It's the Final Countdown!

This is just a reminder that we're in the last month of summer! We hope yours has been terrific, and we hope that you've found time to read the summer book you selected (and that you've enjoyed them as much as we have!). If you have any questions, please contact Mr. Moore at jmoore@mymtsd-vt.org. If you've enjoyed other books this summer, add them below in the comments!

Happy August!

Reading and Writing

Hello fellow Falcons,

It is already August! Can you believe it? Time flies (like a falcon!) when you're having fun, and we hope that you're having lots of fun.

As we are in the last month of summer, we felt it was a good time to remind you about our summer reading. While some of you may have already read the book you selected, others might have put it off until the last moment. Well, we're almost at the last moment! Make sure to read your book before the start of the school year. We are looking forward to discussing our team culture using these books as a starting point!

For those of you looking for a writing prompt, here you go:

1. You find a turtle by the side of the road. When you stop to pick it up, it looks up at you and says, "Thank goodness you're here. We don't have much time." What happens next?

2. You have been chosen by the state of Vermont to make an ad to boost tourism. What image do you select and why?

3. Write anything you'd like.

Remember: You are encouraged to just write and not stop for 7-10 minutes. This may result in some mistakes (eagle-eyed* readers from last prompt may have noticed that my writing changed verb tenses!), but that's all part of the process.

Enjoy your summers!

* Perhaps I should say "falcon-eyed"?

Humanities Update (5/14)

Hello Families of House C Students:

While it may not be Friday, it's never too late to give an update of the week in humanities...

This week's primary focus was debates. Students worked in their debate teams to finalize their preparation. We held our debates on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Students did some terrific work debating in front of their peers. We were quite impressed! While teams debated, the rest of the students served as our audience. They practiced tracing a debate and identified who they thought "won" the debate. On Monday, we'll reveal those 'winners.'

We worked on some grammar fundamentals on Tuesday: 6th graders worked on apostrophes while 7/8th graders worked on proper comma usage. We will re-visit these topics in the coming days to make sure the concepts stick.

Argument writing made up most of the rest of our week. We worked on making our claims more precise and engaging, and we introduced the concept of a context. Argument writing will be the focus of our coming week - we will build our arguments daily by writing and revising in class. This may result in homework this week if students don't finish the writing in class.

Students also got introduced to the summer reading plan for Milton Middle School. This year, students could pick their own book to read from a selection of four books. We placed an order for those books and will deliver them to students closer to the end of the year, along with some expectations and ideas about summer reading. The book students chose will be used at the start of next year to help create our school culture and give us common texts to discuss!

Ongoing work:

There was yet another weekly check on our United States geography and capital naming. We heard many students express excitement over their progress towards their goal. Links to practice are on Google Classroom.

Independent book projects and blog posts are due in 16 days. Students who had turned in an early version received feedback on their work. This feedback is meant to help students take their work to the next level. We encourage students to review the feedback and revise their work! Again, links for this assignment are on Google Classroom.

Please let us know if you have any questions. We hope you have a great weekend.

Humanities Update (4/29)

Hello Families of House C Students!

Here is an update about the work done this past week in Humanities!

In order to create a more complete argument, we’ve been introducing students to responses to The Omnivore’s Dilemma. One article called The Omnivore’s Delusion, written by a farmer named Blake Hurst, questioned many aspects of Michael Pollan’s book. In addition, and to work on our listening skills, we listened to a discussion between Hurst & Pollan, hosted on National Public Radio.

We applied our close reading skills to a modified version of an article from Seven Days about James Ehlers, a passionate advocate for water quality in Lake Champlain who presented in our science classes on Thursday. We used our NPS (Non-Fiction Positioning System) Coordinates - which help readers know what an author is trying to communicate - to better understand the text and to gain some background knowledge for Thursday’s presentation. NPS Coordinates include metaphors, similes, comparing and contrasting, expert opinions - we use these as road signs that help point the way to understanding the reading! Your student should have a handout that displays what each coordinate is and what they mean.

