Tuesday, September 8, 2020

Day 1 - 2020 - Virtual Schooling

Good Evening Fairfax Families,

Today was a great day to kick off the 2020 school year. The virtual start provided some amusing missteps (like my forgetting to allow chat and audio/video permissions), but overall we had a great start. I've enjoyed watching your FlipGrid videos and seeing your interactive notebook covers. Here are a few notes from our first day of school.

All Classes (Especially Parents/Guardians)

The Blackboard space for class is pretty barren, because the course content is housed in Google Classroom. The main thing for you to draw your attention to is the syllabus and course policies document. This is available in FCPS 24-7 as well as in Google Classroom. I would highly recommend reviewing the document with your student and filling out the Google Form at the end of the document together.

If you did not share your Interactive Notebook or complete your FlipGrid video, be sure to do so. I've noticed that some people have submitted one or the other, in which case I've awarded partial credit. I'll check again tomorrow and correct any scores. Remember that homework should be complete by the end of Monday (in a perfect world), since Monday is your asynchronous/homework day.

AP Language (3rd and 5th)

Tonight you should get familiar with your online textbook for our class since we'll be using this in our next session. If you need the links for the FlipGrid or a reminder of the Interactive Notebook, check out our class slides which are in Google Classroom. As always, you can email me with questions/comments as well.

Further reflection on our key question of "What is America/an American?" is also warranted. We'll delve deeper next class and throughout the unit.

English 10 (7th)

I enjoyed our opening conversation on culture and our work with the poem "About School". We were hitting on some important themes related to culture clash and conformity today, and we'll carry those forward next time we meet. For tonight, I would reflect further on these ideas and how you've seen or experienced them in your life. Additionally, if you need to submit a video or share your Interactive Notebook, please do so. I'm looking forward to seeing your recordings and getting to know you better.

I hope that you had as good of a first day as I did. See you on Thursday!

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