Assignment for Friday 2/27

In-class Work
If you were absent Wednesday, the first important thing to do is take care of what we did in class:

• Groups worked together to make sure that they had really good answers for the second part of the Maslow workbook. What we found was that although people had done the assignment, their answers were often not specific enough. So double-check your answers to make sure that they show a deep understanding of the text.
• We did a workbook for pages 38-48 of Shawshank Redemption. You can email me for the workbook.

Why Do People
The new assignment in my book is pages 10 and 138. This vocabulary will provide the foundation for reading our next narrative. Page 10 will introduce the vocabulary, and page 138 will help you internalize it.

Page 10:

• Follow the instructions for the top of the page.
• When you get to the two textbook paragraphs in the bottom half of the page, read for key concepts. Mark the 3-5 words that are most important for understanding intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.
• When you revisit your lists at the top, mark them: Which ones are intrinsically motivated? Which are extrinsically motivated? For which are you not motivated at all?
  

Page 135:

• Follow the instructions for analyzing the examples.
• For the "Create Your Own" activity, instead of choosing any old activity, take this opportunity for thinking about the activity that you wrote your Initial Motivation Essay about. Explore that activity in writing. What are the intrinsic and extrinsic motivations for that activity? You can use your BrainBook for this thinking. You should be able to get at least a half-page of thinking about this.

BrainBooks & Word Clouds
I checked in people's BrainBook and WordCloud work. I purposely did not give a new Eat That Frog or vocabulary assignment because I want to check in on people's work before we go any further, so be sure that you're caught up. Email me if you have any questions.

Assignment for Wednesday 2/25

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
On Friday, we completed page 2 - 5 in the Maslow's Hierarchy workbook, pages 2 - 5. For Wednesday, you can make up those pages and --

• complete the workbook, i.e., pages 6 - 13. We'll analyze your responses in class.;
• continue to write the 3 - 5 most important ideas at the bottom of each page of text;
  
• you can skip page 9; we'll do that together.

On Friday, the class was really getting the idea of deep analysis in the text, so on Wednesday we'll go to the next level and start assessing your answers. Yes, that would be metacognition.

Email me for a copy if you don't have the Maslow handout.

Shawshank Redemption
Read pages 38 - 48. Thought question: Why does Andy have such a powerful effect on the other men?

Eat That Frog!
Read Chapter 5, pp. 33 - 35
Continue to mark up the text and respond in your BrainBook. I'll be checking BrainBooks on Wednesday.

Word Cloud

• I called a moratorium on new words till next week. (Not sure what a moratorium is? Look it up! It's a useful word.) We're going to practice with the ones we have before moving on.
• We did a practice page on our old words in class on Friday. Email me for it.

Email me if you have any questions. See you Wednesday!

Catch-up
If you haven't done the Initial Motivation Essay, you need to submit that by Wednesday.

• The instructions are on page 8 of Why Do People.
  
• Please type & double space.
  

Email me if you have questions.

Assignment for Friday 2/20

Why Do People
I gave out a handout that's connected with Why Do People. You can email me for it.

Eat That Frog! pp. 30-32
The usual: Mark for most important ideas. Use your BrainBook to reflect on what it has to do with you.

Word Cloud
New words: generalization, specificity, explicit
Here's a definition for one of our earlier words:
irony - incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs
We'll talk about what that means.

Staying Caught Up
Under Labels on the right hand side of this page, you can click on Assignments to review back assignments and make sure that you are caught up.

• Especially, be sure to do the Initial Motivation Essay that was due Wednesday. I've made a label for it on the right side of this page.
• I'll be checking BrainBooks and Word Clouds on Friday, so make sure you're at least on the right path even if you're not totally caught up.

Email me if you have any questions.

Ground Rules

Responsibility for Homework
Starting Wednesday, I will not teach any students who have not taken responsibility for their homework. I will mark them absent and send them to the library to do their work. My attention belongs to those who have taken responsibility for their work.

Expecting to pass a class without doing the work is not an adult expectation.

Classroom Behavior
Anyone who is being disruptive towards a classmate will be dismissed and will not be allowed back into class until they have had a meeting with the Associate Dean for Student Affairs.

Anyone who is being bothered by a classmate remains responsible for his or her own behavior. Disruptiveness is not acceptable, regardless of the cause. Do not lower yourself to someone else's level.

Responsibility for Class Materials
If you are not yet able to purchase a book, take responsibility for making arrangements with me. We will work something out. Simply showing up without the work is not acceptable.

Turning in Work
Do not wait for me to ask for class work. If you have completed something and want to receive credit for it, put it in the basket on my desk.

If you did not have time to complete something during class, finish it for the next time and put it in my basket.

Diligence & Persistence
This class has huge potential for doing good work. Let's do it. Show me.

Assignment for Wednesday 2/18

Make-up
If you did not complete the assignment for Friday, 2/13, check below and get caught up.


Why Do People: Initial Motivation Essay
The instructions for the essay are on page 8 of WDP.

• Please type, double-space, and bring a printed copy to class.
• Save it on your computer or a flash drive. You will be revising it later.

This essay will be the seed for later writing that we do as we read the various theories of motivation in the book, so it is important to have it as a starting point. Email me if you have any questions about it.

