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I haven’t updated in awhile (sorry! So busy!), but we are clipping right along with Individual Written Arguments. Students are working this weekend on rough drafts and bringing those to class on Monday. We will spend this whole week revising, editing, and rethinking those pieces. It would be fantastic if you could offer to be a second set of eyes on their drafts. I am very limited by the College Board in the amount of specific feedback I can give at this point. I can ask lots of questions and make general suggestions, but I can’t correct grammar, suggest phrasing changes, etc. If they’re unwilling to let you look at it, encourage them to ask other trusted editors to take a peak! I’ve been very happy with their level of commitment to the writing process with this piece. So many of them have struggled all year with the desire to put their writing off until the last minute. They’re sure they write best under pressure. I pointed out that if they always write under pressure and they’re doing well, imagine how great their writing could be if they took time to think and process!! With most, that seems to have worked, but there are still a few stragglers out there insisting on waiting until the last minute. If you see your student burning the midnight oil tonight, I’d encourage you to have a little chat about planning and working over time. It’s not always possible--they are so, so busy--but when they do have opportunities to spread out their work, they should. Final drafts of the IWA will be due a week from Monday and then we will spend the week before break working on preparing their Individual Presentations. My hope is that most of them will be able to get the bulk of their work done prior to Spring Break so that they can take a true break from Seminar that week!! After break (the second week in April) we will start practicing and giving each other feedback. The students are hoping to have another parent night since that was so useful last time. I’m trying to figure out the logistics of that and will get details to you as soon as possible.
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I sent a very stressed/overwhelmed group out of my room today, and I’m feeling a little bad about it. By Tuesday, they are charged with coming up with rough drafts of their research questions, and they all have so many questions about their questions that they are making themselves miserable!! As I told them in class today, most of them are the types of students that would happily jump through any hoops I give them; unfortunately, this is a hoop-free assignment! They need to think about the stimulus materials, consider how they connect, and find a way to channel those connections into a research question. I’m hoping you can help me out this weekend by engaging them in a little discussion about their potential questions. Please assure them that these are just draft questions at this point!! We will talk a lot more, discuss, and adjust as they move through the research process.
I’ve shared a few documents with them on Google Classroom to help them out, including a breakdown of the rubric for this paper. Hopefully they will spend some time looking at that rubric this weekend. On Monday we will do some more talking and thinking about the stimulus materials. By Tuesday, they will need drafts of their questions and I will set them loose to research. We have talked a lot about balancing time as we move into this busy season of AP exam prep. They all have a lot on their plates, so the more you can encourage them to work hard while they are in class, the better!! Happy discussing!! (Hopefully you’ll get more out of them than I get out of my son when I ask about school.) They did it!! (Well, everyone except one group, but I know they’re ready and I’m confident they’ll do a great job on Monday).
Thanks again for coming to watch the TMPs last Monday. Your feedback drove them to make some awesome changes and improvements to their presentations. I was really impressed with the finished product. Mrs. Bratney, our Library/Media Specialist came to watch the final presentations and said I wasn’t just being a proud mama!! Her direct quote, “This is amazing. This is what I always imagine students are capable of when it comes to research and presentation!” So...on Tuesday we will dig into our second performance task. The students will receive a giant packet of stimulus materials intended to get them thinking about new topics. We will spend the next two weeks reading and discussing those articles, narratives, and research studies. When we get back from break, we will start zeroing in on their individual research questions. If you can, chat with them about what they’re reading in the stimulus materials. The more they talk through what they’re reading, the more they’ll start to think of interesting questions and topics they’d like to explore. Ultimately, they’ll end up writing a research based argumentative essay (about 2000 words) and then presenting their argument in independent presentations. Those presentations will take place in the last few weeks of April. Enjoy the next two weeks; I’ll update the week after break about how students are doing with the research process. Happy Weekend! I’m hoping that many of you have seen your students practicing or meeting up with their group members this weekend. I know many groups were planning on working over the weekend. I also know that many of them had big athletic, music, work, etc. events this weekend that keep them busy. I’m so impressed by their ability to manage their busy lives, academics and extracurriculars. If you’re seeing stressed out students at home, please encourage them to check in with me. I can’t necessarily simplify their schedules, but sometimes I can help them make better use of their time so that they may juggle things more effectively.
