Make Up 1/30 Christian Xenakis

Today we examined databases and our film chosen for our college essays. The goal is to find enough research and data to make our essays both valid and specific. Mine for example is an essay about the effects of the Nazi Regime and how the ideology lives on. We are given twenty-five note cards, fifteen of which are from database sources, five from your film and five wildcard note cards from film or database or another source. Where are the note cards? The note cards can be found on Mr. Rivers classroom page. The format of the cards are as follows, on top of the cards is the title of the article or movie, in the center of the card is where you write the quote and how you will use the evidence within your essay, towards the bottom you must put your citation and the link to the article. The majority of the class time was spent finding articles through the databases and doing research on our film. There were small interruptions in which Mr. Rivers answered questions and or explained research in which he found himself. Today's class was regular, nothing out of the ordinary, just research.

1/30/17 (makeup)Claire Vreeland

Today in class we got our computers and sat down, like any other day. Although today we did not have a class discussion or lesson like we typically do, but instead we immediately began our individual essay construction work. For almost all of the class period  we worked on our essay and research construction, with help from Mr. Rivers only if we needed it. The class as a whole seemed to accomplish a lot and it seemed to be relatively quiet and concentrated during the class period. Some students continued to work on their proposal and conference with Mr. Rivers. Others, rather started or continued to work on the research portion, and bulk of their research paper. Even though every student in the class has completed a different amount of their senior paper, we are all working towards the same goal because if we do not pass our senior paper we cannot graduate. For some people, it is difficult to find scholarly articles from the school's databases. A student asked a question referring to the proposals, which was the very first step of our research paper. They asked "are we allowed to tweak our proposal even though we already discussed our originally idea and posted it to the classroom?"  After hearing this question, Mr. Rivers addressed the class and made a very valid point. He said that the proposal is simply just a guideline in order to help you stay organized and focused throughout the paper. Mr. rivers also stressed that the research cards are due friday and we will have class time to do it but that we should stay on task in order to complete the base of our paper. Overall today was focused on continuing in the research portion of our paper.


Below is a copy of the schedule for our paper, which shows what is due and when.

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
January 23	24	25 #F01: Last Day for Proposal	26	27
30	31	February 1	2	3 #F02: Last Day for Research
6	7	8	9	10
13	14	15	16	17 #F03: Last Day for Organization
20 NO SCHOOL	21 NO SCHOOL	22	23	24
27	28	March 1	2 #S01: Last Day for Draft	3
6	7	8	9	10
13	14	15	16	17
20 #S02: Critical Review FILM FESTIVAL!	21 FILM FESTIVAL!	22 FILM FESTIVAL!	23 FILM FESTIVAL!	24 FILM FESTIVAL!

1/27/17 Jack Valentine(Makeup)

Class 1/27/17
By: Jack Valentine

Summary: 

Today in class Mr. Rivers began class by building upon the work we have done within the pst week.  This was done to pick up where we had left off in our previous class.  He began by once again explaining what exactly we need to do and the steps of the process.  As we are building upon our first paper proposals, we have come a long way.  However, Mr. Rivers pointed out that our progress must be in check in order to succeed in this assignment.  He pointed out the various ways we can work on our assignment while still being productive.  This point was made due to the fact that this assignment will become very hard if it is not properly worked on.  So based on this discussion, it was determined that every student should be well into their research.  This concerns the progress in which each student has made upon their researching quotes and citations as that is currently what step most of the class is on.  After discussing progression, Mr. Rivers reminded the class to keep thinking about our critical reviews.  Although we have not worked on this recently in class, Mr. Rivers suggested that we have an idea of what we want to review by class Monday.  Finally, just like class in previous weeks, we continued our assignment work for the remainder of class while Mr. Rivers provided each student with the opportunity to conference and/or ask questions about their topics/assignments.


Important Materials:

The slides in which students are putting their research will be counting towards the second marking period. This assignment can be accessed by clicking the assignment title "#F02: Research"

Here is the Senior Paper Timeline to help keep each students progress in check...

1/26/17 Sarah Veasey

Today in class we continued to discuss our senior research papers. We've been working through the process of coming up with a proposal for our papers and now for the past few days we have been completing research needed for our proposals. Using the databases we're trying to find scholarly articles that would also support the ideas of our paper. Today though most of the class had conferences with Mr. Rivers about where they are or where they should be in their research. He gave feedback either through verbal communication, or through previous google classroom assignments. This allowed you to make your proposal more specific, or the green flag to continue onto your research.With Mr. Rivers help most of the class continued to research where 15 'notecards' are needed from your article, 5 from your film, and 5 more wild card cards. Each cards needs to show a quote from the source, a tag (how will you use it in your paper, a citation, and an active link so you can then return back to the article. These steps are going to lead into starting to draft your paper by making everything easier to read and understand to put into paragraphs.

