Monthly Archives: September 2016

LA Update 9/25/16

We have started on our “hero’s journey” stories!  A few of the things that we’ll be talking about in the coming days.

  1. Allegories.  What are they?  How is Beowulf an allegory?
  2. Dialogue?  How to you write it?  How do you format it?  What makes good dialogue?
  3. Reading Padlet.  What’s that?  How do I create my own?  How does that fit with the book plan as a way to track my reading?
  4. Planning.  What’s my plan for my story?  Where am I going with my protagonist?  What do I want to teach my reader?

Upcoming due dates:

  • September 28th:  First book on reading plan should be complete.
  • Every night:  Read 30 minutes.

Have a great week!  -JF

Shark Tank Update 9/25/16

We have so many exciting things planned over the next couple of months, including:

  1. David Cohen, CEO of Techstars, coming to speak to our class on October 14th.
  2. Teju Ravilochan, CEO of the Unreasonable Institute, coming to speak to our class on October 18th.
  3. Three mentor days.  Students will have 15-25 minute appointments with an Entrepreneurial mentor to share their business ideas and brainstorm next steps.  These days are October 6th, October 25th, and November 15th.
  4. Our ADI#2 Visit on October 28th to the CU school of Business where we will have the chance to meet with professors and graduate students in their entrepreneurship program.
  5. Our ADI#3 Visit to CEDS (Community Enterprise Development Services) in Aurora.  This is a micro-lending organization that gives loans to refugees (among other services).  We’ll be talking to them about their work as well as meeting with a few refugees who have started their own businesses.  (Not confirmed yet — but there is an Iraqi Kabob owner who may be speaking with us.  We may get kabobs following the conversation!)

One of the things that we’ve been talking about in class is that entrepreneurship is an opportunity to pursue a passion.  Many students are still focused on products (which is fine), but I’ve also been encouraging students to pursue more “theoretical” ideas as well (apps, etc.).  There is plenty of time to pivot in this project — in fact that’s what entrepreneurs do all the time. Students should not feel “locked” into their product for another couple of weeks.

We have five more classes until our first set of mentor meetings on October 6th.  These meetings are a great opportunity for students to explore the viability of their idea.  Entrepreneurs set their own deadlines, so I’m doing that as much as I can with the individual students.  Here is the recommended guidelines for where students should be:

  1. Entrepreneur Essay signed off.  (Question #1 of the Business Plan)  This should have been done last week, although a few students are still making last minute changes.  If this is not complete by Monday, I will mark it as missing in Infinite Campus.
  2. Business Canvas signed off by Tuesday.  Again, this is a recommended goal — many students will need until early next week to complete this.  That’s fine.  Students should have two copies of their completed business canvas printed out for their mentor meetings on October 6th.
  3. Market research plan.  No due date yet — but that’s the next piece.  Students will need to start to identify trends that support their business AND create an interview script for their target customer.  We’ll be learning how to write up this data in class following our return from Fall Trip.
  4. Product/Service/App idea should be generally locked down by October 12th.  There is still room to make lots of changes after that time, but the general idea should be zeroed in at that time.

Have a great week!  -JF

Fall Trip

In Co-op this week, we’ll be talking fall trip.  Cabin groups and trail groups will be shared on Monday.  Students should plan on wearing clothes appropriate to their first rotation when they arrive to school on Wednesday.  We’ll be returning home from the fall trip around 4:30pm on Friday.

We did a packing demonstration last week for the students.  The packing list went home with the med forms weeks ago.  Three big takeaways are:

  1. Students should be able to easily carry their belongings with a day bag and a night bag.  We recommend not using a big backpack simply because of space on the bus.
  2. We really want students interacting with one another — so please do not bring electronics.  Phones should be off for the duration of the trip.
  3. Dress for Colorado weather.  (layers) Should be lovely, but you never know…

Have a wonderful week!  -JF

Friendly Reminder

Just a friendly reminder that Friday is a conference release day.  Students should plan on attending the first two elective periods and then transportation should be arranged home at 10:30am.  Come back just for your conference. (If you haven’t had it already).  Hope this helps to clarify!  -JF

LA Update — 9/18/16

Hi Everyone,

We’ll be introducing our story-writing project this week.  I’ve included the task description below as an fyi…

Upcoming due dates:

  • Every night:  Read 30 minutes
  • Monday, 9/18:  Hero’s Journey assignment due.  (Students were given an extension from last week.)
  • Wednesday 9/28: First book from book plan should be complete.

