Depression Quest

From their website, "Depression Quest is an interactive fiction game where you play as someone living with depression. You are given a series of everyday life events and have to attempt to manage your illness, relationships, job, and possible treatment. This game aims to show other sufferers of depression that they are not alone in their feelings, and to illustrate to people who may not understand the illness the depths of what it can do to people."

During the story you have to make some choices which will influence what happens later in the story.  The game is very similar to the posting I did about the girl who sends an inappropriate picture to her boyfriend, "Choose what happens next" on Thursday April 4.  To see that click here.    In Depression Quest, there are over a hundred possible different scenarios.  This would be something that might be used in health class.  The scenarios are very realistic and some of your student will relate very strongly to some of them others this might give some insight to depression. To see the game click here.

Career Advice

Previously I posted about Inside jobs (click here to see the post).  Today I will post about another couple of sites that give information and videos about different careers.  

You  can find career profiles, what salary range you can expect, what type of education you will need, interviews and employment prospects.  Click here to see the site.

This site has quick overviews of various careers.  There are interviews with people in each career.  The site is new so there are only some videos in certain pathways but they promise more coming soon.  To see their site click here.  

The Economics of Seinfeld

From their site, "It is the simplicity of Seinfeld that makes it so appropriate for use in economics courses. Using these clips (as well as clips from other television shows or movies) makes economic concepts come alive, making them more real for students. Ultimately, students will start seeing economics everywhere – in other TV shows, in popular music, and most importantly, in their own lives."

There are 7 pages with the name of the episode and what economic term is used.  However you can use the search function for a specific term.  Note the site does not host all the videos in fact some cases it just gives you the episode name and time frame where the search term is given in the episode.  You will then have to search youtube or other sources for the episode in that case.  To see the site click here.

Shakespeare Uncovered

From PBS Learning Media, Shakespeare Uncovered is a thematic collection of 21 videos.  The topics for high school students include: Supernatural Events in Shakespeare, The Use of Soliloquy, Gender Roles in Shakespeare and Women, Identity  and Disguise in Shakespeare's Comedies, along with others.  The  site is free but after 3 resource views you must make a free PBS account.

According to the website, "This thematic collection -- which adheres to national learning standards -- contains video segments from the series, informational texts, discussion questions, and suggestions for extension activities to enhance your students’ reading, viewing, and appreciation of Shakespeare’s works."

To see the site, click here.

New Arrivals

Click here for a title peek

Click here for a title peek

Photosynthesis and Food

This TED ED would make for a good review or introductory video to the topic of Photosynthesis.  The video is short and only 4:01 long.  The video is below.

Typing Club

On March 1 I posted about Z-type which was a typing game similar to space invaders.  Click here to see that post.  I know there is no typing in our high school curriculum but I believe it is an important skill.  Typing Club is another free site that has great typing lessons and will keep track of your mistakes.  If you set up an account (again free) they will keep track of your progress in your profile.  There site can be found by clicking here. 

New Arrivals

Scorpio Races was a Michael Printz Honour Book.

Click here for a title peek

Beautiful Creatures was a New York Times Best seller.

Click here for a title peek

Can Cities Save the Earth?

From

Rob Krulwich wrote a nice article where he credits Tim de Chant for wondering if we put the whole 7 billion people on the Earth in one city, how large would that city be?  Well that depends on how dense the population will be.  Is it packed like Hong Kong

or like Houston Texas?  With some calculations he came up with the following infograph (see my post on December 19 on infographs by clicking here ):

If you would like to see the whole article, click here.

Biodiversity Day

In celebration of  biodiversity day, have a look at these sites:

10 species near extinction  by Time - slideshow

Endangered means there is still time by US Fish and Wildlife Service - slideshow

Endangered World  by The Guardian- interactive

Portraits of America's Endangered Species by NPR - slideshow

Bagheera which has Endangered TV - both sites are great

Here are a couple of infographic
By TIME
By the NY Times

Canadian Art - MAGIC, MYTHS, FAIRY TALES AND FEAR

The following is taken from Canadian Art Magazine and is about Magic, Myths, Fairy Tales and Fears

INTRODUCTION

In these activities, students learn how artists Shary Boyle, Allyson Mitchell and Ed Pien use the ideas of fears, fairy tales and the grotesque to create fantastical images and environments. Each of the artists invites viewers into their world of symbols and dreams to ignite both the imagination in a fearful and playful manner. The art-making activities give students the opportunity to discuss and create imaginative drawings or create a performance based on the ideas of fears, fairy tales and the grotesque.


