One more week of work. Don't blow your grade now!

Monday, May 18, 2015

posted 7 hours ago by Bradford Bosler

Due Dates: Section 1 has lots of vocabulary due! Quiz on Buzzword Set 2 Tuesday (Here are all the words and definitions.) Imagery/Theme paragraph due by Friday Links for vocabulary practice Buzzwords Set 1 Practice Buzzwords Set 2 Practice Combined Sets 1 and 2 Practice Vocabulary Workshop Agenda: Section 1 Practice Buzzword Set 2 Quiz TED Talks  Work time on vocabulary Sections 2 and 3 Practice Buzzword Set 2 Quiz TED Talks  Finish reading the story Work time on your paragraph Option 1: Multiple Themes/Messages he is trying to tell us through Night. Topic sentence: In the story Night, Elie Wiesel uses powerful imagery to help us better understand the themes.   One theme the book discusses is __________. Image that best symbolizes the theme. Explain the context of the image (part of the story in quick summary) Why is the symbol so good? Another theme is ________. Image that best symbolizes the theme. Explain the context of the image (part of the story in quick summary) Why is the symbol so good? The most important theme is ___________. Image that best symbolizes the theme. Explain the context of the image (part of the story in quick summary) Why is the symbol so good? OR Option 2: One Theme/Message he is trying to tell us through Night. The Main theme Elie Wiesel is trying to convey in Night is __________. One image that best symbolizes the theme is ____________. Explain the context of the image (part of the story in quick summary) Why is the symbol so good at helping us understand the theme? One image that best symbolizes the theme is ____________. Explain the context of the image (part of the story in quick summary) Why is the symbol so good at helping us understand the theme? One image that best symbolizes the theme is ____________. Explain the context of the image (part of the story in quick summary) Why is the symbol so good at helping us understand the theme? Requirements Just like the Germ of Hope paragraph, this should exhibit the following: Understanding of the text Use of four references to the source including the page number A topic sentence and conclusion And just the right amount of supports- this is not an essay Standards: CC.8.W.2 Text Types and Purposes: Write informative/explanatory texts to examine a topic and convey ideas, concepts, and information through the selection, organization, and analysis of relevant content.

Upcoming Assignments

Quiz Tuesday, May 19, on these words:

You can read the words, definitions, and sentences here.

1. trepidation (noun)
2. conjure (verb)
3. lacrosse (noun)
4. quixotic (adjective)
5. polyglot (adjective)
6. cachinnate (verb)
7. discard (verb)
8. leech (noun)
9. exhilarate (verb)
10. nexus (noun)

Paragraph due May 22: Assignment Here

In the story Night, Elie Wiesel uses powerful imagery to help us better understand the themes.  

These are collages students made from the images in the book.

(These are extra credit: 1-2 percentage points on their grade. Quality matters!)

I have updated some grades in HAC

As students finish their TED Talks, I am putting in their grades.  Right now some are excused. This is the schedule.
The students are finishing up Night and some other little assignments that will help them write their last written piece due May 22.  I would like to read their drafts to give them feedback earlier than that, though. They should share them with mrbozhb@gmail.com.

Megan named a caterpillar after me.  :) 

Last writing piece of the year: Due May 22

The students will be writing another paragraph like the Germ of Hope piece.  I want to see how they are improving with citing information from the text.  I have told the students to share this piece with me early so I can offer feedback for improvements.  Share with mrbozhb@gmail.com.

I have also offer up to two percentage points extra credit if they make a collage of the images from the story.  To get full credit, the collage should look like the student took time to carefully construct it.  The collage is also good brainstorming for written piece.

Possible topics:

1. Elie Wiesel has a story the world needs to hear.

2. How much control do we have over our lives? How did Elie end up as a survivor to tell his tale?

3. The story started with a "germ of hope."  What role did hope play in the rest of the story?

4. Find four clear, powerful images Elie Wiesel used in Night.  On a separate sheet, make a collage of those four images.  In your paragraph, explain these four images, why they are so important for us to remember, and how each contains a message Elie wants us to think about. Here is a brainstorming sheet I made to help you.

5. Explain how or if the Polish guards advice is what helped Elie make it through the camp system.  Are these instructions also life lessons we need to learn, or are they specific to camp?

I suggest students do this topic below.  I have listed all the steps.

In the story Night, Elie Wiesel uses powerful imagery to help us better understand the themes.  

First, brainstorm these images:

Image	Define	What has Elie Wiesel made it symbolize in Night?	How does his choice of image help us to better understand the theme?
Night
Hanging
Stomach
Crushed Violin
Fire
Hope

Second, make a collage for extra credit: more effort, more credit.

