End of the Year: It is a very difficult time for teachers in my school. In many schools, students are geared up for finals and are working hard at this time of the year. In fact, several schools declined to participate in the Film Fest because it was happening at the end of the school year and the students would be too busy with finals. At my school, it seems like the entire student body, 9-12, has seniorities. As soon as spring hits, attendance drops by half. It makes for a difficult year-end wrap-up and it makes the last 3-6 weeks feel ineffective. Of course, as I write this I've got several students sitting at computers tapping away at screenplays. They always try to prove me wrong, even when they don't know they are doing it.
Student Teaching, Part 2: I just got a reminder in my email to call my teacher/supervisor for the second half of my student teaching. I am dreading it (the student teaching, not the call). I have never been one of those MEA students who are already teaching and who refuse to admit they don't know it all. I've always embraced everything I've learned at Augsburg and much of has been applied to my classroom pretty quickly. I'm sure this will be the case when I complete my student teaching, but... It's in Woodbury, gas is almost $4.00, I am going to miss my wife and kids, I need a summer break to rejuvenate... On top of all of it, it seems like the supervising teacher is looking for me to come up with all of my own curriculum. He says they are in a two year cycle at this school, and that he is in his second year there, so he has no curriculum written for the units he is teaching this summer. Writing curriculum is one of my strengths; one of my favorite parts of teaching. But I have my own to do! I have given myself the huge task of getting a video/film curriculum online so that I can let the more academic stuff run on its own as I teach the more hands on aspects of the course. I feel like I'll never have enough time.
Filmmaker Badges: I made up all these badges on lanyards for the film festival. Green for regular attendees, red for festival sponsors, and blue for filmmakers (students with a film in the festival). Immediately, my video students started to ask if they could have theirs right away. At first I resisted, I was pretty sure they would get lost and I would have to give them another. Eventually, I gave in and started giving them out...with a promise from the students. They had to wear them everyday, in school and out, and tell anyone who asked all about the festival. They all agreed. I now have twenty or so very proud kids wearing their blue filmmaker badges wherever they go. None have been damaged or lost. Many times, because of the adult things my students have to experience, and because they look so grown-up, I forget that they are just kids. Little things, like being recognized as special with a plastic badge can mean a lot. They amaze me as they confuse me. I don't think I'll ever get them completely figured out.
PS: Still no R. I wrote a letter to his mother and sent it via snail mail. No response. It's time to let it go. maybe he will pop up again next year. I hope so.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Screening: Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation
Where: Minneapolis Parkway Theater
Presented by: .edu Film Fest
When 5/23-5/25
After seeing Raiders of the Lost Ark in 1981, three 12 year old friends, Chris Strompolos, Eric Zala and Jayson Lamb, began filming their own shot-by-shot adaptation in the backyards of their Mississippi homes.
Seven years later their film was in the can.
Fourteen years later, in 2003, the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Austin Texas was proud to announce the theatrical world premiere of
Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation.
And in 2004, it was announced that Hollywood producer Scott Rudin had purchased the life rights of Eric, Jayson and Chris to make a biographical film about their experiences making Raiders: The Adaptation.
Writer Daniel Clowes is currently working on the screenplay. To be released by Paramount Pictures.
Please come out and see this picture. Proceeds go to the nonprofit .edu Film Fest and will ensure that this festival continues to be free to all Minnesota high school students. Support this important festival and see a really cool movie at the same time. Tickets are $5.00, available at the Parkway.
Show times available in the City Pages and at www.theparkwaytheater.com
Presented by: .edu Film Fest
When 5/23-5/25
After seeing Raiders of the Lost Ark in 1981, three 12 year old friends, Chris Strompolos, Eric Zala and Jayson Lamb, began filming their own shot-by-shot adaptation in the backyards of their Mississippi homes.
Seven years later their film was in the can.
Fourteen years later, in 2003, the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Austin Texas was proud to announce the theatrical world premiere of
Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation.
And in 2004, it was announced that Hollywood producer Scott Rudin had purchased the life rights of Eric, Jayson and Chris to make a biographical film about their experiences making Raiders: The Adaptation.
Writer Daniel Clowes is currently working on the screenplay. To be released by Paramount Pictures.
Please come out and see this picture. Proceeds go to the nonprofit .edu Film Fest and will ensure that this festival continues to be free to all Minnesota high school students. Support this important festival and see a really cool movie at the same time. Tickets are $5.00, available at the Parkway.