Shelby Vermeulen ~ 1/25/17

Today in class we started off by discussing which way we can do our research for our senior research paper. Mr. Rivers offered us a PowerPoint and a regular document and left it up to us to decide which one we liked better. While reviewing the PowerPoint and the document he gave us the benefits of using each one based on how whether we want to be very thorough or just put information on a document. In the middle of the period, Mr. Rivers left to take club pictures so we had a substitute for ten minutes. In that time, the class looked at the two options we were given and started to input our research. If a proposal was not yet approved by Mr. Rivers, people worked on their proposal to be submitted later today. People were having issues putting the link of their article onto their PowerPoint so Mr. Rivers went around and helped. He explained that we can put the file of our article on the PowerPoint so that we have to document ourselves. Class today was all about our research paper and the steps we are going to take to gather our information and use it effectively.

Dianna Oelkers 1/23/17

Today in Mr. Rivers' class Mr. Rivers explained to us that we should begin to specify our senior paper topic.  He said the reason as to why to do this is to allow the paper to have a focus point, to make it be less broad, and so the paper is more manageable. For example if your lens is education you can do "how a school functions in war", having the topic be this, it creates more of a focus point, rather than the topic being broad (you can create a more specific topic with anything that fits your lens). After this we watch went off on our own and took a broad topic, that was given to us, and made it more specific. We proceeded to look at our proposal and began to brainstorm on how to make it more specific. If you didn't have your  completed proposal you went on and continued to research for it and complete the assignment on google classroom that is shown below.
"Use your academic lens to unpack broad topics. Then use your research to carve out your purpose."

Jack Valentine 1/23/17

Today's Class

Summary:

Today in class we began by opening up all necessary devices/ notebooks to take notes.  Mr. Rivers began class by warning us of a potential lock down however this did not happen.  The class then proceeded to open up their notes while Mr. Rivers began talking.  Today our "I will be able to" (IWBAT) was to specify topics by applying an academic lens and to use research to carve the purpose function of my paper.  These two objectives were set to further work on our paper proposals that we have been working on in class.  Today however we expanded upon these ideas by taking vague topics and expanding upon them through specification. Students first worked on this individually and then discussed with their group members.  This then led to a class discussion and in which every group shared at least one sentence.  Finally, provided the class with time to work individually on their proposals.  This assignment was started last week and requires research.  Below is the assignment which can also be found on google classroom.

*If you cannot see the image well enough here is the assignment...

A revised (and specific) one sentence proposal: (5 points/variable = 20)

Scholarly Evidence: A brief 3-4 sentence description of the article, a link to the source, a citation, and what part of it will help to shape your paper. (5)

Cinematic Evidence: A brief 3-4 sentence description of your film, a citation, and what part of it will help to shape your paper. (5)

In 200-300 words, explain why the paper you propose is relevant to your scholarly community. (10)

Today's Notes 1/23/17

IWBAT

• Specify topics by applying an academic lens
• Use research to carve the purpose/ function of my paper

Use your academic lens to unpack broad topics

What specify idea might your lens examine about ONE of these broad topics?

• Happiness
• Ex. How might a biologically healthy environment create a happier community
• Success
• School
• War
• Ex. How schools function in war torn nations

1/20/17 Michael Tartaglia

Today in class, Mr. Rivers discussed the senior paper. He gave us a schedule of when certain points of writing the paper are due. The first step is to construct a revised one sentence proposal for the topic of your senior paper. The assignment also wants scholarly evidence consisting of three to four sentences, a brief description of the film, and in 200-300 words explain why your paper is relevant to your scholarly community.  The assignment is on google classroom and is due Wednesday Jan. 25th. Mr. Rivers gave us class time to start the assignment and to ask questions. As of right now, I am thinking of doing a scholarly paper on concussions and will use the movie Concussion to gather information for my paper. My paper will focus on the seriousness of concussions and explain that the public is not completely aware on the severity of them. The paper will bring to light on the misconceptions of concussions. The assignment will help you figure out what assignments have the best amount of articles written as the homework forces you to do research. Also the schedule of the checkpoints has been posted to google classroom.

Brooke O'Malley 1/18/17

Today's class started out with taking notes about writing the senior paper. We went over some bad sentences that summarize a paper, either the sentence having too broad of a topic, or a topic that wasn't broad enough. Later, we searched around on some databases about the topics for our senior paper and found some articles about the topics. Basically, we started researching our topic and got comfortable using the databases our school provides for us to use.