Night	Night by Elie Wiesel	Hope
Hanging		Stomach
Crushed Violin		Fire

Now write a paragraph:

Topic sentence: In the story Night, Elie Wiesel uses powerful imagery to help us better understand the themes.  

One theme the book discusses is __________.

Image that best symbolizes the theme.

Explain the context of the image (part of the story in quick summary)

Why is the symbol so good?

Another theme is ________.

Image that best symbolizes the theme.

Explain the context of the image (part of the story in quick summary)

Why is the symbol so good?

The most important theme is ___________.

Image that best symbolizes the theme.

Explain the context of the image (part of the story in quick summary)

Why is the symbol so good?

Requirements

Just like the Germ of Hope paragraph, this should exhibit the following:

• Understanding of the text
• Use of four references to the source including the page number
• A topic sentence and conclusion
• And just the right amount of supports- this is not an essay

Please type it as a Google Doc and share with mrbozhb@gmail.com

If you share it early, please let me know if you want me to give you feedback.

Section 1 Vocabulary Workshop Schedule and final written piece

You are going to finish the Vocabulary Workshop book.  Here is the schedule.  Vocabulary is not a huge grade, so you should be focusing your time on your TED Talk and the final writing piece that I introduced today, Monday.

What a great first day of presentations!

I sent out a schedule of the presentations earlier, but this will be the one I keep up to date. 
(I should have just sent the link on the last blog entry.)

I created a presentation to give to the kids as well.  I bored my first class with an 18 minute lecture.  The para in the class scored me as a 95%.  In the next section, I cut it down to 12 minutes, and the class scored me, again, around a 95%.  They said my focus wandered.  My last class scored me around a 97%.  It was my most focused presentation, but I still feel like I could have done better.

The reason I tell you this is not to brag.  There is a rubric.  According to the rubric, this is what I scored.  Each student will participate in scoring the presentations and writing down the lesson from each talk.  I will collect the data sheet after all the presentations are done.

I had some great presentations today.  I had one 100%, a 99%, and a 97%.  It was also the guinea pig day, so some of the lower scores will get to improve theirs.

60%	70%	85%	95%	100%
gets	2:30	3:30	4 min	5 min
up	notes/outline	notes/outline	notes/outline	no notes
and	gives	intro	intro	intro
speaks	a	body	body	body
	talk	conclusion	conclusion	conclusion
		"According to…"	"According to…"	"According to…"
		x2	x2	x2

If you are interested, this is the outline of my presentation.    

I easily spent four hours preparing for my presentation.  :)

Focus: Why would it matter if we were living in a computer simulation?

Consciousness

1. The only world we know is what comes through our brain
1. Our brain is a collection of neurons and cells which communicate through chemicals and electrical signals
2. We take in information through our senses: see, hear, feel, smell, touch
2. Based on stimuli and our stored knowledge of the world, we make decisions.
1. We are also a product of genes- our genetic programming
2. So who we are now is a result of our experiences and how we react to those experiences based on our genetics.
3. In a sense, we are stimuli in and decisions out- like a computer
3. Yet we feel conscious, like we exist in a world as something apart from our surroundings.  
1. I think therefore I am” is one philosophical way of expressing this.
2. Where does this consciousness come from?
3. We have a bio/chemical brain.  
4. There is no region in the brain that is our consciousness.
5. We just are!

Simulate a brain

1. Why couldn’t a computer with enough computing power replicate the consciousness of a brain? A 1,000 brains? An infinite number of brains?
2. What if a computer could simulate every aspect of our world and its place in space?
1. In Barry Dainton’s 2002 paper “Innocence Lost,” he cited earlier predictions that we would have the power to simulate on brain by 2010.
2. He goes on to cite others who believe we could simulate 1,000 brains by 2029,
3. and even more powerful simulations in 50 years.

Why create simulations?

1. One theory is that our future, technologically advanced and curious humans would want to explore where they came from.
1. Maybe we have lost some of our humanness as we evolved and we want to, as Barry Dainton’s paper suggests, explore our innocence we lost.
2. Who were we as less technologically advanced people?
2. There are ways they could explore us that we could recognize from technology today:
1. One is to be immersed in a realistic setting, like we are starting to do with virtual reality.  We become a part of a created world.
2. Another way would be to run a simulation, as seen in the game The Sims.
3. An even more interesting idea is that we are in a simulation run by aliens who are exploring our species.
1. We have been broadcasting all of our information into space for decades now.  
2. From that information, aliens could recreate us.  Because of the distances of space, we as humans could have been long dead for millions of years.
3. They could have used the date to recreate our world to explore, maybe, why we became extinct.