Show times available in the City Pages and at www.theparkwaytheater.com
Friday, May 2, 2008
AWOL
I realized today that it has been over two weeks since I've seen R. Last week, I was calling the answering machines and dead phone numbers that fill the majority of our students parental contact pages and I was surprised when R.'s mother's phone reported that it did not accept incoming phone calls, at the subscriber's request. She was our only link.
R.'s parents are first generation immigrants from Liberia and his family lives miles and miles out in the suburbs. He is not embedded in the usual neighborhood net that can locate a lost kid, or a least report if he's okay or not. He rides the city bus for over an hour to get to school and spends his out-of-school time working at a big, suburban technology store.
R. is a great kid to have around. He's smart, interested in what I teach, and enthusiastic about learning. He comes in at lunch and takes tutorials on the internet, learning things about the applications that I don't even know. For a while, he was a big part of my program, taking both screenwriting and video. Then he started to slip. First it was his attendance, some tardies, then a day or two here and there, then it was a week. Next, when he did show up, he was hanging with a different crowd of kids and he was not acting like himself.
My colleague and I talked it over and decided to call in his parents. The conference was interesting. Liberia is an extremely messed up country - no government, tribal warfare, anarchy - and when R. was very young, he and his parents traveled across the country, waited it out in a refugee camp, and eventually made it to the U.S. Needless to say, these folks are justifiably pissed off that their kid would squander away the advantages that they risked their lives to give him.
In that meeting, R. finally admitted that he had been skipping school and smoking dope again. He made a commitment to get back on track. We put together a plan for him, little things to keep him hanging with the good guys and away from the smoke-in-the-park crowd. Publish PostHe did really well for a while, he was back to the old R. that my colleague and I really liked.
But lately, it is the same thing all over again. When he went missing for a week last month, he claimed that he got confused and thought it was spring break. He convinced his mother, but we weren't so sure. A few weeks ago, he had trouble concentrating and understanding a fairly straightforward task in a computer program that he knows pretty well. So I guess I wasn't surprised when I realized that he hadn't been around for a while.
I talked to the staff member who is charge of truancy. I told him about R.'s mom's phone. He said he'd do a little digging. We know the name of the store he works at, just not the location. We'll try to get him on the phone. Maybe that will help. Maybe not.
R.'s parents are first generation immigrants from Liberia and his family lives miles and miles out in the suburbs. He is not embedded in the usual neighborhood net that can locate a lost kid, or a least report if he's okay or not. He rides the city bus for over an hour to get to school and spends his out-of-school time working at a big, suburban technology store.
R. is a great kid to have around. He's smart, interested in what I teach, and enthusiastic about learning. He comes in at lunch and takes tutorials on the internet, learning things about the applications that I don't even know. For a while, he was a big part of my program, taking both screenwriting and video. Then he started to slip. First it was his attendance, some tardies, then a day or two here and there, then it was a week. Next, when he did show up, he was hanging with a different crowd of kids and he was not acting like himself.
My colleague and I talked it over and decided to call in his parents. The conference was interesting. Liberia is an extremely messed up country - no government, tribal warfare, anarchy - and when R. was very young, he and his parents traveled across the country, waited it out in a refugee camp, and eventually made it to the U.S. Needless to say, these folks are justifiably pissed off that their kid would squander away the advantages that they risked their lives to give him.
In that meeting, R. finally admitted that he had been skipping school and smoking dope again. He made a commitment to get back on track. We put together a plan for him, little things to keep him hanging with the good guys and away from the smoke-in-the-park crowd. Publish PostHe did really well for a while, he was back to the old R. that my colleague and I really liked.
But lately, it is the same thing all over again. When he went missing for a week last month, he claimed that he got confused and thought it was spring break. He convinced his mother, but we weren't so sure. A few weeks ago, he had trouble concentrating and understanding a fairly straightforward task in a computer program that he knows pretty well. So I guess I wasn't surprised when I realized that he hadn't been around for a while.
I talked to the staff member who is charge of truancy. I told him about R.'s mom's phone. He said he'd do a little digging. We know the name of the store he works at, just not the location. We'll try to get him on the phone. Maybe that will help. Maybe not.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Engaging B.