FOCUSING QUESTIONS

• 1. What are you afraid of? What types of fears do you experience —mythical and real?

• 2. How are fears represented in fairy tales, fables and other stories? Most of these stories can be traced back hundreds of years; why do you think they have survived?

• 3. The catchphrase “culture of fear” is often used today within a political framework. Using this as a foundation, discuss the notion of anxiety within contemporary society.

ARTIST 1: SHARY BOYLE

Toronto-based artist Shary Boyle, featured in this educational video on installation art, is well-known for her bold, fantastical explorations of the figure. Her multi-disciplinary practice mines the history of porcelain figurines, animist mythologies and historical portraiture to create a symbolic and imaginative language uniquely her own. From sculpture to performance, Boyle interprets her personal observations of sexuality, relationships and human vulnerability through a darkly feminist lens.

In this video, Boyle explains that “Installation is the next step from sculpture, but it’s really addressing a space. It has the potential to take you by surprise to physically activate the space.”

As reviewer Yael Brotman has also observed, “The themes of innocence and transformation are shown, in Boyle’s work, as in fairy tales, to be seldom soft and never sentimental. Horror is always nearby.”

Here are some other resources on Shary Boyle that you and your students may find useful:


Shary Boyle: National Treasure, Too by Leah Sandals (report on 2012 show at the BMO Project Room)

Shary Boyle: Flesh and Blood by Vanessa Nicholas (review of 2010 exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario)

Shary Boyle: Bat Drama sans Dracula by Bryne McLaughlin (review of 2009 exhibition at Jessica Bradley Art + Projects)

Sobey Finalists 2009: Shary Boyle (slideshow of works)

Shary Boyle: Porcelain Dreams and Nightmares by Lorissa Sengara (feature on Boyle from a 2006 issue ofCanadian Art

Rewind: Shary Boyle by Yael Brotman (review of a 2002 exhibition at Katharine Mulherin Contemporary Art Projects)

ARTIST 2: ALLYSON MITCHELL

Allyson Mitchell is a maximalist artist working predominantly in sculpture, installation and film. Since 1997, Mitchell has been melding feminism and pop culture to play with contemporary ideas about sexuality, autobiography, and the body, largely through the use of reclaimed textile and abandoned craft.

In the above video on sculpture, Mitchell describes parts of her process: “Recently I got a package of drawings that this little kid had done in Winnipeg, who saw my work at the Winnipeg Art Gallery. I make these big lesbian feminist Sasquatch sculptures and he had done drawings of them and sent them to me with this really beautiful note that talked about his experience of really being afraid of the work at first and then loving it.”

ARTIST 3: ED PIEN

Ed Pien creates his own unique visual language of tales and myth, of half-human and half-animal figures, plunging the viewer into worlds that spark the imagination. His multi-disciplinary practice includes drawings, paper cutouts and installation work.

As curator Nancy Campbell notes in our educational video on curating, embedded above, “I was fascinated by Ed Pien’s work for this exhibition because he combines the mythological with the monstrous, and its very evocative and compelling. And you can see how he takes figures and then melds them into other figures, and it just becomes this crazy dream space.”

Chinese artist Lai Wan, in a feature for Canadian Art magazine, has also noted, “The art of Ed Pien fully describes the embodied, multifaceted world of these demons, investigating what I read as a phenomenological manifestation of what Jacques Derrida termed hauntology.”

Lai Wan continues, “There are many things happening in Pien’s pieces: the expression of the grotesque, stage fright for both the viewed and the viewer, tender seductions and sophisticated foreplay involving vulnerability, delicacy, fragility, strength.”

