My topic was James Baldwin, he was an African-American writer and civil rights activist
who is best known for his semi-autobiographical novels and plays such as “The Amen
Corner” and “Blues For Mister Charlie” that center on race, politics, and sexuality.
I learned that back then equal rights was a serious issue (i already knew that) and that so
many people tried to get equality and failed. I liked the recording part of the project (I’ve
never done that) it was interesting and frustrating to figure out but fun at the same time?
One thing I would absolutely change is doing works cited because I hate it.
Category: Class Projects
Civil Rights Project Reflection by Kayla D
My topic is about The Civil Rights Act 1964. This is a law that stopped discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, and national origins. This also allowed African Americans, women and other minorities to break down barriers in the workplace and ended segregation. I learned that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is very important in black history. I liked working with my friends on this assignment. The changes I would make on this assignment is no MLA. I felt that it was too much and it was kind of hard/confusing for me.
Civil Rights Project Reflection by Riley C
The southern Negroe Leaders conference is a group that was first founded by 60 Black ministers and was made to copy the tactics of the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycotts. They are still around today and will accept anyone. I learned that the SNLC exists and what they’ve done for the civil rights movement. I liked learning about smokey robinson and the SNLC and all of the things they’ve done as well as working with my friend. I would like to not have to do canva but other than that it was all good.
Civil Rights Project Reflection by Kahlil C
Martin Luther King Jr. was a man of many things he was a Christian,Political philosopher,Minister. He has given everyone equal civil rights, colored people the right to vote.he has also stopped segregation with black and white. But Martin Luther King Jr. is also knowned for his I had a dream speech at the front of the Lincoln Memorial In Washington DC.
I have learned that everybody needs equal rights, everybody deserves to be treated equally, everyone will become strong if we become 1 with another. We would be different as people, it would be better for the environment and our mental health. I have learned that whenever we were segregated it was just bad for the people their health the environment and the world.we has people just need to like,take care,love one another don’t matter about their racist or color the world is not big in white the world is not bigger in black the world is bigger in black and white. I see how toxic the world was back then and people are still struggling with these problems now.
Civil What do I like about this assignment? I like how I got to do more research on this hero for this world and l am very thankful for what he did for everyone in this world. He did not deserve to die how he did. I also found out his granddaughter is carrying his legacy for social right activists. She has started her own protest with people.
I wouldn’t change anything for this assignment in the future.
Civil Rights Project Reflection by Jeff B.
My topic for the project was explaining what was important about the 24th Amendment. And what I learned while doing this project is that the 24th amendment forbids the Federal and State governments from imposing taxes on voters during federal elections. What I liked about the project was having enough time to get it finished. And what I would change about the project in the future would be to remove the Self-Evaluation.
Civil Rights Project Reflection by Marie B.
My topic was about Ralph Ellison’s novel, The Invisible Man, which was written in the 1950’s about the struggles that black men had both in the North and South. The novel followed a man who believed he was invisible due to the fact that everyone ignored him. He tried to have influence both in the South, while he was in college, and in the North, while he was in Harlem. He was ultimately unsuccessful and ended up going into hiding due to the amount of racism he faced. The novel was not as popular when it first came out but it became more popular during the early 2000’s.
I learned what it was like to live as a black man in the 1950’s and how hard it was to evoke change in the hearts and minds of the people. I have also learned that while the book was not popular during the civil rights movement, it still became a huge influence on the movement afterwards and caused people to want more change and more equality.
I liked learning all of these things and understanding the differences that caused the civil rights movements back in the 1950’s. I also liked the way it was structured and how helpful Sal was when it came to the outline of the project.
I would change my summary and shorten it because I made it a bit too long and tedious for listeners to comprehend. I think I could have done a better job with my script overall.
Welcome to the 2023 2024 School Year
So, we are into August and school starts in a couple of weeks. I wanted to get ahead of the game so to speak and introduce my Honors Students to their blog site. You will be posting many of your writing assignments to your individual class blogs.
Remember, there is no mandatory minimum number of words, sentences, or paragraphs, just answer the prompts given and include information from the lesson to defend your answer. Never be afraid to ask for guidance, I will ASSIST with, but not grade your blog posts if asked.
You are encouraged to personalize your blogs, but please keep them school appropriate and do not share items like last names, addresses, and other personal information that can be risky.
People will read these posts, so take pride in your work and show off your thoughts and words!
World War II Project Reflections
Well, we started a flash project several weeks ago, my honors students chose topics from World War II to research and present to their classmates. My goal was to take just a couple of days to do some quick research and explain it to the class. We could then move on and forward in time, hopefully making a leap as if using a Tardis or a wormhole.
Well, things did not go quite as planned and we had to make a number of adjustments. That being said, those adjustments led to a variety of learning experiences for both my students and myself. To make a long story short, the project took quite a bit longer that projected. Some of the issues were out of our control, such as my classroom laptop not quite dying, but let’s say performing at a pace of a snail covered in molasses and pine tar, heading uphill, over sharp glass, on a cold winter’s day…dragging about 400 pounds of weight, and an open parachute into the wind. Yet this only affected the project at the end, when my students were about to present their work to their classmates.
The project research and and presentation build was done in the computer lab; my new class set of iPads have a glitch, if students log in to Edmodo using a Google account, they can never be truly signed out. This is a bit problematic since the iPads are shared across six classes.
Anyway, the project build took a bit longer than expected, though research was quick. Since this was the first project build in class I wanted to make sure students were comfortable with the process. Most groups used either Prezi or Google Slides as their presentation medium, a select few ventured out into podcasts, Google MyMaps, and other formats. Of the Prezi and Google Slide crew I managed to convince a few groups to turn their presentations into screencasts using Touchcast and the class Padcaster. This process worked well overall and the extra time used for this project can be made up during the next project.