One of my goals for this student teaching exercise is to try and engage more of the students in my classroom. Despite the "fun" nature of my classes, they are actually pretty difficult and I hold the students to a pretty high standard. Add that to the culture of my school, where many students do just enough to get by, and many hardly try at all, and the result is usually a few students who give you that "thousand yard stare" when you are trying to motivate the classroom.
One of these students is B. He is just the kind of student that we want to attract to the Digital Media Academy at MTS. He is bright, creative and non-traditional. He wears emo style clothing (although, like most emo kids, he vigorously denies that he is emo) and has his hair dyed blue. He toured our school with his father and decided to sign up based on our arts curriculum. He started out in two of my classes and from the start, he was not what I expected.
B. has an engaging personality and I suspect that he has used it effectively in the past to succeed in a lot of ways. He immediately became popular with both students and teachers, although it quickly became apparent that he has a taste for drama.
B. knows a lot about computers, so right off, he went about beating the filter system in my classroom. The students in my room have less restrictive access to the internet than most of the school and it a privilege that I guard with a great deal of care. I was not pleased.
B. also came into video class with what he considered a great deal of experience in the subject, although he displayed none of this experience and refused to discuss anything he had done previously.
As the weeks stretch by, I became more and more worried about B. He had convinced someone that his interest in video was so high that he should be allowed to sign up for both the Video for TV and the Film and Video class. These two classes are very similar and while it is possible for a student to succeed in both of them at once, it is less likely that he/she will fail in one without failing in another. So I had B. in two blocks, basically refusing to work and earning zero credits.
Eventually, by talking with the principal, I got him out of one of the classes, but I was wracked by guilt at my failure to engage him in the other. Occasionally, he would take a camera to the park and collect footage that he claimed was for a video he was going to make for some non-existent song he had written in Music and Sound.
I talked to my colleague in the Sound Department and we compared notes on B. We realized that he was performing similarly in both of our rooms. B. basically keeps himself busy enough to not get in trouble, but never does enough to pass. I also conferred with my boss about B. and we agreed to keep an eye on his progress, but I did not find any solutions. This was my problem to solve.
And I did, by accident. On Thursday the 23rd, all of the entries for the .edu Film Festival were due and the video tapes were pouring in the door. We had been spending parts of our classes looking at the work from schools from all over the state. This is very interesting for me, and I found, very interesting to our students. From the different video projects they watched, they began to realize just how competitive we were.
High School video kind of exists in a vacuum. It is very difficult to know the quality of the work the students produce. It is easy to think that your stuff is pretty good, but without anything to compare it to, it is also easy to take that for granted. And what do you compare it to? YouTube? No, too amateur. Hollywood? Absolutely not!
As we watched the videos from other schools, the students began to realize something about themselves. They were pretty good filmmakers. Not always the best, but certainly not the worst. The projects that we made in the last two years could easily stand up to almost any entry in the festival. My students were impressed.
When you grow up as part of the working poor, you sometimes get used to the fact that your "things" are not always of top quality. A pair of Nike Air Jordans are a treasure to be spit-cleaned after the smallest scuff. Jeans are sometimes hitched up at the ankles with rubber bands so they will not drag and become frayed at the bottom. Tags are left on clothing, to show people that you can and do wear new hats and jerseys.
Children who come from this culture sometimes assume that their neighborhoods, their housing, their transportation, and even their education will probably be second rate. It is a joy to present them with a quality program.
As we watched the entries from small town schools and suburban schools, from prestigious public art schools and large city schools, I watched my students faces light up. We were good at what we were doing.
One of the students who was particularly taken with the video entries was B. He commented on each one with an insightful viewpoint. He threw out some editing terms and camera techniques that I thought he had never retained. At the end of the day he walked out of the classroom discussing film with his classmates.
And the next day, he walked right into class and asked for the camera. He had a CD in hand with a techno song that he written and recorded in the sound studio. He went outside, collected some decent images and sat right down at the computer to edit them. He asked a few questions and quickly understood the basic functions of the editing program and was soon putting together a pretty good music video.
4/24/08
When class was done, he asked if he could get the piece into the film festival. The due date had passed, it wasn't really right for me to let him enter. He wasn't even done. So I said yes. After all, this was supposed to be an educational experience, right? I told it had to be done by tomorrow morning. He looked at me, then back at the computer. He took out his cell phone and called his dad. "Dad, " he said. "I'm going to stay after school and work on a video so I can get it in the festival." He paused. "No, I'm serious, do you want to talk to my teacher? He's right here."
