Day 1- Syllabus, Contracts, Deep Focus

DUE DATES- ON TIME​​​​​​

1. Signed Syllabus. DUE: Thursday, 8/24, Start of Class.  In Person.
2. Deep Focus Paragraph. DUE: Tuesday, 8/22, Start of Class.  Google Classroom.

 
DUE DATES- LATE (-10%)​

1. Nothing yet!

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Introductions (5 min)

1. Name, pronouns, one word to describe your ideal classroom.

Syllabus Review (10 min)
Review syllabus, students sign it. Bring home for parents to sign.

Student Contracts (5 min)
Hit the highlights, students sign it.

The Reading Mind- Read Silently (30 min)
In this class, I will be asking you to focus- to focus more deeply than we often do. To that end, we’re going to start our year with a discussion about what it takes to deeply focus…and what gets in the way. 

Spend the next 30 minutes reading.  Choose a text that feels right for you.  If you finish it, start another.  Annotate or jot notes if it helps you.  No music, no headphones, no talking.  

When we’re done reading, we’ll have time to discusstime discuss in small groups, and then reflect in writing (which you will turn in to me).

1. Mild Options
   1. Does the Internet Make You Dumber?  (Nicholas Carr)
   2. 5 Ways to Develop Deep Focus (Rohab Ahmed)
2. Medium Options
   1. Stolen Focus Chapter 1 (Johann Hari)
   2. Stolen Focus Chapter 4 (Johann Hari)
   3. How technology literally changes our brains (Ezra Klein and Nicholas Carr)
3. Spicy Options
   1. Is Google Making Us Stupid? (Nicholas Carr)
   2. This is Your Brain on Deep Reading (Ezra Klein and Maryanne Wolf)

The Reading Mind- Discussion (15 minutes)
Discuss the following questions:

1. What was the most interesting idea or provocative sentence in what you read?  Share the core of your text with your group.
2. What did these texts have to say about how the form or medium of information impacts our habits/brains?
3. What was your experience of reading this text?  Was it easy? Difficult? Did you stay focused, or did your focus wander?
4. What kind of evidence or support did they use for their conclusions?  Which evidence was most convincing? Least convincing?
5. Do you think that the loss of this ability to focus deeply is a problem?  Why/why not?
6. Do you see benefits in the different skills and types of focus people develop in digital mediums?  What might those be?
7. Do you think it’s important to develop the ability to sustain focus and attention for long periods of time? Why/why not?
8. How do you see the difficulties with deep focus and sustained attention in your own life?
9. When in your life do you find that you can attain deep and sustained focus?  What about these activities lets you do this?
10. How do you think these things connect to senior year and senior thesis/project specifically?  Why am I making you read this?

Written Reflection (15 min)
Write me a well-structured paragraph in response to the ideas you read. 

Choose one of the questions from the discussion question list to answer.  You need to incorporate specific references to the text, and make connections to your own experiences. 

Please turn this in on Google Classroom.

This is due at the start of class tomorrow, if you need additional time.  It is my first sense of you as a writer, so please make it as good as possible given limited time.

Introduce Reading Focus (5 min)
Every day in my class, we will “read” a text for at least 20 minutes, uninterrupted.  There will be no phones, no music, no headphones, no notes.  Just time to read.  Sometimes this will take the form of a visual text, sometimes it will be “reading” by listening to a podcast.  

The goal of this is to start building that mental muscle, that brain plasticity, that will allow you to deeply focus when you need to.  As the year moves on, we will use this time to deeply read research for your senior thesis. All of this will be done off screen, on hard copies.

What Happens Next?
For the rest of the week, we’re going to be going over Senior Project, and beginning to generate ideas.  This is the capstone of your senior year, and is required to graduate.  For the next 4 days, we will be working in various permutations- sometimes a whole senior class, sometimes in small groups. Expect to be present periods 2, 3, 4, and 5, except on Wednesday, when we will want you periods 2, 3, and 4.

TOMORROW- Everyone meet in Lori’s room 2nd period!