1/17/17 Blog Christian Xenakis

Today in class we reviewed essays and academic lenses, that we may possibly use for our senior paper. An academic lens is like a field of study. History, environmental science, and psychology are all examples of academic lenses. We analyzed a paper with an environmental science academic lens, and then wrote a topic sentence about that paper. The format for this topic sentence needed to include four things, an academic lens, a movie for that field, an essay that a scholar in that field may write, and lastly a brief description of what that field studies. Once we understood how to write a topic sentence we than went on and tried to make three examples of our own. My personal three were history, psychology, and environmental science. For my psychology lens I wrote "A psychology scholar writes a paper on how people are a product of your environment and how your personality is developed no later than six years old, the movie he would use is Man of Steel as his main source and Kurt Cobain's Montage of Heck as his secondary source." Originally he said he would like to see a fictional movie but Kurt Cobain is the soul purpose I would write this paper so I threw it in as a secondary source, which he said was okay. That's all we did today, until Mr. Rivers class was rudely interrupted by the bell and we all moved on to our net class.

Have a good night and Rock on
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2F1Fllstno (Clip form Man of Steel)

Joanna Muino11/17/17

To start off the class today, Mr. Rivers directed our attention to the board which said "IWBAT identify the purpose of a piece of research writing." Previous to this, we had been researching different academic lenses to focus on for examples history or science. The importance of these lenses is to focus on one specific topic and idea, then find a movie that correlates both the topic and idea you had. Mr. Rivers had told us how once we come up with a topic we must research it to have as much information as possible. He also told us that your idea could and should change as you collect more research. He then gave each group a note card that had the name of one of the sample essays that he had previously posted on the google classroom(Shown below). Each group was instructed to follow the templet sentence he had given us earlier in the period. It was “A(n) (Academic lens) scholar writes a paper about (research topic) that uses evidence from (film) to (purpose).” After we had done the group work, Mr. Rivers told us to use the examples we had come up with for homework and apply them to the structured sentence templet on the PowerPoint. 

Juliana Oelkers 1/17/17

Today we started of class by logging into our computers, as usual. Then we got right into the objectives for the period. One objective was to identify the purpose of a piece of research writing. Our other objective was to find research as a means of evaluating writing goals. To practice these objectives we wrote once sentence proposals, which are meant to combine the intention and the goal of our paper into one sentence. This sentence also establishes community and helps to identify an audience. Its important to note that the goal of the essay could and should change as research is collected.

The format of the sentence is: A(n) academic lens scholar writes a paper about research topic that uses evidence from film to purpose. Each individual group was assigned an academic lens and we had to construct a paper proposal using it. My group got assigned history and our research topic was slavery so our proposal was: A history scholar writes a paper about slavery that uses evidence from Django Unchained to expose the lack of teaching in the school system in regards to slavery. Finally, each student wrote three of their own sentences and put them in the class power-point, where each academic lens had its own slide. The three academic lenses I chose were criminal justice, history, and psychology. Overall the proposal sentences were very efficient in helping focus our goals for our senior papers. 

1/17/17 Drew Vreeland

Tuesday, January 17, 2017

In today’s class, Mr. Rivers started it off with announcing that some seats were going to be changed. However, there were few seat changes and they were quite simple. After this, Mr. Rivers proceeded to break down the goals of today’s class. He explained they were to identify the purpose of a piece of research writing and to find preliminary research as a means of evaluating personal writing goals. Once Mr. Rivers explained this, he jumped to the next slide of one-sentence paper proposals. What these encompass are deliberate starting points to research papers that help establish communities (e.g. relationships with particular scholars). Altogether, a one-sentence paper proposal is a sentence that identifies the paper’s academic lens, research topic, and the film it will utilize to ultimately make its explicit purpose. Mr. Rivers gave a basic outline of one and exemplified it close to madlibs. The first example he gave was:

“A philosophy scholar writes a paper about virtual reality that uses evidence from Tron: Legacy to advocate the importance of technology’s influence on humanity.”

After the class discussed this example, Mr. Rivers summarized the point of a one-sentence paper proposal is to give direction. Once Mr. Rivers finished explaining the point of what a one-sentence paper proposal is, he handed out cards to each group with an academic lens on it. With this, each group would read the beginning of the senior paper that focused on this subject in order to make a one-sentence paper proposal based off of it. After this was completed, Mr. Rivers directed the class to a slideshow comprised of slides that would have students craft their own one-sentence paper proposals. For the remainder of class, each student collaborated with their group or independently to come up with their own one-sentence paper proposals.

