The Future -- Unit Outliine

The Future – Senior English

Essential Questions:

--What shapes our (personal & societal) views of the future?

--What kind of place will the future be?

--Do we have any control over the future?

Standards:

1. Students will be critical readers, listeners, and viewers of a variety of sources and texts, including fiction and nonfiction books, print and nonprint media, and live speakers.

2. Students will read a wide variety of literature from many periods and genres to build an understanding of the dimensions of human experience.

3. Students will employ a wide variety of strategies as they write and speak, to communicate with different audiences for a variety of purposes.

4. Students will conduct research by generating ideas and questions and posing problems. They will gather, evaluate, synthesize, communicate, and reference information and data from a variety of sources.

5. Students will consistently participate as knowledgeable, reflective, creative and critical members of literacy communities.

Objectives:

1. Students will independently and critically read a novel about the future.

2. Students will understand and critique various views of the future.

3. Students will integrate these views (see #1 and #2 above) in the form of a creative project to effectively communicate their own views of the future.

Activities:

• Read a novel based in the future and complete an online Wiki page as well as an online journal on the reading.

• Participate in the Long Bets Challenge by collaborating with a classmate and posting a ‘long bet” on the online message board set up for that purpose.

• Plan, create, revise, produce, and present a creative project which presents the student’s view of the future

• Write a critique of the view of the future presented in the project (above), including a comparison to other published views of the future.

Materials:

• Sets of novels, including Anthem, 1984, Brave New World, 2001: A Space Odyssey, I Robot, The Handmaid’s Tale, Fahrenheit 451.

• Online resources including www.longnow.org and longbets.org

• List of formats for creative projects (handouts)

Assessment:

• Online journal and wiki page.

• Creative project and critique.

• Presentation of creative project.

Biography Project Resources

EasyBib.com -- Works Cited Page made easy

NoodleBib -- Another recommended Works Cited & Bibliography builder

Google News -- for newspaper articles on your topic

HeadlineSpot.com -- search newspaper archives

Student Research Center -- search newspapers, magazines, & more

Amazon.com -- for book reviews of your biography
New York Times Book Reviews
More Book Reviews

SDHS Web site -- Where should we host it?

pbwiki (highly suited for multiple editors, easy to use, easy to maintain standard look and feel)

edublogs (suited for multiple editors, easy to use, easy to maintain standard look and feel)

on our our sad56.org server (more difficult for use by multiple editors, more creative freedom, difficult to maintain standard look and feel)

Hamlet Act 2

After reading Act 2 of Hamlet, log in to the class forum, find the Hamlet section, and post there. See the guidelines provided. A direct link to the English 12, White 4 Hamlet section is here.

Hamlet Links

Dr. Seuss Does Hamlet: Fox in Socks, Prince of Denmark

HAMLET: The Song (from Prarie Home Companion)

Enjoying "Hamlet"

Hamlet Discussion Questions

Online Message Boards

The link to the handout for the online message boards session is here.

Click here for the sample message board -- the Senior English Forum.

English Wide Open Exam

The online version of the English Wide Open exam is here.

White Man's Burden Links

Detroit Journal Cartoon

Pears Soap Advertisement

White Man's Burden cartoon

Response Poems:

The Brown Man's Burden

The Real White Man's Burden

The Poor Man's Burden

The Black Man's Burden

Home Burdens of Uncle Sam

Other Resources:

Imperialism and the Spanish American War

Existentialism

A definition from Wikipedia

Another more complex definition

What an existential teacher / student relationship would look like.

Existentialism at Answers.com

Camus on The Myth of Siysiphus

The Future of Mooshead

The Future of the Moosehead Lake Region is in the news. Important public hearings are taking place in the next few weeks in which Plum Creek's revised development proposal will receive public comment. If approved, the Plum Creek development of the Moosehead Lake region will be the largest development in Maine's history.

For more information, check out:

Maine Natural Resources Defense Council Slideshow

The Plum Creek Plan for Moosehead (Plum Creek's Point of View

Bangor Daily News Article about Upcoming Hearings

Bangor Daily News Article on Reaction to Revised Moosehead Proposal

Topics for Debate & Persuasive Essays

Sites which list topics and links include:

ProCon.org

Questia.com

A useful tool for creating an outline for your topic is at

Readwritethink.org

Tips for writing an essay are at

Essayinfo.com/

Online Resume Builder

BEGIN HERE (and read the note below):
Online Resume Builder

Important note: You can save the resume you complete using the above Online Resume Builder by:
1. Dragging your browser over the resume, copying it, and pasting it into Microsoft Word.
2. Saving the Microsoft Word document on the transfer drive.

Other resume resources:
Resume Tutor from University of Minnesota.

A second online resume builder (click on free trial)

Online Quiz on Sentence Types

Please click here to check your knowledge of sentence types.

College Admission Essay Tips

The College Board has useful section on Essay Skills for the college admissions essay. Included are a section on how to choose a topic and tips on writing the essay itself.

Samples of successful essays can be found at www.quintcareers.com/

The Common Application essay prompts are at https://app.commonapp.org/CommonApp/docs/downloadforms/CommonApp2008.pdf

True fact: You can pay as much as $1000.00 to have a professional essay editing service such as EssayEdge help you with your essay. (Or you can just ask Wirthy and get help for free).

The College Board suggests you compete the following as part of your brainstorming process:

• Discover Your Strengths: Do a little research about yourself: ask parents, friends, and teachers what your strengths are.
• Create a Self-Outline: Now, next to each trait, list five or six pieces of evidence from your life—things you've been or done—that prove your point.
• Find Patterns and Connections: Look for patterns in the material you've brainstormed. Group similar ideas and events together. For example, does your passion for numbers show up in your performance in the state math competition and your summer job at the computer store? Was basketball about sports or about friendships? When else have you stuck with the hard work to be with people who matter to you?

Evaluating Web Sources

Take the online quiz at http://www.quick.org.uk/menu.htm

Then visit the the following pages and complete the chart as outlined by Mr. Wirth:

http://www.weight-loss-institute.com/diet_pills.htm

http://anatrimtabs.blogspot.com/2007/09/what-are-ingredients-of-anatrim.html

http://www.fda.gov/FDAC/features/196_wght.html

Happy surfing!

Welcome to Wirthy English

Glad that you found your way to this blog -- which can serve as a useful resource for Senior English students at SDHS. On a more immediate basis, you can get an extra credit point just by posting a comment in response to this post. (You can post as an annonymous user. Just be sure to include your first name and last initial. i.e. "Ray W. was here" gets you extra credit!