Monday, February 28, 2011

Mrs. Mastrande Honored at the Tribute WTC Visitor Center!!!

It's been great to work with Mrs. Mastrande in the past.  She's a great teacher and is passionate about her students learning and growing.  Here's an article that NY Newsday wrote up about a program that Mrs. Mastrande and her team worked on, centering around 9/11.

http://www.newsday.com/long-island/teachers-develop-curriculum-about-9-11-1.2714152



Teachers develop curriculum about 9/11
February 25, 2011 by MARIA ALVAREZ.

Michelle Mastrande, a seventh grade teacher from Lynbrook,

When Great Neck middleschool teacher Michelle Mastrande noticed early in the school year that students knew few facts about the terrorist attacks that changed the nation almost 10 years ago, she decided to do something about it.

She developed an eight-week program to teach students about the events that began with the destruction of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

"They did not know how the two planes went into the towers and that there were plane crashes in Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C., and that they were terrorist attacks," said Mastrande, 32, a teacher at the Richard S. Sherman Great Neck North Middle School.

Mastrande, a Lynbrook resident who is married to an NYPD officer, was one of four teachers honored Friday at Ground Zero for her work helping educate children on the subject.

Speaking before receiving her award at the Tribute WTC Visitor Center - a learning resource where first-person accounts of 9/11 are preserved through tours and gallery exhibits - Mastrande said that although students grew up hearing about 9/11, attended assemblies with moments of silence on each of the nine anniversaries, no one had explained in detail or put into perspective what happened that day or why it happened.

So she and a team of math, science and social studies teachers spent the past eight weeks teaching children about 9/11. "They went home and started asking their parents questions. They began to understand this historic event," Mastrande said of the 130 seventh graders who took the course.

Several days a week, for 40 minutes, students investigated the medical science behind the diseases afflicting rescue workers, used statistics to analyze the economic impact of 9/11 and read and wrote poems and essays about the event.

The students also visited Ground Zero and toured the Tribute Center. Back at school they listened to the stories of an NYPD rescue worker and an ironworker who helped in the recovery and cleanup efforts.

For 12-year-old Kayla Gonzalez of Great Neck, the experience was enlightening.

"I didn't know that it was an act of hatred," she said of the attacks. "I did not understand about terrorism. Today I have more perspective."

Michelle Zak, 13, of Great Neck said she now has insight into the emotional toll. "I saw the drawings of children whose parents died and the eulogies," she said.

As for Mastrande, she said, "This was the best experience in my teaching career."

Song Unit Grading Rubric

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

I Finally Meet Justin Bieber!!!

I was at my mall and I found him there, waiting for me at FYE.  He called me over, we talked for a bit, and I asked for a picture...he was more than happy to oblige.

Thursday, February 17, 2011

How to: putting together Songs 1-3

Here's a summary of how to put together Songs 1-3.

* Type in 12 point font, black, easy to read (no script)
* Put a title at the top, in quotes
     * Use a line from your song
     * Have the title relate to your song
* Center or left justify your poem
     * Consider indenting certain lines for effect
     * Consider creating a staggered pattern by indenting lines of a stanza
* At the end of each song write:  Your Name, date.  For example:  Daniel Del Ferraro, 2/16/11

Let me know if you have questions!

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Revising for Caesura and Onomatopoeia

We looked through our songs today and modified for caesura and onomatopoeia.

Caesura is a break or pause in the song, usually at the end of a line.  Use a comma for a short pause and use a period for a longer stop or pause.  If you want the song to continue from line to line, don't use a comma or a period.  Make sure you've gone through all your songs and you fix these pauses.

Onomatopoeia is a word that imitates the sound of the word it defines.  For example, woof, bark, bam, pow, screech, crash, woosh, and ding.  Make sure you have at least two examples of these in your songs.  If not, make sure to change the lyrics to fit at least two examples in.

Good luck!

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Revisions, Part 1: Better Vocabulary

To make our songs better, we need to follow these steps to improve the vocabulary and phrasing of our songs:

1)  Mark off words or phrases in your songs that need improvement with a V.

2)  Go back to all your "V"s and make changes.

You want to change words to:


A) Use a word that fits with your song better.  For example, I changed one of my lines to "smoggy air" instead of "dirty air."  This works better with my song!