B. finished his video that afternoon. It turned out pretty good.
One of these students is B. He is just the kind of student that we want to attract to the Digital Media Academy at MTS. He is bright, creative and non-traditional. He wears emo style clothing (although, like most emo kids, he vigorously denies that he is emo) and has his hair dyed blue. He toured our school with his father and decided to sign up based on our arts curriculum. He started out in two of my classes and from the start, he was not what I expected.
B. has an engaging personality and I suspect that he has used it effectively in the past to succeed in a lot of ways. He immediately became popular with both students and teachers, although it quickly became apparent that he has a taste for drama.
B. knows a lot about computers, so right off, he went about beating the filter system in my classroom. The students in my room have less restrictive access to the internet than most of the school and it a privilege that I guard with a great deal of care. I was not pleased.
B. also came into video class with what he considered a great deal of experience in the subject, although he displayed none of this experience and refused to discuss anything he had done previously.
As the weeks stretch by, I became more and more worried about B. He had convinced someone that his interest in video was so high that he should be allowed to sign up for both the Video for TV and the Film and Video class. These two classes are very similar and while it is possible for a student to succeed in both of them at once, it is less likely that he/she will fail in one without failing in another. So I had B. in two blocks, basically refusing to work and earning zero credits.
Eventually, by talking with the principal, I got him out of one of the classes, but I was wracked by guilt at my failure to engage him in the other. Occasionally, he would take a camera to the park and collect footage that he claimed was for a video he was going to make for some non-existent song he had written in Music and Sound.
I talked to my colleague in the Sound Department and we compared notes on B. We realized that he was performing similarly in both of our rooms. B. basically keeps himself busy enough to not get in trouble, but never does enough to pass. I also conferred with my boss about B. and we agreed to keep an eye on his progress, but I did not find any solutions. This was my problem to solve.
And I did, by accident. On Thursday the 23rd, all of the entries for the .edu Film Festival were due and the video tapes were pouring in the door. We had been spending parts of our classes looking at the work from schools from all over the state. This is very interesting for me, and I found, very interesting to our students. From the different video projects they watched, they began to realize just how competitive we were.
High School video kind of exists in a vacuum. It is very difficult to know the quality of the work the students produce. It is easy to think that your stuff is pretty good, but without anything to compare it to, it is also easy to take that for granted. And what do you compare it to? YouTube? No, too amateur. Hollywood? Absolutely not!
As we watched the videos from other schools, the students began to realize something about themselves. They were pretty good filmmakers. Not always the best, but certainly not the worst. The projects that we made in the last two years could easily stand up to almost any entry in the festival. My students were impressed.
When you grow up as part of the working poor, you sometimes get used to the fact that your "things" are not always of top quality. A pair of Nike Air Jordans are a treasure to be spit-cleaned after the smallest scuff. Jeans are sometimes hitched up at the ankles with rubber bands so they will not drag and become frayed at the bottom. Tags are left on clothing, to show people that you can and do wear new hats and jerseys.
Children who come from this culture sometimes assume that their neighborhoods, their housing, their transportation, and even their education will probably be second rate. It is a joy to present them with a quality program.
As we watched the entries from small town schools and suburban schools, from prestigious public art schools and large city schools, I watched my students faces light up. We were good at what we were doing.
One of the students who was particularly taken with the video entries was B. He commented on each one with an insightful viewpoint. He threw out some editing terms and camera techniques that I thought he had never retained. At the end of the day he walked out of the classroom discussing film with his classmates.
And the next day, he walked right into class and asked for the camera. He had a CD in hand with a techno song that he written and recorded in the sound studio. He went outside, collected some decent images and sat right down at the computer to edit them. He asked a few questions and quickly understood the basic functions of the editing program and was soon putting together a pretty good music video.
4/24/08
When class was done, he asked if he could get the piece into the film festival. The due date had passed, it wasn't really right for me to let him enter. He wasn't even done. So I said yes. After all, this was supposed to be an educational experience, right? I told it had to be done by tomorrow morning. He looked at me, then back at the computer. He took out his cell phone and called his dad. "Dad, " he said. "I'm going to stay after school and work on a video so I can get it in the festival." He paused. "No, I'm serious, do you want to talk to my teacher? He's right here."
