Wienclawski

Mr. Wienclawski's Journaling Page:
The Ipads seem to be a hit; more so as a "hook" than anything else. My students are fascinated by them, and picked up on how to use them extremely quick. I've been doing things with them that could, quite frankly, be done with the laptops. However, the enthusiasm that infects the class is exciting. Last week I created an IPAD quest for a unit on The Merchant of Venice. The object of the lesson was to introduce students to the city of Venice using the Google Earth application to explore the city streets. Students were asked to name and describe five places they visited, and to comment on the architecture, design, and aesthetic qualities of the city. They were then asked to compare how Venice differs from an American city, which led us to discuss the possibilities of why the city was built the way it was. Students observed that fishing and trade were two obvious uses for the canals. This activity allowed students to experience the setting of the play on a more personal level, as well as learn about architecture, city planning, and geography. Their enthusiasm level was high, and this allowed me to hook 'em early. They seem to be enjoying the play more so than previous year's classes because they have more experiential investment in the text as a result of the activity.

Of Mice and Men - 10th Grade

Recently a collection of rare color photographs from the Great Depression was published on line. I had my students spend a day using the IPads to explore these amazing pictures. Their ultimate goal was to understand that every picture was a story, and that their job was to tell it. More specifically my students had to choose a picture that they found compelling, and write a six sentence story inspired by it. They were to reach for authenticity, and try to capture the spirit of the photo. The photo and story were put on word documents (using laptops), titled, and submitted. The students were pretty engrossed in the assignment, and did a nice job.

Of Mice and Men - 10th Grade

I created a new IPAD quest regarding Salinas Valley California, the setting for Steinbeck's novel. Students were asked to use Safari to research the agriculture and industry of the towns Weed and Soledad, as well as find out their current population. They were then asked to use Google Maps to find out how far apart the two towns are, thus discovering how far George and Lennie traveled to get to the setting of the novel. Next, students downloaded images of the Gabilan Mountains and described them (they used Google Earth, and Google Images). Finally, using Safari, my students researched five facts concerning Salinas Valley in the 1930s, and five facts about the area today. We discussed how what we learned paralled clues from the novel about what life was like during the Great Depression. Students were very engaged in the learning and gave me a lot of positive feedback.

Experimental Writing - 12th Grade

Students have been using the Ipads all year for a variety of reasons. Students have used them to find pictures for image-inspired poetry writing. They have also been used to research examples of flash fiction, poetry styles, collage history, and six word stories. Because students don't need to spend time logging in, they are very practical for quick research.

The Road - 10th Grade

Students used the Ipads to locate an image that visually represented a 400 word story they wrote concerning how the main character in the novel, the boy, ended up 20 years after the events from the novel. Both the style of the writing and picture should correspond with the themes and world created by Cormac McCarthy. The assignment was very successful. Perhaps the best writing of the year came out of it. The Ipads acted as a hook, and many of the stories were simply incredible.

Frankenstein - 10th Grade

I just created a Google Earth Frankenstein Map Quest assignment. Students will use the Ipads to travel to many of the locations in Europe that Victor and the monster did. Students will have to describe the geographical characteristics of each region, calculate the distance it takes for the characters to travel between locations, find three facts about each region, capture a picture of each region, and explain the events from the novel that occurred in each place. I'm looking forward to this project. We will probably do it in a month.