Staying Organized

     Good morning! :)
     I just read everyone's plans, and I am really excited about the variety of topics that people plan to study.  This is going to be great for all of you and also really fun in that I am going to learn a lot as well.  I will post all of your topics to my blog next week, but to give you a taste, Derek is going to teach me about car restoration, and Garrett's going to explore Hollywood mysteries. What variety! :)
     For now I wanted to send you a quick note about staying organized between blog posts.  While all of your graded work is going to be done through Blogger, I want you to think of the blog as more of a final draft of what you are learning.  For notes and rough draft materials, I suggest getting a composition notebook.  Most of you are used to using notebooks in class and not doing everything online, and I think continuing that method will help you here as well.  Therefore, my vision is that you have a composition notebook that is specifically for this class and that you write quick notes to yourself in daily.  I would take it out while you read and jot down the date, pages that you read that day, page numbers of quotes you might want to write about, perhaps ideas that you can explore for your analytical blog posts (like symbolism, answers to your essential questions, etc.), and of course your vocab words.  Then, when you have a blog post to write, you flip through that notebook to find material.  For the Friday blog, you'll need to look at it to record your page numbers accurately.  You'll also need to make sure that you found at least ten vocab words, defined them, and that you recorded what page you found them on in your book.  Then for your other two blogs a week, if you keep ideas in the notebook, you won't be spending tons of your writing time just looking for material to write about.  It will already be there!
      Of course no one will be checking this notebook, but it seems to me that it will help you be more successful, so I hope it's a suggestion that you take.  Please contact me if you have any questions. You could also comment on the class blog to share ideas that you have about how to be successful. Though this is an independent class, you can still learn from each other by reading each other's blogs and sharing ideas on our class blog.
      Enjoy the rest of the weekend, do some revising on your plans (particularly essential questions) if I suggested that in my comments, and get reading! :)  You have your first 80-100 pages due on Friday, the 5th, and the first blog based around a quotation is due by 2:15 pm on Tuesday, and your first analytical post due on Thursday by 2:15 pm.  Then we should be on a roll with this. Good luck, and I hope you'll have fun with it. :)

Let's Start Planning

      Though this is an independent class, there are certain requirements I've set up to make it optimally successful.  One of the main guidelines is that while you choose a topic, you aren't just going to wing it for the rest of the quarter.  I want you to know where you are starting, where you are going, what you want to learn, and what resources you're going to use.  Therefore, the first thing that we have to do to have a great experience in this class is to make a plan for the quarter.  The plan has four requirements:
1.  Introductory paragraph with your topic and your reasons for wanting to study this topic.
2.  Essential questions for the quarter (remember that essential questions are open ended).
3.  List of books that you will read for the quarter (must equal at least 80-100 pages a week).  It's better to have too many books rather than too few.  I'd say minimum of four.
4. Schedule of reading.  For this you can download a calendar or simply type a list of weeks and which books/pages you plan to be on each week.
        To make this more clear, I hoped to insert two example plans from students from last year's class. However, the student blogs "expired" with the Pentucket e-mail addresses. I have many of their posts saved on my own blog but no sample plans. Therefore, you will simply have to follow the instructions above. Ms. Costello has them also and is in the library ready to help. I am so excited to see what you choose and post by Friday. Feel free to get this done far earlier and begin your reading as you have your first quotation post due next Tuesday, February 2nd.  Please contact me (you can comment on the class blog) if you have any questions! :)

Let's Get Started :)

Topics in Literature

Ms. Fichera

Spring 2016

Online

Overview:

Welcome to what I hope will be a great new opportunity to explore literature in a way that you’ve never quite before.  I am so excited to get started!  As you know, this class is not going to function in the same way that your previous three and a half years of high school English have.  Instead, there will be two major differences.  First of all, in terms of content, each of you will be designing your own curriculum for the semester.  Secondly, the format will be online and not a physical classroom space.  The idea is this:  each quarter you will choose a particular area of literary interest to study.  You will come up with a plan:  essential questions, books, and a schedule.  Once this plan has been submitted and approved, you will pursue this area of interest until the end of the quarter, reading daily and posting to a blog bi-weekly, then you will do the same for the second quarter of the semester.  Rather than meet daily in my classroom, we will communicate via School Loop and the class blog.   

