Spelling Quiz Week 21

Curiosity

We are starting this semester with a focus on your Curiosity Lists. But what is the purpose of curiosity? What is the power of curiosity? Watch one or more of these videos and leave a comment below telling me what you took from them. What was your favorite part? What are YOU curious about? "It doesn't matter what you ask, just that you ask." Find the fantastic quote from Albert Einstein about schools and curiosity! Listen to this Tedx talk about curiosity. Old guys have said what about asking questions? And this kid has a LOVELY accent!

week 21: HSA Testing

Wondering how to do your best on this week's HSA test? Here are cute snippets of advice from some little kids. How to deal with multiple choice exams: And how to READ the questions carefully: What will YOU do to be ready for these tests? How do you feel about them?

January 2013 Newsletter

Here's a little preview of our upcoming newsletter, which will be coming home once school starts again.

Happy New Years!

What are YOUR goals for this year?

Holiday Literature

Here are some classic Holiday clips for your viewing pleasure. What is YOUR Holiday tradition? Yes, this is from Sesame Street. Don't judge, it is cute and accurate! Thank you Adam Sandler. And the Nativity story: The history of Christmas from the History Channel: And Kwanzaa! And Bing Crosby singing "Mele Kalikimaka."

Winter Break

Isnʻt this lovely to have a few weeks to slow down, relax, and catch up on our reading? When you come back, be prepared to do an in-class book report about the books that you FINISH during this break.

Make sure you know:
The author
The title
The genre
The plot
The central conflict
The resolution of the conflict
The main characters
and what other books, movies, TV shows your book is related to.

Have a great break!

High Schoolers: SAT Vocab 16 and 17

7-12 Graders: Spelling 17

Vocabulary 16

Library Science: Wednesday Huakaʻi!

This week we will be visiting one of our Kauai libraries for a huakaʻi with papa ehiku and papa ewalu. Some of you are regulars at the library, with your cheerful little red library card all chewed on and your name all rubbed off of the back. Some of you might never have been before!

You can enjoy the library on simple or complex levels. You can use if for advanced scholarly research: each library in the state is connected so that you can request any book in the entire statewide system, and you can get access to scholarly journals online. Or you can just let your eyes scan the shelves, noticing glossy magazines, bright cd covers, enticing book covers. You can go in looking for a specific piece of information, or you can go in open to finding something new.

Before we go, there are some things about the library that will be helpful for you to know.

First, all of the materials in libraries are very well organized. Imagine the millions and millions of books that exist in the world. Libraries have to be equipped to store and find any of those materials almost instantly. Most libraries use The Dewey Decimal System to organize their materials. Click on the list to see the amazingly long list of genres the Dewey Decimal System uses to categorize books. If you familiarize yourself with this system, youʻll be able to find whatever you need at any library in the country.

Here is a simple overview of the system.

1 Class 000 – Computer science, information & general works 2 Class 100 – Philosophy and psychology 3 Class 200 – Religion 4 Class 300 – Social sciences 5 Class 400 – Language 6 Class 500 – Science 7 Class 600 – Technology 8 Class 700 – Arts & recreation 9 Class 800 – Literature 10 Class 900 – History & geography

from "List of Dewey Decimal Classes." Wikipedia. Oct 25, 2012. Accessed Nov 5, 2012.


Each book will have a number printed on its spine with the dewey decimal number on it, and the first few letters of the author's last name. You can easily find books by understanding how to order numbers (Math and English, together at last!) and how to alphabetize words.

The library is organized by genre. Sometimes if I am looking for specific information, I have better luck finding the section of the library with the genre I want than looking for specific books listed in the online catalog.

Something very exciting about the Hawaii State Library system is that we can now check out audio books and electronic books for electronic reader apps. You can also log in to your library account through the website, order books, renew materials, and check on due dates.

Here's a link to the State Library website. If you have a library card but haven't logged in before, your pin, is the last four numbers of your phone number.

See you at the circulation desk!

Rhetoric Quiz

Aloha e nā haumana!

So what have you learned about rhetoric this month? Hopefully a lot! For this post, you have TWO options.
First, you can click on the link to a rhetoric quiz in a google doc,
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dDBPS3BrNHJFNFJGZ3kxb2YySXliUlE6MQ#gid=0

OR
you can write a five paragraph essay in the comment field defending this point: "Rhetoric is important and useful."

