Book Suggestions: Summer School English

Posted onJune 24, 2008 
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1. Harry Potter (any of them) by J.K. Rowling

2. Chronicles of Narnia (begin with The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe) by C.S. Lewis

3. Twilight Saga Series (Twilight, New Moon, and Eclipse) by Stephanie Meyer

4. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

5. The Book Thief by Markus Zuzak

6. Monster by Walter Dean Myers

7. Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom

8. The Martian Chronicles, Something Wicked this Way Comes, or Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury

Sudan Genocide Foundation

Posted onJune 20, 2008 
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Earlier this school year, English students after reading the book Night collaborated in making a wiki that looked at the different genocides that have occurred throughout the last two centuries. One of those genocides was the first Sudanese genocide.

One of the books that really made me interested in learning more about this genocide was the novel What is the What by Dave Eggers. This part-fictional, part-true novel chronicles the escape of Valentino Achak Deng, one of thousands of Lost Boys, who fled his homeland out of fear of being murdered.

Adriana excellently described the book in her review on the wiki.

Anyway, to my main point. Deng went back to Sudan and is building schools. And you, or your parents, can help. Check it out.

Twitter and NASA

Posted onJune 19, 2008 
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As you may, or may not, know, NASA recently landed a probe on Mars. Well, to keep the updates coming, they are using Twitter. If you have heard of Twitter (from my class probably), following the Mars lander updates would be a perfect way to be introduced to the power of the site.

Project #1 Help

Posted onMay 30, 2008 
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So, as many of you have noticed, I’ve not entered your grades for the first project. The reason this is simple: I could not play your project. Because of this, I would like those whose projects I have not graded, to come and see me at lunch or after school and show me your project. I will grade it then and there.

Also, don’t forget to work on project #2.

2 Million Minutes

Posted onMay 27, 2008 
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Here is a basic overview of the movie:

How a student spends their Two Million Minutes - in class, at home studying, playing sports, working, sleeping, socializing or just goofing off — will affect their economic prospects for the rest of their lives.

How do most American high school students spend this time? What about students in the rest of the world? How do family, friends and society influence a student’s choices for time allocation? What implications do their choices have on their future and on a country’s economic future?

This film takes a deeper look at how the three superpowers of the 21st Century - China, India and the United States - are preparing their students for the future. As we follow two students - a boy and a girl - from each of these countries, we compose a global snapshot of education, from the viewpoint of kids preparing for their future.

Our goal is to tell the broader story of the universal importance of education today, and address what many are calling a crisis for U.S. schools regarding chronically low scores in math and science indicators.

Home Page

News Articles

Download the action plan from the Web site Ed in ‘08 Web site.

Watch some 2 Million Minutes movies on YouTube.

View the 2 Million Minutes blog.

I loved Indiana Jones and you should too.

Posted onMay 26, 2008 
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I went several places as a child, but the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena might have been my favorite. For those of you who don’t know what JPL is, it’s a NASA facility that, among other things, is responsible for the launching of the Mars rovers, which I saw up close.  But growing up, I wanted to be an archaeologist because of Indiana Jones. In fact, I tinkered with the idea of majoring in archaeology when transferring from my junior college to the four-year university I’d eventually attend. Unfortunately, I didn’t really get science, so I had to abandon that idea after barely receiving a “C” in my first anthropology class.

I don’t remember the first time I saw an Indiana Jones movie. Heck, I don’t remember the first time I saw the original Star Wars movies either. All I know is that I have watched each movie in each series at least 100 times (the prequels, except for Revenge of the Sith are a different story).

It’s these movies that created what I consider to be my relatively expansive imagination. Because of Star Wars, space went from an empty desert to a jungle full of adventures around every star. And with Indiana Jones, the adventure was here, on Earth.

I knew that what Indiana Jones did in those movies wasn’t really archaeology. I knew all of the movies were provided a loose interpretation of history as their settings. I knew that the villains were mere caricatures. But I knew that none of those factors really mattered because that’s not why George Lucas made Indiana Jones. Lucas made Indy because he wanted audiences to have fun. He wanted to prick the imaginations of youngsters the way the serials and pulp adventure stories pricked his imagination when he was a youngster.

Who could imagine going to the movies to have fun?

Well, Lucas said as much in USA Today before the opening of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull:

“We came back to do (Indy) because we wanted to have fun,” he says. “It’s not going to make much money for us in the end. We all have some money. … It would make a lot of money if you weren’t rich. But we’re not doing it for the money.”

Still, as the date approached for The Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls to come out this weekend, I couldn’t help but think in my head, “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

I knew I’d like the movie. It was Indiana freakin’ Jones!

I wasn’t disappointed. In fact, I loved the movie. I hadn’t had more fun at the movies since Transformers and the original Pirates of the Caribbean before that.

My “bad feeling” stems from what I have perceived about the current generation of moviegoers. This generation of moviegoers, which seems to generally consist of anyone born after 1984, is cynical and expects one of two things:

1.    They expect to see stupid people do stupid things and then laugh at them (see Wayans’ Bros. movies).

2.    They expect to learn something. And it’s usually something that reinforces their general belief that there are reasons to doubt the institutions that they do doubt. (see National Treasure movies and the DaVinci Code.)

