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After a grueling twelve-kilometer trek on our first day on Week Without Walls, spirits were low as we sat for breakfast pondering the harsh reality of hiking another six kilometers into the jungle. Not only were we to carry our own food and clothes for a day, but we needed to cross four rivers and set up camp in the middle of nowhere.

I woke up that morning bright and earlier because the following words would not let me sleep. I am not sure how effective this poem was to inspire the eighth graders on that day, but perhaps it will inspire someone today…

someday it will end

life is a trek,
we start eager and full of vigor
everything is new, novel.
we progress quickly down a preplanned trail
oblivious of our surroundings.
we talk to hear our own voices
never asking questions
we have all of the answers.
perched in the core of our own worlds

walking passed spectacular splendor
the forest only a wall of green,
our eyes set on the ground so we don’t trip
we don’t trust our senses.
our ears only hear droning voices
rambling on and on about what makes us comfortable:
applebees, halo-three, coca cola, macdonalds… the future

it takes guts to live in the present
to be here and now
to enjoy this moment as it is
not what it could or should be.

life is a trek and someday it will end
if we are looking toward that end
we will miss the tiny globes of water hanging on each leaf

entire universes waiting to evaporate
or flowers rising in the strangest places

when we look toward the finish line, the finish line is all we see.
when we only think of arriving not appreciating the journey

life is a trek and it will wear us down.
it will lose its charm and cause us pain.
it will break our bodies and test our wills.
it will force us to decide what type of men or women we want to be.
it will not always be fun, comfortable, or easy.
we will not always be young and carefree.

like a trek life is not meant to be a stroll
through a mall with fake people, buying fake goods, eating fake food,
sold to them by fake men in fake suits,
life is real
it is dirty.
it is the sensation of your body moving, sweating.
no matter what the commercials try to sell us
life will often stink.
life is the feel of mud on our shins and between our fingers.
it is uncombed hair and a cramp in our calf; it is eating what is there
and feeling blessed not to go hungry.

life is a trek.
each person must choose how to walk or to walk at all.
will you choose to walk with awe and curiosity?
will you understand that you are a mere spec of dust in a web that connects all life?
or will you trudge along, whining as if life is some sort of punishment or chore,
only seeing yourself, your needs, your wants?
or will you like millions of other people hypnotized by their own consumption and self worth,
glued to their video games, cell-phones, and televisions not walk at all.

it is a choice,
life is a trek
walk, and walk long.
one step after the next.

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Filed under: General tagged Poetry

The Labor Art project was created after we finished reading A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. We wanted you to try using art, in this case poetry and songwriting to: raise awareness, inform the public, and inspire action on social issues. We want you to focus on the discrepancy between the haves and the have nots. We want you to take a close look at labor and class. Who builds the building we inhabit? Who profits? Who builds our goods? Who sews our clothes?

After doing research on global and local labor laws, rights and conditions you will write a song or poem addressing the information you discover. Although this appears to be a writing assignment, you are actually being assessed on your ability to use resources, sort information, and determine appropriateness of both sources and information.

The Benchmarks being assessed during the research phase are as follows:

• Use a variety of resource materials to gather information for a research topic
• Organize information and ideas from multiple sources in systematic ways
• Determine appropriateness of an information source for a research topic

1. Use the levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy below to explain how you could show evidence that you can:

• Use a variety of resource materials to gather information for a research topic
• Organize information and ideas from multiple sources in systematic ways
• Determine appropriateness of an information source for a research topic

Knowledge: arrange, define, duplicate, label, list, memorize, name, order, recognize, relate, recall, repeat, reproduce, state.

Comprehension: classify, describe, discuss, explain, express, identify, indicate, locate, recognize, report, restate, review, select, translate,

Application: apply, choose, demonstrate, dramatize, employ, illustrate, interpret, operate, practice, schedule, sketch, solve, use, write.

Analysis: analyze, appraise, calculate, categorize, compare, contrast, criticize, differentiate, discriminate, distinguish, examine, experiment, question, test.

Synthesis: arrange, assemble, collect, compose, construct, create, design, develop, formulate, manage, organize, plan, prepare, propose, set up, write.

Evaluation: appraise, argue, assess, attach, choose compare, defend estimate, judge, predict, rate, core, select, support, value, evaluate.

See examples here at our wiki. We will also assess one writing and one presentation benchmark.
You will brainstorm essential you want to answer through your research. We will use Bloom’s Taxonomy to make sure you critically look at this entire process.

1. How effective are the questions you are trying to answer?

Take a look at the list of questions you have brainstormed.