Tomorrow in class we will do final run-throughs of Team Multimedia Presentations in anticipation of our event Monday night. I hope you’re planning to join us!! We will start at 7pm in my room (252) and should be done easily by 8pm. Tuesday we will debrief how the presentations went and make any necessary tweaks. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday will be devoted to taping our final presentations. If you can’t make it on Monday night, I can probably send you the video of the final presentation. Thanks for all your support. Some of the students are pretending like they don’t really want you to come watch them, but I can tell that they’re pretty excited to show you their work!! Have a great Sunday. Welcome to second semester! It was so nice to have your students in class today. Instead of jumping right into our presentation work, we took a few minutes to discuss the events of the weekend. I continue to be impressed by their ability to consider multiple perspectives, listen to one another and focus on solutions. They are truly a special bunch.
After our discussion they all got back to work on their Team Multimedia Presentations. I’m hoping you’ve been hearing about those at home. If you haven’t, ask them to tell you about them! They are working hard on collaborating with their teams to articulate research based solutions to incredibly complex problems. We will do our final videotaping of those presentations next week in class, but we would love to have you join us for an evening of practice at 7pm on Monday, February 6. The students will run through their presentations and any parents in attendance will be invited to provide feedback for them. They were a little hesitant to invite you all because, as one said, “Our parents will be brutally honest!” That’s what we need--brutal honesty!! Please let your student know if you think you can make it. It will be no more than an hour. Once we finish those presentations next week, we will move on to our second performance task: the individual written argument. I’ll give more information about that in a few weeks. Enjoy your week! I hope you are all enjoying the long weekend! I know everyone is caught up in end-of-semester studying, but I highly recommend taking some time this weekend to engage in some reflection about why we have Monday off! I am always reminding students that they need to take opportunities to “deepen their contextual pools” --learn more about the world around them--and this is one of those opportunities! Novi High School hosts a wonderful event called “Unity in the Community” at 7pm on Monday evening in the Auditorium featuring speakers and artistic responses to MLK day. There are many other wonderful service learning and memorial events in the area as well.
This will be my last post of semester one, so I wanted to update you on grades and midterms. Grades This class has been about skill development all semester, so grades are pretty set at this point. Students have had opportunities to show their skill level in writing, research and presentation at least three times, and each time I’ve replaced the lower score with the higher one. The one area where I have not done much formal assessment is in reading. Students have read a ton while they’ve researched, but we haven’t had time for a lot of formal assessment. I will do one more formal assessment of their reading during the next two weeks. The student will sit down with me and talk me through their research reading they have done for their IRR. I will give them a rubric for how this will be scored on Tuesday, but it is not something they should worry about! I want to see that they are reading closely and carefully and can identify and critique the line of reasoning in the articles they’re using for their research reports. Once that reading score has been entered, students’ grades will be set for the semester. Midterms The nature of AP Seminar makes a midterm really silly; students are in the middle of a project and, as I explained above, their grades are very reflective of their current skill level. I do not need to give them a test to know how they’re doing. Our midterm will consist of a reflective conversation wherein students will talk about their progress thus far and make some goals for second semester. Don’t worry--they aren’t getting off easy!! They are neck-deep in their Individual Research Reports. The work I saw last week in class was incredibly promising. Drafts are due on Tuesday and we will start digging into revisions of those drafts. Final drafts will be due next Monday. Per College Board rules, I can’t give them scores for those since they are official College Board assessments. If I could, I would just make those essays their midterm!! Instead, we will spend the week of midterms getting to work on their Team Multimedia Presentations. Please ask your students to tell you about their Individual Research Reports! They’re doing some excellent thinking and researching, but the more they talk through their research, the stronger it gets. Another adult to bounce ideas off of is always valuable! Have a great weekend! The next time you hear from me I will (hopefully) be giving you dates to come see the students give their Team Multimedia Presentations! Hello! I hope you all enjoyed the nice, long holiday break as much as I did. I spent lots of time reading, playing with my kids, and doing a little work to get ready for the last push of the semester.
Honestly, the semester change will really not impact AP Seminar much at all. Due to the timing of the official performance tasks, we will be focused more on those than on any type of large midterm. The midterm will be a one-on-one conference students will have with me about their progress in the four assessment categories thus far: writing, research, presentation, and reading. Students will talk me through samples of their work, explain the progress they think they’ve made so far, and identify some goals for the coming semester. I do not anticipate grades to change much from where they are right now; the assessments we’ve been doing all fall have been largely focused on multiple opportunities to grow and show progress. This week, you can expect your students to be digging into the written portion of their performance task one. Groups identified topics, divided the research load and did lots of research prior to break. Monday we will reconvene as groups, make sure everyone remembers what’s going on, and revisit the rubric for the Individual Research Report. We will spend the remainder of the week continuing with researching and writing. Students are strongly encouraged to conference with me this week, but, per the College Board rules, I cannot require them to conference with me. Please, please help me encourage them to use their time wisely. Their Individual Research Reports will be due next week Tuesday. The other thing students may begin working on this week is the reading for the second performance task. We will not be beginning our work with that reading until February, but the College Board released the texts (and it’s lengthy--93 pages of research) this week. Students can access the texts through the online Digital Portfolio. Please let me know if you have any questions about the performance tasks as students work on these for the next few weeks! Have a great week! Happy Snow Day! I’m writing a two week post today since I have a feeling I’m just going to get busier and busier as we get closer to break.
