Regents Week

Hi Everyone,

I want to take this opportunity to thank all of you for a job well done with your Success Posters. Those of you who completed that assignment really displayed your creativity, ambition and imagination!

Let's go over what you will do for the rest of week:

1. Past Assignments: Everyone should have completed your Three Teacher Interviews, Success Posters/Collages, Restaurant Rubrics, and/or Listing and Overcoming 5 Calculated Risks. If you have not completed any or all of these assignments please do so immediately. If you have any questions or concerns regarding these assignments then you must e-mail me. Some of you have not submitted any of these assignments and must do so in order to avoid receiving a credit alert form.

2. Restaurant Reviews: Your restaurant reviews are due this Wednesday, February 26th, by 5:00PM. Please remember to print and use your rubrics to rate the restaurant. Your review should consist of an introductory paragraph which states the name, location and type of food that is served. The following paragraphs should correspond to the criteria on your rubrics (i.e., one paragraph for food, one paragraph for price, one paragraph for location, etc.). Each paragraph should state what rating you gave that criteria, why you gave that rating, and what could be done to improve that particular area. Your final, concluding paragraph should summarize (state the main ideas and main points of your review) what you most liked and/or most disliked about the restaurant, and, most importantly, would you recommend it to another person and why or why not.

3. Letter to the Editor: Your Letter to the Editor of The Blazer is due this Friday by 3:00PM. All letters must be sent using Google.Docs or MS Word and must be submitted to Ms. Sackstein and myself for possible publication in the next edition of The Blazer.

Ms. Sackstein's e-mail address is ssackstein@wjps.org. Some of you have already completed this assignment but did nor forward your letter to Ms. Sackstein. In order to receive credit for this assignment you must forward your letter to Ms. Sackstein for publication in The Blazer.

The following websites can help you improve your letter writing as well as show you what topics to write about:

http://www.studentnewsdaily.com/other/letter-to-the-editor-guidelines/

http://homeworktips.about.com/od/politicalscience/ht/lettertoeditor.htm

http://lungcanceralliance.org/involved/documents/Letter_to_the_Editor_Primer.pdf

Please feel free to e-mail me if you have any questions about any of these assignments. Enjoy your week and I will see you back in class Tuesday, February 1st.

Catching Up and Restaurant Review

Hello Everyone,

I want to use this post to let everyone know where they are supposed to be at this point in the semester. These are the assignments that should have been completed by now:

1. Your three teacher interviews. I still have not received these from all of you and I must get them immediately. At this point I will not accept work shown to me in class. The interviews must be e-mailed to me.

2. Your Success Collage. I have received most of these and overall I am very impressed by your efforts. I believe all of you will shine when we review your collages in tomorrow's class.

3. The Restaurant Rubric. The deadline for this was 3:00PM today. As of this post I have received many of your rubrics, but I am still missing quite a few. I cannot stress how important it is to keep up with your assignments. Already there are many of you who are falling behind. Please catch up now and stay caught up!

Tonight's Assignment: Complete the risk exercise that we began in class. Read Lesson 5 in your Roadtrip Nation experience. Identify 5 calculated risks you might have to take in oder to achieve your goals. What would you have to do to overcome or minimize these risks and become successful? E-mail me your answers using either Word or Google Docs. I will not accept a hand written response for this assignment.

After we get back from Regents Week, our Roadtrip Nation assignments will become more intense and demanding. It is crucial that you complete these preliminary projects before we tackle the more challenging work.

See you in class tomorrow!

For Tuesday's Class

Hi Everyone,

I hope you are all enjoying your three day weekend (I know I am). I just wanted to give everyone a head's up as to our schedule for this up-coming week.

As we spoke about on Friday, your Success Collages are due this Tuesday (January 18th), by the start of class. Please use our class discussions, your creativity and imagination, as well as Lesson 5 in the Roadtrip Nation experience to guide you. Some of you have already submitted your collages to me via Glogter or Tumblr and they are tremendous. For those of you using these internet sites to construct your collage, make sure I receive an e-mail before the start of class directing me to your completed assignment. You may complete the collages by hand, but then you must bring it to school on Tuesday so I can give you credit for having completed the assignment.

The url addresses for Glogter and Tumblr are:

www.glogster.com
www.tumblr.com

On a more somber note, some of you still haven't submitted your three teacher interviews. You have missed the deadline, but I still need to receive the assignment in order for you to complete the Roadtrip Nation curriculum. Please get those to me immediately.

Finally, some of you have told me that your parents will not allow you go to a restaurant to complete the restaurant review assignment. Many of you have informed me that you are either grounded (hmmm...) or that your parents don't believe this assignment exists. Please show them this section of the website as proof that I am assigning you to go to a restaurant and write a review, and refer them to Lesson 4 in the Roadtrip Nation experience. Please read that lesson before writing your review and follow the directions that are given to you. The restaurant review is due on Monday, January 24th by the start of class. On Monday we will design a rubric for you to use when critiquing the restaurant of your choice.

I would suggest that you go on the NY Times website and read some of their restaurant reviews or you can simply google or bing NY Times restaurant reviews.

If you have any questions please e-mail me, otherwise enjoy the rest of your weekend and I will see you in class on Tuesday.

Teacher Questions and Restaurant Reviews

Please remember that your teacher interviews are due tomorrow. You must complete these interviews and the accompanying chart in Lesson 3 of your manual by tomorrow at the start of class. If there is no school tomorrow due to the weather, you must e-mail me your chart and interviews.

For those of you who completed your interviews and charts, please make sure that you answer the two follow-up questions on the next page, if you have not already done so.

For the restaurant review: make sure you read the first 3 pages of Lesson 4 and complete the chart on page 28. I will discuss this chart more in class either tomorrow or Thursday.

On a different note, I am still noticing that some of you are not coming to class with your Roadtrip Nation Handbooks. If I do not see you with them in class either tomorrow or Thursday I will assume that you don't have them and I will have to notify your parents.

Finally, please take a look at the following website:

www.glogster.com

We are going to use this website for our next Roadtrip Nation project, which is detailed in Lesson 5. Play around with it and see what you can do. You might actually want to create your own blog and display your creativity.

OK, that's all for now. Stay warm, enjoy your day off and I'll see you either tomorrow or Thursday.

Roadtrip Nation Questions

The Roadtrip Nation Questions are due tomorrow at the start of class. Please remember that you need to have interviews from three different teachers. I have responded to the interview requests that I have received and hope that my answers were satisfactory. The questions are located in Chapter Three of your Roadtrip Nation handbook. I am not going to post the questions here because it is your responsibility to have the handbook and read the lessons.

Please remember that your restaurant reviews are due Monday, January 24th at the start of class. We will discuss this further over the next few days.

Roadtrip Nation

Greeting Everyone:

Now that we are back from our holiday break, lets go over our expectations for this semester. Roadtrip Nation will be our primary focus. You must bring your Roadtrip Nation packets to class every day as we will be working from these packets throughout the semester. Failure to bring these packets to class will cost you points towards you final grade.

I mentioned today that distractions and disruptions of class time will cost you points when calculating your final grades. Please take this seriously. I do not want to take away points or lower your grades, but I will not tolerate constant disruptions during class.

Please make sure that you have completed all assignments in Chapters 1 and 2 of your Roadtrip Nation packets. These assignments are due tomorrow and I will check to see that you have completed them.

If you have lost your Roadtrip Nation packet please tell me immediately so we can get you a new one. You cannot pass this semester of you do not have a packet.