Dianna Oelkers 1/13/17

In class on Friday 1/13/17 Mr. Rivers explained to us our next two big projects for the third marking period. The one he fully went over was the senior paper. He told us that this was the first big project we will be diving into. Next Mr. Rivers explained that for the paper we have to pick an academic lens, or a school subject (ex. math, history, science). Then continue to pick a movie that can go along with that specific lens. For example, if you choose the subject history a movie that can go along with that is Saving Private Ryan. Once you have some ideas of what subjects you want to write about and some movies that go along you have to open up google classroom and complete the assignment that was posted. The assignment says to write a brief description of what the academic field studies (2-3 sentences) . Then write what film you may go along with that lenses. Lastly, write one- sentence description of a paper that that solar may write about that film. If you did not complete the assignment in class you had to finish it for homework over the weekend.

1/13/17 Brianna Perfetti

In class today, we selected three potential academic lenses for our senior paper. You also give brief description about the fields study. To get more information, looking on colleges websites for the class pertaining to the study can help as well.  

1/13/17 Michael Tartaglia

Today in class, Mr. Rivers discussed the senior paper and that the topics had to be an academic study. He posted example essays from last year's class on google classroom to help us decide a topic. He gave us class time to look at the examples in order to start forming ideas and to start thinking about what topic we want for our paper. The examples can also be used as a model for punctuation, properly using quotes, grammar, and with MLA or APA format while we are in the process of writing. Also, the paper has to incorporate a film and must be related to the topic of your choice in some way. The film can be used to incorporate evidence in the essay. As of now, I have chosen biology as my topic and still need to find a film that incorporates biology. This three day weekend is just about finding your topic and movie. That is why Mr. Rivers posted homework on google classroom that will help his students find a topic to write for the paper over the weekend. The homework post is labeled select three academic lenses and it is due by Tuesday. The requirements are listed below the title.

1/12/17 Katie Hastings

Today in class, we began by pulling up our editing techniques slides and continuing on those. Each group was responsible for choosing 10 out of the 13 transitions, and finding and example of each. In addition, we had to define the transition and analyze the example we chose, telling where in the clip the transition occurred and how it affected the film. For example, I chose the transition "cross-cutting" which is a back-and-forth shot between two locations. For my example, I decided to go with a phone call scene, since they generally cut back and forth between the two people on the phone. I ended up choosing a phone call scene from American Sniper, which I pasted in the slide along with the definition. Then, I completed the analysis that went along with it. I wrote "This scene from American Sniper shows a phone call scene between Chris and Taya. The camera cuts back and forth from Chris to Taya, showing the audience where/what they are doing during the phone call. Since Chris is talking on the phone while operating a sniper rifle and Taya is seen sitting in a chair in a dark, silent room, the cutting back and forth creates a contrast. This emphasizes that Chris is at war, while Taya is home, alone." Meanwhile, my group was doing the same thing with different transitions.

13 transitions with their definitions: http://nofilmschool.com/2016/03/rocket-jump-film-cuts-and-types-transitions-editing

phone call scene from American Sniper: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtZZghMpC_I

1/12/17- Claire Vreeland

Today in class we continued working on our editing techniques PowerPoint. The purpose of this PowerPoint is to understand the  cuts and transitions in film. A cut in movie and television editing is the change in camera angle or position or view from one scene to another, and sometimes back, depending on the cut. Today we attempted to execute the identification while viewing videos on our own. While doing this activity, Mr. Rivers urged us to not look up "example of cut", but rather he wanted us to find a movie or television clip that fascinated us and to identify the types of transitions and cuts within that clip. Then from there he wanted us to move our video to our slide, identify the time the cut or transition takes place, and then analyze and define the cut. There are thirteen cuts and transitions we learned about yesterday, 1/11/17, but we only needed to complete 10 in our slides. Another tactic Mr. Rivers urged us to take advantage of is to work together in our designated groups, rather than divide and conquer the activity. By working together the group, as a whole, we understood and recognized the purpose of each of the cuts and transitions. In my group, we discussed the differences between the similar cuts and transitions. For example, I recognized that Cross-Cutting and a cutaway are very similar. I realized that a cross-cut is common in a phone call, while cutaways are common when the director wants the character's point of view to be understood. Although, some of these cuts and transitions are difficult to understand, the slides that we completed today were very helpful when trying to comprehend the differences between each and the purpose of each cut and how it benefits a film. Below is the link to the website the class referred to for the video we watched in class and the list of cuts and transitions to choose from.




