Essay #1-- Your Dream School

For this first Essay assignment, you are going to dream. You are being asked to dream about creating a different vision for how a college might function. Below are some questions to consider. You should answer all or most of the questions. It is REALLY important that you do RULE of 3 for each question. (All that really means is that for each question, you should try to come up with 3 separate concepts. Each concept should be developed inside its OWN paragraph.)

1. If you were going to design a school that did the best job of bringing the most out of its students, and uncovering and unleashing student passion, what might be some features of this educational setting?
2. What role might students play in the school?

3. Have you seen schools in the “real world’ that have the features you describe… if so where , and if not, Why do you think schools do NOT match up with your dream?

4. How might teachers be different?

5. How might students be different?

6. What role might Student Voice play in your dream school?
7. When a student graduates from your school, what would you want them to Be, or Feel, or Think, or Know?

New Question added!
In class we went over a new question that has been added to the assignment.
I realized that before you could design a dream school, you probably would want to think about what kind of student you want your school to create. Question #7 above is the new question.

Try to be specific, creative, surprising, in your answer to #7 (and to all your question, lol.) . See if you can go beyond generalities in your answers. If you do this question, you should Rule of 3 it like we do with all our questions.

As you build this essay you will be drawing from 3 sources of writing: 1) the blog posts homework you have already created…2) new writing you do to flesh out your ideas…3) transitional phrases and paragraphs you create to stitch together your paper’s flow/argument.

 

You must integrate "Tuning the Voice" and "The Passion Project" into this paper; quotes from the movies need to be included in your paper, as well as a consideration of concepts that are found in the movies. Of course you can also pull quotes from other sources. 

You must average a minimum of 1-2 short quotes per paragraph.  Quote length in a paper of this length should be no more than 1-2 lines. Remember that the video prompts you have watched are a great source of quote support.

The essay’s page minimum is 5 full pages…(BNDJTM…)

Paragraph topic sentences should start with concepts. Paragraph topic sentences should also feature KEYWORDS, which are taken from the questions/prompts that you have been exploring.

The paper is due _________. First draft is due _______ (we will settle on due dates for each class at the next class session.)
(Of course, before the "first draft" date, you will be bringing in and sharing paragraphs from your paper....)