#with powers that enhance qualities they already had so they’ll never know who they would have been without a god making them ‘better’

[4ce-of-2pades]

(Leo speaking to Hephaestus:)

Leo: I used to think I was creative. I used to think I was smart. I used to take pride in the things I invented. But it’s just you, isn’t it? Everything I’m good at, everything I like about myself, it’s just your powers I inherited. If I wasn’t your son, I wouldn’t be able to do any of this. I wouldn’t be good at anything.

Leo: I thought that I had earned this. That I had learned when my mom taught me about machines, that I had built my abilities myself. But it’s all just shortcuts and fakery. It’s just god magic. It’s not real. It’s not mine.

[echoalyssa]

Phantom | Dick Grayson

Authors Note: There’s some light language in this, but thats about all!

“Phantom to Nightwing, entering dead zone now. Start the clock and come in if I’m late. I love you.”

You now had an hour inside the base, unable to contact anyone. You were collecting intel and because you were the stealthiest and smallest, (Damian was too young for this particular mission) Bruce had sent you in.

Your boyfriend, Dick Grayson had wanted to come with you but Bruce had rejected the idea because two people was more risky than one.

Dick had been livid, it was more risky for your life for you to go alone. He was your partner even though you were all a team. Ever since childhood, the two of you fought together and somewhat seemed to share the same mind.

You push a vine our of your dace. Your black masks shows the digital map of the quietest places to step. Your hood is pulled up to disguise your features and skin tone that obviously didn't fit in with the darkness of the air around you.

You had left your mottled cloak behind, opting to only have to worry about your body and where you place it. 

Joker was extremely active underground lately, he’d evolved and Bruce had only your mission as a lead. 

Your mask displays your one hour timer on the left hand side of your vision. Fifty minutes to get into the compound and back to safety.

The compound comes into view, a flat stone building that just didn’t fit in with the forest that surrounded it. You creep forward, staying in the shadows and hugging the walls of the building until you reach the only vent.

The stone was practically flat but years of training allowed you to look your gloved fingers into a crevice and wedge a booted foot into the building.

You begin climbing, scaling upwards twenty feet. The screws of the vent are all different and you have to pull away from the wall, your body straining so you can unscrew the bottom two.

You’re small enough that you can pry the vent open enough that you can squeeze yourself in. Forty minutes your clock reads. You were going too slow. You crawl forward on your elbows, you trek forward, you should have asked for two hours. Shit.

You hit the record button on your wrist panel and pull the microphone out.

It’s a tiny one but the quality is amazing. You’re peering through a small vent above a research lab now and you thread the microphone and it’s wire through the vent. The audio feeds into your ear piece and also saves to the hard drive in your panel.

You’re holding your breath, only breathing when you have to to minimize any chance of getting caught.

“We need to move in now! He’s only getting more recruits and it’s only a matter of time before they find us again.” Says a voice.

“If they haven’t already! I say we try the new weapon on some unsuspecting crowd of bystanders now. Then they’ll be too busy trying to save those silly citizens to deal with us.”

“Yes but is it ready..?”

“It needs to be tested again and we need to find a more powerful energy source eventually.”

And then the joker walks into view of the vent. He’s holding a blueprint and he spreads it on one of the tables. It’s the paint schematic for the weapon because of course, the joker being the joker meant that everything needed to be green, purple, and white.

You raise a hand to your mask and tap twice. It takes a screenshot of your view of the blueprint and sends it to the bat hard drive.

“Did you have any luck with batons inner circle? Would anyone snitch?”

“A couple...” the speaker listens. It’s valuable intel and now Bruce would be able to feed false information to the rats.

You begin to tap their names away into the panel and then attempt to wirelessly hack into the mainframes. The firewall were strong and plentiful but eventually they all fall victim to you. Sixteen minutes your timer reads. Shit. The data downloading from their computers and into your drive is only halfway done.