Have a great week!  -JF

Ps.  Here’s the task description for our Hero’s Journey stories. —

 

Story Task Description   

Dear Wonderful Writers!

I’m so proud of all the AMAZING work that you have done so far in my class.  Now that you know the story of Beowulf, you get to write your own interpretation!  You will be responsible for writing a narrative consisting of four connected short stories, each representing one step of the Hero’s Journey.  We will be working on this for the next couple of months, focusing on revision, peer critique, metaphor, sentence-structure, and how to write a great story.

Your stories will differ drastically from Beowulf in many ways.

  1. Setting.  You can set your story wherever you like.  You can set your story in middle school, at a soccer practice, ancient Denmark, during the Civil War, at a dinner table, in prison, in the future,  wherever…
  2. Teaching.  Beowulf teaches us about heroes, the role of women, how to respond to terrorists, who “we” are, and who “they” are.  Your story may teach us something very different.  What will that be?  Do you want to teach your reader about conflict resolution?  Equality?  The Environment?  Immigration? Something else?
  3. Perspective.  You may choose to write your story from any point of view you would like.  Write from Beowulf’s perspective?  Or Grendel’s perspective?  Or Wealtheow’s perspective?  Or Hrothgar’s?  Have fun with this.  Female characters aren’t represented very well in the original story of Beowulf.  Perhaps, your story’s protagonist is “Grendela” instead of “Grendel.”  
  4. The Hero’s Journey has 12 steps. We are only focusing on the following four steps for our short stories.  Each of these steps will consist of an “exploded moment.”
Ordinary World Who is our protagonist?  What is life like for them in their day-to-day lives?
Call to Adventure How do they get pulled into the “special world?”  By what invitation?  Wanted or otherwise?
Ordeal The conflict!  
Return with the Elixir What has the protagonist (and the reader) learned from this whole experience?

Your narrative:

  1. Must include a dynamic metaphor woven throughout each of the stories. (We’ll talk about this in class.)
  2. Will be written in third person perspective.
  3. Will contain at least 1200-3000 words total (spread across all four sections.)
  4. Needs to “show, not tell” your teaching.  Again, we’ll talk about this in class.
  5. Must contain a “Beowulf” (or Beowulfa) character and a “Grendel” (Or Grendela) character.  How you formulate these characters is entirely up to you.  In the ordeal, these two characters must engage in some type of conflict.  This does not have to be a physical conflict, though it can be if that helps you better convey your lesson to the reader.
  6. Will be the product of many revisions.  We’ll be undertaking the real process that real writers actually do to create their stories.  We will be spending a lot of time on critique — and you will all have a chance to write, rewrite, and rewrite again.  Plan to revise everything; they’ll be many drafts!  

I can’t wait to work with you on a zillion drafts.  Thanks in advance for all your hard work! -JF

Our guiding questions:

1)   How do “great” writers accomplish their craft?

2)   How do you give kind, helpful, and specific critique?

3)   Who are “we?”   Who are “they?”  What will your “monster” teach us about humanity?

4)   How do you effectively use the rules of grammar to add clarity to your ideas?

Shark Tank Update Week of 9/19/16

Hi Everyone,

All sorts of exciting updates to share:

  1. David Cohen, Founder of Co-CEO of TechStars will be coming to speak to our class about his experience as both a founder and investor on October 14th.
  2. Teju Ravilochan, Founder and CEO of the Unreasonable Institute will be speaking to our class on October 18th.
  3. For our next ADI, we’ll be headed to the CU School of Business to meet students and professors who are engaging in entrepreneurship at the college level.
  4. We have mentor days on the horizon — October 6th, October 25th, and November 15th. If you have entrepreneurial experience and you are available to mentor, I would love your help!  Please email me ASAP.

