May 2017
Dear Parents,
Our 4th quarter is already speeding by and summer is on the horizon. That means some lazy days, and
time to relax and try new things. With that in mind, it’s time to choose the topic for this year’s summer
reading/learning adventure. Students can choose to expand their knowledge of something they’ve
already studied in school, or they can choose a topic that they’ve never had the opportunity to learn
about. In either case, it should be something that holds their interest, and that they’d be willing to talk
about with others.
How does this work?
1. Students will choose a topic area and book for summer reading, and share that specific choice
with their advisor via email by May 18. The book can be fiction or non-fiction, and should be
a. an appropriate reading level for the student,
b. new to them, and
c. NOT something from the Elder English Department’s list of required class reading, or
something they read in grade school.
2. In addition to the book, students will choose 3 other quality sources of information to further
their understanding and appreciation for their chosen topic – documentary, film, article,
podcast, TED talk, etc. These other sources may be found in school or public library databases,
through searches online, or discussion with family members, mentors, etc.
3. Students will create a bibliography using MLA standard format that includes annotations about
what they learned from each source.
4. Students should send their bibliography to their advisors via email by August 8.
5. Once they’ve read their books and used their other sources, students will prepare a brief
presentation of 2-3 minutes to share what they learned.
When we return for the 2017-18 year, there will be one day when advisees meet with mixed age advisee
groups. Each student will have 2-3 minutes to share with the group what they read, and what they
learned from the book and other sources. Presentations should focus on the learning, and may include
a critique of the particular book chosen.
Assessment:
A rubric for the bibliography and one for the presentation are attached to this document.
Students who do not adequately complete the summer reading assignment will be placed on hold.
Help for completing summer reading successfully is available on our library web page:
http://elderhslibrary.weebly.com/summer-reading.html
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Need help identifying interests?
Help finding a book to connect to an interest? Help finding other sources to use?
Need help creating a bibliography?
Need help creating a presentation? (Be bold, venture beyond the PowerPoint)
If your student would like in-person help, or would like to check out a book, the library will be open on
the following schedule:
Wednesday June 14 from 9-11 a.m.
Tuesday, June 20 from 1-3 p.m.,
Thursday, June 29 from 5-7 p.m.
Monday, August 7 from 9-11 a.m.
Friday, July 7 from 11 a.m. -1 p.m.
Tuesday, July 18 from 3-5 p.m.
Monday, July 24 from 7-8:30 p.m.
In case you were wondering, here’s a brief explanation of why we changed from one assigned title and
questions, to this format:
Research shows that student reading over the summer is important to keep building skills. It also shows
us that student choice is the best predictor of reading engagement and persistence. By asking students
to take charge of their own learning and reading, we hope to foster lifelong skills and practices, not just
school day compliance. Exploring a new topic can take many forms, and encouraging students to find
multiple resources builds on their personal learning preferences as well as allowing them to exercise
selection and evaluation skills. We encourage families to get involved with the summer learning and
reading as well. Make your own investigation of a topic you’ve been curious about, or delve deeper into
some hobby or interest that’s been hovering on the edges of your mind. Questions? Suggestions?
Contact librarian Monica Williams-Mitchell [email protected]
Best wishes for a relaxing and enjoyable summer!
Assistant Principal
Dean of Academics
School Librarian
See following pages for example bibliography and rubrics
Eddie Elder
Summer Reading Project
Mr. Altiora
11 August 2017
Topic: Artificial Intelligence
Bibliography
Engelking, Carl. “Cultivating Common Sense.” Discover. April, 2017. 32-39. Print.
This fascinating article about the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence explained the
efforts of scientists to develop artificial intelligence that has general or “connect the dots”
type of intelligence that humans have.
ANNs (artificial neural networks) are algorithms
that create binary outputs – firing or not firing the neurons. Google’s AlphaGo is an
example of this intelligence – very focused on a specific task. Really good at that task,
but unable to do other things. At the end of the day, all AI is dependent on what humans
“feed” it in development. The choice of data, how much emphasis to put on which data,
and what to do with that data are all human decisions that are made before AI exists. So,
whether the future is Terminator-like or less threatening, depends a lot on the decisions
we make now as a society faced with deciding what’s important and where we want to
focus our resources and efforts.
Harris, Sam. "Can We Build AI without Losing Control over It?" TEDSummit. Alberta, Banff.
June 2016. TED. Web. 15 Mar. 2017. This TED talk is sobering. And I think the speaker
has it right -- it's sort of fun to think about the science fiction aspect of this, but it's hard
to imagine the scenario where we are no longer in control of AI. His arguments make
sense, but it is just so far fetched. It is cause for concern: "To be six months ahead of the
competition here is to be 500,000 years ahead, at a minimum. So it seems that even mere
rumors of this kind of breakthrough could cause our species to go berserk."
Kaufman, Amie and Jay Kristoff. Illuminae: The Illuminae File_01. New York: Alfred A.
Knopf, 2015. Print. This is fiction, of course, but it puts into a “real” scenario the sort of
risk that AI presents to humans. Much like the ants that Sam Harris talked about in the
TED talk, the humans here could be annihilated by the AI that they set in motion.
It
does not read or look like the typical novel, as the story is told in a series of documents,
emails, illustrations and diagrams. It is set well in the future (2575) and yet the same
sorts of players seem to exist there – humans, corporations, scheming and social media all
play a role. It brings into focus even more how we have to be concerned about how AI
will be used in the world, and its potential for going terribly awry.
"Machine beats humans for the first time in poker." Reuters, 1 Feb. 2017. Issues &
Controversies, Infobase Learning, 27 Apr. 2017.
"’The best AI's ability to do strategic
reasoning with imperfect information has now surpassed that of the best humans,’ said
Tuomas Sandholm, professor of computer science at CMU who created Libratus with a
Ph.D student, Noam Brown.” This quote from the article was the most shocking thing I
read over this whole project. It’s one thing to think that artificial intelligence could figure
out logical things more quickly than humans, but to be reading body language, emotion
and other “human” things, is sort of scary. If the computer can bluff, then it has the
capacity to deceive about its motives, and how it makes decisions. That has potential for
changing all of our interactions and bringing forth the sort of science fiction future that
we read about in dystopian fiction. I wonder what will be done to further develop this,
and what sort of impact potential this has on American society. The article mentioned
military strategy as one possible use – and this has HUGE implications for the country
and the world.