Some of the learning process for myself caught me by surprise. Not normally known for my patience outside of the classroom, I believed that I have used technology long enough that I was beyond frustration when it glitched, broke, or bogged down in the classroom. Well…I was greatly mistaken. I have to give MAJOR PROPS, to one of my students whose presentation was delayed several times because of the computer problems. He took the situation in stride, did not become frustrated and presented like a pro. I on the other hand became rattled and not so calm with the device in question.
Looking back at the issue, I believe my frustration arose because the problems directly affected the students, and no I am not saying this to look good. If a glitch affects me in the classroom, I have many ways to adapt and overcome the issue. I have been in the classroom for many years, there are many tricks up my sleeve to work around problems. This problem hit the students directly, they could not complete their presentations, thus lose out on a big chunk of their grade. I still do not know if it was stubbornness, myopia, or my minor OCD issues that prevented me from just trading rooms with a colleague to have the students present while the computer was down. For whatever the reason, I turned down a couple of offers and took a delay of a couple of days with presentations, students used the time to review vocabulary, review their presentations, and other such coursework.
Overall, I was pleased with the students’ projects and their effort in creating them. I am also very pleased with out technology department, they helped fix the computer issue and kept at it when the problem persisted for some unknown reason. The major issue I had with the project, outside of the time issue I discussed earlier is the large group of projects that were similar in format. I can change that rather easily moving forward, as the classroom teacher I have full control over that segment and it is an easy fix. i will discuss that shortly.
Moving forward there are some changes I will implement. For one, the time frame of the project and amount of class time will be scaled back. Since students have worked through the process with “training wheels” we can take them off and speed up the process. Also more work can be done on their own next time. In conjunction with those changes. My classroom door is always open for students who need help or a place to work, so scaling back class time can be made up before or after school and during study halls.
To address the homogeneity of the projects, here are several adaptations I have planned. I will institute a “Project Passport” where students cannot complete the same style of project until after they have completed a number of other project styles. This will expand their repertoire of knowledge, keep the class interesting, and continue to challenge all of us to expand our horizons. A limit on the number of similar styles of projects will be put in place, in a first come first served basis. This along with the passports will force the students to expand their horizons when it comes to projects.
The largest influence to the project homogeneity issue will come from my own personal changes. I need to expand how I present information to the classes, by adding to my own skill set, I can introduce and model the various projects to my classes. The additional styles should alleviate some fears on their part of the unknown and may even intrigue or pique their interest outright to expand horizons.
I plan to continue to update this blog and my other blog throughout the year, please check back to see how my efforts are progressing.
You can find the student projects posted on the class wiki by clicking here.
Parent Participation with Student Blogs
Hello everyone, I hope all is well this wintery flu season. I sent out the Cel.ly to direct you to this site and hopefully show off the students’ blogs. The students are doing all sorts of great work and publishing their projects to the Internet. I wanted you to see their work and I am not sure they have showed you their blogs as of yet. I know I am risking their wrath for encouraging you to do this, but so be it…they deserve to have people view their work and see the effort they put forth. We will be doing more writing on these blogs as the year goes on, please stop back after today and check out their continued endeavors.
Feel free check out their blogs by clicking on the link to the left labeled Individual Student Blogs 20017 2018 by clicking here. Once you are on the page, click on one of the images based upon your student’s class period and scroll through the list of blogs.
Please read their work and feel free to leave a comment. All comments need to be approved before they become publicly viewable, I am not worried about parents replying to blogs, but you never know who may stumble across them on the Internet, so we have to approve all comments.
You can also check out their other projects which are located on the Student Project Wiki. Click on the “Definitive Destination Guide” and peruse the work of New Brighton High School’s students. Publishing their work to the Internet is great, but it is even greater when you check it out.
Enrichment Opportunities 2017 2018 School Year
Students have been asking “Can I do extra credit?” My response is always, “There are plenty of enrichment assignments you can attempt for enrichment points.” What’s the difference? Extra Credit is usually points just added on top of a students grade for whatever reason. Enrichment Points are points added to a grade for completing an extra assignment, but they are averaged in as an extra test, quiz, or project, not just added on top of the existing grade. They definitely help out, but not as much as just piling on points to the existing grade.
So what sort of projects to we have for enrichment? I will keep the complete list on my website, mrsalvucci.com, they will be posted as their own page: Enrichment Assignments. But for now, here is a quick list of projects students can explore for enrichment:
- Working in some way shape or form on the class Internet Talk Show, “Wake Up New Brighton”
- We can use people on camera and behind the scenes to help showcase events and cool things about our school and community.
- Creating a StoryCorps project about someone or something in the community.
- Using the Livescribe Pen to take notes or create a pencast for your classmates.
- Creating a review podcast to help your classmates with course materials.
- Guest blogging on the class blog about a course of study topic or something you find interesting within the school or community at large.
- Updating the class wiki to assist classmates with course information and notes.
The goal is to get students PUBLISHING and CONTRIBUTING to the Internet. I hope to get them to become creators of positive and appropriate information and media. To be aware of appropriate behaviors online in educational and general settings; where these habits can carry over into everyday social media experiences. The students should have a positive digital footprint, one that they and their families can be proud of and use as a reference throughout their educational and professional careers. The enrichment activities listed here are an attempt to move the students closer to those goals.
If you have any questions about this post or the enrichment activities, please feel free to contact me at my school email.