B. finished his video that afternoon. It turned out pretty good.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
4/16 Testing and Testing and Testing
It's been two days worth of MCAs. All seniors were excused from classes, freshmen were sent on field trips, and tenth and eleventh graders took math, reading, and writing tests. I proctored the reading tests for tenth graders. Not much to it, you read the script and watch the kids take the tests. I heard that there were problems in some of the testing rooms, but my group was as quiet as could be. I had not one problem.
I had a student in my group who I have never had in class, but who I eventually heard a lot about. I guess W. rarely makes it through a day without getting kicked out of one or more classes. He won't stay still, he cusses out teachers, he ignores requests and he picks fights with other students. The thing is, I didn't recognize W's name when he came into my testing room, so I had no who he was or how he has behaved in the past.
W. came in a little late, as did several other students. He is black, about fifteen or sixteen years-old, and dresses in hip, clothes - his T-shirt and jeans are less baggy than lots of the boys and he wears a flashy belt buckle and wallet chain; it's called the rock star look. He wears his hair in an unusual style too, kind of cross between a fade and a pompadour. He was pretty calm when he arrived and only nodded to another boy in the class and flashed him a guarded, half smile.
As with the other late-comers, I took W. aside, handed him his materials, and went through the script on the packet I was given. He listened intently, then sat down and began his test. He read his passage carefully, mouthing the words and sometimes mumbling them out loud, but no one seemed to mind. He answered the questions carefully and took more time than anyone else in the classroom. When he was through, I asked him if he had checked through his answers and he told me he had. Twice.
In the meantime a colleague popped his head in the door and saw that my students were all working quietly. He nodded his head toward W. and asked, "What's up with him?" When I shrugged my shoulders, he queitly filled me in on W. and his past behavior. "I don't know," I told him, "He's been nothing but respectful today." My colleague just raised his eyebrows and walked away. I had a felling he was thinking that the shoe would eventually drop.
It didn't though. By the time that W. had taken his break and started up on the second section of the test, many of his peers were finished. I crouched down and told him, softly, not to worry that he was taking longer, just to do a good job. He shrugged his shoulders and said, "no problem."
W. was the only kid left in my room by the end, he took all morning and a little more. When it was time to go to lunch, I told him that if he wanted to keep going and finish up, that was fine with me. He told me he was just about done, and a few minutes later, he called me over to seal up his test booklet.
"Good job," I told him, and I had to add, "I thought you were supposed to be some kind of bad-ass, that you never get a long with teachers."
He just shrugged his shoulders and gave me that half smile, "Sometimes, they just be buggin' me, you know? "
"You cool though," he added, and stuck out his hand. I shook it and he took off into the hallway, running toward the lunch room and yelling out to a friend .
I saw him later that day, as he walked toward the front door after lunch. His eyes went right through me; they did not register my existence.
That's okay, though. He'd already paid me quite a compliment that day. I'm certain we will speak again.
I had a student in my group who I have never had in class, but who I eventually heard a lot about. I guess W. rarely makes it through a day without getting kicked out of one or more classes. He won't stay still, he cusses out teachers, he ignores requests and he picks fights with other students. The thing is, I didn't recognize W's name when he came into my testing room, so I had no who he was or how he has behaved in the past.
W. came in a little late, as did several other students. He is black, about fifteen or sixteen years-old, and dresses in hip, clothes - his T-shirt and jeans are less baggy than lots of the boys and he wears a flashy belt buckle and wallet chain; it's called the rock star look. He wears his hair in an unusual style too, kind of cross between a fade and a pompadour. He was pretty calm when he arrived and only nodded to another boy in the class and flashed him a guarded, half smile.
As with the other late-comers, I took W. aside, handed him his materials, and went through the script on the packet I was given. He listened intently, then sat down and began his test. He read his passage carefully, mouthing the words and sometimes mumbling them out loud, but no one seemed to mind. He answered the questions carefully and took more time than anyone else in the classroom. When he was through, I asked him if he had checked through his answers and he told me he had. Twice.
In the meantime a colleague popped his head in the door and saw that my students were all working quietly. He nodded his head toward W. and asked, "What's up with him?" When I shrugged my shoulders, he queitly filled me in on W. and his past behavior. "I don't know," I told him, "He's been nothing but respectful today." My colleague just raised his eyebrows and walked away. I had a felling he was thinking that the shoe would eventually drop.
It didn't though. By the time that W. had taken his break and started up on the second section of the test, many of his peers were finished. I crouched down and told him, softly, not to worry that he was taking longer, just to do a good job. He shrugged his shoulders and said, "no problem."