 http://nofilmschool.com/2016/03/rocket-jump-film-cuts-and-types-transitions-editing

1/11/17 Sarah Veasey

Today in class we continued with editing techniques. Editing is a form of assembly, and it shapes narratives through assembly. By cutting different camera shots together, which is the basic unit of film editing, a writer/director can take any two shots and seamlessly transition them together. In class today we had an assignment (due Friday 1/13), that explained that in a group we have to show 10/13 cuts/transitions and embed a video into each slide to show as an example of each cut. To see examples of cuts and transitions such as, cutting on action, cut away, jump cut, dissolve, wipe, l-cut, etc., use this link to access the video for it to explain more. http://nofilmschool.com/2016/03/rocket-jump-film-cuts-and-types-transitions-editing

These techniques will allow us to further understand why directors do what they do to get their story across in short scenes and in specific cuts and transitions. 

1/10/16 Maeve McVeigh

Today we began class by getting our new seats. We then continued our discussion from yesterday regarding how assembling shots tell a story. We discussed how Psycho had multiple shots which also created a very negative tone/mood, whilst Goodfellas had one long shot with a relatively positive tone/mood. Music also is a key role in distinguishing to the tone of the scenes as well. We explored this by watching a scene from Wet Hot American Summer which was done in multiple shots and took a comedic positive tone. We also watched the opening scene of Birdman which took a very angry and dark tone by the way the main character is acting throughout the scene. The clip consisted of a few shots throughout the scene. However, the shots had such smooth transitions that for the viewer made it difficult to even notice these shots. By doing so, the film feels more realistic as though the viewer is right there in the room with Birdman.

1/19/16 Eric Lesch

We started off the class with two objectives. One being analyze how editing affects storytelling in film, and the other being evaluate how editing choices accomplish deliberate functions. After we went over the objectives on the board, Rivers played us a video essay similar to the one's that we will be creating later on in the marking period. The video talked about how text messages have been hard to show in films. Over the years actors would read the text "out loud like idiots" or say that the phone does not work. Now there is a new idea in film making that makes it much easier to keep track of the messages in real time and it saves lots of money for the director. They now display text right on the screen as the message pops up on their phone.
We then discuss after the video how it worked and we broke it down.
On the board we put up things that the video did.  The five things we said were:

• Show footage to support an overall idea 
• Creating a voiceover to provide analysis
• Excellent diction
• No awkward pauses
• Matched up with evidence

After we are done talking about the video essay we begin to analyze an image from the shower scene from the popular Hitchcock film Psycho. It was an image of the women holding her hand out in the shower sort of distracted by something in the room. We then use mise en scene to evaluate it fully. Hitchcock then explains how editing is not just putting clips together, but how you assemble them. For the last part of class, we were told to count the amount of cuts of the Psycho and Good Fellas. It was more of a fun part of class, but we did learn that there are many ways you can provide great film with or without using cuts.

Nikita O'Sullivan

This whole bracket and the party relates to F451 because we had to only talk good about Spock. We couldn't say anything bad about him. People were going to "jail" because one little thing or comment made it seem like someone was going against Spock(the government) .The same thing is happening in the party as it is was in the book. There was no freedom of speech. How do we remember this? We need to bring old students and talk about it. How do we dissent? We dissent by overthrowing the government. "How?"is another question to ask.

Shelby Vermeulen ~ 1/9/17

Today in class, we started of like every other day by getting our computers set up and putting today’s objectives into our notes. In the first 10 minutes of class, we watched a video and figured out what exactly the film does. As a class, we acknowledged that the film showed footage to create an overall idea. The idea was how texting and the internet are portrayed in movies. The director of this short film provided analysis by creating a voiceover that matched up with the evidence, had good diction, and no awkward pauses.

After we analysed the short film, we looked at a picture and were asked the question:

What does mise-en-scene tell you about this shot?

To answer this question we were able to conquer that she is the dominant feature based on the lighting and the lack of objects or people in the picture. We were also able to assume that she is in the shower because of the tile and the water.

Mr. Rivers then asked us how does editing work which he answered by telling us that it is assembling shots to tell a story. To explain more in depth, the class watched a video of Alfred Hitchcock explaining what film can do. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NG0V7EVFZt4)

We then were asked ‘How many shots make up this scene?’ as we watched the famous shower scene from Psycho. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VP5jEAP3K4) The class was able to admit that we all lost count. The director does not want us to realize the editing even though there are many shots. Next, we watched a clip from Goodfellas (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Sr-vxVaY_M) to see how many shots there were (only one shot). We ended class with this short clip.