school, parents, students: bilateral/trilateral treaty
Dear colleagues!

I'm working at an essay in "educational systems management" and looking for a material about bilateral (school-parents, school-upper-secondary school students) or three-power (school-upper-secondary school students-parents) treaties.
Do your schools have such a practice?
Can you, please, share any examples of relevant documents (including education acts, school regulations etc), any useful links (in eng or rus)?
In my research I consider school children of the last 3 or 2 years.

the main question is focused on student's ability (readiness, wish), possibility (legal ground and other conditions) to take a risk, to be responsible for his/her educational results.

Any advice will be very much appreciated.

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"He was not a brilliant man, and understood well that such was the case. He was now listened to in the House, as the phrase goes; but he was listened to as a laborious man, who was in earnest in what he did, who got up his facts with accuracy, and who, dull though he be, was worthy of confidence. And he was very dull. He rather prided himself on being dull, and on conquering in spite of his dullness. He never allowed himself a joke in his speeches, nor attempted even the smallest flourish of rhetoric. He was very careful in his language, laubouring night and day to learn to express himself with accuracy, with no needless repetition of words, perspicuously with regard to the special object he might have in view. He had taught himself to believe that oratory, as oratory, was a sin against that honesty in politics by which he strove to guide himself. He desired to use words for the purpose of teaching things which he knew and which others did not know; and he desired also to be honoured for his knowledge. But he had no desire to be honoured for the language in which his knowledge was conveyed." ~ Anthony Trollope, Can You Forgive Her? (pp. 200-201)

I am going to try to create some use for this in the C&R classroom.

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My Latest Incarnation of the Generation assignment
As a Generation Xer, I have taken more than my fair share of 80s quizzes, gotten jazzed about more than one hair band, and collected my fair share of sweet-smelling, fruit-inspired toys. Your next assignment will ask you to think about your own generation: How would you define your generation?

To get you started on this task, I would like you to identify a category that you will define your generation through. Will it be through music? Board games? Footwear? Baseball? Violence in schools? Denim? Be creative and as specific as possible.

Now, find one piece of evidence for every three years of your life (this should give you six pieces of evidence.) Please note, these pieces of evidence should be from at least 3 different types of media. For example, if you were to do toys, specifically video games, you could pick a video game, a scholarly article about video game play in a specific year, a movie that involves video games, a statistical report on the most popular video games of a certain year, and a video game magazine from a certain year.

Also, please find a recent article that defines your generation.

For Monday:
Please draft a thesis statement and write a paragraph describing or summarizing how each piece of evidence and the article about your generation supports or counters your thesis (7 paragraphs). Use quotations. Please provide a Works Cited.

I will respond to this writing and you will then write a 5-7 page paper defining your generation for the end of the semester. This assignment will be graded as a regular paper.

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House MD and Induction/Deduction
This idea of using House to teach induction/deduction makes me absurdly happy.

Current Mood: pleased

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U Mass Amherst has a terrifice database for in-class activities!

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Fun stuff--Super Bowl Pool
As an optional chance at extra credit, I formed a Super Bowl pool in my classes.

I've asked them to send me by game time their pick for the winner, guess at the score, and a few sentences stating why they think so (so it's still a writing exercise and all).
I am thinking anyone who picks the winner will get 100 on the next quiz, while the person who comes closest to the score will get that and extra credit on the next paper.
But I have not fully decided on this yet.

Next month: Oscar pool! Major categories only, though.

Current Mood: pleased

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In class activities
Here's the annual list from Beloit College about their freshmen.

An article from National Geographic that compares humans and birds.

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Suggestions?
Make up an ideal screen name for yourself for the Internet. In your first paragraph, please evaluate how your screen name may both identify and describe you.

In your second paragraph, compare how your real name identifies and describes you.

In your third paragraph, draw some conclusions about what a name can do. Think about the differences between these two names and how they function, how they were created and what their purposes are.

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Hints for Multi-lingual students
I think I came up with these notes for a WC meeting:

Problem:
--failure to adequately frame, organize or develop their ideas

Solution:
--Explain your expectations as a reader (evidence, explanation of relevance)
--Model revision (revise short choppy sentences with subordinate clauses, coordinate structures, participial phrases)

Problem:
--Recurring grammatical errors

Solution:
--Underline error and ask students to identify the problem. When underlining give hints of what the error is (s/v, ending, etc).
--Demonstrate revisions.

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Essay 1
I tweaked T's idea about the screenname essay a bit, melding it with part two of a similar essay. I am mostly concerned with wording:

Write a 350-500 word, three-paragraph essay that responds to the following:

1. First, think of your screenname, or one of your screennames. Then, explain how it it describes or identifies you—in other words, what the screenname says about you, and how it might make people perceive you. Note: if your only screenname is something you don’t want a teacher to hear, you may want to make up another for the purposes of this essay.)

2. Choose an interest or a hobby that also identifies you. How does this activity/hobby/interest identify you? How does it contribute to the way that the world at large perceives you?

3. Now that you have done these two things, draw some conclusions and description and identification using the examples in your previous two paragraphs.

The essay should be coherent—it should not read like three short-answer questions.
(Etc. etc with the directions for format and handing it in.)

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Introductory Essay
So, last semester I used the totem assignment (with which all two of your reading this are familiar). It went okay, but I believe I can find something better.

I know kalypso5775 likes the essay posted below. What else is good as a first one? What I liked about the totems: the personal, ice-breaker feel. What I didn't like: some were confused by the idea of a "totem," and they don't need to be more confused than they are already....

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Composition-slash-Rhetoric
I am pretty excited by this assignment, which will be my second one of the semester, focusing more on identification and description than the first, and leading into compare and contrast. I'm hoping the Blackboard bit will work. However, I think the third paragraph "prompt" (in red) needs work. Suggestions?
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Also, I should mention that I will be meeting with them something like 8000 times between when I hand this out and they hand the final part in.

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English Composition/Rhetoric
This is a two part assignment. Choose a photograph, preferably from your own collection, and give it a title. Bring this photograph to class on Thurs., Jan 25.

Then in a three paragraph essay, address the following:

Describe your photograph and explain why your title is appropriate.

Examine the title your peer gave your photograph. How is the title appropriate? How is it not appropriate?

Finally, tell me about the relationship between titles and point of view (here you may consider both the point of view of the title giver as well as the audience). What should we keep in mind when we give a title to something or someone?

Students get a kick out of this essay. My favorite picture has been one of a student's grandmother playing cards, with a baseball cap twisted sideways on her head, and a forty in one of her hands.

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