W. was the only kid left in my room by the end, he took all morning and a little more. When it was time to go to lunch, I told him that if he wanted to keep going and finish up, that was fine with me. He told me he was just about done, and a few minutes later, he called me over to seal up his test booklet.
"Good job," I told him, and I had to add, "I thought you were supposed to be some kind of bad-ass, that you never get a long with teachers."
He just shrugged his shoulders and gave me that half smile, "Sometimes, they just be buggin' me, you know? "
"You cool though," he added, and stuck out his hand. I shook it and he took off into the hallway, running toward the lunch room and yelling out to a friend .
I saw him later that day, as he walked toward the front door after lunch. His eyes went right through me; they did not register my existence.
That's okay, though. He'd already paid me quite a compliment that day. I'm certain we will speak again.
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Big Fight 4/10
Big fight today. Three kids, one with a hammer. I saw the students rushing toward the door and knew that something was going on. I was the only staff member to respond. There were two smaller boys and a very big kid, over 6 ft, probably 250 lbs. One of the small kids had the hammer and was in between the big kid and the other smaller one. The big guy was throwing punches and the boy with the hammer was threatening him, holding it up and yelling something. I only had a moment to decide. I went for the big kid. He was swinging wildly at the boy with the hammer when I wrapped him up and pushed him away. He went easily. I shoved him back inside the door and went after the other kid. He tried to ditch the hammer and and I grabbed it. By that time help arrived outside but in the meantime the larger boy and the other boy had started up again right inside the door.
When I went inside, another teacher was trying to get the two apart and was getting the worst of it. They were grappling with each other and swinging and my colleague was squeezed between them. I wrapped the smaller boy in a bear hug from behind and pulled him away from the fight. The big kid kept swinging and lunging at us so I kept the boy locked in my ams, turned, and pushed him down into a corner so the other boy only had my back to swing at. By that time, he was swarmed by staff and pulled away.
We turned back around and I just held the smaller by in my arms for a while and he leaned back, limp against my chest. Both of our hearts were beating fast and we were both breathing hard. "Are you okay," I asked him, and he said, "yeah, I'm cool," but he didn't move, he just leaned there against me while we caught our breath and I hugged him to my chest.
It was a funny thing, those few moments that we leaned there in the corner as the crowd of students dispersed.
I don't think that kid gets a lot of hugs. I think he was very scared; that he is very scared a lot of the time. I think he felt safe there in the corner, leaning against his teacher, at least for a few minutes.
When I went inside, another teacher was trying to get the two apart and was getting the worst of it. They were grappling with each other and swinging and my colleague was squeezed between them. I wrapped the smaller boy in a bear hug from behind and pulled him away from the fight. The big kid kept swinging and lunging at us so I kept the boy locked in my ams, turned, and pushed him down into a corner so the other boy only had my back to swing at. By that time, he was swarmed by staff and pulled away.
We turned back around and I just held the smaller by in my arms for a while and he leaned back, limp against my chest. Both of our hearts were beating fast and we were both breathing hard. "Are you okay," I asked him, and he said, "yeah, I'm cool," but he didn't move, he just leaned there against me while we caught our breath and I hugged him to my chest.
It was a funny thing, those few moments that we leaned there in the corner as the crowd of students dispersed.
I don't think that kid gets a lot of hugs. I think he was very scared; that he is very scared a lot of the time. I think he felt safe there in the corner, leaning against his teacher, at least for a few minutes.
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Teaching in the City 4/09
My school works on a block schedule. Four periods with each class meeting every other day. Classes are 90 minutes long. This is new this year and I have mixed feelings about it. The population of our school is very diverse in their ethnicity, but are united in their economic status. Our percentage of students who qualify for free lunch is in the high nineties. We have a great deal of absenteeism and little parental involvement. Homework is seldom completed.
When it was announced that we would be switching to the new schedule, I thought it might be a good thing, that it would give my students a bigger block of time to work on a video shoot. When we had 45 minute periods, it sometimes seemed like a period was over just when we got rolling.
Instead, the block schedule has been difficult for me. Students need to bring costumes and props from home to do video shoots in school. It seems like this is more difficult with the every other day schedule. In addition, whenever a student is absent for one block, it is the equivalent of two days of standard class time. This adds up fast.
