and it's a super-great little book about rethinking education in America. He is talking about how it's easy to criticize the old way of doing school, but it's hard to actually do school differently.

In my own life, I have found that High Tech High is constantly trying to rethink school, but the experiment of project-based learning is often very frustrating! I totally relate to what Dewey is talking about.

My question is: how do we realize our ideas?! I've been trying to answer this question for years now.

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Your blogs about alternative energy got me really excited! It is so incredibly amazing all the technologies that we are using to come up with a solution to our energy woes (as comically described above).

Some blogs that I particularly enjoyed:
- Caitlin's indictment against wind power
- Itzel's hope for rainbow power
- Danielle's description of a WAVE FARM (woh)
- JD's blurb on banana power

Check 'em out! And leave comment love. :)

This weekend, you and your debate partner should work on your Affirmative Cases. For your official prep, you need only finish your case outline, type it, and bring your typed draft to class on Monday.

But, since you know what to do to finish your case, you may also research and collect evidence for all your arguments.

I also uploaded the case used during the debate on Wednesday so that you can see a finished Affirmative Case, complete with introduction, conclusion and evidence galore.

Check it out here.

Happy researching!

Today we read two chapters from Maya Angelou's Wouldn't Take Nothing for my Journey Now.

In your own blog, write a response to these two chapters. Here are a couple suggestions of what you could post:

1. A quotation that struck you from the reading, and what you liked about it
2. A "found poem" from the reading with words or phrases that stuck out to you
3. Your own idea of "the good life" and what that looks like to "live well."

After you post your blog, go to Google Reader and read and comment on at least three other entries posted by other members of Team Vista.

As part of our Life & Death Project, we read "Our Town" (1938) by Thorton Wilder. In Act III, Emily goes back to the land of the living and realizes that she never realized anything at all. She has a farewell to the world, and for your writing assignment tonight, you should copy the style of the Emily's monologue. (Need the handout? Click here.)

I enjoyed writing this, because I kept remembering all the things I love about life that I would certainly miss if they were taken away from me. Remembering what you'd miss is a great way to remember to appreciate what you have.

Good-bye world...good-bye gentle sunrises and glorious sunsets. Good-bye Mom, Dad, Caitie and Jas... Good-bye blue & green room, and red curtains, and artwork still unfinished. Good-bye students - I barely knew you. Good-bye mismatched socks, and holy shoes, and cowboy boots. Good-bye freeways, and free-drives, and singing out loud with all of my heart. And coffee, and blueberry muffins, and tea, and toast with jam. Good-bye green grass, green trees, blue sky, and whimsical cloud creatures. Good-bye ocean, mountains, lakes, rivers. And sea shells, and sand on my feet, and wind in my hair, and sun on my face.

Oh, stupid planet. You were so much more than I knew. I wish I had opened my eyes to notice.

I look forward to reading all of your good-byes! I hope you love the rest of your day - all that is left of it, anyway.

-k

Bonjour mes étudiants!

As you are all slaving away finishing your Perspective Blocks, I am looking ahead to the next project -- the Life & Death Project. It's gonna be sweet & I'm very excited.

Since we all love music so incredibly much, I wonder if you can think of any songs that revolve around the idea of life & death?

Yazmin's song she presented in class a couple weeks ago is one of the songs that first comes to mind: "Gone, like yesterday is gone. Like history is gone. The world keeps spinning on. We're going going gone."

Any others?