Humanities Book Choice!

Post a comment that tells me:
1. What book you selected
2. Why you selected that book
3. Who you are reading it with

Every person in the group needs to post.

Looking For Alaska Post #1

Choose one of these topics and respond in a new blog post (make sure it's titled Looking For Alaska Blog Post 1):

1. How is distance/separation used in the novel?

2. Who is Alaska - is Pudge describing her accurately?

3. Why is the Colonel obsessed with loyalty?  Why does he take the fall when they get caught smoking?

4. What does Alaska mean when she says "Imagining the future is a kind of nostalgia"?  Do you ever think that life would just be better if...?

5. What does the Colonel and Sara's relationship say about them?  What does their breakup say about them?

6. What question would you choose if you had to take Dr. Hyde's final? (What is the most important question human beings must answer?)

In your post, write the question out as the first thing and put it in italics. Then answer the question.

When you finish, click "Publish." You have 20 minutes.

Make a video in Photo Booth!

It should be between 90 seconds and 2 minutes.

When you're done, open your Google Drive screen.

Upload the video:

• Click on the upload button (next to Create)
• Find the file (go to the bottom of the left hand column and choose "movies" - the SECOND Movies one).
• Click Upload
• When it's finished, click Share
• Share with tmi@tmiclass.com
• When it's shared, you should see it show up in my email!!!

Blog Post 1 (American Lit 1st & 4th)

Write a blog post about (any or all of these questions):

• How is college different from high school?
• How are the classes different?
• What are you expected to know and be able to do in college?
• What do professors expect from you academically?
• What specific writing, reading or thinking skills should you have for college?
• What is reading like in college? What's a typical reading load?
• What is research like in college?  What do you have to know and be able to do?

Write your response based on the research you did, or if you didn't do research, based on the ideas already in your head.  Feel free to collaborate if you want to, so long as you write your own post.

When you're finished, click Publish.  After you hit publish, click on the View Blog button at the top of the screen.  Finally, send an email to tmi@tmiclass.com with the address from that View Blog screen (you can also click "View" under your post title if that's available).  You can also choose to share it through Google Plus by adding tmi@tmiclass.com to the Share line.

Reading Journal Post

Taking pictures of your reading journals.

Today, you're going to start archiving your reading journals.  If you have a phone, you can take pictures of them and email them to yourself.

Once you've emailed them, download them to your computer (in your profile - make sure you check where it's going).  Once they are downloaded, you need to start a new post of your blog.

The new post is called Reading Journals.

Click on the picture button to load them one by one onto the post.  Like this:

Once you finish, click the View Blog button at the top of the screen.  Then send me a link to that through email - to tmi@tmiclass.com.  If you don't do this, you will not get credit.  For any of it.

Our Learning (Personal BWP) 1/29

So I want this blog to be a place that shows what Mr. Thomasson and I are learning about, thinking about, watching, reading, etc. so you can see what it's like for us to be "Life Long Learners" - exactly as we want you to be.


So right now, I (Morris) have been obsessed with a few different things.  That means my free time on the internet are spent on these things:

• Mr. Thomasson and I (and a group of 10 of our closest friends) launched a website.  It's called the Flipped Learning Journal and it's a place to find resources for teachers looking to learn more about flipping their classes.
• Switched at Birth stories.  Like this one.  Or this one.  Started getting interested in this after looking for a beautiful podcast for San Francisco Stories.  And I was obsessed with the Lifetime movie Switched at Birth that aired when I was a kid.
• I've been on a Nerdfighters/Vlogbrothers kick.  Here are some videos by the Green brothers.  They started making them because Hank and John lived in different states and wanted to try communicating without any form of text (email, texting, etc.).  This was 2007 (I think?).  Now they make things like Crash Course and The Lizzie Bennett Diaries (based off the novel Pride and Prejudice).
• I've been reading a few books: Who Do You Think You Are, about identity; The Brothers Karamazov, one of my favourite books ever, San Francisco Stories, about...well...stories from San Francisco; and The Fault In Our Stars, a YA novel.
• I've been watching the TV shows Dexter, 30 Rock and Top Chef.
• I've been learning more about website design, video editing, close reading, podcasting, and the novels I'm teaching (Death of a Salesman and Night).

That's it for now. 

Beginning of BWP

In this first blog post (TITLE: BWP initial ideas), I want you to write down some ideas for questions/projects you'd like to do.

If you have a good idea for what you want to do, then start looking for some sources/inspiration around the web.  Add those sources into your post, with a quick description of what you found there.  For example:

I love the new Crash Course videos about English Literature.  I'd love to do one like this:
(pretend this is the URL of that video)
That video has some cool stuff, like the Secret Compartment segment, and roll-in chairs.

When you finish, I need a link to your first blog post.  You need to click "Publish" first.  Then send me a link to tmi@tmiclass.com