Is the devil really in the details?

We are continuing our quest to breathe life into writing as we seek opportunities to revise the story of our creative journey so that our readers can put themselves in our shoes. This is why details make the difference. By appealing to the readers' senses, you can more effectively write your experience and reach your readers. They can connect with you, even if they have never experienced what you have.

In Honors Survey of Literature, we begin exploring the power of stories and what Nigerian author Chiamanda Adichie calls the "danger of a single story."  Please see the updated calendar for our unit, which outlines the reading schedule. Also, under  Class Links, you will find the entire video of her speech. We will watch a short excerpt of this video in class. Here you can watch the entire twenty minute speech.

We will also begin to explore how to turn an essay into an original poem. It will be a fun and interesting experiment. Let's embark on a journey to prove that intelligence is, indeed, malleable.

I encourage you to share the article we read in class today, "The Secret to Raising Smart Kids," and the distinction between fixed intelligence and malleable intelligence.

*Please respond: When have you demonstrated that you are a mastery-oriented learner? What is a challenge that you found energizing?

Breathing Life into...

We are not students of Dr. Frankenstein. Rather, we are writers exploring the figurative alchemy of breathing life into our work, so that our audience can understand our experience.


Descriptive details that appeal to the reader's senses enrich our writing, helping our readers to be right with us--hearing what we hear, smelling the aromas and odors around us, seeing what we see...

We will begin with reading excerpts from narrative essays written by scholar-artists in my class three years ago, identifying sensory details. I will challenge you to choose a weak detail and revise it so that it more effectively relates the writer's experience and helps the reader understand it.

Then we will practice using sensory details while closely examining an object I offer you, something from my home. (Yes, I do have an actual necklace molded from the vertebrae of a snake, a camel-etched inside a lead crystal from Kuwait, and tinctures--small cymbals-- I use for yoga and meditation, among the objects I have brought in for you.)

I challenge you to do more than describe the object. Use your imagination.

• If your object made a noise, how would it sound? 
• If it could talk, what would it say? 
• If it emitted an odor or aroma, how would it smell? 
• If it fell and broke into pieces, how would it look then?

Let's use our senses as we perceive the world around us. What do you notice?

I invite you to reply to this blog post with an example. Choose an object from your surroundings and write a phrase (or two or three) describing the object.

 
Now I invite you to use sensory details in writing your narrative essays, the Map of Your Creative Journey. Please see the assignment sheet for this GRASPS writing project, and choose 1 of the 3 prompts to focus your essay on a specific moment in time.

I look forward to reading your work.

Welcome, Freshman Academy Scholar-Artists

Hello Scholar-Artists,

Welcome to ChiArts. You are beginning your journey as scholar-artists at The Chicago High School for the Arts, where we seek to prepare you for college and provide pre-professional arts training of the highest caliber.


For our first week together, we discussed the ChiArts Core Values and discovered ways that they relate to the content and class expectations for English I - Survey of Literature.

Can you name all 6 ChiArts Core Values?

It is an honor and a privilege for me to be on the ChiArts faculty and to have this opportunity to work and learn with you, as your English teacher. I am excited about what I know will be an invigorating, inspiring, and rewarding year as we work together to achieve great things.

With utmost respect for your incredible talent,

Meg Arbeiter

Learning in the New Year

Scholar-artists and Families,

Happy New Year to all of you. I hope you had a restful and rejuvenating winter break. I've enjoyed these first two days back to school, how focused and engaged you are as we approach the end of first semester.

For our first day back, we took some time to compose responses to the following warm-up prompts:

•How are you feeling today as a freshman scholar-artist approaching the end of first semester?

•What are your goals as a scholar-artist at ChiArts? (academically and artistically)

•How is this class motivating you to achieve your goals as a scholar-artist at ChiArts?

•What area(s) would you like/do you need additional practice, support? 

         I appreciated hearing your responses during our class share with passing the pink flying pig. (Please explain to your parents that the pink flying pig is a small bean bag, tossed gently--not as though we were trying to outdo Mark Buehrle's amazing no-hitter for the White Sox). :)

        Then we took a brief look at how the entire freshman class performed on the unit 3 test, after which I presented the roadmap for how we will proceed the next two weeks so that you can have a variety of opportunities to practice skills that will be assessed on the semester final exam. 

I do enjoy going for a walk 

without having a destination in mind. 

         

         However, when I'm driving and have a destination in mind, I like to have a clear sense of direction and the best route to get there. I like to have a map. And I like to provide a map for my students. 

        

After viewing your individual proficiency reports, I asked you to reflect on your performance in a short 1+1+1 exit visa, where you identified 1 reading or activity from this class that inspired and motivated you, 1 skill that you demonstrated proficiency or mastery, and 1 skill that you need to improve with additional support and practice.

Now we begin reflecting on the unit 3 test in order to identify and describe "thinking errors" that led you to make incorrect answer choices and to re-think, revise, and explain WHY correct answers are indeed the best answer choices. You will have opportunities for guided practice addressing the most commonly missed questions before working in peer groups to "think-aloud" your test corrections.

Please refer to the Class Resources page for a clear example of what a test correction should look like (one that identifies the question answered incorrectly, describes the "thinking error," and explains why the correct answer is the best choice.

Remember that learning is a process, and it requires effort. As we do with our annotations, "make the BRILLIANT invisible thoughts visible" to yourself and others. :)