"The Ultimate Gift"

  DVD

     Because February is the celebratory month for "Black Americans" and March celebrates "Women in History", I'm combining the two for our reports and adding in other ethnic famous people as well for the 7th and 8th graders to research.  Most of the people are not as well known by the students and will be a good exercise for them to get to know the people that made our world a better place to live.

     All 7th and 8th graders are finishing their concept maps.  Then the 7th graders will research and do Power Points of their person.  We have already studied and discussed the color wheel and the importance of the visual representations of their reports in Power Point.  The Power Point medium is for group interaction and must be seen and enjoyed by more than the author.

     All 8th graders will do their reports in Microsoft Publisher.  Their reports will, of necessity, have more content value and less pictures.  More indepth information of the person's life is required.

     These reports will take about two months to finish, probably.

     In the meantime, because of so much snow and the schedule inconsistencies, I've read the book "The Necklace" to some of my classes.  This is a favorite of mine about a women unhappy in her life because, even though she has a relatively nice place to live, she wants to be wealthy and feels she deserves to be.  After a night at a party, her entire life changes!  If you don't remember this book - it is a great story for a 20 min. read that has a great moral and provokes discussion.

Reading vs. Electronics

   "Aunt Chip and the Great Triple Creek Dam Affair" by Patricia Polacco is a fantastic book by itself.  However, I read this book to my students for them to compare their lives to the lives of the people of the town.  Do they read today or watch TV and play video games?  Is there library going to be torn down because of disuse?  What will be the consequences of such an event?

Debates

   We had the debates again this year. The students were grouped into 4 or 5 with 2/3 for the Pro/Yes and 2/3 for the Con/No side for the 7th grade, but the groups for the 8th grade had only two, with one for the pro and one for the con.  The subjects were chosen to be of interest to the students.  Each group had two weeks to look up information to support their viewpoint before the debates began and I showed a 3-minute video and explained what I wanted them to do.  

   The first person for the Pro/Yes viewpoint was to stand at the podium, state her/his name and list all the reasons why he/she supported their viewpoint.  Then that person would clarify one or two reasons from the list.  The next person on the Pro side would then clarify the rest of the reasons from the list.  This would be repeated by the Con/No side - The first person for the Con/No viewpoint was to stand at the podium, state her/his name and list all the reasons why he/she supported their viewpoint.  Then that person would clarify one or two reasons from the list.  The next person on the Con side would then clarify the rest of the reasons from the list.

   After both sides had stated all their viewpoints, the Pro side began the debate.  The debates for the 7th grade were on such questions as:

Should the government rate music?

Should schools have dress codes?

Should laws be stricter for teenage drivers?

Are teen curfews a good thing?

Should teen criminals be locked up in adult prisons?

Should you change the way you dress because of what other people might think?

   The debates on the 8th grade were on such subjects as abortion, stem cell research, animal testing, etc.

   After the students heard some good debates, they really enjoyed this.  I filmed these and it went much better this year than last year.  I still have to work on the sound and have been working with the Technology Dept. for the county to try to find a solution.  The films that could be heard were put on the school website under "Students' Work - Projects - Debates".