Exponents Madness - more math with MM

Hello fellow mathematicians,
We've been powering through (pun intended) exponents and raising numbers, variables and combinations thereof to different powers. All these skills help us to find the most efficient ways to simplify expressions, a skill which will prove extremely useful next year in high school. We've also begun taking more frequent, short quizzes at the beginning of class to hone these skills and get faster in their application. This will undoubtedly also help as we prepare for our Chapter 10 test next week.

In other news, please remember your student will need to obtain a copy of Painless Geometry by Lynette Long. Next week, after our Chapter 10 test, we will begin an intensive geometry unit. Books can be purchased both new and used from Amazon.com for under $10, or alternately, check the library and reserve a copy.

GAOC VideoBlogging & the Spanish-American War

As you've aready seen, we've stormed into the "Web 2.0" world this week with Videoblogs galore. The girls successfully brought their new and improved GAOC reports onto the web and into their blogs they used last term. You can see them all from our class blog here and then clicking on the countries on the sidebar to the right. They did a great job working through the process and technical challenges of the first go-around and I'm looking forward to the coming week's performances.

We started our conversation on Thursday and Friday of last week about the Spanish American War and America's emergence as a global power. On Thursday and Friday we examined two poems, "Let me be blesséd for the peace I make." by Katherine Lee Bates (who is better known for writing "America the Beautiful"); and "The White Man's Burden" by Rudyard Kipling. We had a great conversation about the emotional appeals to religion and patriotism contained in both, each with a different conclusion on the right path for the U.S. This week, we continued our conversation about jingoism, underlying racism in turn of the century ideas of social progress, as well as differences within the Black community at the time about the appropriateness of offering volunteers to fight in this war. We then turned our eye to the role of the media and the concept of Yellow Journalism and looked at the front pages from The World and the New York Journal following the explosion on the Battleship Maine. We finished yeaterday by discussing how all of these themes related to current events in the world today. As always, they drew fantastic connections and the conversation was rich. Lastly, I handed out the assignment sheet for their final project, a video documentary on the relationship between the US and their country from the past to present. They'll be starting work on this next week.

Women's History Music Discussion with Core A

Here's what we were doing in Sally's core this morning! At this juncture we're discussing Pink's controversial hit "Stupid Girls" and are ferreting out its overt and well as covert messages!



A huge "Thank You" to our resident tech-spert, Bert who just taught MM and me how to post videos! When and where will it end, I wonder???

Visit Math Class...for 20 seconds

Ever wondered what MM's math class is really like? Now is your big chance to find out!
Since students are learning to video blog, Bert thought Sally and I should learn as well. Since I am a closet tech nerd, I jumped at the chance. The video clip below gives you a 'fly on the wall' glimpse of class today.

And the beat goes on!!

It feels good to be back in the midst of it all after nearly a week away in Colorado Springs at the 8th annual White Privilege Conference. This intensive four day battery of non-stop workshops, focusing on a myriad of anti-bias issues, was attended by some of the biggest names in social justice work: Peggy MacIntosh, Paul Kivel, Allan Johnson, Dr. Jamie Washington, Kevin Jennings, Paula Rothenberg, Jean Kilbourne, James Loewens…to name only a few! I came away with renewed commitment to equity work and will be sharing many of my new and renewed insights with the class in the days/weeks to come. In the past two days we’ve been getting down to business vis-à-vis our Production. We’ve generated a shot list, determined locations, created a prop list and envisioned our costumes. We’re also rehearsing vignettes and will begin practice filming as early as Thursday, with formal filming beginning on Monday. To that end we will be calling upon all our favorite chauffeurs to help us get to our various locations…we’ll let you know just as soon as we know! Thanks in advance for your willingness to help us out with this logistics nightmare…err…I mean challenge!!