Fort Hayes Reader
Summer 2016
Fort Hayes Reader 2016 Table of Contents
The Full Fort Hayes Reader 2016 can be found at http://fthayes.org http://forthayeshs.ccsoh.us 1. Introduction Letter From Dr. Ruffin 2. Principal’s Choice Article The Divergent Thinker 3. Arts Department Be a Part of Live Art: Two Live Art Experiences 4. English Department Grade 9, “Superman and Me” by Sherman Alexie Grades 10, “Looking Out the Window” by Sam Anderson Grades 11, “Your Brain on Fiction” by Annie Murphy Paul Grades 12, “Choose to Be Grateful. It Will Make You Happier” by Arthur C. Brooks 5. Math Department “Historical, Cultural and Social implications of Mathematics” by S.E. Anderson 6. Science Department “How Lead Ended Up In Flint’s Water” by Michael Torrice 7. Social Studies Department Class Assignments 8. World Language Department Class Assignments for Japanese, French, Spanish and Italian Fort Hayes Metropolitan Education Center
May 17, 2016
Milton V. Ruffin, Principal
546 Jack Gibbs Boulevard
Columbus, Ohio 43215
Phone 614-365-6681
Fax 614-365-6988
www.fthayes.org The Fort Hayes Metropolitan Education Center mission is to create expectations of excellence within students through challenging and collaborative learning, by
blending the arts, academics, and career programs.
Dear Fort Hayes Students and Families;
Summer assignments at Fort Hayes are MANDATORY for all students. The summer assignments give us an indication
of your level of commitment to excellence through your work ethic and academic competence. Additionally, the
assignments provide on-going academic and artistic engagement during the summer recess. Summer assignments are
averaged into the first grading period in such a way that it is possible to fail the first grading period if you do not complete
them. This expectation is motivated primarily by our effort to align with the mission of Fort Hayes, “creating expectations
of excellence within students through challenging and collaborative learning, by blending the arts, academics, and career
programs.”
Fort Hayes is an extraordinary school with an extraordinary faculty and students. Faculty, students, and families must
make a commitment to high expectations in order for us to continue to provide this high quality program. We value
scholarship, a strong work ethic, and creative thinking; these are skills that enable students to meet the high
expectations of a global community. Engaging in summer work is a clear path to success; therefore, we place a strong
emphasis on the quality completion of these assignments.
Digital copies of the 2016 Fort Hayes Reader can be downloaded from both the Fort Hayes and CCS websites, and
includes assignments from each department.
http://fthayes.org http://forthayeshs.ccsoh.us Thank you for choosing Fort Hayes. You are now contributing to the legacy of remarkable achievement that has and will
continue to happen here at Fort Hayes Metropolitan High School.
Sincerely,
Dr. Milton V. Ruffin
Principal, Fort Hayes High School
[email protected]
Department Contact Information – please be advised that the teaching staff are not readily available during the summer months. Please
allow ample time for responses.
Arts, Mr. Donavan [email protected]
English, Mr. Saxon [email protected]
Math, Ms. Wade-Argus [email protected]
Social Studies, Mr. East [email protected]
Intervention, Ms. Fullen [email protected]
FORT HAYES “PRINCIPAL’S CHOICE” SCHOOL WIDE SUMMER READING ASSIGNMENT 2016
Read the Article: “The Divergent Thinker”
Write a 250 word Reaction Paper based on the article
Reaction paper due First Day of class
Essay must be 12 point News Time Roman (font) and Double Spaced.
Please submit to Mrs. Wilson 3rd floor of building 64
Tips for Writing a Good Reaction Paper
Do
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Read the given article carefully.
Think about 1 or 2 major points you want to articulate in your reaction paper.
Describe your point first ("Lessons Learned," "What you agreed on…" or "What you disagreed on…")
Justify why you think that way.
Provide one or two real-world example(s) - You may use any example you are familiar with, including ones we
discuss in class or ones from the textbook. However, please do not assume that I know what you are talking
about when you just mention a name (e.g. Enron or Wal-Mart). Provide sufficient background information and
how your example(s) support your argument.
Desirable Formats
1. Follow step 3 - 5 to make each point clearly (make 1 - 2 major points per each reaction paper) (normally one
argument per one paragraph)
2. After you finish articulating all the points, have a conclusive statement at the end.
3. Please proofread your reaction paper carefully to avoid any grammatical mistakes or typos.
What Not To Do
1. Just summarize what you read (I want to see your thoughtful opinions - not a summary)
2. No evidence to back up your point (e.g. no examples)
3. Provide random examples without making careful effort to relate to your point
The Gifted Resource Center of New England
The Divergent Thinker
"If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let
him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away." You may recognize the words of
Thoreau, the quintessential divergent thinker of the 19th century.
Every so often we hear about someone who has taken an extraordinary stand about a belief in the face of
what would seem to be all common sense. Why would someone go to jail for a belief? Isn't it better to just go
along with things and not cause trouble? After all, look what happened to Galileo.
Nurtured on tales about saints and heroes who gave up their lives for their beliefs, one might come to see that
such people have exceptional passion and courage, and a very strong will. Dedication to the belief and what
it represents may bring the courage to act on it. However, rarely do we wonder where the belief came from in
the first place, and how it developed into a system of belief that is then acted on with such passion.
When an idea develops, it is counter to the status quo. For example, the ideas in the Declaration of
Independence were radical thoughts for their time. They arose from extremely radical writings by Thomas
Paine and the Sons of Liberty. These in turn, were based on writings of earlier philosophers. Today we
accept these ideas as part of our heritage: they have become the status quo.
History is full of divergent thinkers. Thoreau and his unusual ideas about freedom and responsibility have yet
to become the status quo, but the ideas of others have changed the very way we view reality. For example,
while we view Thoreau as a divergent thinker, we might not think of Einstein in quite the same way. Yet,
because of his thinking, fundamental tenets about the universe have changed. In his own way, Einstein was a
much greater threat to the status quo than Thoreau could ever be.
Divergent thinkers come in both adult and child sizes. Some are obvious eccentrics, but others are so quiet
that one would never suspect - until they share their opinion about something.
Divergent thinkers tend not to think first of the most commonplace response; many do not seem to
understand how to conform. Often they start off thinking they are just like everyone else, but at some point
discover this is not the case. This first awareness often occurs in school.
Divergent thinkers have a real preference for unusual, original and idiosyncratic responses. They are
different in what they think about, and how they express this difference. Some can turn off the divergent
thinking at times, but others cannot.
Divergent thinkers can be exceptionally creative. If the ability to think divergently is related to being
creative, then all creative people are divergent thinkers, but not the other way around. It's the ability to direct
the divergent ideas into something else that makes a person creative. Creativity is not just making something
though. It can also be the process of enabling others to see one's vision of how things ought to be. All great
philosophers are divergent thinkers, and many of those who protest injustice. What motivates the action
taken to protest injustice though determines whether the divergent thinker turns out to be a Gandhi or a
Unabomber.
People who are divergent thinkers are novel thinkers. This means that they do not first think of the common
assumptions most others use in making decisions. Because they think differently, they act differently. What
seems to be common-sense to most people does not seem so to the divergent thinker.
Being a divergent thinker irritates and upsets other people who often feel the divergent one should sit down
and shut up, and wonder why he or she can't just be like everyone else. It does not occur to most people that
the divergent thinker can't stop being divergent. In fact, it might not matter if he or she did sit down and shut
up - everyone would still know how the divergent thinker felt. One cannot blend into a crowd if the crowd is
so different from oneself that it is not camouflage. It's like trying to hide an elephant in a flock of chickens
by telling the elephant to squat down and cluck a lot.
People have trouble with divergent thinkers because the essence of divergent thinking is rebellion. While we
might admire the person who stands up for his or her beliefs to the government, who goes to work in a relief
agency abroad and gives up the good life here, or who creates a wonderful piece of art, we rarely admire the
divergent thinking child or adolescent who wants to say "No." Divergent thinkers cannot accept authority
just because it exists, as other people do. They need to test it out for themselves, to find out if it is true. This
does not mean a lifelong bad attitude about authority. Creative rebellion is not about confronting rules, but
about confronting ideas. This distinction is difficult for most young people to make, so they challenge rules
too.
It is particularly hard to be a divergent thinker when a child. While adults may value the finished creative
product, they rarely value the rebellion necessary to create the product. Yet, to be original means looking
beyond what is commonly accepted. Most adults, especially those in authority would rather divergent
thinkers would turn it off except when creating in very circumscribed ways, for example for a set topic they
have assigned.
Divergent thinking children have a number of particular learning problems that are rarely recognized. For
one thing they are often immersion learners. This means that they learn best by immersing themselves in
their passion and working only on that passion until it is done. They see ordinary tasks as interference with
their creative time. For example, exceptionally talented young painters or writers often only want to paint or
write and do nothing else. Homework is a waste of time to this sort of student.
The thoughts, impressions and feelings of divergent thinkers are interconnected. Some have trouble with
organizing thoughts or starting a project just because they cannot set priorities since everything is
interconnected. It appears to them as if there were no good starting place and that no one piece can be used
without all other pieces. This makes step-by-step learning, the type of learning expected in most schools
difficult for these young people. Since they cannot turn off their thinking to conform to the teacher's way of
doing things, they are less apt to get good grades than other children even if they are extremely intelligent. In
fact, step-by-step learning makes no sense to them, since the material, as presented, has no connection to
other parts. In a regular school academic program, these elephant children feel as if they are being fed one
blade of grass at a time. They never get enough to fill them up and starve to death as a result.
In addition, the divergent thinker in school, particularly in the upper grades, has trouble with analysis of
material. Often this skill is taught in junior high and high school by having the student read a work and find
the parts the teacher thinks are important or that the curriculum guide has selected as valuable. Divergent
thinkers may be original in their analyses, but they do not come up with teacher approved insights. Many
really do not see or understand what the teacher wants, and cannot produce it. Others may understand what
the teacher wants but feel that they cannot give that answer because it is not honestly their own opinion. One
of the problems for many such students is asking for their own opinion in contexts that really want a
particular point of view for an answer.
Divergent thinking students may see different interconnections between the material and other material than
does the teacher or classmates. Original ideas are labeled as "wrong" for these students. Some write papers
based on these wrong opinions or go off on interesting tangents. They then find themselves marked down for
not keeping to the point. To the student it comes to feel as if no one values the true feelings or thoughts and
that no matter what education is supposed to be, only "right" answers count. To them the most valuable parts
of themselves do not count, are not valued and are actively criticized.
The divergent thinker is a unique self. If he or she can find value in uniqueness, and some tolerance from
society, a strong sense of self can develop. In fact, if we consider a self/society dichotomy, the more a
divergent thinker a person is, the more likely he or she is to find a unique self. Unfortunately also, the more
likely he or she is to have to hide it. Because of the way society views conformity, girls who are highly
divergent and creative are often at special risk for social censure and isolation. Many retreat into books, or
develop a "thorny" exterior in order to hide their vulnerability to social rejection.
