Formal Writing Project

This not only satisfies the formal writing assignment for this class, but will kick-start your final web-page project too.

Read pages 48-60 in the Macromedia Dreamweaver book and complete the following:

1. Determine site goals, pp. 49-50, turn in #5 on p.49
2. Identify the target audience, 51-53, turn in #1 on p.51
3. Conduct Market Research, 53-55, turn in #4 on p.53 and #3 on p.54
4. Create end-user scenarios, 55-56, turn in at least one #3 p.55
5. Outline & Flowchart, 57-59, you may draw a flowchart by hand
6. Site concept metaphor, 59-61, turn in #7 on p.60

Try summarizing each in paragraph form, so that your Client Website Proposal will be a minimum of 6 paragraphs long (2-5 pages typed).

Your 2008-09 Yearbook Staff

Yeah, they scare me too!

Fall Sports

Pages due by or before November 25, 2008

21-Fall Cheer- Christine
22-23 HS FB- Cody
24-25 HS VB- Bonnie
26 XC- Cody
46- MS Fall Cheer- Kassi
47- MS FB- Danielle
48- MS VB- Tanisha
49- MS XC- Mandi
70-71 Spirit Week- Danielle
72-23 Homecoming- Tanisha
78- Yrbk/Voice- Mandi
89- Band- Kassi

Book Report; Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

Someone told me that this Gothic horror novel was actually an allegory for a girl going through adolescence.

I don't know about that, but both the characters of Victor Frankenstein and the creature he assembled (basically in his college dorm) are deep, troubled, and tortured much like ANY teenager, male or female.

The back story is that she was snowbound with her husband Percy Shelley and his friend Lord Byron and they entertained each other by making up ghost stories. The men bet that a girl couldn't write a decent horror novel and she penned this to prove them wrong. Incidentally, she only about 19 or 20 when she did it!

I can see how parents, artists, and scientist can all identify with either character. Shelley wrote in 1817 that some of it was inspired by Darwin's writing. There are plenty of ways in which this book is still poignant in our times between the rapid advances in technology and bio-sciences and the regression we seem to make in our ethical and societal interactions. Abortion, homosexuality, Islam, racism, intolerance, immigration, economic class, prejudice, and society's concept of beauty... this is a book that struggles with 20th and 21st century struggles, And yes, I can easily see how many of the burdens of both Victor and the creature could be similar to the struggles that teenage girls go through.

Identity, depression, belonging, anger, learning, obsession, relationships, self-image... God... you name it.

It's not all that scary. Brahm Stoker's Dracula is just meant to scare you. Frankenstein is something you can relate to. Hopefully cathartic, definitely deeper, intensely personal. Just as I began to stop empathizing with Victor and started to lose patience with him like some attention seeking, self loathing Emo kid, you finally meet the creature and wow. Nothing like the 1930's green horror movie icon or Mel Brook's 1980 spoof. This creature is smart, articulate, reflective, and someone you can identify with and care about.

I highly recommend this book to everyone, but especially to the young women I know. It may not be as sexy and romantic as the 'Twilight' vampire series many of you are reading, but I can see why this novel is considered a classic.

Has anybody else read it and feel the same way? Has anyone read it and now think that the 30's movie was a travesty? Has anyone seen the movie with Sting and Robert Denero? Is it closer to Mary Shelley's version?

Anybody got a different book you'd recommend that deals with identity like this?

Theodore Von Holst's original frontpiece for Mary Shelley's, 'Frankenstein' published by Colburn and Bentley, London 1831, Steel engraving in book 93 x 71 mm

SUB LESSONS- Mallory 11/7/08

1. WEB DESIGN- Finish Session 6.2 if you haven't yet, please ALSO answer the review questions at the end of Session 6.2  on a piece of paper that you can turn in on Monday. When you're finished with both, please begin Session 6.3. You will be given time to finish 6.3 on Monday before we review for the quiz over Tutorial 6 on either Tues or Wed. of next week.

