Writer's Workshop: Tiny Tales

Writing Workshop: Today, we worked on creating "tiny tales." Meant to be concise, but evocative, condensed, but rich, we talked about writing stories in which every character, sentence, and word is very deliberately chosen so that not a moment is wasted. 

Ask your child about their story!

Latin: The founding of Rome

Learning about the mythological founding of the city of Rome in Latin.

Happy New Year!

We're right back into the swing of things, after a long, restful beak (and a few snow days). Here we see Sam talking to the entire middle school about the mathematics of cities (our theme for the next two months). 

The conversation covered a lot of ground, and was largely guided by a read aloud of this article: Life in the City Is Essentially One Giant Math Problem

Holiday break!

We made it to the holiday break! We wrapped up a fun and productive week with a school-wide morning assembly, then we adjourned to the middle school to clean, pack up, and put the finishing touches on our group commercials. Have a lovely break!

Ad project, round two!

We continued our advertising project this morning with a discussion about the science of persuasion and Aristotle's Appeals: ethos, pathos, and logos. 

We watched the following video, pausing frequently to discuss its content:

After that, everyone was sent off with their groups to make a commercial for their new product, this time incorporating what we learned through our class discussion. 

As with yesterday, each group was assigned a fancy Mac Air laptop. Throughout the week, students have been teaching each other how to use iMovie to greater effect, which has led to notable improvements in the quality of video editing. 

A large part of this project has involved the kids teaching themselves how to accomplish certain results, and then sharing that information with others. It's been wonderful to see them collaborating both within and beyond their small groups. You would hardly know that it was the last week before the long break, given how focused and directed they've been these last few days! 



Then, just to shake things up a bit, they went sledding in the afternoon for P.E.  

Signs of the Season...

Identity, advertising, branding, and marketing

We're wrapping up our two month study of Identity with a weeklong project about how advertising has played on (and exploited) societal notions of identity. 

Planning an ad for Nalgene water bottles.

We started out by showing a couple of old commercials. One from 1950, the other from 1960. Both were illuminating, in terms of what they were selling, and how they went about doing so: 

Seeing television commercials for cigarettes was a little jarring, as they've been banned in the United States for over thirty years. But seeing famous cartoon characters smoking and shilling for specific brands was particularly unsettling. 

Watching these ads generated a lot of questions, and we talked quite a bit about the doublespeak and questionable claims made in them. 

What was the nature of the "studies" cited? 
What's a "T-zone?"
How is tobacco "specially selected" and "specially processed?" 
Why is a successful billiards player being used as a trusted source?

After a lively discussion about some of the techniques used in advertisements, the class was divided into five different groups. Each was tasked with writing and producing a commercial for a product, as if the were a miniature advertising agency. They've spent the last two days working on their commercials, learning new techniques along the way. 

Planning an ad for EXPO brand whiteboard cleaner

Writing and filming an ad for Jenga!

Filming in progress for an ad for Shurtape.

Filming an ad for Campbell's Chunky Soup.

Of course, advertising, marketing, and branding has changed substantially over since the 1950s and 60s, which we'll be exploring as we continue this project over the course of the week. 

Middle School Student Government

Full middle school assembly this afternoon on the topic of student government!