Taking these two things into consideration, I knew that this generation would have trouble suspending reality for two hours while watching Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Aliens? A 65-year-old action star? I didn’t see anyway that this movie, no matter how good, would be able to capture the imagination of the youngsters the way Raiders of the Lost Ark did for me.

And my suspicions have been pretty accurate so far. My 14-year-old punk of a brother told my dad, “I don’t want to see an old man running around.” While most of the students I’ve talked to at school who saw Kingdom of the Crystal Skull said, “Eh, it was OK, but really unrealistic.”

I’ve also heard, “Oh, c’mon, Shia Labeouf swinging from vine to vine like a monkey? How lame.” (Kids, that was Lucas and Spielberg paying homage to the great Tarzan movies of the 1940s,1950s and 1960s when they were kids.)

Highlight the empty space below… I don’t want to spoil the movie for anyone who hasn’t seen it.

You aren’t supposed to think that it’s possible to swing from vine to vine, just like it’s not possible to jump from car to car sword fighting, or like it’s not possible to get eaten down to the bone by killer ants, and like it’s not possible to survive dropping over three killer waterfalls. But these things are FUN! And just think, “what if?”

When I walked out of the theater Thursday morning, my imagination had been pricked once again. Really, who gives a damn about critical acclaim (even though a 79 percent on Rotten Tomatoes isn’t too bad, nor is a 3-minute standing ovation from the audiences at the Cannes Film Festival)?

There’s no doubt that recent Oscar-nominated movies like No Country for Old Men and There will be Blood are better “films” than Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Those are two well-made, message-wielding movies.

But if it’s a Saturday and I’m home and want to relax, I won’t watch No Country for Old Men. I’d pop in any of the Indy or Star Wars movies, throw some popcorn into the microwave and travel to a different world for two hours doing my best to forget about the state of suckiness that often infects “reality.”

So please, I beg you, when you see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, go to have fun. Let your imagination run wild. Don’t infect your mind with what can’t happen. For two hours just think, “what if?”

Conducting Research

Posted onMay 20, 2008 
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English I, with the research due next class, I figured this would be a good opportunity to review researching.

Conducting Research Note: Research is one of the invaluable skills you will learn in high school since you will be conducting research for the remainder of your educational careers. It is important to remember that research isn’t just going to Google.com, rather it consists of going to a number of sources—encyclopedias, newspapers, magazines, journals, and, yes, Web sites.

One of the most important things to remember when conducting research is that the more sources you have, the easier any assignment will be.

Conducting Quality Research

1. Visit Wikipedia.org: Most teachers will tell you that Wikipedia is not a valid source. Whether or not that is the case is debatable, however, Wikipedia can give you an overview of any subject you are researching.

NOTE: DON’T FORGET TO LOOK AT THE SOURCE LIST ON WIKIPEDIA.ORG. This source list usually contains articles that can be used as sources for your composition.

2. Use primary sources from Amat when at home. You can access Britannica Online, Facts on File, Grolier Online Passport and World Book from home. Just go to bishopamat.org, click on “Academics,” and the click on “Curriculum.” Then choose what encyclopedia you would like to look in

 - Remember, encyclopedia articles in general are NOT the best sources when writing an essay. However, encyclopedias give general overviews of your subject. Now you should be able to know keywords to use when conducting research on the Web, or in journals. For example, instead of Googling “Rwanda genocide,” you could Google “Janjaweed Militia.” Your search results will be much more accurate.

- Nearly every one of the sources available at Amat give the option of looking in archived magazine and news articles. Those count as magazine and journal articles, not Web sources.

3. Use Altavista.com’s advanced search engine. Go to www.altavista.com/web/adv and on the search line type the subject you’d like to research. Then, where it says, “by domain,” type “.gov” and then click find. Find the sources you would like to use, then return to the Altavista page. Instead of typing “.gov” in the domain box, type “.edu,” and then “.org”. DO NOT RELY ON SITES THAT ARE “.com”!

4. Do a Google News search. Go to Google.com and then type in the subject you would like to search for. Do not look at the Web results, instead, click on “News” and various news articles will come up. Check out those results to see if there has been any recent news on your subject. These are great sources for ensuring that your topic is up to date.

5. Check individual news sites: You will have to register for the major news sites. Don’t worry; they are free. Go to nytimes.com, wsj.com, csmonitor.com, latimes.com, washingtonpost.com and BBC.com. These sites are LEGITAMITE sources for news.

6. Go to a local library or a college library. These libraries have numerous books that can be used as sources for your topic. Ask a librarian for assistance when searching a topic. When you find a book, look at the index to see what page contains the subject you are after. Photocopy those pages and the page with publishing information.

Advanced Research

7. Look up an academic journal. You can find these at a college library. There are several journals, such as JSTOR that are entirely online. You can also use First Search, which will give an overview of the journals that are available. In addition, CQ Researcher, which is available at nearly every college, gives great overviews of current events.

Composition #3 Topics - Per. 4

Posted onMay 13, 2008 
Filed under English 1 | 39 Comments

Who do you want to write a research essay about? Post your topic as a comment below.

Composition #3 Topics - Per. 5

Posted onMay 13, 2008 
Filed under English 1 | 43 Comments

Who do you want to write a research essay about? Post your topic as a comment below.

Peer Editing

Posted onMay 7, 2008 
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Follow the directions to complete your own peer editing:

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