Everything's Better When We Co-Llab-Or-Ate! - 10/31/11

We talked more about our Ethnography/Artifact Essay assignment, and what we could consider as an artifact. Randall shared some material he found. We also discussed the Argumentative Essay, and how it would apply to English 11.

English 11 PLC - 10/24/11

Joey was putting together the October newspaper, so we decided to work on our individual Ethnography/Artifact Essays over the coming week. We'll get back together next Monday to discuss what we came up with.

English 11 Way Fab Collab - 10/17/11

We met together as a department for a little over half the time and discussed the Argumentative Essay as created (and very well) by Sarah, Angie, & Randall. Angie put together a proposal which drove the discussion. It outlined potential documents that would apply to 10th, 11th, and 12th grades respectively, as well as a list of potential continued efforts for future wrangling.

As a group we continued the discussion as it applied to English 11.

E11 Collaboration - 10/03/11

Continued looking at and compiling examples to use with the Ethnogrophy/Artifact Paper, and Shauna brought in a great example of how she uses SOAPSTONE with President Obama's Back-to-School speech.

"I have approved this blog post."

Whoops-What We've Been Up To

Sorry everyone-we've slacked on this. I swear it's not payback for nobody using the wiki last year, because that's not how we roll. Kyle, we especially apologize to you. You are the beard to be feared, and we shout out much love to your creation.

Where we've been: over the summer we met as a grant group and decided on a course of study for the year. We've started with the Ethnogrophy/Artifact Paper, and have spent the three Mondays we've had together reading over examples, looking at possible video connections, and making applications to our own curricula. We also looked at an existing rubric developed by another teacher and assessed its potential utility.

CTL meeting 9/13

We talked about the upcoming Minimal day (which reminds me, why is it called a minimal day if we have to stay longer? Shouldn't it be called a maximal day?), which is Monday, 9/26. There will be a breakout session run by the counseling center (Utah Futures website) and then another breakout session for blogs and Google docs.

Also, Kenley introduced a form that needs to be filled out be each team each week. Click here for the form. I think it's a good idea. Not because I believe in Big Brother, but because it will help us stay on task and stay productive. It will even e-mail you a copy of what you write so you have the agenda for the next week's meeting.

First Grade-Level Team Meetings

Met as grade-level teams.
Distributed Goal Forms.
Will turn in to administration at CTL meeting Tuesday, 9/13.

Labor Day

No school Monday, 9/5.

Opening Meeting

We met as a department in room 221.
Reviewed the purpose and vision of collaboration.
Reviewed our summer collaboration goals.
Determined teams for this year (i.e. 10th grade, 11th grade, 12th grade, Debate).
Created blog and discussed the possibility of using Google Docs to collaborate online.
Goal Forms were distributed. Will be collected next week in individual teams.

Angie Jarvis (10, 10h)
Jake Rees (10, College Writing, AP Lit)
Jenny Jaynes (10, 11h)
Joey Carpenter (11, Newspaper)
Kyle Nelson (10, Creative Writing)
Lynnett Gardner (12, 11h)
Mari Felix (10h, 11h)
Randall Davis (11)
Rebecca Gardner (12, Film Lit)
Sarah Woolsey (10h, AP Lit)
Shauna McPherson (Myth, AP Lang)
Sherry Duncan (Debate)
Kirsten Jones (Debate)