It won’t be very detailed. Just minuscule bits of information because you couldn't connect physically to the computers. It’s a line of script here and there that didn't make much sense to you because you weren't super tech-y. Though every line counted and that you knew. Several addresses also pop up.

Finally, after what feels like an eternity, your panel signals that the download is complete. Seven minutes reads the timer. Double shit.

You scramble backwards knowing that you’ve done all that you can. Somehow managing to turn yourself around in the small space. You’re almost at the vent when you foot clangs against the side of the vent.

You freeze, no alarms go off, but then again why would they? The timer is still ticking and you continue on, sliding out of the vent. You fumble with the screws, attempting to get them back in in case your cover hadn't already been blown. You then plant your feet, push off and flip down to the ground. You land nimbly in a rolling crouch and then pop to your feet and take off, sprinting for the tree line.

They come from the shadows. Dozens of them. All focused in on you.

You suck in a breath and draw your longswords.

“Bring it on Goonies!” You call and they surge forward all at once. Some with guns, electric batons, and swords.

You stalk forward, meeting them in the middle. You begin slashing immediately at arms, legs, torsos, anywhere that wasn’t too lethal. You weren't a killer.

Except there were just so many, the sword in your left hand falls from your grip and you pull out a disc, throwing it into the incomers. It explodes, blinding some and wounding others. 

You yank s taser out from your belt and stab it into an attackers neck while blocking an attack with your sword. And then it happens. A baton smacks into the back of your head and you stumble forward, dizzy. A blade slashes your thigh, splitting skin and muscle. A cry comes fro, your lips and you lash out desperately with your one remaining longsword. You're able to down the foe who had slashed you.

Two more take his place and then a dagger rips through your abdomen from behind. You scream, falling to your knees. Just as it gets put through your thigh, followed by your shoulder. You land in the grass face first and the world goes dark, sound fading out.

‘Dick.’ Is your last thought.

~~~

Dick is staring at the timer that is displayed by his make. 00:00:05. 00:00:04. 00:00:03. 00:00:02. 00:00:01. And the dreaded number... 00:00:00. It blares red and he stares at the forest, fists clenched. Where was she?

Tim steps forward and places a hand on his shoulder. “Give her five minutes okay? She’s smart. You know how these missions sometimes go overtime. She’s got this.”

“We never should have sent her in alone. It was too risky. Damn it!”

His fist rockets into a tree. He considers going after Bruce, giving him a piece of his mind. Then decides that it isn’t worth it and begins to prepare to go in after his love.

He makes sure to grab the miniature cauterizer and some other emergency medical supplies, stuffing them into the pouches on his belt.

“Wait, Nightwing, we’ll go together. We need a plan!” Damian calls.

His heart is pounding out of his chest and he can’t breathe. ‘What if he was too late? What if she was already gone?’

He doesn’t want to wait for a plan, time was ticking. He pushes past his adoptive brother.

“Dick wait!” Jason calls trying to grab his arm. But he keeps going, breaking for the trees to find her.

Jason and Tim look at each other, then they both look at Damian. “Stay here.” They say simultaneously/

“No way!” He yells back at his brothers.

The three of them take them off after Nightwing. And Bruce, having watched all his children run into danger, follows them in.

Nightwing is pushing through vines and branches, not caring if he makes noise or not. He knows the rest of his family will follow him, but quietly.

His mail enhances his vision in the darkness. He draws a thumb over his own panel and it activates the heat censor on his mask. Dick Grayson pushes forward quickly, scanning frantically for her heat signature.

And then he sees it. She’s always run cold. Her fingers and limbs always frozen. A small prone figure, running colder than the other surrounding bodies. He kicks up his pace, heading for her because he just knows.

“Phantom!” he yells, followed by, “Robin! I think I found her!”

He skids to a halt and falls to his knees, he can see the stab wounds. The way her blood has soared into the ground beneath her. 

Nightwing rolls her over, jamming his fingers under her neck to find a pulse. It’s there. But weak.

He rips the cauterizer out of his belt and drapes her body over him just as Jason appears. 

“Is she..?”

“Alive.” He grunts, “Not for much longer I need to..”

Jason helps him rip the uniform away enough so Dick has enough room to maneuver.

“Hold her down!”

Jason does as he’s told and Dick places the cauterizer to her skin.

“Only do what you have to, we need to get out of here. And soon.”

He pushes the two flaps of skin together and places the sparking tool to it. The heat melds the skin together. She’d need to be pumped full of antibiotics in case any of the blades were dirty and risked infection.

She only stirs slightly, too disoriented from her loss of blood. He talks to her the whole time he works on her.

He only does her abdomen, knowing that it’s her most serious injury. It might not even hold from the jolting and jostling that would occur in the journey back. Dick stabs a painkiller into her thigh, just in case she were to awaken.

He motions to Tim and Damian, who had been standing guard, to take up the rear. Grayson then scoops up his girlfriend, cradling her to his chest.

“Jason. Take point. Let’s get her home.”