So, today is the first day in the new term for my day 2 students.
Screenwriting:
This screenwriting class is bigger, with more students working on the web-based curriculum. Attendance is low today though. I had a discussion with a student about a reading - the difference between "characterization" and "true character." Another student and I had a talk about 3-act structure in film, specifically exposition. We talked the first 5 pages of the script and how to make every scene count; how to write each scene so that it accomplishes several different things. I also organized each students expectations for the term and assigned them the specific units they were expected to accomplish.
Video #1:
This is a great video class. I have a creative and quirky group of kids who have done more work than any other group this year. Today, we watched a video blog on Izzyvideo.com about depth of field video techniques to achieve it. We took the camera out to the hallway and practiced using manual focus and a density filter to achieve a more artistic look. Then we planned had a quick group discussion about the footage we wanted to shoot and went outside to shoot it. We used the technique we learned today to shoot the footage. Lastly, we came inside to upload the video and even had time to do a little editing. This class is a dream. As you can see, the amount of work accomplished is far beyond the other video classes.
Video #2:
This class is very difficult. The students mostly belong to a group of friends and they always seem to be in social conflict. These guys have completed very little. They refuse to do any kind of preparation work, they mostly want to jump right to the fun stuff. Consequently, the things they manage to produce are not very successful.
Today, they put together some footage with some music that one of them had composed in the sound studio to create a video of sorts. They made short work of the project and then wanted to surf the net. Instead, I directed them to a sight that teaches video concepts with puzzles, blogs, and articles. I assigned them a unit on composition. One student did the assignment, one student pretended to the assignment, one student skipped to the assessment and claimed he know all the answers already, and another student attempted to go to sleep. These guys are so tough.
Sometimes I feel like it is my fault, that I don't provide engaging enough curriculum for them. Other times, I look at a class like the video #1 today, and I know that it is not entirely my fault. I do know that it is my responsibility to offer curriculum that will engage my students, if they refuse to participate, it is not necessarily my fault.
When it was announced that we would be switching to the new schedule, I thought it might be a good thing, that it would give my students a bigger block of time to work on a video shoot. When we had 45 minute periods, it sometimes seemed like a period was over just when we got rolling.
Instead, the block schedule has been difficult for me. Students need to bring costumes and props from home to do video shoots in school. It seems like this is more difficult with the every other day schedule. In addition, whenever a student is absent for one block, it is the equivalent of two days of standard class time. This adds up fast.
So, today is the first day in the new term for my day 2 students.
Screenwriting:
This screenwriting class is bigger, with more students working on the web-based curriculum. Attendance is low today though. I had a discussion with a student about a reading - the difference between "characterization" and "true character." Another student and I had a talk about 3-act structure in film, specifically exposition. We talked the first 5 pages of the script and how to make every scene count; how to write each scene so that it accomplishes several different things. I also organized each students expectations for the term and assigned them the specific units they were expected to accomplish.
Video #1:
This is a great video class. I have a creative and quirky group of kids who have done more work than any other group this year. Today, we watched a video blog on Izzyvideo.com about depth of field video techniques to achieve it. We took the camera out to the hallway and practiced using manual focus and a density filter to achieve a more artistic look. Then we planned had a quick group discussion about the footage we wanted to shoot and went outside to shoot it. We used the technique we learned today to shoot the footage. Lastly, we came inside to upload the video and even had time to do a little editing. This class is a dream. As you can see, the amount of work accomplished is far beyond the other video classes.
Video #2:
This class is very difficult. The students mostly belong to a group of friends and they always seem to be in social conflict. These guys have completed very little. They refuse to do any kind of preparation work, they mostly want to jump right to the fun stuff. Consequently, the things they manage to produce are not very successful.
Today, they put together some footage with some music that one of them had composed in the sound studio to create a video of sorts. They made short work of the project and then wanted to surf the net. Instead, I directed them to a sight that teaches video concepts with puzzles, blogs, and articles. I assigned them a unit on composition. One student did the assignment, one student pretended to the assignment, one student skipped to the assessment and claimed he know all the answers already, and another student attempted to go to sleep. These guys are so tough.
Sometimes I feel like it is my fault, that I don't provide engaging enough curriculum for them. Other times, I look at a class like the video #1 today, and I know that it is not entirely my fault. I do know that it is my responsibility to offer curriculum that will engage my students, if they refuse to participate, it is not necessarily my fault.
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