• Put them in order of most important to you to least.
• Label the questions using labels like political, class, personal etc…
• Review your list and identify five questions you would like to answer
• Explain why you think the answers to these questions will make for good material for a poem.

We will now start our research and start thinking about our poems. We will continue to listen to a song or two, which deal with social issues. We have listened to Bob Dyaln, Bob Marley, and Rage Against the Machine so far.

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Eighth Grade Final Exam

Topic: What Did You Learn In Eighth Grade English?

What To Do:

Write a five-paragraph essay, (Introduction, three supporting paragraphs and a conclusion) using any examples you like from the following three categories. The essay will be graded on three of the Six Traits: Ideas and Content, Voice and Word Choice. This is not to say that Organization, Sentence Fluency and Conventions are not important, but only the three mentioned will be graded. A rubric will be provided later this week.

I would like a personal, well thought out, account of what you have learned this year. Be honest, clear, and focused. (It’s okay to be emotional) Remember to give examples and details about the things you have identified. I encourage you to share your thoughts or feelings on the process of your learning.

How To Do It:

Your paper should have an introductory, thesis-like, statement that let’s the reader know what the paper will be about. Each paragraph should begin with a supporting topic sentence, and be followed by supporting details. There should also be a closing paragraph to wrap up your thoughts on this year. We will discuss this further in class throughtout the week. I don’t want to assign a length, but I can’t imagine you doing well if you write less than 750 words or about one and a half pages. Use only Times New Roman 12 point font and single space the document.

Here are the three categories to choose from. Remember, you can pick any arrangement you feel comfortable with. For example: you can pick one bullet from each category, or three bullets from one category, or any other random configuration. The three categories are:

• Themes and Essential Questions
• Academic Topics and Standards
• Your growth in the ESLRs

Here is an explanation of these bullets:

1. Themes and Essential Questions:
We have discussed some pretty “heavy” topics this year; I want to know what you walked away with. Here are some thematic and big picture topics:

• The role of the individual vs. conformity
• The power of writing and literature
• The power of control and masses
• The affects of fear on individuals
• Mercy vs. Revenge
• The role of Ambition and Power
• How do writers express conflicts, both internal and external, with psychological and physical needs?
• What is meant by the term ‘poetic language’?
• Why is reading and writing poetry important?
• You can also discuss any personal growth you felt this year as a result of the work you did in this class

(Use the books we have read as examples, but please do not summarize the plots. I want to know what you learned from reading the texts, not a simple recap of the plots.)

2. Academic Topics and Standards:
Give examples of what you learned about. You have seen these before here:

General skills and strategies of the writing process
• Aspects of writing to communicate to different audiences for a variety of purposes
• Grammatical and mechanical conventions in written compositions
• Gathers and uses information for research purposes.
• General skills and strategies of the reading process.
• Reading skills and strategies to understand, interpret, and appreciate in a variety of literary texts
• Reading skills and strategies to understand and interpret a variety of informational texts
• Listening and speaking strategies for different audiences and purposes.
• Viewing skills and strategies to understand, interpret, and appreciate media
• Characteristics and components of the media

3. Your growth in the ESLRs

I don’t think I need to list these, but you can find them here or I have also attached a word document with all this information. Please print this document and bring it to the next class. You can also use it on the final itself.

eighth-grade-final-exam.doc

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Hey everyone!

Please read this article about our friend Mr.Fisher and the work that he, sorry, we are doing. I told you! You are on the cutting edge. People are watching. I can’t wait to see the final product of this project. I am so proud of you guys.

In the meantime, I would love to read some of your comments about this article and the project as a whole. I have listed a few powerful quotes from the article; after you have read the whole thing, please leave a comment or two about your thoughts on- what it said, the TeenLife Project, or the idea of technology as a tool for giving everyone a voice.

These are examples of a new approach to collaborative learning adopted by a handful of teachers in an attempt to bring education into the 21st century.

His combined Grade 7 and 8 class uses a blog to build a personal learning network (PLN) with three other schools in Cartagena, Columbia, rural Virginia, and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Online tools help the students to share ideas, send stories and images and even take part in videoconferencing. “The idea was to get kids in each country to look at the concerns of youth and teenagers in other countries,” he explained.

“It’s about getting a kid’s voice out there and giving them an audience. If you write an essay and I’m the only one reading it, nothing grows from that. Over time the ideas die.”

“When you hook kids onto a learning network you get wonderful things you never planned.”

