November 25

Today was mostly a group day to talk about No Exit, our literature groups, and vocab. Tomorrow we'll be having a vocab quiz, so be sure and study! No Exit is due tomorrow also.

BTW: have you noticed our pretty shoutbox in the sidebar? Everyone's welcome to use it for questions, announcements, suggestions/bug reports for RAM, etc. I was also thinking, wouldn't it be cool if there was a page here with a bunch of shoutboxes on it, and if you wanted a shoutbox for your literature circle group you could "claim" one for your own use? I used 5th period as a focus group to test this idea, and they said they thought it would be really helpful. So, taadaaa! The shoutboxes are there for the taking :)

November 22

Today, Dr. Preston started off class by reminding us to have fun during our senior year, and try not to get too caught up in homework/college/scholarship apps/etc. And, if you're having trouble keeping up in English, let him know.

Also, he pointed out this post on his blog, saying that if anyone's interested in becoming a professional writer, talk to him.

Then we took some notes on No Exit. Here's the gist of mine:

• written by Jean Paul Sartre, a French writer, intellectual, and existentialist
• existentialism is concerned with the question, what is the purpose/meaning of our lives?
• what is important/meaningful and why?
• disorientation/confusion in absurd life
• "existence precedes essence"
• Descartes remix-- I am, therefore I think I am
• in No Exit, 3 people (btw, they don't like each other) are sitting in a room, trying to figure out meaning/nature of reality for themselves
• famous line, "Hell is other people."
• Sartre quote: "Men are condemned to be free."
• meaning, freedom requires work! independence isn't easy, we're usually dependent on instruction and characterized by limitation
• for homework, we need to read No Exit, take notes on the story, and answer the questions within the text.
• notes and questions/answers can be put in the same blog post, due Tuesday, 11/26
• as we're reading, we should be drawing parallels between No Exit and the Allegory of the Cave (hint hint essay hint)

AP Government and Politics - Discussing Second Semester

So today in AP Microeconomics, Mr. Nesper briefly talked about what we would be doing in second semester for AP Government and Politics. Here is what I gathered/remember:

• AP Government will be more like history classes than Microeconomics.
• We will be learning AP Government and Politics for three months and a half during second semester, after that we will go back and review AP Microeconomics to prepare for the AP Exam.
• Although Mr. Nesper will be teaching us about the government and about politics, he said that we would have to do a lot of reading to understand the material on our own because he can't go over each subject thoroughly since we will only have three months.
• Yes, we will have homework during winter and spring break.
• We will be taking a test? quiz? the first day we come back to school on the reading material that we will be assigned to read during winter break.

November 20

Today we wrote an essay about Plato's "The Allegory of the Cave" and we took a vocabulary quiz (from vocab lists three, four, five, and seven). Because the vocabulary quiz and the essay took the whole class period, we did not have time to write in our journals (unless you wrote yours after the quiz and the essay). So if you didn't write your journal in class, make sure to do so for homework!

November 19

Today we journeyed to the library to check out Tale of Two Cities/Great Expectations with our groups. At the moment, Dr. Preston hasn't specifically told us to start reading, but that doesn't mean you can't!

After that, Dr. Preston gave us some background on Plato/"Allegory of the Cave." Here's the gist of my notes--

• dialectic: formal argument between two people (you can tell because it starts with "di" like "dialogue") about the nature of truth
• (btw, argument ≠ conflict; the modern connotation is sometimes misleading)
• Plato was the son of a wealthy family, and was destined for a life of politics
• he also became a student of Socrates
• when Socrates got in trouble with the government for "corrupting the youth," Plato became a teacher to carry on Socrates's legacy so his way of thinking wouldn't die with him
• Plato used the dialectic format because he believed it was the best way to write
• he used Socrates' name as a way of paying homage to him
• the other character, Glaucon, is Plato's brother; as the author, he didn't want to insert himself into the dialectic, but using his brother's name is a pretty close second
• Plato's philosophy states that real understanding only comes from intellectual pursuit
• humans are unable to understand truth through the senses only, because what we see ≠ reality (shadows on the cave wall)
• reality requires logic and study to see/understand (the prisoners couldn't understand the outside just by hearing about it; you actually have to SEE the sun and GO outside for yourself to get it)
• furthermore, you can't learn from experience, only from reflecting on experience
• Dr. Preston mentioned "extended metaphor," but didn't explain it-- from the Norton Anthology of Poetry website, extended metaphors are "[d]etailed and complex metaphors that extend over a long section of a poem." From changingminds.org, "An extended metaphor is one where there is a single main subject to which additional subjects and metaphors are applied." I also found a slideshow here which explains it very nicely.

November 15

Today Dr. Preston told us about this weekend's mindmap collaboration. The class voted on MindMeister as the preferred platform, so this weekend Dr. Preston will send an email invite to everyone so we can all collaborate (if you didn't get an invite, just send an email to Dr. Preston and he'll [re]send it). The text of the article is copied to an etherpad for students to claim their paragraphs, and the mindmap itself lives here.

As for next week, here's an outline:

• Monday: it's an early out, so we'll have a rather short in-class review of "Allegory of the Cave." (Also, at lunch is the meeting for the new collaborative working group, "The Game.")
• Tuedsay: in-class essay on "Allegory of the Cave." (At lunch is the meeting for the new collaborative working group, "Mentors and Educators.")
• Wednesday: the official start of the literature circles mentioned in today's agenda. The first time Dr. Preston did this, the only two choices were A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations: two novels by the same author, but on very different themes. However, that was before Class of 2013's Sarah Gutierrez stormed into the room and declared, "I'm not done with Shakespeare yet!" So, Dr. Preston added Henry V to the list (in Dr. Preston's words, "Open-source learning is like your friend who always says 'yes.'") So, make sure your group agrees on a book (or agrees to disagree-- yet another option is to read two different novels within your group) by our class library trip on Wednesday.
• UPDATE: loljk. switch Tuesday & Wednesday (except for the lunch meeting).

Dr. Preston also said he was impressed at how many great articles everyone suggested for the mindmap, so we might also be having additional "Article of the Week" mindmaps in the future for anyone who's interested.

Haiyan Fundraiser

This just in from Lesther Valenzuela:

"Project Humanity - a RHS Club of concerned students - would like the entire student body to join in and help send our support to the people in the Philippines after the devastating typhoon last weekend. We are asking that tomorrow during 3rd period - a coin can will be sent around to each class. Please just drop in any coins you might have in your pockets. Many have been affected so every cent counts. Let's show that the Righetti Warriors are always willing to help out in times of need so that they will push on and never give up on life which are the true warriors in life. The people of the Philippines will be ever so grateful for your support! Thank you so much!"