For the last part of this week, we have been preparing for a debate. Students have been assigned topics such as college education, school uniform, violence in video games, and tablets vs. textbooks. They have spent time researching both sides of the argument on procon.org and are now in the process of creating their debates. Some students may not have finished this preparation; there is a two-page worksheet that they should use to capture their best arguments for their side as well as some arguments that might come their way from the other side (and rebuttals to those counter-arguments).

Next week, we will be debating these topics in teams, with an eye towards using these skills to complement their argument writing.

Students are now just over a month from when their book project and blog post are due. Those assignments are on the Google Classroom.

We will also be completing weekly quizzes on the United States geography and capitals! Links to practice are also on the Google Classroom!

Please let us know if you have any questions. We hope you have a great weekend.

No Summit, Week 4: "On top of the world"

And so here we are: at the ending.

Order of Events

I'll be interested to hear what you all think of how the book is structured. It makes a certain amount of sense that the book proceeds in the order of Jordan's mountain climbs - at the same time, the Everest climb felt like such a climax that the final climb seems like an afterthought. I wonder if there could have been another way to structure it so we could end on that high, thrilling note. Or maybe the Vinson climb needed more detail. I found it surprising that there weren't more difficulties or details. How else could the book be structured?

That's the Power of Words

Something I've been thinking about since early on in No Summit is the support we sometimes need to tackle our goals. It's pretty clear to me that Karen and his dad are big supports on Jordan's journey, and there are often times where one of them says just the right thing that helps him keep moving and pushing himself. Could Jordan have completed his goal without the support, encouragement, and even the occasional shove of those two? 

Paul, Karen, Jordan & "King" Richard - image from kbhr933.com

Just as often, though, the words that come back to him are those of the guide on Kilimanjaro ("the mountain wants you to climb it."). This made me stop and think about the power of words. I doubt Samuel said those words thinking that Jordan would remember them for the next five years, but that is indeed what happens. As he's climbing Vinson, those words are coming back to him. Jordan is pretty lucky to have received such supportive, encouraging words from someone.

It made me think about the things we say to each other, the things that stick with us, even if the person saying them didn't mean for them to stay there. Here's a silly example from my life. 

A friend in college said that the way I eat ice cream cones was "disgusting." He said this, gasped, and averted his eyes. Years later (too many to count), that still sticks with me. To this day, I have to feel pretty comfortable with someone to eat ice cream in a cone in public. If I'm alone, no problem. But an offhand remark that someone said years ago still haunts me to this day. Did Joe mean for me to be thinking about this comment long after college? Probably not. If I asked him today, he probably wouldn't even remember the comment. But it has actively changed the way I relate to people (in an admittedly small, strange way).

You're probably guessing where this is going - what are the things we say to each other that don't go away? What are some things friends have said that have helped you in trying times? What about things said that still make you feel hurt, or angry, or bothered? How can we make sure that what we say to each other is positive and supportive? 

That's the thought I want to take away from this book as we start the school year on Wednesday: anything I say could have a bigger impact than I intended. I want to be aware and thoughtful so that those impacts are helpful. Not harmful.

I'll look forward to seeing you all soon! Perhaps even at tomorrow night's open house! 

And now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go get a creemee. 

Three people in front of whom I can eat creemees.

No Summit, Week 3: "Yakety Yak"

Well, when I split the book into four sections, I didn't realize I would be leaving us on such a cliffhanger (so to speak). However, when we leave our dear Jordan, there are a lot of questions about how he'll proceed and how his father is doing. The avalanche that started the book finally makes its appearance, and, for this reader at least, it was a very engaging, nail-biting scene - even knowing that he obviously makes it out alive (since he wrote the book!).

This week, I found myself making note of some details I wanted to see. While I am finding that the book moves quickly, there are some images that I wanted to dwell on or have explained more clearly. Here are three examples:

Torma 
Romero identifies these as yak butter sculptures used "as offerings to the gods." Here's a picture of some torma.