To help students get organized for this project, we are working on the following checklist.  (Many students are around step #9 at the moment).

Upcoming due dates:

  • Last Wednesday:  Checkpoint #1 Survey
  • Tuesday:  It is encouraged that a strong draft of the entrepreneur essay (Question #1 on the business plan) be complete.  I’ll give students extensions as needed on this, but they should be working with agency and urgency towards the completion of this piece.

Have a great week!  -JF

Conferences next week!

Hi Everyone,

I’m really looking forward to our student-led conferences next week.  Here is the link to the conference schedule in case you need it one more time.

Prior to conferences, students should be ready with the following:

  1. Portfolio set up with all 8 tabs. (Personal, Rubrics, Goals, Community, Math, LA, Science, Social Studies)
  2. Portfolio with cover page, spine label, PSR sign-off sheet, and community service log.
  3. Two copies of their goals (revised if needed after my feedback) printed out.  Both should be in the portfolio.

We’ll be modeling how to have a conference in class.  Thanks for all your continued support!  -JF

Asia Trade

Just wanted to cc: you on this quick letter I shared with students today… Ask your students what they learned about supply and demand.  This also includes some more information about our ADI tomorrow.  -JF

Dear Creative Capitalists!  (That’s you!)

Tomorrow, we have an exciting opportunity to delve into the world of China.  We’ll be visiting the Joyous Chinese Cultural Center.  We are going to learn some calligraphy, we’ll have a chance to make Chinese dumplings, eat a Chinese lunch, and possibly learn a Kung Fu fan dance.  It should make for a very fun day!   We’ll be leaving early in the morning (8:45am) and we should return to school at 2pm.  When we return, we’ll return to Shark Tank to debrief the experience and continue to work on our LTP Business Plans.

Next Monday, we’ll introduce Question #2 of the business plan (The product essay).  As a general goal, you should try to have a STRONG draft of your entrepreneur essay done by next Tuesday, September 20th.  Make sure to show agency and urgency and let me help/edit/review your work.  Use your resources (like your teacher!)

As promised, I’d like to introduce a new scenario to you today.  Here are our learning targets:

🌀LT:  I can explain the importance and potential imbalances of international trade.

🌀LT:  I can work together with others to evolve our understanding of supply and demand.

I am going to purposely NOT  “front-load” a lot of information here.   You have been assigned to one of seven Asian countries.  A few guidelines:

  1. Information is provided for you in the packet.
  2. The trader would like to buy stuff from you!
  3. You may only use ONLY supplies in your packet.  Do not use ANY supplies that you may “find” around the room. Do not use ANY supplies that you might have brought yourself.
  4. Please keep your country’s identity a secret.  

I look forward to debriefing this with you at the end of the scenario!  Thanks in advance for all your great thinking.  -JF

LA Update 9/11/16

Hi everyone,

If you are searching for dinner conversation topics, here are four quick topics to ask your student around the dinner table.

  1. How is your reading plan going?  Are you enjoying your book and reading 30 minutes a night?  Do you need a new book recommendation from Mr. Feiger?
  2. Can you tell me the story of Beowulf?
  3. What is the “Hero’s Journey” — how does it connect with Beowulf?  How about with a movie you’ve seen recently?
  4. What are ways you can self-advocate as a learner?

We are continuing to learn about the Hero’s Journey.  Students will be mapping both the story of Beowulf and a short story from Italy entitled, “The Feathered Ogre” to this template.  Later in the week, we’ll learn more about Beowulf from Grendel’s perspective and acting some alternative version of this tale.   My hope is that in the next week or two, we’ll start writing our own stories, exploring how we want to use the “hero’s journey” to teach our readers our own lessons about “us” and “them.”  This will be our first major project of the year.

Upcoming due dates:

  • Every day:  Read 30 minutes
  • Wednesday at beginning of class:  Hero’s Journey due via paper copy. We’ll be working on this in class.  (There are also a few extensions available on this assignment for those who wish to go “above and beyond” in their study of this material.)  Here’s a copy of the assignment fyi…

Thank you so much for your continued support!  Have  a great week!   -JF