Tuesday 6th

Today was another protest day, so teachers wore their Union T-shirts and jeans to school and demonstrated in front of the school for 10 minutes before the bell for the first lesson rang.

Today was Day 4 (of the lessons calendar)

Period 1: English 3IB

First of all, Glenn asked his students to open their agendas and went over some dates with them: the blog is due Wednesday, tomorrow (before 23:59); the test scheduled for November 28st will be changed to November 21st, one week earlier; the projects are due for October 22nd and on that day they will watch the videos in class and in the following class they will do some reflection on them before moving forward.

Then the students were asked to take their literature books (= the notebooks for their literature class). Glenn read a small excerpt and went into a deep explanation: he wrote part of the explanation on the blackboard and asked the students to copy it. Then he explained the content, some vocabulary (eg. `shallow´), the theme and insisted on the importance of quotes.

And then they did the Twitter Activity

Introduction

• students made groups of 4
• they were handed a piece of paper for the group - they were told to write their names on it
• Glenn reminded them of the Twitter rules: 140 characters, including spaces, apostrophes... (for this activity, they had to write 85-140); username: @username; # (hashtag) for trending topics - showing the creativity of the writer
• Glen had photos for 8 characters in the book  (Farenheit 451) and each group had to create a Twitter Wall for a character

Activity

First, they glue the picture

Then they write that person´s twitter name (@username) - no switching, they must keep the character they got

And they write all the twitter names on the blackboard

Each group is aksked to write 2 tweets in 4 minutes

Then students rotate tables, leaving their Twitter Wall behind, and they write 2 mote tweets on the next Twitter Wall. They have to read what is there to decide how that conversation would go on. Before they switch tables again, they read some tweets aloud

And then they rotate one more time

They read aloud a final tweet ( some groups had not finished) to wrap up the activity.

Everybody has been engaged, has done some thinking, used their knowledge of the characters to write the tweets and they all had fun.

While this activity was going on, with the classroom door open, as usual, a student went by and she greeted Glenn, just like that; this is one example of the nice atmosphere in the school and in this class

Period 2: English 3IM

Before the second bell rang (there is a five-minute break from lesson to lesson), some students were already in the class talking about baseball with Glenn.

When the bell rang, Madison took over the class. She reminded the students to bring their mouse tomorrow because they will be working on their projects

This group is reading the novel called Monster. This is the activity they did in relation to the novel to explain how dangerous gangs can be.

Pre-reading questions

Students are asked to answer these questions individually on their Chrome Books:

1. How do gang members treat each other?
2. How do gangs change people?
3. What are their motives?
4. Why do people get involved in gangs?

There is absolute silence as the students type away their anwers; they are all totally focused on what they are doing

Videoclip from the film "Dangerous Minds"

Madison uses this videoclip to explain the importance of the choices we make in our lives

Article about a girl who got into a gang

Madison handed out copies of the article and said`I will read the article outloud, if that is OK with everybody.´As she paced the room reading the story, the students seemed quieter than other times; they were reading along, deeply into the story

Afterwards she asked some questions to make students reflect on what they had just read

Post-reading Activities

Students are asked to answer these questions and not to submit them until they have discussed them first

1. What effects do gangs have on people?
2. Can people get out of gangs? If so, how?
3. How can people avoid getting involved in the first place?

Then she shows them an excerpt from this documentary Life Facing Bars: A Gang Prevention Documentary; this documentary was filmed with the purpose of getting kids out of gangs


Periods 4 & 5: English 1 IB

Students are asked to take out their agendas and write out some important dates: the blog assignments are due one tomorrow (23:59) and one on Friday ( the question for this one will be posted tomorrow at 7:00 p.m.); on Friday Glenn will show them how they can create a Google Site of their own; there will be an open book test (i.e. with their books on the table) about `A Midsummer Night´s Dream" on October 20th- being an open book test implies that students will have to quote from the book. They are reminded that this year they will need a book for tests, and they will write in pencil, not in ink.

Right after these instructions, two grade-9 students come in and ask the group to answer, individually, a set questions for their Journalism class. Everybody took the survey and answered the questions in silence

1. How are you liking high school so far, do you like it better than elementary?
2. Are you excited for the dances/school events?
3. How do you find the homework/projects so far?
4. Are you interested in joining any school clubs/did you join any?

Then they finished Act III, Scene 2 of `AMNSD´. Whenever they need to choose readers for the different parts, there are lots of volunteers

Madison asked the students to copy this quote: "And though she be but little, she is fierce"; she explained the meaning of `fierce´and then they talked a little bit about the way society sees women and about gender differences

Then the students got their Chrome books to create a coggle (= a simple, free mind map or web creation program. I had never heard about it) for Act III, Scene 2 of the play including: setting, characters, quotes and the answer to `who loves who?´

These are some of the coggles that came out:

Y la salida del colegio:

Y dos paradas de bus delante del colegio, sin marquesina

Temperatura hoy: 11ºC- 16ºC