1st Six Week's Award Winners

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Fourth Period Junior AVID Award Winners:
Eagle - Kaylin
Pigeon - Lee

Seventh Period Sophomore AVID Award Winners:
Eagle - Carol-lyn
Pigeon - Angie

Agenda: Friday, October 16th

Quote of the Day: "One of the most time consuming things is having an enemy." -- E.B. White

Agenda:
1) Road Trip Nation Video Interview - "Joe Quesada" The Editor-in-Chief of Marvel Comics. Check out Joe's story here:
Joe Quesada Road Trip Nation Interview
Themes: Chance & Luck, Finding Your Road, Desire, Determination, Planning

Meet Joe Quesada, “the luckiest son of a (gun) in the history of comic books.” While working at the toy store FAO Schwarz, Quesada, having recently graduated from art school, was doodling on a napkin. A stock-boy came in, saw his scribbles, and suggested he write for comics. Quesada brushed off the idea with, “Ah, silly stock-boy, comics are for kids.” However, the stock-boy insisted, and the next day he brought Frank Miller’s first issue of “Dark Knight” for Quesada.

We discussed in groups - 1) What surprised us about Joe's story? and 2) What did you relate to your life about his journey?

2) We also gave out the Eagle and Pigeon awards in class today.

Agenda: Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2009

Quote of the Day: "Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you."
— Pericles

Juniors are at UTSA for a field trip today.

Sophomores are tutoring.

Halloween is coming.. Aidan is prepared!

Halloween 09 - Indiana Jones! from Mr. Duez on Vimeo.
Aidan dressed up in his Halloween costume for 2009.

Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize

What do you think of this surprising development?

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Proud that an American has won the award. But, hope it only leads to more peace.

Agenda: TGIF October 09, 2009

Quote of the Day:  "What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but rather what is woven into the lives others."  - Pericles

Learning Targets:
* Students will learn cooperative text analysis through text based discussion - Socratic Seminar
* Students will understand the meaning of the English novel they are reading (Awakening or Lord of the Flies)

Agenda:
1.Discuss Field trip to UTSA (for Juniors). We leave at 6am on Tuesday.
(5 min total)
2.  Expectations for Socratic Seminar:

You will be assessed as follows:
50% on the Annotation and Questions written on the Funeral Oration text.
50% on the Notes on a separate sheet of paper and your reflection at the end. 
I will collect both the packet and separate sheet at the end of the period.

3.  Socratic Seminar on "Novel Essay" with Edmodo.com.  Students will be placed into 6 groups and then 1 facilitator/captain of each group will have a laptop that is logged into Edmodo.com.  As you discuss the text, add questions and comments through Edmodo and reply and help other groups through the laptop.
4.  Debrief on "Novel Essay" and Edmodo.  Collect Annotations, Questions and Reflections at the door.

8 Years Ago - We began war... we are still in Afghanistan

Many forget, we are still a nation at war. This story by Ann Curry reminds us all of the sacrifice.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Tips for Friday's Socratic Seminar w/Edmodo

Some tips for Friday's Socratic Seminar.

Reminder: Socratic Seminar w/Edmodo for Friday.

TO DO: Read the text, underline, circle, highlight things you think are important or that you do not understand. Write at least one question on the handout for class on Friday.

I will be choosing captains (facilitators) to lead the groups based on your questions and annotation of the text.

The texts that we will use are associated with your English classes and the novels you are reading.

Looking forward to seeing how it goes on Friday.

Some things to consider:

Listen actively.
Build on what others say.
Expose/suspend your assumptions.
Do not step on other’s talk. Silences and pauses are OK.
Emphasize clarification, amplification, and implications of ideas.
Converse directly with each other, not through the facilitator.
Let the conversation flow without raising hands, as much as possible.
Make references to the text and encourage others to do the same.
Watch your air time for how often you speak and how much you say when you speak.

