• Log In
  • Log In
Science Leadership Academy @ Center City
Science Leadership Academy @ Center City Learn · Create · Lead
  • Students
    • Mission and Vision
  • Parents
  • Community
    • Mission and Vision
  • Calendar

English 3 - Rami Public Feed

Create a Post

  Water Stream Teen Magazine Publication

Posted by Meenoo Rami in English 3 - Rami on Saturday, January 26, 2013 at 11:54 am

Water Stream Teen Magazine Publication

please leave comments for us because we look forward to your reactions!

When I started teaching this amazing group of students at SLA, I knew that we'd do some great work together. I wanted to make sure that my students had authentic experiences as readers and writers.  So this quarter, we have worked together to create this teen magazine.  Our hope is that this project will inspire other classes to create similar work.  If you like our work, please share it widely and leave us comments because we are eager to hear from you. Thank you for checking out our work.   

My student, Rose did a great job documenting this process, an portion of which you will find below:

At the beginning of our first quarter Ms. Rami explained to us how she wanted us to do “real” learning instead of “fake” learning. A common theme in high school english is that the teachers will assign their students a book to read and a large portion of the students will only read a little of the book but pretend that they did. If there is no real reading than classroom discussions become fake and mundane. We as a class wanted to be real readers. The kind of readers that challenge ourselves and motivate others to do the same. Another aspect of “real learning” is writing. This quarter we have focussed on making our writing real and relevant which is where this magazine comes into play. At first the magazine was just an idea but then it turned into this amazing project.


During one of our first classes of the 2nd Quarter Ms. Rami introduced the project to us. She had us brainstorm different ideas that we would want to write our articles on. The following week we sat around in a circle and had a class discussion on ideas. Some of the braver more confident people jumped at the chance to share their ideas. Meanwhile the more hesitant listened from the side. When someone shared their idea either Ms. Rami or other students would recomend other things that they could add to their idea making it something more specific or letting it go a little deeper. Eventually the shy bystanders started to share their ideas and there began to be a sense of what this magazine would end up looking like. It was great to see the ideas float around and begin to form into their full glory. Our assignment at the end of the class was to decide the final topic that we wanted to work on and if their were other people we could work with.

Once each of us had come up with our solid ideas and figured out if it was going to be a partner article or not we started to learn how to write articles in an appealing way. We read “Saying No to College” at our tables in class and took out parts that stood out to us. Then as a group we talked about those parts and how we can implicate them in our articles. We also talked about what parts we didn’t like which is an important part of a discussion. A really interesting thing that we did was we got the opportunity to skype in with Kristen Graham, a Pulitzer Prize winner, about her experience as a journalist. We all got the opportunity to ask her questions about how she gets the stories, what it is like to have a career as a journalist. From her we were able to get the advice we needed to really get started.

A big part of any magazine is making it turn into a well written, visually appealing piece of work. In order to make that possible a couple of people needed to volunteer to do some extra work. There were a couple different roles that needed to be filled. We needed someone to make a name for the magazine, copy editors, photo and art editors, visual layout designer, and someone to get the word out to everyone. Lastly we needed a couple people to oversee all of those roles. It was surprisingly easy to get all of those rolls filled. The simplicity of that showed how interested and excited everyone is about this project.

In the last stages we have a deadline for the rough draft to be due. The classes leading up to the deadline have been fully work periods in which the different people can work together to get the article ready for edits.

As a part of the editing process we were given a sheet to fill out.  The sheet needed to be filled out by the lit lab that we have during lunch periods. The Lit Lab is a place where a couple of stellar students can help out other students by proof reading their writing work.
Be the first to comment.

Q1 Benchmark: Book Review

Posted by James Prell in English 3 - Rami on Wednesday, October 31, 2012 at 12:35 pm


Over the last month I read the Fifth book in the A Song of Ice and Fire series. I watched as the war of the five Kings wound to a close. I tasted the meals while reading George’s famous descriptions of food. I hurt when my favorite characters felt pain, and I smiled every moment they didn’t die tragically.