B) Make the song clearer.


C) Make the song sound better.

Friday, February 11, 2011

Chorus for Song 3

Follow the directions below to create the chorus for Song #3.  The structure is very important so make sure to keep it! 

Personification Chart

Remember that personification is when we give a non-human object human traits, abilities, emotions, or actions.  Here is a chart of some of my ideas:

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Song Unit Study Guide

Here are the topics that will be covered on the test on 2/18/11.  Click on a link to see the lesson.  Some of the terms actually have a few lessons up on here, so keep looking with that search bar on the top right of the screen:

Repetition
Chorus
Sensory details
Similes
Theme
Tempo (syllables per line)
Types of rhyme
Rhyme scheme
Alliteration
Assonance
Metaphor
Personification

"Death of Mother Nature Suite" and Personification

Great work today...all the classes really got the ideas of personification quite well. Remember that personification is when we give a non-human object a human trait, ability, or action. Some examples from the song:

"...she ruled the Earth with love..."
Here Mother Nature is ruling like a king, queen, or president. This is a human thing.

"And now she's gonna die!"
Mother Nature can't die because it doesn't have a heart like us and isn't really living.

"We've strangled all her trees..."
Trees can't be strangled, but people can. This shows that people are killing trees...it's done in a violent way.

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Metaphor Chart

Here is the metaphor chart that I showed you as an example from class. Remember that metaphors are comparisons of two unlike things that have something in common. "The sun is a ball of fire in the sky." Here I'm comparing the sun to a ball of fire. Notice that I don't use like, as, or than.

So, onto the chart. I've picked my natural object and then I've decided which trait I want to concentrate on. My next step is to think about what I could compare my object to in order to show off the trait. For example, my tree example. The trait I picked was tall. I have to think, "Hey, what's tall?" A good answer is a mountain. So, now I'll turn this into a metaphor: "A tall green mountain."

Monday, February 7, 2011

Odes and Metaphors and "Oh Mother Earth" by Neil Young

Today in class we watched a video of Neil Young singing "Oh Mother Earth." To begin, we talked about metaphors. Metaphors are comparisons of two unlike things, but we don't use like, as, or than. These are direct comparisons. If I call my friend a dirty pig, what I'm really saying is that he is very dirty just like pigs are. Notice that I didn't say dirty LIKE a pig or dirtier THAN a pig. I said he is just, plain and simple, a dirty pig. The best example from "Oh Mother Earth" is right in the title: "Mother Earth." This common metaphor compares Earth to a mother because both are caring, loving, and giving, according to Neil Young.

Secondly, we also talked about odes. Odes are songs that are written and sung to objects that cannot respond back. For example, Neil Young sings to Mother Earth in this song. Some other famous examples are "Ode to a Grecian Urn," written about an urn seen in a museum.

Best Commercial from Super Bowl: Volkswagen Commercial: The Force

Yeah, this was the cutest and the best commercial from the Super Bowl:

Sunday, February 6, 2011

I'm famous!!!!!

Wow, so cool! Kristien, my wife, and I were out around Connecticut on Saturday. Our last stop for the day was Westport where there was Chowdafest 2011! Well, guess what? We were interviewed!!! Look at your cool teacher:

http://www.thedailywestport.com/neighbors/foodies-chow-down-westports-chowdafest

Friday, February 4, 2011

Grading Rubric for Song #2

How to complete Song #2

So, here is the structure for Song #2

Stanza about the problems of your threat
Chorus
Stanza about what will happen to the world if we don't change
Chorus
Stanza about the solutions to the threat
(Then you decide if you want one more chorus or to end)

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Figuring out the rhyme scheme of a song

Also, in Period 1, we look at "What a Wonderful World" by Louis Armstrong and figure out the rhyme scheme. We also practice a bit more with some other examples of rhyme scheme.

Alliteration and Assonance in songs

Period 1 figures out examples of alliterations and assonance in "What a Wonderful World" by Louis Armstrong.

Michelle Hackman, Intel finalist!

I am so proud of Michelle!  I was lucky enough to have taught her in 8th grade a few years back.  She had great insight into literature and the world.  Good luck at Yale!

Watch this Newsday video about Michelle!

http://www.newsday.com/video/newsday-video-1.1482431?idno=27111