Question 1—Agreement: Which parts of the text do we agree with in terms of our work?
Question 2—Aspiration: Which parts of the text do we aspire to or want to work toward?
Question 3—Alignment: What is the current reality, and what is the gap between where we are and our aspirations?”
Question 4—Adjustments: What needs to be done for us to succeed?

Debrief (5 Minutes). When everyone has spoken, the facilitator closes the discussion about the text and poses the following questions for open discussion:
· What did we learn?
· What new insights did we gain as result of this protocol?
· What worked well?
· Did we follow the protocol? If not, why?
· How could the process be improved?

Agenda: Wed & Thu 10/07 and 10/08, 2009

Quote of the Day: "I'm not young enough to know everything." - Sir James Matthew Barrie

TUTORING ~ bring a high level question, your binder, and some hard work to tutoring.

Sophs (wednesdsay) - After tutoring we will log into RoadTripNation.org for the first time and check out the site. I will also give you a text about Lord of the Flies that we'll read for Friday. We are preparing for our Socratic Seminar on Friday - using Edmodo (twitter like application).

Juniors (thursday) - After tutoring we will work on the laptops to research our college of our choice to create our Animoto videos. This is the last day we'll have to do research on the computers in class. We may have another day or two in the computer lab.

Agenda: Tuesday, October 06, 2009

Quote of the Day: "Anything looked at closely becomes wonderful." - Ammond

Agenda: Tutoring Today
Mr. Duez will be grading Binders on Wed/Thu so have them ready for next time. 5 Pages of "Perfect" Cornell Notes

Tonight: "Signing Party" and parent night in AHS Cafeteria at 6pm for Sophomores.

Agenda: Friday, Oct. 2, 2009

Good luck to all our sports teams this weekend! I'll be at the Volleyball game tonight as Cristina's guest. Very honored to be there on Teacher's Night. Go Eagles!

Quote of the day: “The most valuable of all talents... that of never using two words where one will do.” -- Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)

Agenda:
Juniors - In Blue LGI for Guest Speaker Lilly Chu and "Scholarship Scams."

Sophomores - We will work on Road Trip Nation.

College Research & Video Project

The AVID Juniors will be doing some research on the laptop computers over the next two weeks.

They will choose a college, research for information about it, find pictures and video to go with their school and then create a video from the website animoto to describe it.

The page below is used to guide their research:

College Research Project for AVID

The students will create an account on Animoto and then upload pictures and choose text and a song to create their videos. Using Animoto is very easy and friendly to use. Mr. Duez has a code that unlocks the site and will share that during the class period.

Very excited to see what you guys come up with! We'll link to the videos here on the blog when they are finished.

Agenda: Wednesday, Sept 30, 2009 & Thursday, Oct. 1, 2009

Quote of the Day: "Wake me up when September ends." - Green Day

TUTORING TODAY - Bring a high level question, energy and willingness to learn.

Juniors (4th Period):
After tutoring we will be using the laptops, a grade check form and then working on a video project.

Sophomores (7th Period):
After tutoring we will be using the laptops, a grade check form and then working on the road trip nation website. Road Trip Nation.com and Road Trip Nation.org

Agenda: Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2009

Quote of the Day: "Quote of the Day: "Be a fountain, not a drain." ~Rex Hudler

Today we will do tutoring.
Bring a Level 2 or 3 Question.

Thank you for all of your hard work Tutors! You guys are doing a great job. We appreciate it.

Juniors will get permission slips for the Oct. 13th trip to UTSA.
Sophomores will get invites to the Parent Meeting on Oct. 6th @ 6pm in the PAC.

Agenda: Monday, Sept. 28, 2009

Quote of the Day: "You can't do anything about the length of your life, but you can do something about its width and depth." - Evan Esar (1899 - 1995)

Agenda:

Sophomores will be in the Blue LGI for a guest speaker.