George R.R. Martin’s A Dance With Dragons is the fifth 1,510 page installment to his A Song of Ice and Fire series continuing his stories of the fictional continent of Westeros. While a healthy appreciation for fiction is certainly needed to get through such a large book, I can say that the series has much more to offer than originally meets the eye. Dance continues the story telling style of using “point of view characters”. Chapters are divided up by character, telling the story through their eyes.

For readers unfamiliar with this style of storytelling, let me tell you that it makes it very hard to hate one character more than another. Martin creates a world of gray areas. Much like real life, every character has a reason for their actions. This leaves it up to the reader to draw his or her own opinions. The maddening part of this type of storytelling is that those characters who might otherwise be considered the “bad guys” get to show their own perspective. I found it frustrating that George R.R Martin didn’t let me fully agree with the “good guys” or completely hate the “bad guys”, but I will say that it kept me on my toes. It keeps the story relatable and interesting more than anything else.

One issue I’ve had with the series so far is the inclusion of characters that don’t drive the plot in any way. This continues in Dance. For example, Quentin Martel’s inclusion in the story doesn’t serve any purpose other than to give exhausting details about unimportant places. His entire story can be summed up in the sentence “ The heir to Dorne travels east to find his queen.” I found myself caring little about him and more for what his actions mean to other characters. To those readers who don’t care about every detail but still want to be able to understand the plot, skipping Martel’s chapters is a safe way to save time.

While I love this book and hope everyone reads it. I also had to read the other huge books in order to get to it. Dance is completely plot driven, and will not make any sense unless the first four books are read before hand. If you think you are up to the challenge of reading such a long story, I guarantee that you will enjoy yourself. If you’ve made the journey through the other four books, congratulations! You are in for another thrilling installment to the series. Remember though, George R.R Martin in infamous for killing off major characters. In A Dance With Dragons, winter is coming, and that certainly doesn’t mean he’ll relent.

.By James Prell


Be the first to comment.

The Story of Red

Posted by Byshera Moore-Williams in English 3 - Rami on Wednesday, October 31, 2012 at 8:48 am

Screen Shot 2012-10-24 at 7.35.44 PM
Screen Shot 2012-10-24 at 7.35.44 PM
​

I spent a week enthralled in this book. On the edge of my seat for its entirety, focused on every word, hearing every sound, seeing the landscapes broken uneven pavement and understanding the characters. Like the complexity of the internal struggles of Red, the extremely human but excruciating animalist need to have power, to be the alpha dog in the room. Using that great power how you see fit. However knowing that you have to step down and play the role of a pawn, to be loyal to the ones that you love even when you are dying to take that power. This is  shown but the pawn with the queen shadow. And above his head his name “Red” in color chocolate color  because your eyes may just deceive you as you read this story.

In the right corner you see the medieval brick read letters that read “Granny”. Above it you see the eerie setting of  blown to the side and tattered curtains; with the werewolves skull on top of the brown silver moon the same moon. This is shown in the chest of Red. On the table you see a jewelry box filled with silver which was used to make the silver bullets. Next to that is a wolfsbane cigar used to make a thick smoke fog protect Red from the wolfs when they first broke into Granny’s house.

Then seen to the left of Red are fancy almost cursive writing that reads “Marrisa”, who runs an antique shop seen above. She is the main female character, and the  love interest of Red, on top of the shop you see winding tree with a bird next to an arrow. Marrisa was the one picked to learn how to use the silver tipped arrow this caused her to marking up a tree in the middle of the woods that almost leads the her demise. Finally at the top you see blood dripping onto the image showing the death of the wolves. A collage of descriptive writing and amazing imagery.


Be the first to comment.
42 posts:
← Prev
  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
RSS

ENG3-011

Term
2012-13

Teacher

  • Meenoo Rami
Science Leadership Academy @ Center City · Location: 1482 Green St · Shipping: 550 N. Broad St Suite 202 · Philadelphia, PA 19130 · (215) 400-7830 (phone)
×

Log In