Here are some other resources that you and your students may find useful about Ed Pien:

David Balzer’s Top 3: Haunted Heroes (a year-end best-of list for 2010 including one of Ed Pien’s exhibitions)

Ed Pien: Drawing in Many Forms by Zoë Chan (a review of a 2009 exhibition at Pierre-François Ouellette art contemporain)


ART-MAKING ACTIVITY 1: DRAWING: NIGHTMARES, MONSTERS AND THE REPETITION OF FEAR

Objective
Students build an understanding of how fears are repeated, and demonstrate the idea of the grotesque by using the techniques of monoprinting to create layered drawings in the manner of Ed Pien. Students’ individual drawings will be used to create a collaborative installation based on the ideas of fears and dreams.

Discussion
Either as a class or working in small groups, lead a discussion on the idea of nightmares. Who has them? When do they occur? How often do they occur? What feelings occur when they happen?

Materials

• stack of bond paper (8.5” by 11”)
• India ink
• brushes (i.e. inexpensive bamboo brushes)
• pencil crayons
• gouache

Step 1
Taking cues from Ed Pien, students create drawings based on the notions of fears, horror and the grotesque using India ink on bond paper. This preliminary exercise is designed to be intuitive and quick. Drawings can be free formed and abstract representations.

Step 2
Students select one drawing from Step 1. Using this image as a key source, students re-draw the image again and again.
*To further the students’ understanding of Pien’s process, students can repeat their image by rubbing a blank piece of paper against an inked drawing that is still wet. This monoprint technique produces a mirrored distorted image of the drawing.

Step 3
Building on their drawings from Step 2 and their lists of nightmares, students re-work and finish their images using other mediums (i.e. pencils, gouache and crayons).

Step 4 (Optional)
Compiling all of the drawings from step 3, students work in small groups to determine a format for display. Possible strategies include: arranging their drawings into a grid, building a 3-dimensional papered structure (i.e. like a tent), collaging images into a singular mural, stitching all of the drawings together to form a curtain.

ART-MAKING ACTIVITY 2: A FAIRY TALE PERFORMANCE
*timeframe: 6 to 10 classes are recommended

Objective
Students will reinterpret a classic fairy tale and create it in a performance by using the interplay of light and shadows. Students will understand how myths and fairy tales are recreated by artists Shary Boyle and Allyson Mitchell. Students will understand how performance as an art is practiced.

Discussion
In this activity, students identify and give examples as to how fear, horror and the grotesque play out within some of the classic fairy tales. For example, in the fairytale, Bluebeard, Bluebeard’s wife finds a ghastly, bloody room strewn with the body parts of his murdered wives. Students create a performance piece.

Materials
• drawing materials (paint, ink, pencils, crayons etc.)
• paper (a mix of coloured paper, black and white)
• clear mylar/acetate
• permanent markers
• adhesives (hot glue sticks and gun, tape, string etc.)
• overhead projectors, slide projectors (if available, if not flashlights and clip lights will also work creating a shadow puppet theatre)
• brass fasteners
• thin wire and pliers for cutting
• scissors
• hole punchers
• sticks (i.e. chopsticks, tongue depressors, skewers)

Step 1
After producing a list of fairy tales with students, divide students into small working groups, and ask them to choose one of the classic fairy tales. Students should look at the plot, and discuss which part of the fairy tale represents most horrific, menacing or romantic.

Step 2
As a group, students decide how they would like to reinterpret this classic. They may want to focus on one scene rather than tell the whole story. The performance can be as short as 3 minutes and as long as 10 minutes.

Step 3
Based on their story, students develop a series of sketches that describe the scene, the characters and the action.

Step 4
Using their sketches as a guide, students work as a group to produce all materials needed for the performance. Two approaches are suggested:

a) Working with acetate, markers and ink, students build the scene from translucent pieces that are projected via an overhead projected. The characters are built from opaque cut paper, which projects silhouettes when placed on the overhead. Actions can happen via the overhead and/or via live performance.

b) Students build a puppet theatre with a white sheet pulled taut over the opening. The characters and the scenes (i.e. buildings, trees, mountains etc.) are individually cut-out from paper and mounted with a stick. When light is placed behind the scene, the cut forms project shadowy silhouettes onto the taut screen. Actions take place as students move the puppets in relation to the light.

Step 5
Rehearse. Encourage students to play with the distance between light and the cut-out characters to see how distance affects the size of the cut-outs, and contributes to creating an atmosphere of gothic elements.