Case Study:  The Book of Job in the Bible

1. It is believed that Job is the oldest book of the Bible written approximately 2100-1800 B.C.
2. The basic story is that the Satan bets God that Job will renounce God when he is under enough suffering.  God allows Satan to attack Job, thus testing Job’s faithfulness.
1. stole the oxen and donkeys!  servants were killed
2. fire that killed your sheep and your servants
3. stole your camels! All of your other servants were killed,
4. a windstorm from the desert blew the house down, crushing all of your children.
3. “When Job heard this, he tore his clothes and shaved his head because of his great sorrow. He knelt on the ground, then worshiped God 21 and said:
1. “We bring nothing at birth;
   we take nothing
       with us at death.
   The Lord alone gives and takes.
   Praise the name of the Lord!”
4. his wife even tells him to curse God and commit suicide, but he remains strong and faithful,
1. “Through all this Job did not sin nor did he blame God.” (1:22).
5. Job’s friends give him plenty of bad advice
1. They mistakenly blame his sufferings on his personal sins rather than God testing and growing Job.
6. In chapters 38-42, God speaks to Job and restores him.
1. God fittingly declares that humans do not know everything.
2. “Have you understood the expanse of the earth? Tell Me, if you know all this”.
3. God then brings him to an understanding that believers don’t always know what God is doing in their lives.
4. God then blessed Job with twice as much as he had before his trials began.
7. Job was in a simulation
1. God set up the parameters with Satan introducing hardship
2. They both sat back and watched Job and his FREE WILL: would he curse God?

In a simulation

1. All objects are defined
1. They are programed to have a range of reactions to stimuli
2. Each person contains reasonably unique experiences
3. Hence each will react differently
4. But it is only a simulation because the objects react from their free will.
2. God did not say Job would not curse Him because He programmed him to never curse him.  
1. Job had the choice to worship or curse God.
2. The story of Job is used to explain why good people suffer.  As an outsider in the story, we the reader know why he is going through this pain.  
3. But Job does not.
3. In real life, we are Job.  
1. We could be in test of faith like Job.  
2. Simply put, we could be in a contrived simulation and not know it.

Does it matter if we are living in a simulation?

1. On page 16, Barry Dainton explains that it doesn’t matter.
1. Even if we did know that we are in a simulation, we don’t know the parameters of the programming.  
2. We are constantly trying to understand our world as it is already.  
3. If we are in simulation, all we can know is all we can deduce from the world around us… which is the simulation.
4. We can know nothing beyond that.
5. We as simulations wouldn’t know we were in a sim world.

Applications for Night

1. What if we are in a simulated world?
1. In this world, we humans are given free will.
2. We have evolved over the millennia, as far as we know, into what we are today.
3. We have a moral code of right and wrong and the freedom to choose… and suffer the consequences of our actions.
2. Right now we are studying the Holocaust.
1. We are a people in 2015 studying the actions of people in the 1930’s and 40’s and trying to make sense of their decisions, their free will to kill so many people.
2. We are learning from our past.
3. Who are we? What happens if we allow others to kill millions of humans?
3. We are, in 2015, the world that has experienced not only one genocide, but many others just like it.  
1. As JD’s presentation will explain, WWII was not the last.
2. In this simulation, 2015 and the decades to come might be more of those years our future ancestors look back on and shake their heads in confusion.
1. We could be a he past of a successful human race that corrected itself.
2. We could be a simulation of an alien civilization that wonders why we went extinct.
3. We might not even be human anymore because humans cannot seem to live together in peace.

The main idea I want to get across is that, even IF we are living in a computer simulation, we have FREE WILL.

• We determine a lot in our lives:
• Some live strong and survive
• Some, due to their decisions, crumble.
• Some are faced with adversity and overcome.
• Some encounter the free will of others.
• The point is, like Job, this is the only world we know.
• Whether we are real or not is unknowable.
• Based in the data we have acquired so far, we make decisions.

My hope for you is that after studying Night, you use this new data in your programming to make choices that will make this world better.

If we are in a simulation, I hope that the years I have left in here will be positive and our simulator running ancestors will see that these were the years when humans saved themselves from extinction.

We have a choice.

(This is my list of websites.  It is not a formal bibliography.)

http://www.simulation-argument.com/dainton.pdf

http://biblehub.com/summary/job/1.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGZiLMGdCE0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hw88MWoqenQ

http://www.bibleversesabout.org/bible/job/