New Credit Earning Opportunity

Controversial Social Topics

Each week, I'll be posting a controversial topic for you to comment on. You can earn up to three competencies per week for actively participating with the blog. If you don't have anything to work on during project work time, you can always earn competencies by completing the controversial social topics. Each competency should take approximately 45-60 minutes to complete.

This week's topic is immigration. Make sure you establish your opinion and separate your opinion from fact.

-1 Competency

View the CNN video and analyze the situation facing the French government. Leave a comment at the bottom of this blog. You may need to watch the clip several times. Go deeper than the basics, tell me more than who, what, where, when, why, and how. Your opinion regarding immigration should be clearly demonstrated by your comment.

-1 Competency

Complete a websearch on immigration. Prepare a presentation which features multiples points of view (immigrants, citizens who don't want immigrants, government agencies, etc.). Your presentation may be a write-up or a slideshow. Once your done with this piece, post it to this blog. I can show you how to embed a presentation.

-1 Competency

Go to Animoto and create a piece which features IMMIGRATION. Your photo's should feature images which portray immigration from more than one point of view. Once you've created your piece, post it to the blog & try to get your peers to comment on it.

Project Rough Drafts Due Wednesday

Student digital narratives are coming along nicely. Most of you have a great start on your project; please, let me know how I can help organize or focus your projects. I would like to see a rough draft by this Wednesday. We will have presentations as they become ready. I'm shooting for a week from this Friday to have a gallery walk (more details will be revealed)-

Cody found Animoto, which is a great program and he incorporated it into his project.

Planning Digital Narratives

We've been looking at plot and analyzing the plot line all week. We analyzed the film State of Play. We examined shorts stories by Ronald Dahl & Ray Bradbury (Thanks Mr Yunk for sharing from your collection). Tomorrow we'll be looking at the plot line in sit-coms. We see how comedies setup their climax rather than build to a climax with rising action. Students will view a 21 minute episodes and break down the plot of multiple comedy shows. By now, the following terms should be clearly understood for many types of narrative:

Exposition
Main Conflict/Central Idea
Rising Action
Climax
Falling Action
Resolution
Setting = Time & Place
Genre
Protagonist
Antagonist

In the near future, we need to cover the following elements in greater depth
Subplot
Character Traits
Character Foil
Supporting Characters
Character types relating to specific genre (e.g. The Girl, The Friend, Comic Relief, Trickster Figures, etc)



Looking forward to the next two weeks- students will create their own digital narratives. Some options include Memoir, Interview, Commercial, Song. Students are encouraged to get creative and think outside the box. They will determine if their story fiction or non-fiction. They will also receive individualized support to create their digital narrative. The planning form featured below will be an integral part of the student's digital narrative piece.

Digital Narratives

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Digital Narratives

View more presentations from Michael McCabe.

What makes a good story

What's your favorite movie?
What's your favorite song?

What makes a good story? These questions will all be addressed this week.

Students in CORE Charter School will be examining the fundamentals of story. Student's will break down the traditional plot-line and will use this base to explore digital narratives. This week will springboard student's into creating their own digital narratives.

Only 179 to go...

I really enjoyed the first day of school. I'm glad everyone made it & I think we're going to have a great year.

The first day went smoothly! Other than a few technology glitches in the morning, everything went well. I’m very excited about this school year. I think students are going to produce great projects, and I hope to increase the communication between parents, staff, and students.

Here’s what we went over today:

1st Day Back 2009

View more documents from Michael McCabe.

The cornerstones will be highlighted throughout the entire year. Gardener’s multiple intelligences will be called the 7Smarts. The employability traits that students will be graded on are: Work Ethic, Good Communication, Collaboration, Problem Solving & Critical Thinking, and Social Responsibility. Students will also have to incorporate technology into their daily learning.

Your son or daughter is encouraged to bring in their iPod’s or other learning devices. Over the few days, we will be looking at planning personal websites, and appropriate uses of technology.

Here's the form for Project Proposals. In some cases, student's will need parent permission to before beginning their projets:


I hope the next 179 are as fun as day 1.

Completed Skits & Movie Presentations

I am a proud teacher.
The last few weeks in CORE Charter School have been difficult. With graduation closing in, many seniors seem to be feeling the pressure to get everything done and cross the finish line.

This probably was not the best time for me to assign a major project. In my teacher thinking, here's what I had planned, "We just spent five weeks discussing the employability traits and connecting them to personal narratives. It'd be great for students to share their stories with their peers. They already produced good skits in a very short time period. Two weeks will plenty of time." What I failed to take in to account is how personal a personal narrative is. Each one of you has a story to tell and it was not fair of me to expect you to lay out your story in a two week period. However, I have been pushing you for a reason- because each one of you is powerful beyond measure. You have earned your seat in CORE Charter School. I know many of you have not enjoyed coming to school in the past and I hope that CORE Charter School has at least provided you with a place where you feel safe, are challenged, and can tap into your talents. If you graduate early or if it takes you an extra semester to get through high school, my hope is that your prepared to jump through the hoops that await you after high school.

I'm also doing a project. I'm working on finishing up my masters degree, and I've been doing research over the past several weeks on our employability unit. I was starting to get stressed out because the results of my research were not what I was anticipating...the technology wasn't working, which meant that you guys couldn't get your projects done and that I wouldn't get my project done. On top of all that, my last day of teaching you is May 14th. I want to finish the year with you but I will be spending much needed time with my beautiful baby daughter.

I am a proud teacher because you took a risk. I just finished looking over your video's. I have not seen everyones video yet, but Lio's, Mikey & Brandon's set the bar very high. Thank you for opening up and telling your story. Your fearlessness is rare in a time when so many people are concerned solely with image and appearances.

My goal as a teacher is to make you feel a little more self assured than when you first walked in to CORE Charter School. This years seniors have perservered and achieved something that cannot be taken away. DO WORK, was something that I heard on a daily basis, sometimes it was just talk- but not with your personal narrative projects. Thank you for putting your heart into your work. It made me very proud to be your teacher. Please let me know what you need to get where you're going next-

-Mr. McCabe