Photo from www.explorersweb.com

Not My Favorite Way To Use A Ladder
Reading this scene (just reading it) made me queasy (I've never been known to be fond of heights). Unsurprisingly, it is just as queasy to watch...(skip to 1:21 for the nerve-wracking passage).

Did I Mention My Fear Of Heights?
Okay, the term "Tyrolean traverse" sounded intriguing to me. So I found this video of a Tyrolean traverse on the Carstensz Pyramid. It takes him a while to set up, but it's worth it to watch his traversing (especially the "look ma, no hands" part). 

The Final Countdown...
And with that, I leave you to our final week of our online book club. Let's get Jordan off Everest, shall we? If there is something you wanted to look up (or if you did look something up), post it below in the comments!

Enjoy the summer!!

No Summit, Week 2: "Against All Odds"

Welcome to page 199! If you are there, congratulations! From here, you are well over halfway through the book! If you haven't yet made it this far, there is still plenty of time.

This week, I was struck by the obstacles that Jordan has to overcome in order to reach his goal. There are the obvious things - like the mountains themselves - and the slightly less obvious things - like doubts from other people and officials denying permits. Then there is that inner wrestling that Jordan finds himself doing. Sometimes he is merely doubting himself while other times he might rather be skiing or playing with friends.

This made me think a lot about my goals and what obstacles I face. As some of you know, I enjoy writing poetry. On the computer I'm using today, there are at least 100 poems that I quite like. Eventually, I plan to put some of them together as a collection and try to get it published. But then the obstacles come in. They arrive in the following forms:

• self-doubt (are these poems really good enough?)
• what I think others may think about me (NOTE: this is not people actually saying my work isn't good; it's me worrying that they might not think it is good)
• distractions (I could put these poems together and find a place to consider them, or I could go for a walk, or read a book, or play a video game, or...)

So what are your goals?
What obstacles get in your way?
And...most importantly...what helps you overcome those obstacles? What do you see Jordan doing to overcome them?

So I was going to post a video of Phil Collins' super cheesy "Against All Odds" - as this week's treat. I thought about "Against All Odds" as a fitting title since this week is about obstacles, but then I saw something great. Watch what happens at 1:09 - Phil makes a mistake in front of this large audience. And then check out the way he handles it. What a pro. I never thought I'd say this, but...I want to be more like Phil Collins.

 Happy reading!

No Summit, Week 1: "Right, kid."

Right, kid.

Okay, so take this with a grain of salt, as I am an adult reading this book, but here's the first thing I was struck by:

How do the adults in Jordan's life let him do this!??!

As you certainly know by now, this book is told from Jordan's viewpoint. He seems to me to be a plucky kid, full of confidence and ready to challenge himself. I am intrigued by him, but my focus keeps falling to the adults in the book. I don't personally have kids, but I wonder how I would feel if my 10-year-old son asked to climb the highest peaks on each of the seven continents. Or how I would respond to him if I were Samuel. What would I think of this boy telling me he wants to go the hardest route up Kilimanjaro? Would I let him? Or would I laugh at him and say, "Right, kid. If you wanna climb the mountain by that route, you're going to have to get yourself another guide."

What do you think of Jordan? In what ways are you like him? In what ways do you differ?

For me, when I was ten, I thought I pretty much had the answer to everything. I quickly found that not to be the case, but I don't yet see that happening for Jordan. I did chuckle at what happened when he turned down his father's help on Mt. Kosciuszko, and I appreciated his understanding that climbers younger than him probably climbed Kilimanjaro without being acknowledged. But I will be looking forward to see if he continues to be as cocky or if he finds a bit more humility as he continues his quest. 

