Category Archives: sophomores

“You unlock this door with the key of imagination…”

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When I took on organizing the Sophomore Community program for the fall, I initially struggled with its shape and structure.  Through conversation with Stacie, Sarah, and the rest of the Student Life Team, the purpose of the program was clear.  We wanted to build on the community building and social emotional learning pieces that Frosh Advisory began nurturing last year.  With this in mind, I have tried to capitalize on what the year brings in order to build community and engage with school traditions.  






The October Soph Community date happened to fall the week before *St. Marty’s party.  Decorating for St. Marty’s Party is a wonderful way for the Sophomore class to bond, give community service, and participate in a school tradition.  Maggie let me know that the Sophomores traditionally decorate classroom doors for the trick or treating section of the party.  These decorated doors are for the time when the children, dressed in costumes that they choose, trick or treat through our academic building. It’s an important part of making this event festive and welcoming for these children.  Since the theme this year is Pixar, she wanted the doors to be themed using the films. 

With the help of the wonderful Sophomore Council and their moderator, Andrew Kjera, doors and themes were assigned to the eight Soph Community groups.  Last Thursday, during the afternoon X, students were assigned doors, themes, and working groups.  They were told that they had 30 minutes to design, decorate, and put up these doors.  The Community group with the most successful doors would earn a pizza party for November’s Community meeting.  Maggie and I also decided that a bag of candy would be awarded to the Community group that produced the best decorated single door. 

Students worked diligently.  Ideas abounded.  Mistakes were made, set aside and work began again.  Students helped groups not in their Soph Community group.  Other students shared resources with those around them.  Additional materials were requested, found, and utilized.  The controlled chaos was electric.  Watching the Sophomores, I was surprised to see how quickly and efficiently most students were working.  They were focused and having fun.  Andrew pointed out to me that these students all took Think, Make, Share last year and had worked on these kinds of design challenges.  They had experience tackling a problem with limited resources and time.  Watching the students work, I saw how their shared experience was helping them with this challenge.  This was an unintended and welcome consequence of this Community session!

I’m now planning November’s Sophomore Community session in conjunction with Sophomore Council.  I’m eager to continue to build this program.  What else can we do to come together as a community and build on the common skills we are working on as a school?  It’s an interesting problem.

*St. Marty’s party is a wonderful school tradition.  For those of you who are new to the community, Carondelet puts on a Halloween party for children who may not live in an area where it is safe to trick or treat and/or may not have the means to celebrate the holiday.  This event is called St. Marty’s Party, as it was originally put on for the children of St. Martin de Porres Elementary School which has since closed. Today, we serve the children of Monument Crisis Center.  Hopefully you had a chance to stay and participate in the party. The children had so much fun this year.

Instructing Real Audiences on Slime & Somersaults

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English
teachers
more
and
more
look
for
authentic
audiences
for
student
writing.
I’ve
made
that
one
of
my
endeavors
this
year.
My
students
have
done
a
couple
of
assignments
where
their
audience
is
the
entire
sophomore
class
(FlipGrid
videos,
and
the
“100-Word
Memoirs” published to Google Sites which I blogged about already).
I
saw
more
excitement
generated
when
they
were
producing
for
their
peers
instead
of
for
me. I was excited to find another avenue for widening the audience further.
Last
quarter,
my
sophomore
honors
classes
did
some
instructional
writing.
I’d
read
an
article
in
the
January
2018 English Journal by
teacher
Sarah
K.
Gunning
who
argues,
“Whether
students
consider
themselves
to
be
‘writers’
or
not,
they
are
affected
by
the
way
directions
are
written
and
interpreted.”
I
adopted
Gunning’s
lesson
plan,
which
started
as
an
inquiry
into
students’
own
experiences
with
training
and
instructional
manuals
for
their
jobs.
I
reinforced
Gunning’s
point
that
“writing
affects
everyone’s
career”
so
being
able
to
write
instructions
is
an
important
skill
to
learn.
We
used
a
website
called
Instructables.com
where
anyone
can
post
an
instruction
set
with
photos.
Students
had
to
decide
what
talent
or
skill
they
wanted
to
teach
in
written
steps:
some
chose
easy
recipes,
others
demonstrated
origami,
drawing,
friendship
bracelets,
or
colorful
slime.
One
student
wrote
instructions
about
how
to
do
a
somersault.

But
first,
they
had
to
create
an
imaginary
profile
of
their
target
audience
to
ground
themselves
while
writing
their
directions.
Their
profile
helped
them
decide
what
sort
of
safety
warnings
might
need
to
be
included,
and
the
appropriate
level
of
detail
including
photos
to
include
in
each
step.
After
creating
their
draft
instruction
sets,
students
had
to
perform
“usability
testing”
by
watching
a
friend
or
family
member
follow
their
instructions—without
intervening.
They
took
observation
notes
about
where
their
instruction
sets
would
need
adjustment
based
on
the
success
or
failure
of
the
test
subject.
Usability
testing
served
as
real–life
“qualitative”
feedback.
The
beauty
was
that
once
I
set
the
project
in
motion,
I
was
not
the
expert
handing
out
feedback.
As
Gunning
states,
“Removing
the
teacher
from
the
evaluation
aspect  … may increase a student’s vision of value for what an audience brings to the writing process.”
Finally,
students
published
their
instruction
sets
on
the
Instructables
website
and
awaited
comments
and
“likes”
and
page
views,
which
provide
exciting
“quantitative
feedback”
as
Gunning
points
out.
The
only
snag
in
this
whole
project
was
that
Instrutables.com
may
not
be
robust
enough
to
handle
a
rush
of
71 student
users!
We
had
some
technical
issues
for
some
students
who
found
it
to
be
more
time–consuming
and
frustrating
to
publish
than
I’d
wanted.
Overall,
they
enjoyed
the
project.
My
evaluation
was
tied
to
a
reflective
piece
where
students
described
how
usability
testing
affected
their
final
instruction
set
and
asked
what
they
learned
about
instructional
writing
from
the
process.
Said
one
sophomore,
“Having the audience shift from just a teacher to anyone in the world changed the way I wrote instructions because with writing to a teacher you know exactly who the audience is. With this project, it is important to write instructions that a variety of people could follow along with, because you don’t know who will view your project. …
I have learned that instructional writing is harder than it looks. When you can’t point to or show the person what exactly to do, you are forced to rely on descriptive and precise wording to explain what to do.”