4. MS ART- Students should put down canvas on the table before beginning to work with clay.
Smooth or burnish Henry Moore & Aguste Rodin projects with sponges & spoons. If you'd like to re-do either of these assignments because you think you can do better, you may- otherwise you  may make free-choice objects today (we'll make pinch-pots on Monday).
Clean-up is important since the next class is Drawing. Please begin cleaning up 10 minutes before lunch. Students should have bools to read durring DEAR time, please do not let them sit on the potter's wheel during DEAR.

5. DRAWING- Students should finish, make improvements to, or re-do one of the following drawings in their sketchbooks, prepare for the large drawing next week, or use their time for SILENT study-hall. Sketchbook Drawings- 1) Informal perspective leg, 2) Corner of room (it's important that they are "sighting" angles, 3) A doorway (preferably at a slight angle)
Preparations for Monday- Draw a 2 inch margin on a page in your 18x24 Newsprint pad and tone inside the format with graphite. OPTIONAL/Extra credit- practice drawing exercises in your sketchbooks- blind contour, negative space, or extreme perspective. Whatever students do, they need to be quiet so that those who are drawing can concentrate.

6. YEARBOOK- Important- Ad order contracts are on my desk by the coffee maker. The staff should clearly mark each order form as paid or unpaid. Then they should get a deposit form from Lori Malone (list all checks by check number on the back) and make deposit. Then, please sort ad contracts by size and put them in one envelope and return to desk by coffee maker. On Monday I will show them how and have them enter ad sales into both our Excel spreadsheet, and on the Yearbook Avenue website. We will also talk about and start building Ad pages next week. Students should then continue designing their pages (assignments on board) or processing and/or uploading photos which they need for their pages.


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Boyer Valley Community Schools
Challenging all students to meet their full potential
http://www.boyer-valley.k12.ia.us

Edifying experience

Tonight I had the humbling privilege to narrate a piece of music at our high school's fall concert.

The piece was 'A Jefferson Portrait'* - by Elliot Del Borgo. We practiced for at least a month or more. It was challenging to try to count and listen to the band and watch for the director's cues. It was a fun challenge to read dramatically for fluency and expression, and yet be careful not to be over dramatic so as to respect the dignity of the words.

It was a moving experience for me because I love Jefferson's words so much and they are so important and valuable to us, even more so facing such an important election. Several teachers and parents who were there complimented me and of course that felt good. One parent even said that I should consider working in radio- so I had to try not to let myself get a big head.

But the most meaningful part was when a disabled Vietnam veteran thanked me because he felt like we had a government that had become "destructive of these ends," and needed to be altered or abolished. I knew that he blamed our government for the Agent Orange which had destroyed his life and pursuit of happiness. You can blame both Democrats and Republicans for that war (Johnson first, then Nixon). He went on to say that he feared another revolution was on it's way if things didn't change dramatically in the next few months. I didn't ask if he supported McCain or Obama ("leave a tender moment alone" Billy Joel always used to say). I thanked him for his service to our country and agreed with him that Jefferson's writing meant as much or more to us today as 230 years ago.

Just as pastors have to give credit to God for words form the Bible, I know that it was these words and these ideas that have the power, not my reading or our bands performance (although they did a supurbe job). I know it's October, not July but I hope that people will remember and meditate on the meaning of Jefferson's words before they vote on Tuesday- whether they are liberal, conservative, moderate, or undecided.

*In case you follow the link and listen to 'A Jefferson Portrait,' you should know that this is not a recoding of our performance tonight- just a sample from some music company that I found on the web to halp me practice.

"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands 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. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies;...

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor."

Chairs

After learning about choosing and using a "basic unit" to help with placement and proportion, and about how the "picture frame" and negative space help with composition, Drawing and Seeing students drew a still life of a chair on 18x24 newsprint pads. They had a full week to do this. These represent some of the best finished drawings.