Globe Trotter

I am particularly enjoying the global aspect of this book. As I read, I'm keeping my internet open and briefly researching any names of tribes or places. I have appreciated seeing the pictures of Elbrus and Kosciuszko, as well as learning about the Masai tribe that Jordan mentions en route to Kilimanjaro (I can't bring myself to call it "Kili"). This research is enriching my experience of the book (though it also makes my reading take longer), and I look forward to learning more about the other continents as the book progresses.

Inspirations

While I am not currently attempting to summit seven or eight different mountains, I am finding plenty of inspirational moments in this book. If you found a quote you found particularly inspiring, feel free to post it (with a page number) below. Mine for this week is:

"Shelter makes all the difference in a storm." - p. 71. I might talk more about why I find that inspirational later. For now, I'll just leave it there and look forward to checking in with you all after Mount Aconcagua and Denali (after page 199). 

A Little Something For You

As a gift for reading Week One's entry, here's a picture of me at rock climbing school (age 12). I thought of this picture when Jordan spoke of the "Kissing Wall." How Jordan describes his experience there reminded me of this moment (though I was much closer to the ground (though definitely not much cooler)). 

Happy reading!

No Summit - Blog Book Group

Hello everyone!

We hope the summer is treating you well and that you're enjoying every bit of it! As July is coming to a close, we thought it would be a good time to check in and make sure that everyone is making progress through our summer reading book, No Summit out of Sight. For those of you who have not yet started, or for anyone who is interested in refreshing their memories, we're going to start a No Summit book group right here!

What does it mean?!?!

Below, you'll find a reading schedule for the entire book. If you follow this plan, you will have the book read before we start school (in exactly one month!). At this pace, you'll read no more than 15 pages a day. Each Sunday, I will create a blog post sharing reactions or reflections on what we've read and inviting you to do the same! You can also use that place to post questions you might have about the reading or questions that you think might engage others!

Do I have to post to the blog?!?!

Nope! If you just want to follow along with this timeline, that's fine, too!
Or if you've already finished the book, terrific!
Or if you want to read the book all in one week, coolio!
The only requirement is that you've read the book before school begins.
 
Okay, Smart Guy, where is this schedule?!?!

By August 3, read to page 107 (Mount Kiliminjaro, Kosciuszko and Elbrus).
Average daily page count: 15 - the steepest part of our climb.
 
By August 10, read to page 199 (Mount Aconcagua and Denali).
Average daily page count: 13 - easing up a little, but still making good progress.

By August 17, read to page 278 (Carstensz Pyramid and Mount Everest (pt. 1)).
Average daily page count: 11 - a smaller page count so people can catch up, should they need.
 
By August 24, read to page 355 (Mount Everest (pt. 2) and Vinson).
Average daily page count: 11 - finishing at a nice, easy pace.


Happy reading! And I'll meet you back here after we've climbed Mount Elbrus!

What Should I Read?

Picking a book - for some of us, it's easy to choose - for others, it might be more difficult. Here are some resources to help you find a book that matches your interests!

Probably the best way to get recommendations for good books is to ask a friend whose taste you like. You've talked about movies and music, now ask what they've read and loved.

Next stop - talk to our librarians. They love books, and they love helping you find books! Tell them about you and your interests, and they can help direct you to a good read!

Listed below are some other resources for you:

For books written by authors close to home, try these Vermont book suggestions from our own Secretary of State.

This is a list of some stone-cold classic book reads. Try 'em; you'll love 'em. Top 100 Books

Good Reads is another helpful resource, and here is a list of their Top 100 Middle School Must Reads. 

If you're interested in non-fiction, here's a helpful list for you: Best Books for Young Adults Non-fiction. 

Some great Classics can be found here: Middle School Suggested Classics

The DCF Book List for this has some great reads - feel free to ask your Humanities teachers. We have read some good ones: DCF Book Site

Lord of the Rings, Hunger Games, and Divergent fans, here is a list of GoodReads Best Young Adult Fantasy & Science Fiction

If you have recommendations of how to find good books, let your Humanities teachers know, and we'll update the list!