50 Krause Told Me Go 'Head Switch The Style Up

As a high school freshman, I’m should be used to the way I’m graded by now. I don’t have a problem with it; it’s simple and doesn’t have many flaws, if any. Well I came across a blog by Karl Fisch on his blog, The Fischbowl, which gave a quick intro then three links to a three part blog on a teacher at my school’s blog. His name is Jeff Krause, who is in the English department on Arapahoe High School. The three-part blog told an idea Mr. Krause had about how to make his American Literature class more interesting. In part 1, he started with “As with all crazy ideas, it occurred at approximately 3 a.m. – the time when you can convince yourself that just about anything will work.” Well that had me hooked to read these blogs. This crazy idea was, well, crazy to say the least but I was intrigued. He walked into the first day of class of American Literature and told them “I have this idea that’s true madness and it scares me to death: I’ve decided to give you an A for the semester.” As a student myself, if I was told this by any of my teachers I would be surprised, pleasantly obviously, but I would know there would be a catch. He goes on to explain himself. He will give them an A if at the end of the semester, the students can do a final project that shows all there learning into one creative project, no matter what. This means that some students might not do any homework all year long, but if they can prove they understand everything at the end with a final project, they will still earn an A. Or if someone does all the work during the semester but their project doesn’t satisfy the teacher’s expectations, they would still earn an A.
After that point in the blog, it just told about the student’s reactions, early ideas and concerns. My thoughts on this type of curriculum had me intrigued right away. My mind put myself in the place of one of his students, would I do the HW all year and slack at the end, would I not do any work all year but make sure to pay attention so I could do a great project, or would I do the homework and the project just to make sure I would get an A. The more I thought about it the more I wasn’t sure. At first I was thinking I would only do the project, but would I understand all the learning without having to study at home? Then I switched, if I were in the class I would do the homework but not the project, like a normal class really. But then what would be the point in being in a different class if I didn’t do the difference? I would get bored of the class like I would with a normal class. And the option to do both represents the problem of the other options as well. After more in depth thought, I realized I would rather not be bored in a normal class, I would not do much of the homework (I would do some if I was confused) and I would spend the majority of the semester perfecting a project idea. Whether it was a short story that represented the learning, a poster, a drawing, a song (rap, rock, disco, it doesn’t matter) or something even more different. Seems like a fun class to me.


p.s. the title is a reference to a Kanye West song, if you reader's didnt understand

Terrorism

Pearl Harbor, 9/11, London train bombing, U.S. Embassy in Iran, Lebanon military barracks bombing, and the Oklahoma City building bombing are the worst acts of Terrorism in history. On August 9th, 2006 another attack was prevented. 3 British men with Pakistani descent were caught with intention of smuggling liquid explosives onto 7 different flights. They were each sentenced to a minimum of 32-40 years before being up for parole. My question after reading this article is why? Yes it’s a simple question but is it not simply answered? Why anybody would take part in any of the terrorist attacks I listed, do what they did? People may say because they are stupid or because of hate for a country. Those are simple answers but are they the answers we’re looking for. It could easily be more complicated, but what would make it complicated? Even if it’s a simple answer it wouldn’t justify their terrorism. A total of 6,428 Americans died from these terrorism attacks. Keep in mind that’s just Americans and only deaths, there are also other country people and there are also severe injuries. It doesn’t matter the terrorists beliefs or conceived notions, terrorism cannot be defended.

Literacy Fear Not the Machine

During the viewing of Michael Wesch’s “The Machines are us/ing Us” and the reading of Clive Thompson’s “The New Literacy” I came across some very interesting notes, connections and questions. For example in “The New Literacy” I read that in an experiment to test whether text messaging, social networking and other digital forms of communication affects someone’s writing skills. In the experiment it showed that 38% of a student’s writing was done outside a school through such digital forms. In the YouTube video, it touched on the difference in between digital and physical, pen-to-paper, writing. Something else I read in Thompson’s article was the same professor who did the last experiment, examined the first year students more in depth and noticed not one grammatical error that resembled “text talk.” In the video, I had a connection when it was talking about html. In my Tech Studies class, I am studying web design and have been making several html web pages. Probably the most interesting thing I read was about how the same professor stated that we are in the midst of a literacy revolution like we haven’t seen since Ancient Greece. To be a part of a change in writing, which is still such a huge part of school life, is actually really cool in my opinion. Throughout the whole article, I didn’t find an fact or opinion I didn’t agree with, since I first got my phone and my Facebook page I don’t remember using “text talk” in anything except on texts and on Facebook. Throughout the video, I never found a fact I didn’t find interesting whether it be how websites are made, either html or xml, how digital text is easier and more flexible then physical text, or how the web can link us. Although I thought connecting the two was going to be difficult I was able to find a couple ways they are connected.