Gemmell ERWC-4 Assignments

This is the last week to boost your grade. You may go back and complete any ONE distance learning assignment that you haven't already done and submit it for credit.

Be sure to complete it by Thursday, May 28, at noon. I'll see you for the Senior Parade on Friday, May 29!

Seniors are creating their own ways to mark the important moment in their life: graduation. Some are creating their own Instagram Yearbooks. Others are chronicling the experience in Facebook posts and writing good-bye lists. Seniors from all around the country watched a TV special called “Graduate Together” that aired on May 16.

For this week’s lesson, you will select ONE way to mark this important occasion for yourself.

Although you may do more to celebrate yourself, you only need to do ONE thing for this class assignment.

Create an Instagram Yearbook post using Canva. Copy and paste it into the Google Doc for this week’s assignment.
Write a good-bye list that documents all the things you want to say good-bye to about high school to help bring the experience to a close.
If you watched “Graduate Together”, write a reflection about your thoughts and feelings as you watched. What will you remember about the show? Why?

Submit your selected celebration format in Google Classroom. Don’t forget to hit the “turn in” button and submit on time, by noon on Friday. This is your last day of school. Yippee!

Read the article and then write a Reflection. As next school year may include some aspect of distance learning, I’m really interested in what you have to say.

Part 1: What is your reaction to the article? How do you feel after hearing about some of the difficulties that the two featured families are facing? Are you able to empathize with how they feel because you have had a similar experience? Or can you sympathize with what they are going through? Can you imagine what it might be like?

Part 2: How do you think school districts could better support students who are English-language learners when trying to get access to remote learning? Were there accommodations or solutions in the article that you support? Why or why not?
What about other students with special needs or circumstances? What could be done to help them?

Read the rest of Dr. Mitchell’s poem and note the lines, images and metaphors that speak to you.

Then, tap into your creative side by writing a poem inspired by your own experience of the pandemic.

Need inspiration? You can create a found poem using your Week 1 or Week 3 journal writes or an article from The Times’s coronavirus outbreak coverage. Or, try writing a poem in response to one of the New York Times Picture Prompts. Or, If you have access to the print paper, try making a blackout poem instead.

Submit your poem in the assignment titled Pandemic Poems. If you created a blackout poem, you’ll need to take a photo and paste it onto the Google Doc.

If all goes as planned (fingers crossed!), Senior English teachers will compile the poems into a booklet of student poetry about this quarantine experience to publish and distribute as a graduation memento. I hope you’ll participate!

Read the quotations about the common good during the COVID-19 outbreak. Then choose ONE to write about in a one page journal entry titled Common Good Journal Write. You can use the They Say/ I Say format from class journal writing.

Create a quarantine playlist by yourself or with friends and family.

Post your list to our class discussion board titled Playlists.

Then, respond to at least 2 other people’s posts. You might say something like: “Yes, X song is perfect because…” or “Have you considered Y song? I recommend it because…”

If you want, you can also share your list on social media.

To help me plan future weekly lessons, please complete this check-in form. I want to know how you are and how distance learning is working for you.

After reading, Louisiana’s Teacher of the Year Chris Dier’s Open Letter to Seniors, write a 1-page journal entry in the assignment Journal Response to Open Letter.
Capture how this virus has disrupted your school year—including sporting events, concerts, assemblies, dances.
Discuss how your daily life has been disrupted.
Share the effect it has had on your friends and family.
Your journal entry should touch on some of the points Dier makes to show that you read and that you understand what he’s arguing.

After talking with the other 12th grade English teachers, we agreed that the main assignment should be to read 1984 during the time school is closed.

Skim the list of questions below before you begin to read each section. As you
read, write on sticky notes (or fold a piece of paper to make a bookmark) to indicate places where you have found information relevant to the questions. You can also answer the questions on notebook paper, but it is not required.

After watching the video and reading the counselors' tips for succeeding in an online classroom environment, write 3 Be Sure Tos in order to demonstrate you understand "netiquette". This is due Wednesday, April 15.

Who is most responsible for preventing the spread of fake news? Write an essay defending your position.

So the dance teacher in me can't resist. Get up and get moving, everyone! This is a fun, easy-to-follow dance video. Plus, it has a sense of humor. Bonus points for being extra cheesy!

Post your thesis and support it with at least one piece of evidence (CER). Then, using your countering starters, respond to at least 1 other post.

First, read the Executive Summary which details their findings on ways to combat fake news and disinformation. Focus in on the areas that most support your position: consumers, government, news industry, technology companies, educational institutions. Add notes to your corresponding Notebook pages or start a Brookings Institute page.

Students write an open letter (an opinion piece) to be published on a Web site for those interested in the issue of juvenile crime, particularly state policymakers. Students use what they have learned about the issues surrounding charging and sentencing juveniles and about juvenile brain development through reading and discussion about the implications for juvenile accountability and rehabilitation. They apply what they have discovered about analyzing the rhetorical situation and the genre of the open letter to create their own letters tailored for their intended audience in order to make the argument for their position on juvenile sentencing.