Children who are extreme divergent thinkers tend to have emotional issues related to feeling different. Both
self image and interconnectedness to others can be problematic. These children can feel entirely alone, with
no one to understand them, and they are at risk for depression and other emotional disturbances.
The goal of parents, teachers, and counselors is to help the child find some validation for the different self,
while helping him or her to learn how to handle living in a less than appreciative world. Since, to the child,
the ideas they have, their feelings, and what they can do are the unique self, valuing these as well as the
child, means the child feels wholly valued. This valuing helps the divergently thinking child to feel
connected to at least some other people, so that he or she feels sometimes understood, and not entirely alone.
Even children can face great rejection and stress if they feel that there is at least one person who truly cares
about them.
The long term task for divergent thinkers is to find a work to love, to develop a sense of self that the person
can like and trust even if few others do, and to find some sources of validation that do not depend on
conformity to an outside standard. To find and mold a suitable home and school environment, that nurtures
the person as well as the talents, is an important goal for these children.
It is not easy to be a divergent thinker in a conformist society. But thorns and all, the divergent thinkers are
the ones who cause change to occur. We need their ideas and their passion, but it is up to us what use we
make of them. Divergent thinkers can give us the keys to the universe, and the keys to world destruction.
What is done with either is up to the status quo.
Fort Hayes Fine & Performing Arts Summer Work Grades 9-­12 – All Teachers BE A PART OF LIVE ART: 1. Attend at least two live art experiences this summer. Your experiences must be from two different areas or disciplines. You may choose from the areas of dance, music, theatre, visual art or STEAM related activities. (STEAM = Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math) 2. Complete the BE A PART OF LIVE ART: Field Notes page for each of your two arts experiences. Remember to focus on the art – write only about things that directly relate to the art. Fill each box completely with your thoughts for full credit. 3. Bring both of your Field Notes pages to your arts classes the first day of school. Be prepared to write a short response and participate in discussions about your live art experiences during the first week of school. 4. This assignment will act as an introduction to our first quarter discussions surrounding art criticism. Students Fort Hayes Arts & Academic HS are trained to be not only disciplined producers of art but also informed and educated consumers of art. There are FREE Live Art Experiences all over Columbus. Outdoor festivals are a great place to start. You can search newspapers such as Columbus Alive or The Dispatch or search for “free Columbus art events” online. The websites www.columbusmakesart.com and www.gcac.org (Greater Columbus Arts Council) are also great resources. • Dance: Cultural festivals have many dance styles and events. • Music: Free festivals and concerts throughout Columbus this summer • Theater: Schiller Park Plays, free plays in parks throughout Columbus • Visual Arts: Short North Galleries and Gallery Hop (the first Saturday of each month) Columbus Museum of Art (free on Sunday), Wexner Center, the Columbus Cultural Arts Center, King Arts Complex NOTE: The Fort Hayes fine and performing arts faculty feel it is very important that our students are able to take part in live art experiences. The city of Columbus offers many free opportunities to BE A PART OF LIVE ART. If extenuating circumstances do not allow you to attend a live art experience, reports on an online live streamed or virtual art experience is preferred to skipping the assignment and will be given partial credit (as opposed to no credit). Fort Hayes Summer Work ’16 -­‐ BE A PART OF LIVE ART: Field Notes #1 Event: ____________________________ Your Name: __________________________ 1. Describe what you see or hear. Include title, artist, location, dates and type of performance or exhibition. 2. Analyze the work. Break things down and use detailed words to describe this art experience. Be specific about the art that you see or hear. 3. Interpret the deeper meaning of the work. What does it mean and what response is it intended to evoke? 4. React as a viewer. How did you feel about it and why? Fort Hayes Summer Work ’16 -­‐ BE A PART OF LIVE ART: Field Notes #2 Event: ____________________________ Your Name: __________________________ 1. Describe what you see or hear. Include title, artist, location, dates and type of performance or exhibition. 2. Analyze the work. Break things down and use detailed words to describe this art experience. Be specific about the art that you see or hear. 3. Interpret the deeper meaning of the work. What does it mean and what response is it intended to evoke? 4. React as a viewer. How did you feel about it and why? English Summer Work Grade 9 – All Teachers 1) Read and annotate “Superman and Me.” (The article is provided on the next two pages.) 2) Mark annotations directly on the article to record meaning as you read. 3) Prepare to write a timed short response on “Superman and Me” on the first day of school. Plan to use your annotations to generate ideas and evidence for the “first day” essay. 4) Visit a library to obtain a library card or to read the fines off your current card. 5) Be ready to show your library card to your English teacher on the first day of school. 6) Talk to a librarian and then make a list of 10 books you want to read. 1. ____________________________________________________________________________________ 2. ____________________________________________________________________________________ 3. ____________________________________________________________________________________ 4. ____________________________________________________________________________________ 5. ____________________________________________________________________________________ 6. ____________________________________________________________________________________ 7. ____________________________________________________________________________________ 8. ____________________________________________________________________________________ 9. ____________________________________________________________________________________ 10. ____________________________________________________________________________________ 7) Read at least one of these books (we hope you’ll read more!). 8) Use the “Scholar” Mark below as your bookmark, and also to record the page numbers of important passages, sentences, ideas, and events throughout your selected book. 9) Talk about your book with someone, and be prepared to discuss your book with a classmate during the first week of school. Sherman Alexie: “Superman and Me” I learned to read with a Superman comic book. Simple enough, I suppose. I cannot recall which particular Superman comic book I read, nor can I remember which villain he fought in that issue. I cannot remember the plot, nor the means by which I obtained the comic book. What I can remember is this: I was 3 years old, a Spokane Indian boy living with his family on the Spokane Indian Reservation in eastern Washington state. We were poor by most standards, but one of my parents usually managed to find some minimum-­‐wage job or another, which made us middle-­‐class by reservation standards. I had a brother and three sisters. We lived on a combination of irregular paychecks, hope, fear and government surplus food. My father, who is one of the few Indians who went to Catholic school on purpose, was an avid reader of westerns, spy thrillers, murder mysteries, gangster epics, basketball player biographies and anything else he could find. He bought his books by the pound at Dutch's Pawn Shop, Goodwill, Salvation Army and Value Village. When he had extra money, he bought new novels at supermarkets, convenience stores and hospital gift shops. Our house was filled with books. They were stacked in crazy piles in the bathroom, bedrooms and living room. In a fit of unemployment-­‐inspired creative energy, my father built a set of bookshelves and soon filled them with a random assortment of books about the Kennedy assassination, Watergate, the Vietnam War and the entire 23-­‐book series of the Apache westerns. My father loved books, and since I loved my father with an aching devotion, I decided to love books as well. I can remember picking up my father's books before I could read. The words themselves were mostly foreign, but I still remember the exact moment when I first understood, with a sudden clarity, the purpose of a paragraph. I didn't have the vocabulary to say "paragraph," but I realized that a paragraph was a fence that held words. The words inside a paragraph worked together for a common purpose. They had some specific reason for being inside the same fence. This knowledge delighted me. I began to think of everything in terms of paragraphs. Our reservation was a small paragraph within the United States. My family's house was a paragraph, distinct from the other paragraphs of the LeBrets to the north, the Fords to our south and the Tribal School to the west. Inside our house, each family member existed as a separate paragraph but still had genetics and common experiences to link us. Now, using this logic, I can see my changed family as an essay of seven paragraphs: mother, father, older brother, the deceased sister, my younger twin sisters and our adopted little brother. At the same time I was seeing the world in paragraphs, I also picked up that Superman comic book. Each panel, complete with picture, dialogue and narrative was a three-­‐dimensional paragraph. In one panel, Superman breaks through a door. His suit is red, blue and yellow. The brown door shatters into many pieces. I look at the narrative above the picture. I cannot read the words, but I assume it tells me that "Superman is breaking down the door." Aloud, I pretend to read the words and say, "Superman is breaking down the door." Words, dialogue, also float out of Superman's mouth. Because he is breaking down the door, I assume he says, "I am breaking down the door." Once again, I pretend to read the words and say aloud, "I am breaking down the door" In this way, I learned to read. This might be an interesting story all by itself. A little Indian boy teaches himself to read at an early age and advances quickly. He reads "Grapes of Wrath" in kindergarten when other children are struggling through "Dick and Jane." If he'd been anything but an Indian boy living on the reservation, he might have been called a prodigy. But he is an Indian boy living on the reservation and is simply an oddity. He grows into a man who often speaks of his childhood in the third-­‐person, as if it will somehow dull the pain and make him sound more modest about his talents. * A smart Indian is a dangerous person, widely feared and ridiculed by Indians and non-­‐Indians alike. I fought with my classmates on a daily basis. They wanted me to stay quiet when the non-­‐Indian teacher asked for answers, for volunteers, for help. We were Indian children who were expected to be stupid. Most lived up to those expectations inside the classroom but subverted them on the outside. They struggled with basic reading in school but could remember how to sing a few dozen powwow songs. They were monosyllabic in front of their non-­‐Indian teachers but could tell complicated stories and jokes at the dinner table. They submissively ducked their heads when confronted by a non-­‐Indian adult but would slug it out with the Indian bully who was 10 years older. As Indian children, we were expected to fail in the non-­‐Indian world. Those who failed were ceremonially accepted by other Indians and appropriately pitied by non-­‐Indians. I refused to fail. I was smart. I was arrogant. I was lucky. I read books late into the night, until I could barely keep my eyes open. I read books at recess, then during lunch, and in the few minutes left after I had finished my classroom assignments. I read books in the car when my family traveled to powwows or basketball games. In shopping malls, I ran to the bookstores and read bits and pieces of as many books as I could. I read the books my father brought home from the pawnshops and secondhand. I read the books I borrowed from the library. I read the backs of cereal boxes. I read the newspaper. I read the bulletins posted on the walls of the school, the clinic, the tribal offices, the post office. I read junk mail. I read auto-­‐repair manuals. I read magazines. I read anything that had words and paragraphs. I read with equal parts joy and desperation. I loved those books, but I also knew that love had only one purpose. I was trying to save my life. Despite all the books I read, I am still surprised I became a writer. I was going to be a pediatrician. These days, I write novels, short stories, and poems. I visit schools and teach creative writing to Indian kids. In all my years in the reservation school system, I was never taught how to write poetry, short stories or novels. I was certainly never taught that Indians wrote poetry, short stories and novels. Writing was something beyond Indians. I cannot recall a single time that a guest teacher visited the reservation. There must have been visiting teachers. Who were they? Where are they now? Do they exist? I visit the schools as often as possible. The Indian kids crowd the classroom. Many are writing their own poems, short stories and novels. They have read my books. They have read many other books. They look at me with bright eyes and arrogant wonder. They are trying to save their lives. Then there are the sullen and already defeated Indian kids who sit in the back rows and ignore me with theatrical precision. The pages of their notebooks are empty. They carry neither pencil nor pen. They stare out the window. They refuse and resist. "Books," I say to them. "Books," I say. I throw my weight against their locked doors. The door holds. I am smart. I am arrogant. I am lucky. I am trying to save our lives. http://articles.latimes.com/print/1998/apr/19/books/bk-­‐42979 English Summer Work Grade 10 – All Teachers 1)