Step 6
The performance.

TERMINOLOGY

Metaphysics: The branch of philosophy that deals with the first principles of things, including abstract concepts such as being, knowing, substance, cause, identity, time, and space. Metaphysics has two main strands: that which holds that what exists lies beyond experience (as argued by Plato), and that which holds that objects of experience constitute the only reality (as argued by Kant, the logical positivists, and Hume). (Source: New Oxford American Dictionary)

Myth: A traditional story, esp. one concerning the early history of a people or explaining some natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events. (Source: New Oxford American Dictionary)

Gothic Horror: Gothic fiction (sometimes referred to as Gothic horror) is a genre of literature that combines elements of both horror and romance. As a genre, Gothic fiction refers to a style popular in the 18th century, and it is generally believed to have been invented by the English author Horace Walpole, with his 1764 novel The Castle of Otranto. Gothic fiction is characterized with elements of both horror and romance. A key ingredient in horror fiction is its ability to provoke fear or terror in readers, usually via something demonic. There should be a sense of dread, unease, anxiety, or foreboding. (Source: New Oxford American Dictionary)

Fairy Tales: Fairy tale is term for a wonder tale involving elements of marvel and occurrence, but not necessarily fairies. Fairy tales typically feature such folkloric characters as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, dwarves, giants or gnomes, and usually magic or enchantments. Twentieth-century psychologists, notably Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, and Bruno Bettelheim, have interpreted elements of the fairy tale as manifestations of universal fears and desires. (Source: Encyclopedia Britannica and Wikipedia)

CROSS-CURRICULUM LINKS

Art History: Hieronymus Bosch and Pieter Bruegel, Wayang Kulit—Javanese Shadow Puppets

Music: Gamelan Orchestra (a distinctive music ensemble fro Indonesia that accompanies the shadow puppet theatre)

Science: light, Technology relating to the history of motion pictures; magic lanterns, Edison’s kinetoscope—a peep-show machine, Eadweard Muybridge’s studies in motion, shadow puppets, the mutoscope, chroma-trope, camera obscura)

Language: Fairy tales and myths (from Native Legends to Javanese puppet theatre to the Brothers Grimm to parables)

History Pin

This is an online collection of historical photos that are "pinned"  to their modern geographical location and laid over their modern location using google streetview.  Canadian content is in its infancy.  If you would like to visit the site click here.    They have a school resource page which can be found by clicking here.  At present there is nothing for Kennedy Collegiate but Catholic Central has one picture.  Maybe your class can add some content to this page.

Pixorial - Online video creation

On January 25 I posted about Mozilla's Popcorn Maker, a website that allows you to remix web videos.  Here is an alternative that may be easier, or just different.  When discussing online video creation, Richard Byrne says "Pixorial is the online video creation tool that I hear teachers talking about a lot lately. The thing that I like the most about Pixorial is that the video creation and editing tools are laid out in an intuitive user interface. Most users will never find themselves wondering what any of the editing tools do or what to click on next. To create a video in Pixorial you can upload pictures and raw video footage then organize that media into the sequence in which you want it to appear. You can insert transitions between elements by selecting them from the transitions gallery. If you would like to add a soundtrack to your production you can select one from the Pixorial gallery or upload your own audio files. Pixorial also makes it easy to add text to each picture or video that you upload. Just click on "overlay text" in the video editor when you're viewing the element that you want to add text to.  Pixorial offers a free plan to educators. The educators' plan provides 30GB of free storage. Pixorial offers Android and iOS apps too."

Smart Board Slides for Music II

Here are a couple more slides from Andy Ramos.  The notes on the Smartboard slide are movable so students can practice note names or other activities.  To download the file click here.

Same as the treble but now bass.  To download click here.

TIME Timelapse powered by Google

On Thursday May 9th, Time, Google, NASA and USGS released Timelapse powered by Google.  You can watch the last 30 years of satellite photography of anywhere on earth.  According to Louis Perrochon,     "We sifted through 2,068,467 images—a total of 909 terabytes of data—to find the highest-quality pixels (e.g., those without clouds), for every year since 1984 and for every spot on Earth. We then compiled these into enormous planetary images, 1.78 terapixels each, one for each year."