Requirements:

1.      Read and write about your area of study five days a week.  This should total approximately 80-100 pages of reading and three pages of writing per week.

2.      Keep a composition book for each quarter.  In it, log the pages of your reading, take notes (this should be done in your  own way, perhaps with thinking routines or quotations but should not only be facts, though I imagine that there will be some), and record and define at least ten new vocabulary words each week.

3.      Keep a blog for class and post to it three times a week.  You will have three different types of posts due. 

a.       Friday blog – This is the simplest entry, the most factual.  Please tell me the name of the book and author you have been reading this week since the previous Friday; our reading schedule will run from Friday to Friday (example Heading Home with Your Newborn – Laura Jana and Jennifer Shu), what pages you read (example: 1-113), and list and define ten new vocabulary words from your reading and what pages you found them on (example: colic – persistent crying in an otherwise healthy baby – p. 113).  

b.      Tuesday blog – Relatively informal entry.  500 word minimum. This entry needs to be based around a quotation that you read over the course of the week that inspired you to think and reflect, ideally on something personal.  There should be three parts to your entry.  The first should provide some context of where you are in your book, the second have the quotation and an analysis of the quotation, and the third should be a personal connection or reflection to your life, your school, society in general, etc.  To get some ideas about this, I will give you the link to the Topics class from next year, and you can click on a student’s name and read an entry written on a Tuesday.  Be sure to read around to get the best ideas.  http://topicsinliterature2014-2015.blogspot.com/

c.       Thursday blog – More formal, though you can still use “I.”  500 word minimum.  This entry should be more intellectual, analyzing a particular element of your reading for the week. You might choose a symbol, motif, theme, something about the style of writing, etc., but this one will be more typical of what you would write about in an English class.  Again, use the link to my class blog from last year and then click on a student’s name and look for an analytical blog to use an a model.   

http://topicsinliterature2014-2015.blogspot.com/

Your blogs are due by the end of the school day on Tuesday, Thursday, and Fridays, so 2:15 pm.  However, I would not necessarily recommend that you work on these entries during school on the day that they are due as they make up 100% of your grade for the semester. 

I’m hoping that your blog is something that you will be really proud of, so make it interesting!  Add pictures, links, music, etc. (and make sure to cite them! Ask me or see Ms. Costello if you need help with this).  It should not just be type with no “extras.”  In that case, you would be doing the work in a notebook.  So instead, make it informative, but most importantly make it your own. J

4.      Be passionate and independent. 

Final Thoughts:

If this seems like a lot, remember two things:  the topic is one that you have chosen yourself, so reading and writing about it should not feel like work, and you should also be using your “class” time (fifty minutes per day) in addition doing “homework” (about thirty minutes per day).  That’s a lot of minutes learning about something that you care about, and I’m sure the time will fly by.  You might have noticed that my examples above were about having a new baby, which I do, so that’s a topic that I am currently motivated to read about.  I want you to choose two topics that you will be similarly excited about and which will make you feel like English is not work so much as something that is enriching your life.

            I had been dreaming about teaching a class like this for ages, and we tried it last year, and it went great.  Sure, there were some bumps in the road, like in any new experience, but I know that my students read and learned a lot more (and about topics that really interested them) than they ever had before.  I hope that you will, too, and that you are genuinely excited to get started.  Please e-mail me or send me questions through the class blog at any time.  I will do my best to respond right away, but you can also use Mr. Ruland and Ms. Costello as resources as they will also be heavily involved in this new online course and are also in the building for the semester.  I’m ready to get started and look forward to reading about your projects every day. J

"One person with passion is better than forty people merely interested."

— E. M. Forster