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Read and annotate “Looking Out the Window” Mark annotations directly on the article to record meaning as you read. Prepare to write a timed short response on “Looking Out the Window” on the first day of school. Plan to use your annotations to generate ideas and evidence for the “first day” essay. Visit a library to obtain a library card or to read the fines off your current card. Be ready to show your library card to your English teacher on the first day of school. Talk to a librarian and then make a list of 10 books you want to read. 1. ____________________________________________________________________________________ 2. ____________________________________________________________________________________ 3. ____________________________________________________________________________________ 4. ____________________________________________________________________________________ 5. ____________________________________________________________________________________ 6. ____________________________________________________________________________________ 7. ____________________________________________________________________________________ 8. ____________________________________________________________________________________ 9. ____________________________________________________________________________________ 10. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Read at least one of these books (we hope you’ll read more!). Use the “Scholar” Mark below as your bookmark, and also to record the page numbers of important passages, sentences, ideas, and events throughout your selected book. Talk about your book with someone, and be prepared to discuss your book with a classmate during the first week of school. Sam Anderson: “Looking Out the Window” Our windows keep shrinking. Our vision narrows and narrows. Mine roams, for much of each day, in a space roughly the size of a playing card: the rectangle of my phone’s screen. The view through that piece of glass is not out onto the actual world but inward, down a digital depth over which I exercise near-­‐dictatorial control. If I want to see a bird on my phone, I see a bird. If I want to see a manatee captioned by a motivational slogan, I see that. This means, of course, that my phone is not really a window at all. A real window is something that frames our fundamental lack of control. Windows are, in this sense, a powerful existential tool: a patch of the world, arbitrarily framed, from which we are physically isolated. The only thing you can do is look. You have no influence over what you will see. Your brain is forced to make drama out of whatever happens to appear. Boring things become strange. A blob of mist balances on top of a mountain; leafless trees contort themselves in slow-­‐ motion interpretive dance; heavy raindrops make the puddles boil. These things are a tiny taste of the bigness of the world. They were there before you looked; they will be there after you go. None of it depends on you. Sometimes what you see can be astonishing. One day, I was taking a nap in the red chair in my office when I woke up to the sound of a car crash. I sat up and looked, immediately, out my window. Across the street, in a parking lot, a car had just backed into a chain-­‐link fence. The car must have been moving fast, because it was in bad shape: Its hood had popped up, its windshield wipers were snapping back and forth under a perfectly clear sky and part of its bumper was sitting on the ground. The fence was mangled, bent out in exactly the shape of the car’s back end. I couldn’t believe I was seeing this, on an otherwise ordinary weekday morning, out of my office window. I watched the driver get out of the car. He was stocky with a shaved head; he wore cargo shorts and a flannel shirt unbuttoned to expose his chest hair. I disliked him immediately. After a few seconds of assessing the damage, he walked around the car and opened the passenger door — from which a very small child scrambled out. A toddler in the front seat! My disdain for this man increased exponentially. As the child ran around the parking lot, the man tried to repair the damage he caused. He attempted to tug the ruined fence back into place, but it wouldn’t move. He tried to shove the fallen piece of bumper back onto his car, but that only made the rest of his bumper fall off too. I sat in my red chair, looking out my window, silently cheering. The man tried, a little harder, to fix the fence. He grabbed its vertical support pole, which was wickedly bent, and pulled against it with his full weight. The pole suddenly broke, and the man fell hard onto the blacktop. The entire fence fell on top of him, and one of his sandals flew off and landed 10 feet away on the sidewalk. I think I laughed out loud. This was a slapstick masterpiece. It was brightening my whole day, the failure of this terrible man. He climbed out from under the collapsed fence and limped back to the apartment building above the lot, rubbing his elbow. That, I thought, would be the end of it. The man — that villainous man — was going to leave all the chaos behind for someone else to clean up. It was only the middle of the morning, but I imagined him sprawled out on his sofa with a case of beer, eating horrible snacks, while his child played with fire and broken glass and battery acid near a malfunctioning electrical socket. But this is the power of windows: They contradict your easy assumptions. They scribble over your mental cartoons with the heavy red pen of reality. The man emerged a few minutes later with some tools. He got to work immediately, detaching one of the fence’s bent support bars and hammering it straight on the asphalt. For the next hour, I watched out my window as he doggedly fixed the fence, straightening and reattaching its support bars, scrupulously unbending its bent chain-­‐link. He even improved it. He stole a support bar from another fence farther back in the parking lot and added it to this one. Now the fence would be extra secure, stronger than before, impervious to damage. This odious man was actually a hero. I was the lazy one, with my knee-­‐jerk judgments and distant clichés, my superiority from three stories up. My window had taken a break, that day, from its usual programming — crows and squirrels roaming over a dead tree, cars piling up at a stoplight — to put on a little passion play for me, an allegory about the nobility of the human spirit. My ugly assumptions, I realized, were all about myself. I would never have fixed that fence; I would have panicked and run away. My window had woken me up from a nap to teach me a lesson in humility. The incident changed my entire day. I went back to my shallow screens with new determination. Years later, I still look out my window at that fence almost every day. It still looks brand new. It makes me wonder what else that man has improved, and how I can make myself more like him. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/10/magazine/letter-­‐of-­‐recommendation-­‐looking-­‐out-­‐the-­‐
window.html English Summer Work Grade 11 – All Teachers 1) Read and annotate “Your Brain on Fiction” 2) Mark annotations directly on the article to record meaning as you read. 3) Prepare to write a timed short response on “Your Brain on Fiction” on the first day of school. Plan to use your annotations to generate ideas and evidence for the “first day” essay. 4) Visit a library to obtain a library card or to read the fines off your current card. 5) Be ready to show your library card to your English teacher on the first day of school. 6) Talk to a librarian and then make a list of 10 books you want to read. 1. ____________________________________________________________________________________ 2. ____________________________________________________________________________________ 3. ____________________________________________________________________________________ 4. ____________________________________________________________________________________ 5. ____________________________________________________________________________________ 6. ____________________________________________________________________________________ 7. ____________________________________________________________________________________ 8. ____________________________________________________________________________________ 9. ____________________________________________________________________________________ 10. ____________________________________________________________________________________ 7) Read at least one of these books (we hope you’ll read more!). 8) Use the “Scholar” Mark below as your bookmark, and also to record the page numbers of important passages, sentences, ideas, and events throughout your selected book. 9) Talk about your book with someone, and be prepared to discuss your book with a classmate during the first week of school. Annie Murphy Paul: “Your Brain on Fiction” Amid the squawks and pings of our digital devices, the old-­‐fashioned virtues of reading novels can seem faded, even futile. But new support for the value of fiction is arriving from an unexpected quarter: neuroscience. Brain scans are revealing what happens in our heads when we read a detailed description, an evocative metaphor or an emotional exchange between characters. Stories, this research is showing, stimulate the brain and even change how we act in life. Researchers have long known that the “classical” language regions, like Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area, are involved in how the brain interprets written words. What scientists have come to realize in the last few years is that narratives activate many other parts of our brains as well, suggesting why the experience of reading can feel so alive. Words like “lavender,” “cinnamon” and “soap,” for example, elicit a response not only from the language-­‐processing areas of our brains, but also those devoted to dealing with smells. In a 2006 study published in the journal NeuroImage, researchers in Spain asked participants to read words with strong odor associations, along with neutral words, while their brains were being scanned by a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine. When subjects looked at the Spanish words for “perfume” and “coffee,” their primary olfactory cortex lit up; when they saw the words that mean “chair” and “key,” this region remained dark. The way the brain handles metaphors has also received extensive study; some scientists have contended that figures of speech like “a rough day” are so familiar that they are treated simply as words and no more. Last month, however, a team of researchers from Emory University reported in Brain & Language that when subjects in their laboratory read a metaphor involving texture, the sensory cortex, responsible for perceiving texture through touch, became active. Metaphors like “The singer had a velvet voice” and “He had leathery hands” roused the sensory cortex, while phrases matched for meaning, like “The singer had a pleasing voice” and “He had strong hands,” did not. Researchers have discovered that words describing motion also stimulate regions of the brain distinct from language-­‐processing areas. In a study led by the cognitive scientist Véronique Boulenger, of the Laboratory of Language Dynamics in France, the brains of participants were scanned as they read sentences like “John grasped the object” and “Pablo kicked the ball.” The scans revealed activity in the motor cortex, which coordinates the body’s movements. What’s more, this activity was concentrated in one part of the motor cortex when the movement described was arm-­‐related and in another part when the movement concerned the leg. The brain, it seems, does not make much of a distinction between reading about an experience and encountering it in real life; in each case, the same neurological regions are stimulated. Keith Oatley, an emeritus professor of cognitive psychology at the University of Toronto (and a published novelist), has proposed that reading produces a vivid simulation of reality, one that “runs on minds of readers just as computer simulations run on computers.” Fiction — with its redolent details, imaginative metaphors and attentive descriptions of people and their actions — offers an especially rich replica. Indeed, in one respect novels go beyond simulating reality to give readers an experience unavailable off the page: the opportunity to enter fully into other people’s thoughts and feelings. The novel, of course, is an unequaled medium for the exploration of human social and emotional life. And there is evidence that just as the brain responds to depictions of smells and textures and movements as if they were the real thing, so it treats the interactions among fictional characters as something like real-­‐life social encounters. Raymond Mar, a psychologist at York University in Canada, performed an analysis of 86 fMRI studies, published last year in the Annual Review of Psychology, and concluded that there was substantial overlap in the brain networks used to understand stories and the networks used to navigate interactions with other individuals — in particular, interactions in which we’re trying to figure out the thoughts and feelings of others. Scientists call this capacity of the brain to construct a map of other people’s intentions “theory of mind.” Narratives offer a unique opportunity to engage this capacity, as we identify with characters’ longings and frustrations, guess at their hidden motives and track their encounters with friends and enemies, neighbors and lovers. It is an exercise that hones our real-­‐life social skills, another body of research suggests. Dr. Oatley and Dr. Mar, in collaboration with several other scientists, reported in two studies, published in 2006 and 2009, that individuals who frequently read fiction seem to be better able to understand other people, empathize with them and see the world from their perspective. This relationship persisted even after the researchers accounted for the possibility that more empathetic individuals might prefer reading novels. A 2010 study by Dr. Mar found a similar result in preschool-­‐age children: the more stories they had read to them, the keener their theory of mind — an effect that was also produced by watching movies but, curiously, not by watching television. (Dr. Mar has conjectured that because children often watch TV alone, but go to the movies with their parents, they may experience more “parent-­‐children conversations about mental states” when it comes to films.) Fiction, Dr. Oatley notes, “is a particularly useful simulation because negotiating the social world effectively is extremely tricky, requiring us to weigh up myriad interacting instances of cause and effect. Just as computer simulations can help us get to grips with complex problems such as flying a plane or forecasting the weather, so novels, stories and dramas can help us understand the complexities of social life.” These findings will affirm the experience of readers who have felt illuminated and instructed by a novel, who have found themselves comparing a plucky young woman to Elizabeth Bennet or a tiresome pedant to Edward Casaubon. Reading great literature, it has long been averred, enlarges and improves us as human beings. Brain science shows this claim is truer than we imagined. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/opinion/sunday/the-­‐neuroscience-­‐of-­‐your-­‐brain-­‐on-­‐