Spelling Quiz Week 12

Hi Haumana! Here is your Week 12 spelling quiz.

Click on the link and fill in the questions with the correct spellings of this weekʻs words. 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dHFrUUxMNFNaREd5ckt2Y2xIVTE4dXc6MQ 

And here is the week 12 SAT vocabulary quiz for grades 9-12. Middle schoolers can take this for extra credit!

 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dEMzUHc2YU56andiU0pMTFprUkNvRUE6MQ

Pathos, Ethos, Logos

Can you identify what these commercials are trying to appeal to? Is it your emotion, your sense of right and wrong, or your logic?

In the comments section below, identify each commercial by Pathos (feelings), Ethos (right-and-wrong), or Logos (logic).

Kawaikini English Newsletter Vol. 2, at last!

The much anticipated Second Volume of our Kawaikini English Newsletter is finally ready to hit the presses!  Here are some screenshots as teasers. 

P.S.

I had lots of trouble finishing this document in Word: it kept overwhelming the program and making everything crash and lose changes and save itself as a duplicate. So if your formatting is different from how you originally did it in class, thatʻs why. Does anyone have suggestions for newsletter building programs? For Octoberʻs newsletters letʻs see if we can find a program that can handle a complex document like this. Not wimpy Word. 

Persuasive Essay Assignment: High School

High Schoolers!
Here is your persuasive essay assignment. This is due November 2, 2012.

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B13VABsPbQGBZ1NXeGEzX2ZoOU0

Book Club Assignment

Octoberʻs Book club will be on Wednesday October 24. This will be our third one so hopefully everyone will be beautifully prepared.

Here is a link to the assignment on google docs in case you need a refresher.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xDYGVdxTQSDlu-HSsX6r9j6Z3bOv5mou8zEbmvQpkgk/edit

Great Speeches

All arguments, whether they are about dirty socks on the couch or international trade policy, are in one of three tenses: past, present, and future. The past tense is the language of forensics-- of finding out what happened, who did it, who is to blame or who gets the credit. The present tense is the language of values. It defines who we are and who we aren't, and it defines us versus them. The future tense is the language of solutions, options, and choices.

Listen to these famous speeches and make a note in the comments about what tenses these rhetorical examples use. Does their use of past, present, and future reflect blame, values and choices? Or is it more complicated than that?

In your comment write:
1. the speaker's name
2. the topic
3. the tense: past, present, future
4. the effect of the tense on the strength of the speech Here's Bobby Kennedy, a young and promising politician, announcing the death of Martin Luther King Jr. Shortly after this, Bobby Kennedy himself was assassinated. Here's a comedian, Charlie Chaplan, giving a speech in a movie. Isn't it so oddly incongruent that he is dressed as Hitler? He is reclaiming that image to rob it of its terror. Would you, as a teenager, face the UN and tell them to shape up or ship out? President Barack Obama, when he was still running for president, saying that words matter: And a little while later, Barack Obama talking about what he will do (future!) and about the history of the US (past!) Martin Luther King talking about what America means, in his last speech before he was killed. He says "we are not going to let any dogs or water hoses turn us around!" What's the context? If you don't know, find out.

October Articles:

Week of October 8

Vedantam, Shenkar. "Tie my Shoes, Please: How Persuasion Works." SHOTS NPR Health Blog. NPR.org. July 24, 2012. Web. Accessed September 26, 2012.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/07/23/157248356/tie-my-shoes-please-how-persuasion-works

Week of October 15

What is rhetoric and what does it have to do with us?

http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2012/04/30/151711810/reclaiming-rhetoric-for-the-modern-age

Week of October 23

Is this the age of advertising?

http://www.npr.org/books/titles/138115998/the-age-of-persuasion-how-marketing-ate-our-culture?tab=excerpt#excerpt

Week of October 29

Thank You For Arguing

Here is a link to the full text of my favorite book about persuasion:

http://swcta.net/davis/files/2011/09/Thank-You-for-Arguing.pdf

This is Thank You For Arguing by Jay Heinrichs.

You can also check out his webpage with a cute interactive argument tool at

http://www.thankyouforarguing.com/high/home.html