Excellence

8th graders are finishing up their trial of the US government for possible genocide and violations of the UN Declarations of the rights of indigenous people. Students are doing excellent jobs of creating argument founded in sources, usually primary sources, and the supreme court members are citing the type of argument they hear(logos, pathos, ethos) and are cutting out any non-logic based argument.

7th Grader will begin their essays on the efficacy and morality of enhanced interrogation. The prompt will simply be to take a stance on the torture issue and write a persuasive essay. This activity will require defining the line between enhanced interrogation and torture, citing primary sources and then developing a stance on the subject.

11th Grade is completing their study of river valley civilizations on monday and will be assessed over the break. They will construct compare and contrast(most effective practice) essays and then will move on to debating philosophical questions from around the world after the turn of the first millennium BC.

Return from the grave

The blog is back! Thanks blogger app for the iPhone! Should make managing things on here much much easier...

This school year is going well and the students are really opening up academically and socially... I don't feel like I am as good as I was last year... Let me rephrase-- I keep needing to refocus back to fundamentals and keep myself away from much else.

Having 170 students is taking it's toll, especially because they are in three classes; at the same time it's a fabulous opportunity to have an impact. I just wish data came out more frequently so I would how we measure compared to others.