fiction.html English Summer Work Grade 12 – All Teachers 1) Read and annotate “Choose to Be Grateful. It Will Make You Happier.” 2) Mark annotations directly on the article to record meaning as you read. 3) Prepare to write a timed short response on “Choose to Be Grateful. It Will Make You Happier” on the first day of school. Plan to use your annotations to generate ideas and evidence for the “first day” essay. 4) Visit a library to obtain a library card or to read the fines off your current card. 5) Be ready to show your library card to your English teacher on the first day of school. 6) Talk to a librarian and then make a list of 10 books you want to read. 1. ____________________________________________________________________________________ 2. ____________________________________________________________________________________ 3. ____________________________________________________________________________________ 4. ____________________________________________________________________________________ 5. ____________________________________________________________________________________ 6. ____________________________________________________________________________________ 7. ____________________________________________________________________________________ 8. ____________________________________________________________________________________ 9. ____________________________________________________________________________________ 10. ____________________________________________________________________________________ 7) Read at least one of these books (we hope you’ll read more!). 8) Use the “Scholar” Mark below as your bookmark, and also to record the page numbers of important passages, sentences, ideas, and events throughout your selected book. 9) Talk about your book with someone, and be prepared to discuss your book with a classmate during the first week of school. Arthur C. Brooks: “Choose to Be Grateful. It Will Make You Happier” Twenty-­‐four years ago this month, my wife and I married in Barcelona, Spain. Two weeks after our wedding, flush with international idealism, I had the bright idea of sharing a bit of American culture with my Spanish in-­‐laws by cooking a full Thanksgiving dinner. Easier said than done. Turkeys are not common in Barcelona. The local butcher shop had to order the bird from a specialty farm in France, and it came only partially plucked. Our tiny oven was too small for the turkey. No one had ever heard of cranberries. Over dinner, my new family had many queries. Some were practical, such as, “What does this beast eat to be so filled with bread?” But others were philosophical: “Should you celebrate this holiday even if you don’t feel grateful?” I stumbled over this last question. At the time, I believed one should feel grateful in order to give thanks. To do anything else seemed somehow dishonest or fake — a kind of bourgeois, saccharine insincerity that one should reject. It’s best to be emotionally authentic, right? Wrong. Building the best life does not require fealty to feelings in the name of authenticity, but rather rebelling against negative impulses and acting right even when we don’t feel like it. In a nutshell, acting grateful can actually make you grateful. For many people, gratitude is difficult, because life is difficult. Even beyond deprivation and depression, there are many ordinary circumstances in which gratitude doesn’t come easily. This point will elicit a knowing, mirthless chuckle from readers whose Thanksgiving dinners are usually ruined by a drunk uncle who always needs to share his political views. Thanks for nothing. Beyond rotten circumstances, some people are just naturally more grateful than others. A 2014 article in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience identified a variation in a gene (CD38) associated with gratitude. Some people simply have a heightened genetic tendency to experience, in the researchers’ words, “global relationship satisfaction, perceived partner responsiveness and positive emotions (particularly love).” That is, those relentlessly positive people you know who seem grateful all the time may simply be mutants. But we are more than slaves to our feelings, circumstances and genes. Evidence suggests that we can actively choose to practice gratitude — and that doing so raises our happiness. This is not just self-­‐improvement hokum. For example, researchers in one 2003 study randomly assigned one group of study participants to keep a short weekly list of the things they were grateful for, while other groups listed hassles or neutral events. Ten weeks later, the first group enjoyed significantly greater life satisfaction than the others. Other studies have shown the same pattern and lead to the same conclusion. If you want a truly happy holiday, choose to keep the “thanks” in Thanksgiving, whether you feel like it or not. How does all this work? One explanation is that acting happy, regardless of feelings, coaxes one’s brain into processing positive emotions. In one famous 1993 experiment, researchers asked human subjects to smile forcibly for 20 seconds while tensing facial muscles, notably the muscles around the eyes called the orbicularis oculi (which create “crow’s feet”). They found that this action stimulated brain activity associated with positive emotions. If grinning for an uncomfortably long time like a scary lunatic isn’t your cup of tea, try expressing gratitude instead. According to research published in the journal Cerebral Cortex, gratitude stimulates the hypothalamus (a key part of the brain that regulates stress) and the ventral tegmental area (part of our “reward circuitry” that produces the sensation of pleasure). It’s science, but also common sense: Choosing to focus on good things makes you feel better than focusing on bad things. As my teenage kids would say, “Thank you, Captain Obvious.” In the slightly more elegant language of the Stoic philosopher Epictetus, “He is a man of sense who does not grieve for what he has not, but rejoices in what he has.” In addition to building our own happiness, choosing gratitude can also bring out the best in those around us. Researchers at the University of Southern California showed this in a 2011 study of people with high power but low emotional security (think of the worst boss you’ve ever had). The research demonstrated that when their competence was questioned, the subjects tended to lash out with aggression and personal denigration. When shown gratitude, however, they reduced the bad behavior. That is, the best way to disarm an angry interlocutor is with a warm “thank you.” I learned this lesson 10 years ago. At the time, I was an academic social scientist toiling in professorial obscurity, writing technical articles and books that would be read by a few dozen people at most. Soon after securing tenure, however, I published a book about charitable giving that, to my utter befuddlement, gained a popular audience. Overnight, I started receiving feedback from total strangers who had seen me on television or heard me on the radio. One afternoon, I received an unsolicited email. “Dear Professor Brooks,” it began, “You are a fraud.” That seemed pretty unpromising, but I read on anyway. My correspondent made, in brutal detail, a case against every chapter of my book. As I made my way through the long email, however, my dominant thought wasn’t resentment. It was, “He read my book!” And so I wrote him back — rebutting a few of his points, but mostly just expressing gratitude for his time and attention. I felt good writing it, and his near-­‐immediate response came with a warm and friendly tone. DOES expressing gratitude have any downside? Actually, it might: There is some research suggesting it could make you fat. A new study in the Journal of Consumer Psychology finds evidence that people begin to crave sweets when they are asked to express gratitude. If this finding holds up, we might call it the Pumpkin Pie Paradox. The costs to your weight notwithstanding, the prescription for all of us is clear: Make gratitude a routine, independent of how you feel — and not just once each November, but all year long. There are concrete strategies that each of us can adopt. First, start with “interior gratitude,” the practice of giving thanks privately. Having a job that involves giving frequent speeches — not always to friendly audiences — I have tried to adopt the mantra in my own work of being grateful to the people who come to see me. Next, move to “exterior gratitude,” which focuses on public expression. The psychologist Martin Seligman, father of the field known as “positive psychology,” gives some practical suggestions on how to do this. In his best seller “Authentic Happiness,” he recommends that readers systematically express gratitude in letters to loved ones and colleagues. A disciplined way to put this into practice is to make it as routine as morning coffee. Write two short emails each morning to friends, family or colleagues, thanking them for what they do. Finally, be grateful for useless things. It is relatively easy to be thankful for the most important and obvious parts of life — a happy marriage, healthy kids or living in America. But truly happy people find ways to give thanks for the little, insignificant trifles. Ponder the impractical joy in Gerard Manley Hopkins’s poem “Pied Beauty”: Glory be to God for dappled things — For skies of couple-­colour as a brinded cow; For rose-­
moles all in stipple upon trout that swim; Fresh-­firecoal chestnut-­falls; finches’ wings; Landscape plotted and pieced — fold, fallow, and plough; And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim. Be honest: When was the last time you were grateful for the spots on a trout? More seriously, think of the small, useless things you experience — the smell of fall in the air, the fragment of a song that reminds you of when you were a kid. Give thanks. This Thanksgiving, don’t express gratitude only when you feel it. Give thanks especially when you don’t feel it. Rebel against the emotional “authenticity” that holds you back from your bliss. As for me, I am taking my own advice and updating my gratitude list. It includes my family, faith, friends and work. But also the dappled complexion of my bread-­‐packed bird. And it includes you, for reading this column. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/22/opinion/sunday/choose-­‐to-­‐be-­‐grateful-­‐it-­‐will-­‐make-­‐you-­‐
happier.html Math Summer Work Grades 9-­12 – All Teachers Notes: Due the first day of school, August 24th (Wednesday) Assignments should be detailed and complete. This assignment will be used and accessible for an assessment on the content. Read: Article – required by all students taking any Math courses at Fort Hayes Arts and Academic High School: Title: Historical, Cultural, and Social Implications of Mathematics Author: Anderson, S.E. Do: Students taking Math I and/or Math II Tissue Box Project: Students must use a new and full box of (facial tissue). Using a combination and typed text, students must decorate all 6 sides of the tissue box with facts and information gathered from the Article. -­‐ Facts should be complete sentences and reflect high-­‐school level summary details / information -­‐ A total of panels must be dedicated to historical information about 2 different mathematicians mentioned in the article. -­‐ All panels must include text – even if a picture is included to cover additional space or make the box more appealing. Need inspiration or information? Google “Tissue Box Project” or “Tissue Box Research Project.” Check www.Pinterest.com. Students taking Math III through AP Calculus Summary and Research: 1. Summary: Students must complete a Summary of the Article using the Template format listed below. o Heading (top left corner) – single spaced ! Name / Math Class Name -­‐ Period & Teacher / Date o Title of Article and Author Summary – centered and bold ! Ex: Green Eggs & Ham by Dr. Seuss – Student Article Summary & Review o Summary Paragraph(s) – should be a minimum of 5 sentences’ should not exceed 10 sentences o Key Points / Take Aways – bullet point 3-­‐5 important facts from the article o Student reflection – your thoughts and/or reaction to the Contents of the Article 2. Research: Find an article – from an academic or professional journal – that discusses any concept discussed in the original article. Use appropriate citation for the article. 1. Prepare a Summary of the article you selected (using above format). 2. In the Student Reflection section, Students should explain their rationale for selecting the second article and how it relates to the content of article by S.E. Anderson. Need additional insight? Email Ms. Wade-­‐Argus: [email protected] Science Summer Work Grades 9-­12 – All Teachers Read “How Lead Ended Up In Flint’s Water” by Michael Torrice.
from the February 15, 2016 issue of the Chemical and Engineering News, or
http://cen.acs.org/articles/94/i7/Lead-Ended-Flints-Tap-Water.html
Answer these questions in complete sentences.
