Monday, November 21

Good morning, Capstone beauties!

Today we will answer the question, "What is a mantra?"

For your Do Now, please write down five (5) words that describe our group's personality right now. These words can be attributes, emotions, characteristics, etc.

When you are done, we will share out the words we've come up with and vote on 5 that we all agree best represent us.

Our task will be to put all of these words into some sort of mantra that will represent our group. This mantra will serve as our inspiration, as well as our bit of courage when we need it.

This mantra can be just a chant, a song, a rap, a poem, a dance...anything that will help our group feel inspired and united.

"I think I can."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yx9xO98kcBU&feature=related

For example, let's watch the New Zealand All Blacks rugby team perform the Haka, their mantra/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4LNjNXt1yM&feature=fvst

What will our mantra be?

Tuesday, November 8

Good morning, Capstone beauties!

For your Do Now, in your journal, please write down 5 things you do really well.

Describe these 5 skills or things you do well to a person sitting next to you.

Today we will be discussing those things that make us unique. We have moved into Part 2 of our Ashoka Youth Venture Journey. We will be investigating who we are and what our unique abilities are. Later on, we will see what abilities we have as a group and what makes our cohort unique!

We need to define the words attribute, characteristic, and skill. These are the words that we often hear when asked to describe ourselves. In order to describe ourselves accurately, we need to know what these words mean!

Working with a partner, please find a definition for each of these words. We will share out as a class.

What is a logo? What is a personal tag?

Friday, November 4

Happy double-Gold day, Capstone students!

Today we will be finishing up our storytelling unit as part of the Ashoka Youth Venture.

For your Do Now, please tell a partner what H.E.A.R. stands for.

Next we will do a storytelling activity to help us practice BOTH storytelling and active listening.

How did the stories change as they were retold? Why?

Was it difficult to tell someone else's story? Why?

How did you balance listening to your partner with preparing to tell the story? Were you still able to adhere to the HEAR model?

Wednesday, November 2

Happy morning, Capstone students!

Today we will be practicing active listening techniques.

For your Do Now, please find a partner. You will read your story that was homework to your partner and let them know what parts of it you thought were compelling and which parts could use a little help. Switch roles with your partner.

The HEAR model (borrowed from Ashoka's Youth Venture packet) is a combination of four steps that are essential to active listening. Use it to better understand the facts, ideas, and feelings of the speaker, and to help the speaker clarify her own thoughts, problems, and solutions.

HEAR -----> EMPATHIZE -----> ANALYZE -----> RESPOND

Hear

• Listen attentively to words and feelings.
• Keep an open mind. AVoid letting your own feelings, attitudes, or opinions interfere with your ability to listen.
• Do not evaluate, censor, or try to monopolize the conversation.
• Do not interrupt. It is important to listen to the speaker's entire thought before you respond.

Empathize

• Display an interest in the speaker's pint of view, even (or maybe especially), if it differs from your own.
• Listen for facts, ideas, and feelings.
• Listen for the thoughts behind the words.
• Check for understanding by paraphrasing the facts as well as the speaker's position.

Analyze

• Listen for the thoughts behind the words. Thinking is after than speech. Use your extra "thought time" to summarize, review, and anticipate.

Respond

• Pay attention and show it.
• Include statements such as "I see," "yes," and "I understand."
• Hold off on your evaluation.
• Hear the speaker out.
• Avoid premature advice.
• Do respond. It is especially difficult to talk to someone when there is no apparent reaction.
• Check to be sure the speaker understands your response. 

We will next go through a number of activities for you to practice active listening with your partner. Get your pencils ready!

Debriefing and Reflection Questions

How is the HEAR model important?

Which aspects of the model did you use in this exercise?

Do you normally listen, talk, and interact with others using the HEAR model?

Why or why not?

How did you feel during the listening activities?

Was it easy or difficult?

Were you surprised by the way the exercise worked?

Did you notice any trends or changes over time?

How did the experience add to your understanding of active listening and HEAR?

Monday, October 31

Happy Halloween, Capstone students!

This week we are transitioning into the Storytelling part of the Ashoka Youth Venture program. Through our Storytelling unit we will be thinking about and understanding ourselves by asking:

• Why me? why now? What is my narrative?
• What do I care about? Why?
• What can I do to make a difference?

For your Do Now, please click here. If you do not have an iPad, please describe how you use storytelling in your everyday life. Also write down two specific examples of how you used storytelling in the last day. We will be sharing these examples with the class.

We will do a quick vocabulary lesson with the words STORYTELLING, COMPELLING, and NARRATIVE.

Next I will read a spooky story to get us in the mood for Halloween and start to identify key elements of effective storytelling. We will discuss the story, including what it was about, how it made you feel, what made the story compelling or not, and what specifically did you like or not like.

We will then listen to a story from the storytelling repository called The Moth. As you listen, think about how it makes you feel, what is compelling about it, etc.

Story from The Moth: http://themoth.org/stories

We will discuss a basic story graph, or plot diagram. This may be something similar to what you have seen in Language Arts classes in the past. As a class we will draw the story graph for The Raven. In your groups, you will draw one for the story we listened to from The Moth. 

Next we will develop and compile a list of key elements of a good story. These will help guide us as we listen to more stories, create our own, and help each other develop the best story they can.

For your homework, you will write a story, only one sentence for each stage of the story graph, that includes all the key elements of a compelling story. Read it to a classmate/friend and have them tell you whether or not it was compelling.

Click here for your exit ticket.

Thursday, October 27

Good morning, Capstone students!

Today we're going to have a brief meeting about bullying and then move into more personality tests. After we have looked at the personality tests, we will write a reflection about what we have learned about ourselves and how we think this causes us to act the way we do, make the choices we make, and if it determines who we will become.

For your Do Now, tell me how you accurate you think the Personality Test you took on Tuesday was. Do you agree with the results you were given?

Click here to submit your response.

For our talk about bullying, we will be looking at this website and watching a few of the videos about teens and bullying.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/11/living/bully-proof-kids-hetter/?iref=obnetwork

Please click here to take more personality tests: www.123test.com. Please take the Team Roles and DISC Personality tests.

We will discuss the results and what they tell us about ourselves.

Tuesday, October 25

Good morning, Capstone students! Happy Tuesday and happy Galileo Testing!

This morning we are going to reflect on our goals we set last week. To reflect on your goals, please click here. If you do not have an iPad, please use a piece of paper to answer the following questions:

1. What was your goal?

2. How did you do?

3. Did you accomplish your goal?

4. Why or why not?

5. What do you wish you had done differently?

6. What did you learn about goal setting?

7. What did you learn about yourself?

We will talk about the path we'll be taking through the Ashoka Youth Venture Journey. This will help us know where we are starting and where we will end up. We can also see how quickly the end of the year will come upon us! Yikes!

Next we will develop community agreements. These agreements will keep our classroom a safe environment for our journey. We have already discussed what respect looks likes and what a respectful conversation looks like. But today we need to develop actions that we can all agree to take in order to keep our classroom community safe and.....AWESOME!

Finally, we will round out our time looking more into Ashoka Youth Venture and have a class meeting.