Juniors -
1. Weekly Goal due at the beginning of the period. (2 Sentences, 1: What is your goal of the week? 2: How will you achieve that goal? Goals should be measurable, attainable, and important)
2. We will be discussing the packet that you received on Thursday during the sub. "AVID COLLEGE READINESS: Working With Sources"
part 1 - Analyzing the Prompt.
We will work in class to analyze college prompts for writing.
3. Inspirational Video (if time)

Did You Know? Videos

Earlier this week we were going to watch an episode of Road Trip Nation but the Internet was down. So I pulled out the New Did You Know 4.0 video.

How do you feel about our rapidly changing society? How do stats like "there are 240 million TV sets in America and 2 Million of them are in bathrooms!" -and- there are as many Facebook users as Americans! Over 300 Million.

Crazy, huh?

Agenda: Friday, Sept. 25, 2009

Quote of the day:
"Video Killed the Radio Star." -- Lyrics from the very first video on MTV by the Buggles. Aired at midnight on Aug. 1, 1981

Learning Target:
Juniors -- What is Road Trip Nation? How are we going to use it in AVID III? What does the phrase "Don't Fall Asleep at the Wheel" mean to you?

Sophomores -- What is a scholarship scam? How can I improve my chances of doing well in college?

Agenda:
Juniors will discuss Road Trip Nation. They will watch a video about Bev Kearney, UT Track and Field Coach. They will take cornell notes with a reflection. We will also see "Don't Fall Asleep at the Wheel." Students will take notes and reflect at the end. If time, we will group up and discuss our path to success. What will it look like?

Sophomores: We will be in the Blue LGI for Lilly Chu from the BBB (Better Business Bureau). She is going to be our Guest Speaker and discuss important topics like: Scholarship Scams and Cell Phones.

Have a great weekend!

Agenda: Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2009

Tutoring Today! We will come with high level questions and work well with our awesome tutors. Let's get some work done.

Agenda: Monday, Sept. 21, 2009

Quote of the day: "Do or do not. There is no 'try.'" - Yoda.

Agenda:
1) Correct Binders. We will do a student self check of their binder. The rubric is:

2.5 inch Binder itself: 60 points
Pencil Pouch: 10 points
5 Dividers: 10 points
Agenda/Calendar with class schedules, test dates, scores, and weekly goals written: 10 points
Cornell Notes: 10 points (to get credit for Cornell Notes this week the student needs to have 5 pages of perfect notes. That means they must have the heading (name, date, period), Title of the notes (subject and what the topic was), Notes in the right column, Questions and terms in the left, and a summary. One summary = one page of cornell notes. Perfect notes means that they must have all of the above to get the 10 points on 5 pages. If they are missing anything, the page doesn't count. If they don't have 5 pages, they get a 0.

Students can reassess their binders through the remainder of the week to bring their grade up to an 85, if it is below an 85. Binder grades = 60% of the total six week's grade.

2) We will watch an episode of Road Trip Nation and take cornell notes and write summaries. Even the juniors will see an episode so that they understand what it is and how it works. Mr. Duez will be going to Road Trip Nation training on Thursday and will not be here for school. It will be exciting to see how the training goes. The materials will be used mostly for 10th graders.

Open House Tonight @ AHS - 6pm.

Open house is tonight at 6pm at Atascocita High School. Hope you can make it.

We will be following a bell schedule so that you have equal opportunity to meet with all of your teachers.

Open House Bell Schedule
Monday, September 21, 2009
6:00 - 8:32

6:00 - 6:25 Parent can pick up child's schedule in front of the library

6:25 Bell rings for parents to head to 1st period
6:30 - 6:40 First Period
6:46 - 6:56 Second Period
7:02 - 7:12 Advisory
7:18 - 7:28 Third Period
7:34 - 7:44 Fourth Period
7:50 - 8:00 Fifth Period
8:06 - 8:16 Sixth Period
8:22 - 8:32 Seventh Period