1. How was Flint, Michigan supplied with water before 2014?
2. When and why did Flint start using water from the Flint River?
3. In the summer after the switch what problems occurred with the water?
4. When and how was lead identified as a problem in the drinking water?
5. Why is lead a dangerous substance?
6. Why and how does lead get into municipal water supplies?
7. How do older cities with lead pipes prevent lead from entering the water
supply?
8. What did the water from the Detroit water system have in its water that
prevented lead from getting into its water?
9. How does the pH of water cause lead to leach into water pipes? How can
it be prevented?
10. Why were chlorides used in the water?
11. How can pathogens grow on the iron pipes?
12. How does the decrease in population also worsen corrosion and
disinfection?
13. What did researchers learn from the Flint water problem?
There will be an “open-note” quiz over this material on the first day of school, so be
sure to bring your copy of the article and this assignment.
How Lead Ended Up In Flint’s Tap Water Without effective treatment steps to control corrosion, Flint’s water leached high levels of lead from the city’s pipes By Michael Torrice Scientists worry about lead exposure in children because it can cause cognitive and behavioral issues. Read about how some researchers think the toxic metal is linked to criminal acts: http://cenm.ag/crimelead. Credit: Courtesy of Kim Cecil When Virginia Tech researchers tested the water in LeeAnne Walters’s home in Flint, Mich., this past summer, one sample had lead levels that reached a staggering 13,200 parts per billion. That’s almost 900 times as high as the 15-­‐ppb regulatory limit set by the Environmental Protection Agency. When lead levels exceed that threshold, water utilities must act to reduce concentrations of the toxic element. “What was so scary about LeeAnne’s house was not one sample,” says Marc A. Edwards, the Virginia Tech environmental engineer who led the team. “We took 30 samples over 20 minutes, and the average was over 2,000 ppb. And even after 20 minutes of flushing, it never got below 300 ppb.” In terms of sustained high levels of lead in a home, Edwards had seen nothing like it before. “It was in a league of its own.” Lead contamination is the most troubling in a series of water problems that have plagued Flint since the summer of 2014. All of them were caused by corrosion in the lead and iron pipes that distribute water to city residents. When the city began using the Flint River as its water source in April 2014, it didn’t adequately control the water’s ability to corrode those pipes. This led to high lead levels, rust-­‐colored tap water, and possibly the growth of pathogenic microbes. LOSS OF CONTROL When Flint changed its water supply in 2014, the city didn’t adequately control for corrosion, resulting in its water woes. Flint isn’t the only city susceptible to these problems. The pipes in its old distribution system had seen the same water for decades. Switching water supplies in 2014 changed the chemistry of the water flowing through those pipes. When a switch like this happens, the water system is going to move toward a new equilibrium, says Daniel Giammar, an environmental engineer at Washington University in St. Louis. “It could be catastrophic as it was in Flint, or it could be a small change.” Before 2014, Flint was getting its water from the Detroit Water & Sewerage Department, which would draw water from Lake Huron and then treat it before sending it to Flint. Looking to lower the city’s water costs, Flint officials decided in 2013 to instead take water from the Karegnondi Water Authority, which was building its own pipeline from the lake. Shortly after that, Detroit told Flint it would terminate their original long-­‐term water agreement within a year and offered to negotiate a new, short-­‐term agreement. Flint declined the offer. As an interim solution, while waiting for the new pipeline to be finished, Flint began taking water from the Flint River and treating it at the city’s own plant. Problems with the city’s tap water started the summer after the switch. First, residents noticed foul-­‐tasting, reddish water coming out of their taps. In August and September, the city issued alerts about Escherichia coli contamination and told people to boil the water before using it. A General Motors plant stopped using the water in October because it was corroding steel parts. In December, the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality notified Flint that its water was in violation of national drinking water standards because it contained high levels of trihalomethanes, toxic by-­‐
products of chlorine disinfection. Then, in early 2015, reports of high lead levels started making news. In January, it was Flint’s University of Michigan campus; in February, it was the Walters home. By early September, Edwards and his Virginia Tech team had sampled water from 252 homes and reported on their website, flintwaterstudy.org, that the city’s 90th percentile lead level was 25 ppb. EPA’s action limit is based on a 90th percentile calculation, meaning that if 10% of homes exceed the agency’s 15-­‐ppb threshold, then action is required. That same month a team led by Mona Hanna-­‐Attisha, a pediatrician at Hurley Children’s Hospital, in Flint, released data showing that the number of Flint children with elevated levels of lead in their blood had increased since the water change. The percentage of affected kids went from 2.4% to 4.9%, according to a paper they published recently (Am. J. Public Health 2016, DOI: 10.2105/ajph.2015.303003). In areas with the highest lead concentrations in the water, about 10% of the children had elevated blood levels of the element. Lead is neurotoxic and can disrupt children’s development, leading to behavioral problems and decreased intelligence. With evidence of lead contamination mounting, Flint switched back to the Detroit water in October. So why did the switch to Flint’s river water cause this catastrophe? To understand the problem, consider that as water travels through the miles of pipes in a city’s distribution system, molecules in the water react with the pipes themselves. “The distribution system acts like a geochemical reactor,” says Haizhou Liu, an environmental engineer at the University of California, Riverside. “There are miles and miles of pipes—some iron, copper, and lead—that get corroded.” This corrosion occurs when oxidants, such as dissolved oxygen or chlorine disinfectant, react with elemental iron, lead, or copper in the pipes. Cities no longer install lead pipes. But older cities such as Flint still rely on them, usually as service lines that connect water mains in the street to a home’s water meter. A 1990 report from the American Water Works Association estimates there are millions of lead service lines in the U.S. To limit how much lead leaches into the water from these pipes and some homes’ plumbing, EPA’s Lead & Copper Rule requires water utilities serving more than 50,000 people to establish a plan to monitor and control corrosion. As part of these plans, utilities treat their water to maintain a mineral crust on the inside surfaces of their pipes. This so-­‐called passivation layer protects the pipes’ metal from oxidants in the water. The coatings consist, in part, of insoluble oxidized metal compounds produced as the pipe slowly corrodes. If the water’s chemistry isn’t optimized, then the passivation layer may start to dissolve, or mineral particles may begin to flake off of the pipe’s crust. This exposes bare metal, allowing the iron, lead, or copper to oxidize and leach into the water. Environmental engineers that C&EN contacted say that, on the basis of how Flint treated the river water, the water chemistry was not optimized to control corrosion. Most important, the treated Flint River water lacked one chemical that the treated Detroit water had: phosphate. “They essentially lost something that was protecting them against high lead concentrations,” Giammar says. Cities such as Detroit add orthophosphate to their water as part of their corrosion control plans because the compound encourages the formation of lead phosphates, which are largely insoluble and can add to the pipes’ passivation layer. By press time, C&EN was unable to get a comment from Flint city officials about why a corrosion inhibitor wasn’t added to the river water. The entire Flint water crisis could have been avoided if the city had just added orthophosphate, Edwards says. He bases his opinion, in part, on experiments his group ran on the treated Flint River water. The researchers joined copper pipes with lead solder and then placed the pieces in either treated Flint River water or treated Detroit water. After five weeks in the Flint water, the joined pipes leached 16 times as much lead as those in the Detroit water, demonstrating just how corrosive the treated Flint water was. But when the scientists added a phosphate corrosion inhibitor to the Flint water, the factor went down to four. Still, orthophosphate isn’t the only corrosion solution. Some water utilities treat water so it has a high pH and high alkalinity, Giammar says. Such conditions decrease the solubility of lead carbonates, which also contribute to the pipe’s protective mineral layer. The treated Flint River water had a relatively low pH that decreased over time. According to monthly operating reports from the Flint treatment plant, the city’s water had a pH of about 8 in December 2014, but then it slowly dropped to 7.3 by August 2015. Environmental engineers say that if water pH drifts too low in the absence of orthophosphate, the water can start to leach high levels of lead from pipes. The pH drop over time seems to indicate that plant operators in Flint didn’t even have a target pH as part of a corrosion plan, Edwards says. Water utilities usually find a pH that’s optimal for preventing corrosion in their system. For example, in Boston, another city with old lead pipes, average water pH held steady around 9.6 in 2015, according to reports from the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority. By press time, C&EN wasn’t able to get a comment from Flint city officials about whether they had a target pH for the water. Another chemical factor that contributed to the treated river water’s corrosiveness was its chloride concentration. The treated Detroit water’s average chloride level was 11.4 parts per million in 2014, according to an annual water quality report from the Detroit Water & Sewerage Department. Meanwhile, the treated Flint water had 85-­‐ppm chloride in August 2015, according to a monthly operating report from the Flint treatment plant. The plant may have contributed to these high levels when it tried to address high levels of toxic trihalomethanes. Disinfection by-­‐products such as trihalomethanes can form through reactions between organic matter in water and chlorine disinfectant added at treatment plants. The Flint plant had increased the amount of chlorine it used in the summer of 2014 to combat the E. coli contamination problem. To reduce levels of trihalomethanes that formed, the plant removed organic matter from the water by adding ferric chloride, which coagulates organic matter, making it easier to filter out. Even though the treatment took care of the trihalomethanes problem, it increased the water’s chloride levels. Environmental engineers worry about high chloride levels because studies have shown that lead corrosion is more likely when the ratio of chloride to sulfate concentrations is greater than 0.58. Researchers at Virginia Tech calculated the ratio for treated Detroit water as 0.45 and for treated Flint River water as 1.6. Corrosion of lead pipes caused Flint’s most serious water issue, but corrosion of the city’s iron pipes also created problems. The chemistry that controls iron pipe corrosion is a little more complicated than the chemistry surrounding lead pipe corrosion, but some of the same factors play a role. Problems with Flint’s iron pipes started early: The rust color and bad taste of the water coming out of residents’ taps in the summer of 2014 was a sign that the passivation layer on iron pipes was dissolving into the water. FALLING The pH of treated Flint River water dropped over much of 2015, suggesting water officials didn’t have a target pH to control for corrosion. SOURCE: Monthly reports from Flint’s water treatment plant Credit: Flintwaterstudy.org But the issue that worries environmental engineers most about iron corrosion is that it could encourage the growth of pathogens in the distribution system. As the mineral layer in iron pipes falls off, it exposes bare iron that can reduce free chlorine added to the water as a pathogen-­‐killing disinfectant. Walters’s home—the one with lead levels that were almost 900 times as high as the EPA limit—had no detectable chlorine levels over 18 days of monitoring by the Virginia Tech team. Susan J. Masten, an environmental engineer at Michigan State University, points out that the Flint water distribution system has another issue that could have worsened both the corrosion and disinfection problems. Much of the distribution system was built when the city’s population was about 200,000 and Flint was a major manufacturing center. But the city now has less than half the population, and much of the industry, which used a lot of Flint’s water, has left town. As a result, water usage has dropped significantly, while the system’s capacity has remained the same. RUSTED A look inside Flint’s pipes reveals different types of iron corrosion. Credit: Flintwaterstudy.org “That means water is residing in the distribution system for very long periods of time,” Masten says. In some places, the water sits in pipes for more than six days before use, providing more time for reactions that corrode pipes and break down chlorine. Although they acknowledge that they won’t ever be able to directly prove it, the Virginia Tech researchers think that the E. coli contamination in 2014 could have been due to problems with maintaining sufficient chlorine levels in the water. Bolstering their case are two outbreaks of Legionnaires’ disease, a waterborne respiratory infection caused by Legionella bacteria, in and around Flint—one starting in June 2014, and another in May 2015. Now that Flint has switched back to the Detroit water, it may take months to a year for pipes to regain their passivation layers, for corrosion to slow to normal levels, and for lead concentrations to drop back into an acceptable range, say the environmental engineers that C&EN contacted. The lesson from Flint, they say, is to continually monitor water chemistry, especially when switching between water supplies. “What we learned here is when we collect data, we need to use those data,” Masten says. She points out that the water utility officials were already collecting all the data they needed—pH, alkalinity, chloride levels—to determine if the water was too corrosive. “Learning from Flint, I think the key message is to consider the connections between the stability of the water infrastructure and the chemistry of the water flowing through that infrastructure,” UC Riverside’s Liu says. “That will inevitably control the water quality at the tap.” 9th Grade Humanities
Summer Reading Assignment: Study Guide
Mr. Merry/Ms. Penn
Student Name:______________________________
Date submitted:________________
STUDY GUIDE for When the People Cheer: How Hip-Hop Failed Black America
To be completed and brought with you to the first day of class. Be prepared use this Study Guide on an
assessment the first week of class.
