To DO List for Week 11

For March 16 - 20:

• Complete any unfinished tasks
• Continue Note-taking
• Pre-Writing Questionnaire for Proposal
• Work on timeline/Action Plan

Monday, March 16th - Work Day on any of the assignments above

Tuesday, March 17th - PSSA testing

Wednesday, March 18th - Continue working on any of the assignments above

Thursday, March 19th - PSSA testing

Friday, March 20th - (Half-day) Pre-Writing Questionnaire due

Grad Project Show-and-Tell Week - March 2 - 6!

On Wednesday-Friday, you will be sharing your graduation project progress with the class. Monday-Tuesday are planning days for your presentation (and any catching up).

Your presentation should include the following:

1. Your topic idea and why you chose it (10 points)
2. What your "action plan" will be (10 points)
3. Two-three websites that will be the most useful to your project (10 points)
4. Your blog & poster (10 points)
5. Any challenges you are facing, questions that need to be answered, etc. (10 points)

Your presentation will be worth 50 points and your participation as an audience member is worth 50 points.

Weeks 7 and 8 - Project update

During this week (Feb. 17 - 20) and next week (Feb. 23 - 27), you should be work on the following project parts:

• Planning your Interview (identifying who you are going to interview, writing the Interview Questions - Check your folder pages for details)
• Setting up the Notes Template for your Foundation Questions (template on Edline - Did You Know?)
• Identifying your "Action" - What is your involvement in your topic? How are you going to do the project?

Interview Questions are due - Monday, February 23rd (25 points)

Notes Check #1 are due - Friday, February 27th (50 points)

What are you working on?

Webliography Completion!!!

If you have a completed webliography, you should have citations for at least 10 sources written in MLA format and an annotation/summary explaining ·

• Why you selected each source
• What the website is about
• Why you are using this source for your project
• How this website be useful to you in your research
• How this website answer your Foundation Questions
• Your rating of this site with explanation

You are graded on your Citations, the Annotation, the Rating, and the Relevance.

PhotoShop meets Graduation Project

Now that you've selected your Graduation Project topic - what images come to mind when you think of your topic? An effective way of begin your research is by designing a collage that represents images that relate to your topic. When you are done, upload your collage to your blog. (It must be saved as a .jpg or .gif)
Requirements:

• A collage of images
• 800 x 600
• In color
• Text is allowed but it should not over-power or be larger than the images
• “Bells and whistles” – put all of your skills to work, be as creative as you can
• Typos/spelling errors = Failing Grade

Rubric:

• Readability: Be creative with your graphics, but make sure your fonts, word art, and positioning of the text do not make the text hard to read.
• Use of color: Make sure that you can see/read the text clearly. Do your pictures make a visual statement?
• Spelling and Grammar: You should have absolutely no errors on this sign! Grammar or spelling mistakes will make your sign unacceptable.
• Relationship to research: Are your pictures appropriate for your topic?
• Appropriate size: Your size must be 81/2 x 11.
• Visual appeal: Your sign must be appealing and readable from a distance.
• General neatness and skill level: Your sign should look like you spent some time on it. It should be visually appealing.
• Use of space on the page: Your sign should fill up the page. Make use of the space available to you.
• Overall creativity: Did you go out of your way to find interesting graphics? Have you created a sign that stands out from your peers, either through the artwork or through your master of computer skills?
  

Next Steps

3 things are due on Friday, January 16th (or Tuesday January 20th if no school on Friday) on a Microsoft Word document:

1. identified topic
2. Essential Project Question
3. First 10 web sites which will offer background information (this should be a list of web titles that are hyperlinked

Next step: Start getting an understanding of your topic - Read through the websites you've collected

Graduation Project Key Terms:

• Generate a list of 10-15 key terms that have to do with your graduation project.
• These terms could be important words necessary for a full understanding of your topic, unfamiliar terms that are part of a special vocabulary, and/or jargon/specialized terminology related to your topic.
• Write a complete definition for each of your terms.
• Post the list of words/definitions to your blog - (Add a gadget)

Foundation Questions - question your topic and your essential question - what questions do you need to ask to help you answer your Essential Question? Try starting with a simple 'What is....? question. You need to develop about 10 Foundation Questions.

Do's and Don'ts of Blogging!!

Just a reminder about the following blogging guidelines as you begin updating your blogs:
1. Update your blog at least every day in class, but you are encouraged to update on the weekends as necessary.

2. Your blog should be a log or diary of anything having to do with your graduation project. You can post about:

• your activities in class (what did you do in class today?)


• any websites visited, articles read, etc. (give titles, urls, etc.)


• contacts spoken with or emailed


• problems faced


• next steps


• progress made towards your weekly To-Do List

3. Remember that although blogs are not as formal as a final paper or proposal, you should still write using your best grammar and spelling.
4. This is not a personal blog, but one meant to record your progress on the graduation project. Any inappropriate content, images or text placed on your blog will result in a failing grade.5. Always read comments posted to your blog, as I will be keeping tabs on your progress and answering questions that you may have through this method.