They have selected a few very stunning timelapses for you to view by clicking here.  You can move around the world and zoom in anywhere.  This might be an interesting tool in the classroom to look at erosion or climate change.  I have zoomed in on the east side of Windsor, east of the WFCU center.  You will notice a large rectangular green area gets built up over the last 30 years around the Banwell Hill - St. Josephs area as highlighted in the red box below.

If you would like to watch the development of this area click here.  You can zoom out or move anywhere else in the world you would like.  When you are done, if you would like to share the new view, click on the icon that looks like this  

Factoring Trinomials, Slide and divide

When factoring Trinomials of the form ax^2 + bx + c.  I prefer the method of decompostion:

• Step 1 – find the value of AC

• Step 2 – find integers a and b whose PRODUCT is AC and whose SUM adds up to B (order of arrangement of a and b WILL NOT matter) – can do in a vertical column for easier visibility. Don’t forget to account for signs!

• Step 3 – rewrite as Ax^2 + ax + bx + C

• Step 4 – factor by grouping where (Ax^2 + ax) + (bx + C) and factor out GCF from each group and common factor again

However you might want to try the slide and divide method.  To see it, click here.

Graphic Novels for the classroom

If I have noticed anything as a first year teacher librarian is that Graphic Novels are the most read books in the library.  They are read by both male and females.   According to

graphic novels:

• Engages reluctant readers & ESL patrons.
• Increases reading comprehension and vocabulary.
• Can provide a bridge between low and high levels of reading.
• Presents an approach to reading that embraces the multimedia nature of today’s culture, as 2/3 of a story is conveyed visually.
• Provides scaffolding for struggling readers.
• Presents complex material in readable text.
• Helps patrons understand global affairs.
• Offers another avenue through which individuals can experience art.

Why teach using graphic novels.  Click here for Gene Yang's graphic novel explanation of why to use graphic novels in the classroom.  Courtney Angermeier has assembled a youtube video called "Building Literacy Connections with Graphic Novels".  It can be found by clicking here.  Dianne Laycock has given permission to use her lesson outline on codes and conventions used in graphic novels. Click here to see it.  She also provides links to online comic creating tools but I think bitstrips.com is a great comic creator.  Mr. Davis has used bitstrips with his classes this year.

Another parallel activity would be to have students read a newspaper article of your choosing or you could lay down some specifications and have the students pick their own article.  They then can use the following template from the New York Times Learning Network to create a comic strip version.  If you are an art teacher or a brave literacy teacher maybe you may want them to create their own novel. For some great  ideas from Barbara Slate click here.

We have many great award winning graphic novels that could be used in your classroom.  

Plot: Following the Iranian protests of the 2009 election of President Ahmadinejad, many young protesters are missing. One of them is Mehdi. Unable to find Mehdi and fearing the worst, his mother and brother devote themselves to figuring out how someone can seemingly just vanish without a trace.

If you would like to see lesson plans for this novel click here.


Plot: Anya just doesn't quite feel right. And she's at that age too; you know, puberty. So when Anya accidentally falls down a well and encounters a ghost who seems to have all the answers she starts to feel a little more self-secure. But will it last? And what's so special or weird (Anya's not sure which) about this ghost?

If you would like to see lesson plans for this novel click here.

The following article discusses Graphic Novels in the AP classroom and discusses the next three G.N.'s we have.  To read click here.


The Pulitzer Prize-winning Maus tells the story of Vladek Spiegelman, a Jewish survivor of Hitler’s Europe, and his son, a cartoonist coming to terms with his father’s story.  Maus approaches the unspeakable through the diminutive. Its form, the cartoon (the Nazis are cats, the Jews mice), shocks us out of any lingering sense of familiarity and succeeds in “drawing us closer to the bleak heart of the Holocaust” (The New York Times).

If you would like to see lesson ideas for this novel click here.

Back to Iran.  Our next graphic novel is  Persepolis.  This book was just recently banned by the Chicago Public Schools. Later it was said that it was banned in elementary schools and restricted in high schools if teachers had appropriate training.   Click here to read an article in the Atlantic or here for an article in The Guardian.