1. BEFORE YOU READ THE ARTCLE, list 3 details you already know about hip-hop and/or Black music.
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2. AS YOU READ THE ARTICLE define the 10 bolded vocabulary words on a separate sheet of paper
within the context of the article. In other words, summarize what each term means as it relates to the article.
3. AFTER YOU HAVE READ THE ARTICLE, list 3 details you learned about hip-hop and/or Black music.
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SOURCING:
1. Who wrote this? ________________________________________________________________
2. What locations are discussed in the article? What time periods are mentioned?
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CLOSE READING:
4. What claim(s) does the author make?
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5. What evidence does the author use to support his claim(s)?
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6. Is this source/author credible? Why or why not? How do you know?
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7. Why do you think this article was written? What events, attitudes or beliefs are discussed?
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9th Grade Humanities Summer Reading Assignment: Article When the People Cheer: How Hip-­‐Hop Failed Black America Vulture -­‐ http://www.vulture.com/2014/04/questlove-­‐on-­‐how-­‐hip-­‐hop-­‐failed-­‐black-­‐america.html April 22, 2014 11:45 a.m. By Questlove Photo: Maya Robinson and Photo by Getty There are three famous quotes that haunt me and guide me though my days. The first is from John Bradford, the 16th-­‐century English reformer. In prison for inciting a mob, Bradford saw a parade of prisoners on their way to being executed and said, “There but for the grace of God go I.” (Actually, he said “There but for the grace of God goes John Bradford,” but the switch to the pronoun makes it work for the rest of us.) The second comes from Albert Einstein, who disparagingly referred to quantum entanglement as “spooky action at a distance.” And for the third, I go to Ice Cube, the chief lyricist of N.W.A., who delivered this manifesto in “Gangsta Gangsta” back in 1988: “Life ain’t nothing but bitches and money.” Those three ideas may seem distant from one another, but if you set them up and draw lines between them, that’s triangulation. Bradford’s idea, of course, is about providence, about luck and gratitude: You only have your life because you don’t have someone else’s. At the simplest level, I think about that often. I could be where others are, and by extension, they could be where I am. You don’t want to be insensible to that. You don’t want to be an ingrate. (By the by, Bradford’s quote has come to be used to celebrate good fortune — when people say it, they’re comforting themselves with the fact that things could be worse — but in fact, his own good fortune lasted only a few years before he was burned at the stake.) Einstein was talking about physics, of course, but to me, he’s talking about something closer to home — the way that other people affect you, the way that your life is entangled in theirs whether or not there’s a clear line of connection. Just because something is happening to a street kid in Seattle or a small-­‐time outlaw in Pittsburgh doesn’t mean that it’s not also happening, in some sense, to you. Human civilization is founded on a social contract, but all too often that gets reduced to a kind of charity: Help those who are less fortunate, think of those who are different. But there’s a subtler form of contract, which is the connection between us all. And then there’s Ice Cube, who seems to be talking about life’s basic appetites — what’s under the lid of the id — but is in fact proposing a world where that social contract is destroyed, where everyone aspires to improve themselves and only themselves, thoughts of others be damned. What kind of world does that create? Those three ideas, Bradford’s and Einstein’s and Cube’s, define the three sides of a triangle, and I’m standing in it with pieces of each man: Bradford’s rueful contemplation, Einstein’s hair, Ice Cube’s desires. Can the three roads meet without being trivial? This essay, and the ones that follow it, will attempt to find out. I’m going to do things a little differently, with some madness in my method. I may not refer back to these three thinkers and these three thoughts, but they’re always there, hovering, as I think through what a generation of hip-­‐hop has wrought. And I’m not going to handle the argument in a straight line. But don’t wonder too much when it wanders. I’ll get back on track. I want to start with a statement: Hip-­‐hop has taken over black music. At some level, this is a complex argument, with many outer rings, but it has a simple, indisputable core. Look at the music charts, or think of as many pop artists as you can, and see how many of the black ones aren’t part of hip-­‐hop. There aren’t many hip-­‐hop performers at the top of the charts lately: You have perennial winners like Jay Z, Kanye West, and Drake, along with newcomers like Kendrick Lamar, and that’s about it. Among women, it’s a little bit more complicated, but only a little bit. The two biggest stars, Beyoncé and Rihanna, are considered pop (or is that pop-­‐soul), but what does that mean anymore? In their case, it means that they’re offering a variation on hip-­‐hop that’s reinforced by their associations with the genre’s biggest stars: Beyoncé with Jay Z, of course, and Rihanna with everyone from Drake to A$AP Rocky to Eminem. It wasn’t always that way. Back in the late '80s, when I graduated high school, you could count the number of black musical artists that weren’t in hip-­‐hop on two hands — maybe. You had folksingers like Tracy Chapman, rock bands like Living Colour, pop acts like Lionel Richie, many kinds of soul singers — and that doesn’t even contend with megastars like Michael Jackson and Prince, who thwarted any easy categorization. Hip-­‐hop was plenty present — in 1989 alone, you had De La Soul and the Geto Boys and EPMD and Boogie Down Productions and Ice-­‐T and Queen Latifah — but it was just a piece of the pie. In the time since, hip-­‐hop has made like the Exxon Valdez (another 1989 release): It spilled and spread. So what if hip-­‐hop, which was once a form of upstart black-­‐folk music, came to dominate the modern world? Isn’t that a good thing? It seems strange for an artist working in the genre to be complaining, and maybe I’m not exactly complaining. Maybe I’m taking a measure of my good fortune. Maybe. Or maybe it’s a little more complicated than that. Maybe domination isn’t quite a victory. Maybe ever-­‐presence isn’t quite a virtue. Twenty years ago, when my father first heard about my hip-­‐hop career, he was skeptical. He didn't know where it was all headed. In his mind, a drummer had a real job, like working as music director for Anita Baker. But if I’m going to marvel at the way that hip-­‐hop overcame his skepticism and became synonymous with our broader black American culture, I’m going to have to be clear with myself that marvel is probably the wrong word. Black culture, which has a long tradition of struggling against (and at the same time, working in close collaboration with) the dominant white culture, has rounded the corner of the 21st century with what looks in one sense like an unequivocal victory. Young America now embraces hip-­‐hop as the signal pop-­‐music genre of its time. So why does that victory feel strange: not exactly hollow, but a little haunted? I have wondered about this for years, and worried about it for just as many years. It’s kept me up at night or kept me distracted during the day. And after looking far and wide, I keep coming back to the same answer, which is this: The reason is simple. The reason is plain. Once hip-­‐hop culture is ubiquitous, it is also invisible. Once it’s everywhere, it is nowhere. What once offered resistance to mainstream culture (it was part of the larger tapestry, spooky-­‐action style, but it pulled at the fabric) is now an integral part of the sullen dominant. Not to mention the obvious backlash conspiracy paranoia: Once all of black music is associated with hip-­‐hop, then Those Who Wish to Squelch need only squelch one genre to effectively silence an entire cultural movement. And that’s what it’s become: an entire cultural movement, packed into one hyphenated adjective. These days, nearly anything fashioned or put forth by black people gets referred to as “hip-­‐hop,” even when the description is a poor or pointless fit. “Hip-­‐hop fashion” makes a little sense, but even that is confusing: Does it refer to fashions popularized by hip-­‐hop musicians, like my Lego heart pin, or to fashions that participate in the same vague cool that defines hip-­‐
hop music? Others make a whole lot of nonsense: “Hip-­‐hop food”? “Hip-­‐hop politics”? “Hip-­‐hop intellectual”? And there’s even “hip-­‐hop architecture.” What the hell is that? A house you build with a Hammer? This doesn’t happen with other genres. There’s no folk-­‐music food or New Wave fashion, once you get past food for thought and skinny ties. There’s no junkanoo architecture. The closest thing to a musical style that does double-­‐duty as an overarching aesthetic is punk, and that doesn’t have the same strict racial coding. On the one hand, you can point to this as proof of hip-­‐hop’s success. The concept travels. But where has it traveled? The danger is that it has drifted into oblivion. The music originally evolved to paint portraits of real people and handle real problems at close range — social contract, anyone? — but these days, hip-­‐hop mainly rearranges symbolic freight on the black starliner. Containers on the container ship are taken from here to there — and never mind the fact that they may be empty containers. Keep on pushin’ and all that, but what are you pushing against? As it has become the field rather than the object, hip-­‐hop has lost some of its pertinent sting. And then there’s the question of where hip-­‐hop has arrived commercially, or how fast it’s departing. The music industry in general is sliding, and hip-­‐hop is sliding maybe faster than that. The largest earners earn large, but not at the rate they once did. And everyone beneath that upper level is fading fast. The other day, we ran into an old man who is also an old fan. He loves the Roots and what we do. Someone mentioned the changing nature of the pop-­‐culture game, and it made him nostalgic for the soul music of his youth. “It’ll be back,” he said. “Things go in cycles.” But do they? If you really track the ways that music has changed over the past 200 years, the only thing that goes in cycles is old men talking about how things go in cycles. History is more interested in getting its nut off. There are patterns, of course, boom and bust and ways in which certain resources are exhausted. There are foundational truths that are stitched into the human DNA. But the art forms used to express those truths change without recurring. They go away and don’t come back. When hip-­‐hop doesn’t occupy an interesting place on the pop-­‐culture terrain, when it is much of the terrain and loses interest even in itself, then what? Back to John Bradford for a moment: I’m lucky to be here. That goes without saying, but I’ll say it. Still, as the Roots round into our third decade, we shoulder a strange burden, which is that people expect us to be both meaningful and popular. We expect that. But those things don’t necessarily work together, especially in the hip-­‐hop world of today. The winners, the top dogs, make art mostly about their own victories and the victory of their genre, but that triumphalist pose leaves little room for anything else. Meaninglessness takes hold because meaninglessness is addictive. People who want to challenge this theory point to Kendrick Lamar, and the way that his music, at least so far, has some sense of the social contract, some sense of character. But is he just the exception that proves the rule? Time will tell. Time is always telling. Time never stops telling. Grades 9 and 10 World History/American History Summer Assignment: Notes For your Fort Hayes World History/American History Summer Assignment you will be reviewing and preparing for a formative assessment on basic Social Studies skills that will be given on the first day of class. Study the notes below carefully, then take the practice test. Bring these materials with you on the first day of school. The use of primary and secondary sources of information includes an examination of the credibility of each source, that is, whether or not they are believable. This is accomplished by checking sources for: 1)