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The following slideshow may take some time to load, so please wait till it has fully loaded before viewing. Please note that the author of each poem has created the image that goes with their stanza and no images were taken from the Internet. Click here for a full explanation of this project.

We are shinning tiger cubs leaving our mothers to begin new adventures
Never to come back!
Seeing brothers we play with them
Surrounded by nothing
We are afraid, lost, and scared
Weeping for our mothers
Closing our eyes we see…

We are the sun,
That are baking like gingerbread men in the oven.
Waiting to be crunched down,
Living to die.
We light up peoples’ world.
But it takes them a while for them to notice.
We’ll break down one day,
Like the people on earth.
While everyone on earth is thinking why this had to happen to them.
They’ll realize that
Our little brothers are up next and our sisters already blasted themselves away.

We are specs
Nothing
Small and insignificant
Kicked
Pushed
Through doors unopened
Breaking
Crumbling back
Punished for innocence
Alone
In a bowl in life
Overtaken by scum

We are
Rulers in a young boy’s hands
Who
Likes to make fun of his teacher
Until he screams
Running after him
Until he falls down
And breaks his arm
We are
Rulers in a young boy’s hands
That are
Used as weapons
He pokes his little sister
Until she cries
And his mom rushes to the room,
Yelling,
She turns white
Falls into a faint.
We are
Rulers in a young boy’s hands.

We are falcons zooming through the desert
Finding a way out from the never ending thorns
Seeking light in the eternal blackness
Blazing through the bushes
Flying over the pestilence
In search of a road, the end of this journey
We were confused, lost
Endured life, hoping to find an answer

We are rays of Lights from the sun
Shining bright on the earth
Beaming across the world
Looking for pleasures and thrills
In the vast earth
Trying new sports and activities
To bring smiles to faces
Hoping to achieve something new
Hoping to view the world for what it is
A world of joy and pleasure
A world of adventure

We are
Stars twinkling in the
Night Sky
Smiling at the word below us
But ah, we don’t belong there
That place
Filled to the brim with
Lights.
Several Lights.
Almost like we are not here
But oh this blanket protects us
Nestled here
In our own comfort

We are footballs, our sleek surfaces obscured by mud,
We get kicked towards goals and soar through the air, stopped by soft padding,
We’ve been dropped!
We are kicked between legs, grass swiftly passing by us,
Rain pelting on our shells.
The pace quickens, a great force drives us toward, et more goals.
Bracing for impact, we bounce off the crossbars.
We’re tired.
Shrill whistles end the games.
Everyone leaves, we’re alone again.

We are pieces of ragged cloths folded nicely in a cabinet,
Our split ends on our four arms,
All ripped and torn like a beggar’s shirt.
We gaze over the opening,
Rays of light penetrating darkness.
The day has come,
The tail of the month.
The charity bells sing,
And we’re on a long trip to heaven.
We have finally reached my place,
To be young and start to toil,
Once again.

We are cameras
We capture those moments
Delete those images
Create illusions
Dillusions
Conclusions
Fogged lens forms hallucinations
We edit the truth
After all we’re only human.

We are ants following obediently in line
Carrying these heavy loads
Marching, always stepped on
While others go about their business

Working in this team together
We strive to accomplish one goal
Being punished whenever out of line
With no time for ourselves

The rain beats upon us
Pushing us further down
Despite the weather we are content
Everything we need supplied to us by those we work with

We are the evening rain shower.
Suddenly, large drops of rain are dropping without stopping.
Lightning in a darkened sky.
People think we are not considerate by watching the how we rain.
We are raining terribly
We are not considerate.
They want us to stop.
They are not thinking
Right and left,
everyone is running for cover.

We’re here, not seen, not heard
We’re nothing
Used for everything
Too much is bad too little as well
Balance is life
Death brings limits, and more
Power
For good
For life
Air is everything

We are people, who love to stay,
In little huts near the bay.
We love to sing with swaying breeze,
And dance and flutter with ease.
We have simple, small lives of our own,
Which are brilliant and bright like a crystal stone.
Sometimes we are ferocious, fiery, flowers,
That burst into pot of hot volcanic shower.
But soon the lava flows out from our brains,
Which are showers of falling acid rain.
Then we are calm like backwaters of the sea,
With peace and harmony for thee.

We are overworked clouds, waiting to spill rage
Poison, demolishing the walls of our minds
Confusion is driving us delirious
Stuck in spirals, spinning like fan blades, round and round
Waiting to break loose from these lives, these cages
Find better places, better friends
To blossom again
Every one sits in sunshine
While we
Drown in rain

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