Shawshank Redemption. pp. 25-36
Focus Question: Be prepared to discuss -- What are the two deepest things that Red learned about Andy. (There is no right or wrong answer here as long as you can support it with evidence.)

Caveat: If you find the subject matter of pages 32-35 distressing, you may skip them, but be sure to read the rest.

Eat That Frog! pp. 25-29
Do the usual:

• Mark the three most interesting/important ideas.
• Choose one to discuss in your BrainBook. What's the idea, and what does it have to do with you?
  

Three New Words

• objective
• subjective
• miscreant

Make sure that you've also found four words of your own for the week.

Bring:
Shawshank
Frog
Pens in two colors

Assignment for Friday 2/13

Email!!!
If you haven't already sent me your email address, please take responsibility for doing that. There's a great online site that I want to invite everybody into.

Wrap-up from Wednesday
If you didn't have time to finish the analytical reading pages on Wednesday, finish them up and I'll collect them at the beginning of class. If you were absent, you can email me for the handout.

Eat That Frog!
Read Chapter 3 and do the usual:

• Mark the three most important or interesting ideas.
• Choose one of those ideas and use your BrainBook to explore it: Put it in your own words and think on paper -- what does it have to do with you?

You can just bring your BrainBook entry with you on Friday. You won't need the actual Frog book.

Why Do People, pp. 86-88
Do the vocabulary exercise at the end of "A Retrieved Reformation." Bring a colored pen -- you'll be checking those pages in groups.

"Word Cloud" Words

• cognition
• articulate
• irony

1. Look them up and fill in the definitions on the handout.
2. Go online and find at least one sentence using each of the words. You can Google the word along with something that you're interested in, for example, cognition and basketball or irony and computer graphics or articulate and music. No matter what interests you, these words are probably going to show up.
Once you get to the webpage, I think you can hit control-F to find the word you're looking for. We'll talk Friday about how this is working.

BrainBook Question of the Week
If you want to learn in a class, what are the advantages and disadvantages of working in groups?

• What is a good group? What happens to make it good? What do people do?
• Can a group expedite your learning? Can it enhance your cognition? If so, how?

Use your BrainBook to explore this question. We'll discuss it in class.

Bring:

• at least one colored pen
  
• Why Do People
• BrainBook (I'll start checking in the work that people have done in it)

Thinking Ahead
Your Shawshank assignment for Wednesday will be pp. 25-36.

Assignment for Wednesday 2/11

Shawshank Redemption

• Read through page 25.
• Be prepared for a KWIKquiz over those pages. My KWIKquizzes are very simple. If you have simply read the assignment, you will pass them.
  

Eat That Frog! Chapter Two

• In the text, mark the three most important or most interesting ideas in the chapter.
• In your BrainBook, choose one of those ideas and explore in writing -- what does it have to do with you?

I will start doing spot checks in BrainBooks on Wednesday, so make sure that you've done this part of the assignment.


Word Cloud: Academic Vocabulary
I will start giving you three academic vocabulary words to look up for each class. Come prepared with these definitions.

• conjecture
• misanthrope
• succinct

I'll explain the rest of the "Word Cloud" to you in class.


In-class readings from Friday: Why Do People Do What They Do?
We worked on the Theory of Moral Development (p. 123), and we read the short story "A Retrieved Reformation" (79-83). We'll do some follow-up on those readings on Wednesday, so familiarize yourself with the theory and have fun reading the story -- it's a great one.

You can email me if you have any questions (thereadspot@gmail.com). If you haven't sent me your email address yet, please do that too. See you in H347 on Wednesday.

Assignment for Friday 2/6

1. Please send an email to me at thereadspot@gmail.com so I can get in touch with all of you if I need to.

2. Read Chapter 1 of Eat That Frog!

• In the text, mark the three most important or most interesting ideas in the chapter.
• In your BrainBook, choose one of those ideas and explore in writing -- what does it have to do with you?

I'll start doing spot checks on BrainBooks on Friday, so don't come with an empty book!

3. Read page 123 of Why Do People Do What They Do? (WDP)

• Have fun with the Heinz Question. You don't need to mark up those two paragraphs unless you want to.
  
• For each of the other paragraphs, do some thoughtful marking. Mark the 3-5 words that you think best capture the meaning of the paragraph. If you were going to study from your markings a month from now, what words would help you the most?

Consider the possibility of a KWIKquiz (my quick way of knowing that you took mature adult responsibility for your work!).

Catch-Up
The following should be already submitted. If you haven't turned them in, they'll be LATE, but you still need to turn them in:

• choice newspaper article;
• "Colors" open notes.

I also need a Student Info form if you haven't done that yet. Please ask me for it if you don't have one.

For Wednesday, 2/11:

Shawshank Redemption

• Pages 15 - 25; mark for evidence of character -- What kind of guy is the narrator? What kind of guy is Andy Dufresne? What kind of evidence does Steven King give us that lets us know who these guys are?
• Circle any juicy vocabulary words that you find. Choose one to look up and write the meaning in the margin.
  

Eat That Frog!

• Chapter 2
• The usual: Mark the three most interesting ideas. Choose one to explore in your BrainBook.

I'll explain a short writing assignment on Friday.