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the qualifications and reputation of the author agreement with other credible sources perspective or bias of the author (including use of stereotypes) accuracy and internal consistency the circumstances in which the author prepared the source Sourcing 1. Consider who wrote a document as well as the circumstances of its creation. 2. Before reading a document, ask: a) Who wrote this? b) What is the author’s point of view? c) Why was it written? d) When was it written? (A long time or short time after the event?) e) Is this source believable? Why? Why not? Contextualization 1. Locate a document in time and place and to understand how these factors shape its content. 2. When reading a document, ask: a) What else was going on at the time this was written? b) What was it like to be alive at this time? c) What things were different back then? d) What things were the same? e) What would it look like to see this event through the eyes of someone who lived back then? Close Reading 1. Evaluate sources and analyze rhetoric by asking: a) What claims does the author make? b) What evidence does the author use to support those claims? c) How is this document supposed to make me feel? d) What words or phrases does the author use to convince me that he/she is right? e) What information does the author leave out? Corroboration 1. Consider details across multiple sources to determine points of agreement and disagreement. 2. Ask: a) What do other pieces of evidence say? b) Am I finding the same information everywhere? c) Am I finding different versions of the story? If yes, why might that be? d) Where else could I look to find out about this? Being able to correctly identify an author’s claim as well as cite the evidence the author uses to support this claim are important skills to master in studying history. Claim: A claim states your position on the issue you have chosen to write about. 1. A good claim is not obvious. Why bother proving a point nobody could disagree with? 2. A good claim is engaging. Consider your audience’s attention span and make claims which point out new ideas: teach the reader something new. 3. A good claim is not overly vague. Attacking enormous issues leads only to generalizations and vague assertions; keep it manageable. 4. A good claim is logical; it emerges from a reasonable consideration of the evidence. However, this does not mean that evidence has only one logical interpretation. . Evidence: the facts or data which you cite to support your claim. Like a lawyer presenting evidence to a jury, you must support your claim with facts; an unsupported claim is merely an assertion. Data can include: 1. Facts or statistics: objectively determined data about your topic. (Note: ―objectiveǁ‖ may be open to debate.) 2. Expert opinion: Learned opinion, theory, and analysis that you should cite frequently, both to support your argument and to disagree with. Sources must be quoted, paraphrased, and cited appropriately. 3. Primary research: an explanation and discussion of your own research findings and how they relate to your topic. World History/American History Summer Assignment: Practice Test 1. Use the chart to answer the question that follows. The data above support the claim that between 1990 and 2000, A. the price of newspapers decreased steadily. B. information in newspapers became more reliable. C. people became more informed about world events. D. people decreasingly relied on newspapers as a source of information. 2. A citizens’ group wants the local government to approve funding for a new public park in the city’s downtown area. What statement could help support the position that the downtown area is an appropriate location for the park? A. The city will have to pay to maintain the park. B. There are already several public parks in the city. C. Many residents have signed a petition supporting the site of the proposed park. D. The city could use the proposed location to build government offices. 3. The school board of a particular school district has proposed a school uniform policy. It believes that the policy will improve student behavior. What evidence could support this claim? A. Data on student behavior in other school districts that do not have school uniform policies. B. Data from other school districts comparing student behavior before and after similar uniform policies were put into effect. C. Data from schools within the school district regarding students’ views of the uniform policy. D. Data from schools within the school district regarding current student behavior. 4. A school superintendent believes that physical education (PE) classes improve student academic performance. This claim could be supported or refuted by which of the following? A. Data from schools on the cost of PE equipment. B. Data from a survey of student opinions about PE classes. C. Data comparing student physical fitness before and after PE. D. Data comparing student test scores in schools with and without PE. 5. In 1963, Betty Friedan, founder of the National Organization for Women, wrote, “We can no longer ignore that voice within women that says: ―I want something more than my husband and my children and my home.” SOURCE: Betty Friedan, Excerpt from “The Feminine Mystique,” (1963) reprinted in “100 Key Documents in American Democracy,” ed. by Peter Levy, Praeger Pub., 1994, p. 436. The excerpt above could be used to support the thesis that A. the U.S. birthrate would increase as more women entered the workforce. B. the 19th Amendment guaranteeing women the right to vote should be ratified. C. increased numbers of women in the workforce would result in unemployment for men. D. In the 1950s and 1960s, many American women were redefining their roles in society. 6. Use the following graph to answer the question that follows. In 1970, a state government announced a program to reduce the number of state highway accidents to less than 1,000 per year within 10 years. In 1980, the state’s governor asserted that the goal of the accident reduction program had been met. Using data in the graph above, support or refute the governor’s claim. _______________________________________________________________________________________
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_______________________________________________________________________________________ 8. Use the image to answer the question below. SOURCE: This print, titled "Declaration of Independence: July 4th 1776," was created between 1835 and 1856 by N. Currier. Why would the above print NOT be a useful source in understanding the signing of the Declaration of Independence? _______________________________________________________________________________________
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_______________________________________________________________________________________ 9. Read the Primary Source below, then answer the questions that follow. The Declaration of Independence When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-­‐evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Vocabulary dissolve: disappear endowed: given bonds: connections unalienable: cannot be taken away station: place to secure: to get impel: force instituted: established self-­‐evident: obvious deriving: getting consent: agreement What is the author’s CLAIM? _______________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________
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_______________________________________________________________________________________ What EVIDENCE does the author use to support this CLAIM? _______________________________________________________________________________________ 10. Read the Secondary Source below, then answer the questions that follow. Secondary Source, Historian #1: From The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution by Bernard Bailyn (1967) The Declaration of Independence represents the colonists’ deepest fears and beliefs. The colonists believed they an evil and deliberate conspiracy by the British to crush liberty in America. They saw evidence of this conspiracy in the Stamp Act and in the Coercive Acts. They also believed that America was destined to play a special role in history. They believed that America would become “the foundation of a great and mighty empire, the largest the world ever saw to be founded on such principles of liberty and freedom, both civil and religious.” The colonists believed that England was trying to enslave them, and that they should use “all the power which God has given them” to protect themselves. What is the author’s CLAIM? _______________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________
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_______________________________________________________________________________________ 11. Read the Secondary Source below, then answer the questions that follow. Secondary Source, Historian #2: From A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn (1980) It seemed clear to the educated, upper-­‐class colonists that something needed to be done to persuade the lower class to join the revolutionary cause, to direct their anger against England. The solution was to find language inspiring to all classes, specific enough in its listing of grievances to fill people with anger against the British, vague enough to avoid class conflict, and stirring enough to build patriotic feelings. Everything the Declaration of Independence was about – popular control over governments, the right of rebellion and revolution, fury at political tyranny, economic burdens, and military attacks – was well suited to unite large numbers of colonists and persuade even those who had grievances against one another to turn against England. Some Americans were clearly omitted from those united by the What is the author’s CLAIM? _______________________________________________________________-­‐
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_______________________________________________________________________________________ United States Government 11 Summer Assignment Mr. Chopko DUE: FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL Part 1: Create a Current Events Journal covering the 2016 Presidential Election. Your journal must include at least 5 entries from 5 different electronic media sources. Each entry must include the name of the publication, the name of the story, and the specific date. For each entry summarize the story in your own words (Cut and Paste articles will not be accepted!) and include what impact it could have in the November election. Each summary should be a minimum of 50 words. Part 2: Use the Internet to find a transcript of the United States Constitution. The Constitution is the framework for all of our written laws and contains 27 Amendments (changes) made throughout our history. The first ten Amendments are collectively known as the Bill of Rights. All of these Amendments are going to be a large part of your AIR tests later in the Spring of 2017 and must be memorized. For each of the 27 Amendments write a brief description in your own words summarizing the overall intent of the change. This assignment must be either typed and printed or written in blue or black ink. There will be an Open Notes Assessment on the first day of school. Example: First: This protects our right to freedom of speech, religion, press, and assembly. AP Government and Politics Summer Assignment Mr. Chopko Part 1: Use the internet to research and read about each of the following major US Supreme Court cases. DO NOT cut and paste! For each of the following write a short paragraph which includes the following: 1. What were the details and circumstances behind the case? What was it actually about? 2. What was the “Constitutional Question” about the case? Why was it important? 3. Summarize the Supreme Court’s final decision. McCullough v. Maryland, 1819 Gibbons v. Ogden 1824 Plessy v. Ferguson 1896 Korematsu v. US, 1944 Brown v. Board of Education,1954 Mapp v. Ohio, 1961 Engle v. Vitale, 1962 Gideon v. Wainwright, 1963 Miranda v. Arizona, 1966 Tinker v. DesMoines, 1969 Roe v. Wade, 1973 US. v. Nixon, 1974 Regents of California v. Bakke, 1978 Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeir, 1988 US v. Lopez, 1995 Bush v. Gore 2000 These court cases each represent different aspects of government and are likely to show up on the AP Examination. There will be an open notes test on the first day of school. Part 2: Create a Current Events Journal about the 2016 Presidential Election. Summarize at least 10 electronic news articles about events which happen over the summer related to the election. Include the name of the publication and date. You must use at least 5 different media sources to accumulate your 10 articles. Global Issues 12 Summer Reading Assignment: Study Guide Mr. Merry Student Name:______________________________ Date submitted:________________ STUDY GUIDE for I Decided to Call Myself a Happy Feminist by Chimamanda Adichie To be completed and brought with you to the first day of class. Be prepared use this Study Guide on an assessment the first week of class. 1. BEFORE YOU READ THE ARTCLE, list 3 details you already know about feminism. 1)______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 2)______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 3)______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 2. AS YOU READ THE ARTICLE Identify 10 vocabulary (important) words and define each word, on a separate sheet of paper, within the context of the article. In other words, summarize what each term means as it relates to the article. 3. AFTER YOU HAVE READ THE ARTICLE, list 3 details you learned about feminism. 