Originally published to wide critical acclaim in France, where it elicited comparisons to Art Spiegelman's Maus, Persepolis is Marjane Satrapi's wise, funny, and heartbreaking memoir of growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. In powerful black-and-white comic strip images, Satrapi tells the story of her life in Tehran from ages six to fourteen, years that saw the overthrow of the Shah's regime, the triumph of the Islamic Revolution, and the devastating effects of war with Iraq. The intelligent and outspoken only child of committed Marxists and the great-granddaughter of one of Iran's last emperors, Marjane bears witness to a childhood uniquely entwined with the history of her country.  (Powell's Books)

 Susan Spangler, from ReadWriteThink has a great unit plan that you can use for this graphic novel.  The outline can be found by clicking here.  To see all the details click here.



It’s hard to imagine a graphic work that is better suited for grades 6–12 instruction than this. Its themes of
assimilation, conformity, identity, and the price that is sometimes paid for popularity at school can’t help but
resonate with students. But that’s just the beginning. Brimming with humor, some of which is merciless in
its depiction of Chinese stereotypes, this graphic novel also comprises an artful and exciting retelling of the
Monkey King legend. Indeed, by alternating among three separate story lines that clearly parallel each other before he allows them to converge in a surprising, satisfying ending, Yang (himself a California teacher)
provides an almost diagrammatic way for students to deepen their understanding of how theme and symbol
work in literature.  (Peter Gutierrez)

This novel could be used in an English class but any Social Studies class that discusses stereotypes would also be great.    You also could have your students write an autobiographical outline or have a discussion with a relative  and make a biographical essay.  After that they could make a small graphic novel or comic strip or just the storyboard themselves. Here are a couple lesson plans for you to look at by clicking here or here or here.

We also have a Canadian History graphic novel, Louis Riel.  The novel starts at the Red River Rebellion and finishes with his hanging for treason.  The novel won many awards in Canada.




For a journalism course,  Kirstin Butler says, "Melding a graphic novel, photo essay, and travelogue,The Photographer: Into War-Torn Afghanistan with Doctors Without Borders tells the story of photographer Didier Lefèvre's 1986 journey through Afghanistan with the international non-profit organization Doctors Without Borders/ Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).

Lefèvre documented the group's harrowing covert tour from Pakistan into a nation gripped by violence in the aftermath of the 1979 Soviet invasion. While a few of his 4,000-plus images were published upon his return to France, years passed before Lefèvre was approached by his friend, graphic novelist Emmanuel Guibert, about collaborating on a book that would finally tell his remarkable story. The resulting effort, assembled by graphic designer Frédéric Lemercier, is a seamless tour de force of reportage."


Graphic Novels in General
This link from  is on the topic of "Examining Race, Class, Ethnicity, Gender in the Media" by way of comic books or equally graphic novels.



Barbara Slate has a fine document on creating your own Graphic Novels which can be found by clicking here.

Mother's Day

Just in case you forgot here are some videos.  Better yet make your own.

Almost Human

Another donation to the library.  "Almost Human" is a chronicle of fifteen years of observing a troop of baboons.

Extreme Collaboration for the Smart Board

This add-on for your smart board will make things like the clickers obsolete.  It allows web enabled devices that your students may have like phones, laptops and tablets to to text to your smart board.  You could have students answer questions, poll students,  gather ideas by brain storming among other ideas.  You can have your students join anonymously or by name.  

You can read more from their site by clicking here.  You can also download the add-on from that site also. 

The following video shows you how to start a session and how students join.  The second video shows how to run activities with students.

New Books

Couple of new ones in.  The first is "Today in History"  by  Bob Johnstone.   

According to Canadahistory.ca Johnston began producing the daily three-minute segments for radio in the early 1980s on an occasional basis, but they proved so popular with listeners that by the mid-1980s they were instituted as a regular feature on CBC. Each segment examines a historic event for the calendar day, marrying quirky, humorous, infamous, or little-known events from history to Johnstone’s casual, engaging storytelling manner. Heard by hundreds of thousands of Canadians daily, the vignettes in Today In History have also been collected in a book of the same title.

The second is a Human Kinetics book award that has been donated to the school in Rachel Andrews name. The book is called "Last Child in the Woods".  

For a title peek click here.