Students lucked out with this snow day in a big way. It gave them an extra day to work on their Individual Written Argument essays! Drafts of those essays will be due tomorrow, and we will work on revision in class. Final drafts will be due on Wednesday. I’m seeing some excellent growth in students’ abilities to research and craft an argument. I encourage you to sneak a peek at your students’ essays. On Wednesday, we will officially begin our first Performance Task Assessment for the AP program. Students will form research teams and decide on individual research focuses. We will spend the final week before break working on students’ Individual Research Reports. About a week after break, they’ll reform their groups, share their individual research reports and then begin crafting a group argumentative presentation that synthesizes everyone’s research--the Team Multimedia Presentation. In the next two weeks, it is important that students engage in the group formation process. I’ve been asking them to share things they’d like to research in the hopes that we can match students up in groups with shared interests. Since the AP score is dependent on this group project, it’s important that they all commit to working hard as a group. This hasn’t been an issue thus far with this class, so I’m anticipating a fairly smooth group formation process! Enjoy the rest of your day! This week we are starting our final practice writing and research project before tackling the AP performance assessments. Students are, understandably, a little stressed about all the big projects that are suddenly on the horizon. If you’re hearing stress at home, please remind them that there is a lot of time built into our class calendar to tackle these projects piece by piece. The key to their successful is to engage in each step of the process. Plan carefully, ask questions as you research, seek out feedback on early writing drafts, etc. If students are engaged in the process the whole way, the end products will come together!
Tonight (Monday) students are reading some source material related to our final unit theme: Movement. Tomorrow in class students will work on developing good research questions. Those questions will guide their independent research for the rest of the week. By Friday, they will all have completed their research and next week will be spent drafting and conferencing about their essays. The other major piece of work we’re doing is practice with critical reading. Students received a second graded reading assessment today and will have another opportunity next week to try the same type of assessment. We discussed the assessment in class today, but please encourage your student to come see me for one on one feedback if the score is unclear. These early scores are intended to help students see what they need to do to improve; if they’re lost about how to get better, I need to know! I hope you have a great week. Please let me know if you have any questions. Sorry for no update last week!! Hopefully your students have been keeping you updated on what they’re doing in class.
Last week the students turned in their Mock IRR (Individual Research Report) and then last week and next they will present their research in a Mock TMP (Team Multimedia Presentation). The kids and I are learning that AP loves acronyms!! These two tasks are the first ones that they will submit to the College Board for assessment for AP Seminar credit. We learned a lot with their practice and have time to do one more practice in the next unit prior to beginning our official IRRs and TMPs. All of this work has been helping with skill development in four areas: Reading, Writing, Research, Presentation. By the end of next week, students will have done at least two formal assessments in each area. In almost every case, their skills are improving and I will replace the lower score with the newer, higher one. We will have one more round of practice with this final unit where students can raise their skills (and scores!) one more time. After that unit, we will be on the brink of shifting from our skill development to our big “official” projects, and I thought it might be helpful for you to see our schedule for AP assessments for the remainder of the year. Once we begin our assessment work in late December, class will function largely as a workshop. Students will work collaboratively and also conference with me about their progress. As long as they are working effectively in class, they should always be able to keep their homework to 30 min a night maximum. Late December: Form research teams based on student interests January: Work on Individual Research Reports (IRR) Early February: Work on Team Multimedia Presentation (TMP) Late February: Present and record TMPs, upload them to College Board website March: Begin Individual Written Argument (IWA) Early April: Work on Individual Presentation (IP) Late April: Present and record IPs, upload IPs and IWA to College Board website May 4: AP Seminar written exam May 5-end of year: Student showcase (more on that next semester! We’ll be inviting you to come see all our work!), Begin developing research question for AP Research course (12th grade year) I hope this helped you better understand what we’re up to in AP Seminar! I continue to love working with your students. They are creative, hardworking, curious and lots of fun! Please encourage them to keep up the great work. |
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