1)______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 2)______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 3)______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ SOURCING: 1. Who wrote this? _________________________________________________________________________________________ 2. What locations are discussed in the article? What time periods are mentioned? _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ CLOSE READING: 4. What claim(s) does the author make? _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 5. What evidence does the author use to support her claim(s)? _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 6. Is this source/author credible? Why or why not? How do you know? _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 7. Why do you think this article was written? What events, attitudes or beliefs are discussed? _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Global Issues 12 Summer Reading Assignment: Article Mr. Merry I Decided to Call Myself a Happy Feminist by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Friday, 17 October 2014 'If it is true that the full humanity of women is not our culture, then we can and must make it our culture’. In her hit TED talk on feminism, the award winning novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie set out her dreams for a fairer world. This is an extract from the published version: In 2003, I wrote a novel called Purple Hibiscus, about a man who, among other things, beats his wife, and whose story doesn't end too well. While I was promoting the novel in Nigeria, a journalist, a nice, well-­‐meaning man, told me he wanted to advise me. (Nigerians, as you might know, are very quick to give unsolicited advice.) He told me that people were saying my novel was feminist, and his advice to me – he was shaking his head sadly as he spoke – was that I should never call myself a feminist, since feminists are women who are unhappy because they cannot find husbands. So I decided to call myself a Happy Feminist. Then an academic, a Nigerian woman, told me that feminism was not our culture, that feminism was un-­‐African and I was only calling myself a feminist because I had been influenced by western books. (Which amused me, because much of my early reading was decidedly un-­‐feminist: I must have read every single Mills & Boon romance published before I was 16. And each time I try to read those books called "classic feminist texts", I get bored, and I struggle to finish them.) Anyway, since feminism was un-­‐African, I decided I would now call myself a Happy African Feminist. Then a dear friend told me that calling myself a feminist meant that I hated men. So I decided I would now be a Happy African Feminist Who Does Not Hate Men. At some point I was a Happy African Feminist Who Does Not Hate Men And Who Likes To Wear Lip Gloss And High Heels For Herself And Not For Men. Gender matters everywhere in the world. But it is time we should begin to dream about and plan for a different world. A fairer world. A world of happier men and happier women who are truer to themselves. Gender is not an easy conversation to have. It makes people uncomfortable, sometimes even irritable. Both men and women are resistant to talk about gender, or are quick to dismiss the problems of gender. Because thinking of changing the status quo is always uncomfortable. Some people ask, "Why the word feminist? Why not just say you are a believer in human rights, or something like that?" Because that would be dishonest. Feminism is, of course, part of human rights in general – but to choose to use the vague expression human rights is to deny the specific and particular problem of gender. It would be a way of pretending that it was not women who have, for centuries, been excluded. It would be a way of denying that the problem of gender targets women. That the problem was not about being human, but specifically about being a female human. For centuries, the world divided human beings into two groups and then proceeded to exclude and oppress one group. It is only fair that the solution to the problem should acknowledge that. Some men feel threatened by the idea of feminism. This comes, I think, from the insecurity triggered by how boys are brought up, how their sense of self-­‐worth is diminished if they are not "naturally" in charge as men. Other men might respond by saying, "Okay, this is interesting, but I don't think like that. I don't even think about gender." Maybe not. And that is part of the problem. That many men do not actively think about gender or notice gender. That many men say that things might have been bad in the past but everything is fine now. And that many men do nothing to change it. If you are a man and you walk into a restaurant and the waiter greets just you, does it occur to you to ask the waiter, "Why have you not greeted her?" Men need to speak out in all of these ostensibly small situations. Because gender can be uncomfortable, there are easy ways to close this conversation. Some people will bring up evolutionary biology and apes, how female apes bow to male apes – that sort of thing. But the point is this: we are not apes. Apes also live in trees and eat earthworms. We do not. Some people will say, "Well, poor men also have a hard time." And they do. But that is not what this conversation is about. Gender and class are different. Poor men still have the privileges of being men, even if they do not have the privileges of being wealthy. I learned a lot about systems of oppression and how they can be blind to one another by talking to black men. I was once talking about gender and a man said to me, "Why does it have to be you as a woman? Why not you as a human being?" This type of question is a way of silencing a person's specific experiences. Of course I am a human being, but there are particular things that happen to me in the world because I am a woman. This same man, by the way, would often talk about his experience as a black man. (To which I should probably have responded, "Why not your experiences as a man or as a human being? Why a black man?") So, no, this conversation is about gender. Some people will say, "Oh, but women have the real power: bottom power." (This is a Nigerian expression for a woman who uses her sexuality to get things from men.) But bottom power is not power at all, because the woman with bottom power is actually not powerful; she just has a good route to tap another person's power. And then what happens if the man is in a bad mood or sick or temporarily impotent? Some people will say a woman is subordinate to men because it's our culture. But culture is constantly changing. I have beautiful twin nieces who are 15. If they had been born a hundred years ago, they would have been taken away and killed. Because a hundred years ago, Igbo culture considered the birth of twins to be an evil omen. Today that practice is unimaginable to all Igbo people. What is the point of culture? Culture functions ultimately to ensure the preservation and continuity of a people. In my family, I am the child who is most interested in the story of who we are, in ancestral lands, in our tradition. My brothers are not as interested as I am. But I cannot participate, because Igbo culture privileges men, and only the male members of the extended family can attend the meetings where major family decisions are taken. So although I am the one who is most interested in these things, I cannot attend the meeting. I cannot have a formal say. Because I am female. Culture does not make people. People make culture. If it is true that the full humanity of women is not our culture, then we can and must make it our culture. My great-­‐grandmother, from stories I've heard, was a feminist. She ran away from the house of the man she did not want to marry and married the man of her choice. She refused, protested, spoke up whenever she felt she was being deprived of land and access because she was female. She did not know that word feminist. But it doesn't mean she wasn't one. More of us should reclaim that word. My own definition of a feminist is a man or a woman who says, "Yes, there's a problem with gender as it is today and we must fix it, we must do better." All of us, women and men, must do better. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's essay "We Should All Be Feminists", is published by 4th Estate. http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/oct/17/chimamanda-­‐ngozi-­‐adichie-­‐extract-­‐we-­‐shouldall-­‐
be-­‐feminists Psychology/Sociology: Summer Assignments -­ 2016 Ms. Rhein email: [email protected] Greetings! I hope you are having a summer that is suiting you—a summer with balance. The summer assignments are meant to get you thinking about people’s behavior. • Why do people do what they do and how are people affected by the groups they are in? Do people in groups behave differently than a person does as an individual? • What is society’s role in people’s behavior? How can we change behavior? What is appropriate behavior and what is not? • Are organizations people? What makes us tick? These are just a few of the concepts covered in the fields psychology and sociology. The following assignments are due the 1st day of class. Answer the questions on a separate piece of paper. Assignment #1 (20 points) Look up the following definitions and write them on a separate piece of paper. Answers should be complete and use the question in the answer to make your ideas complete. 1. What is the definition of psychology? 2. What is the definition of sociology? 3. Based on the definitions, in what ways do you think an understanding of the basics of psychology and sociology can be beneficial to individuals and to society? 4. Think of a situation where an understanding of psychology might come in handy. Describe the situation and how psychology might be involved. Assignment #2 (60 points) On three separate occasions during the summer, watch people with the specific purpose of observing their behavior individually and in groups. You can be at: a family function, the park, church, on a bus, at the zoo, at the mall, an airport, a bus station, fast food place, in traffic, a swimming pool, the library, or any place where people gather. Observe for 20 minutes with the specific purpose of being the observer. This doesn’t mean you stare at people, just watch. As you watch, take notes on what you are observing. In your observations, include: • Date of observation and time observation started and stopped. • Location of observation • Who are you observing? • What are the people doing? • What is their body language? What are their facial expressions? Do they look engaged in what they are doing or disengaged? Do they seem warm and friendly, hostile or any other way? • If you can, capture any dialogue. What are people saying? • Are there any factors that might be influencing the scene such as the weather, unexpected mishaps etc? Assignment #3 (40 points) Pick your favorite observation and do one of the following with it and include the date of the observation and the setting in whatever you chose. Your observation should be evident in your product: 1. Write a short-­‐story 2. A narrative poem that tells the story of the scene observed 3. A play that includes setting, narration and dialogue between two or more characters 4. A cartoon strip 5. A detailed drawing 6. A diorama (some 3-­‐D model) Assignment #4 (30 points) Find an article online either from Psychology Today, a newspaper or any other magazine about people’s behavior and what influences the behavior around a topic that interests you? 1. What is the name of the article? 2. What date was the article published? Summarize the article in one well-­‐written paragraph of at least eight sentences that includes the following: 1. What are the psychology ideas presented? 2. Who is involved (the who can be teenagers, parents, athletes, women, men, elderly people, etc.) 3. What are the important concepts mentioned. 4. What is the value of the article in expanding people’s knowledge of human behavior? Assignment # 5 (10 points) There is a concept in psychology that examines whether people are influenced by nature (how they are born) or by nurture (how they are raised). How does the cartoon relate to both of these concepts? Write a short that explains what the cartoon is illustrating. Use the words nature and nurture in your response, as well as describe the subject of the cartoon. World Language Department Mrs. Imamura Mrs. DiRosario Mrs. Skiles Ms. Appel (Japanese) (Italian) (French) (Spanish) SUMMER ASSIGNMENT Complete Section 1 and Section 2 prior to the first day of classes. SECTION 1: Language development and maintenance • Complete activities on the following websites to begin your journey of language learning in the summer. The websites are also available as free APPs. Students can use the APP or website for completion of this section. We have attached detailed instructions to enroll on the following pages, however below we have listed the codes for each language as well. Italian https://www.duolingo.com/o/xfdcdq French https://www.duolingo.com/o/qqkzuv Spanish https://www.duolingo.com/o/hkbqbj For Italian, French and Spanish complete 500 Xp points on Duolingo prior to the first day of school ____________________________________________________________________________________ Japanese -­Quizlet-­ For Japanese students only! https://quizlet.com/class/2747851/ -­‐
Join class, and complete Quizlet set for the language level you will be completing in the 2016-­‐2017 school year. Complete the flashcards, speller, test, and games for your set. You should show mastery of the flash cards prior to the first day of school. SECTION 2: Choose one • Go to Google Maps and explore a city in a country where the language you will be studying is spoken. Choose 5 places you would like to visit. • Visit an ethnic restaurant that represents the language you will be studying. Try 2 things you’ve never eaten before. Be adventurous! • Visit an ethnic grocery store that represents the language you will be studying. Buy a snack and a drink to compare with a U.S. product. • Read a new story about a country in which the language you will be studying is spoken. • Explore the iTunes store for 3 songs in the language you will be studying. Provide evidence of your activity with a receipt, photo, and/or print out of required elements. A short reflection in English on the experience is also required (1-­‐3 paragraphs typed)