~~~

He sits by her bedside. His hands are covered in her dry blood, along with his suit. He hadn’t bothered to change.

Y/N had needed a blood transfusion and he had offered immediately, hence why there was a needle in his arm funneling blood into girlfriend. Alfred had stitched do her wounds and hooked her up to an IV for hydration and anti-infection purposes.

She’d been changed out of her uniform after she was stable for cleanliness reasons and was now wearing one of his black shirts.

He’s holding her hand, his thumb tracing over the pulse point of her wrist occasionally.

It would be a long road to recovery for her though they all knew that she would bounce back and attempt to get back in to the field as soon as she could walk.

It’s days later when she finally wakes, her eyelids fluttering.

“Dick.” She whispers.

He’s right there, just like he had been, he’d only left briefly to shower but he ate and slept at her side. Jason had covered both of your patrols, with Bruce helping out.

“I’m okay. You’re okay, babygirl.” He places a hand on her face and she leans her head into his touch.

[bearpillowmonster]

Spider-Man PS4 Review

 I just finished the game so here's my official review. I've been taking some notes throughout playing it so don't think I didn't have time to think it over or anything. This will be a long post so bear with me. (NON SPOILERS)

I started by wondering if I should get this game, E3 looked hype from the trailers but it never stood up front the crowd, losts of speculation from me. A few months ago I watched a video where these guys got to play it early just to share game mechanics (I think it was GameSpot or something) I know what they meant in a lot of things they were talking about now. Now here's the kicker, there's DLC. I hate DLC, never get it despite a lot of it looking cool, however I saw Black Cat as one of the DLC. I have a soft spot when it comes to Black Cat, I just have to check it out when she's involved...leading me to not only buy the game but the deluxe edition as well.

Let me start from the intro of the game. It is actually very visual oriented and easter egg filled. It explains the story of Spider-Man, where we are, and the timeline in less of a minute without saying a word. A spider drops down from the window (Pete getting powers) There's a pic of Uncle Ben and May and Peter then one of Mary Jane and Harry (they've met, been friends, graduated) Next picture has only Peter and May (Ben's death). There's a notebook with concepts for a web shooter (throwback to the 2002 movie sketches) A magazine with Norman Osborn that's labeled "Secrets" with some green nerf darts (Green Goblin is the secret (hence green darts) so not yet introduced) There's a wall of newspaper clippings with some of the villains on them (The big ones that have already been fought in this timeline) Next is a series of post-it notes but the most visible says "RENT DUE". (Peter owns his own place and is struggling) Now that's what I call an intro (it gets more epic right after but i wont spoil)

One complaint I see is the graphics. "They aren't as good as we saw at E3" or something along those lines. BOI this game has great graphics for starters and second How noticeable is the texture on a wall or a puddle compared to the actual character models? This game has a perfect excuse for toning down some ever so slightly. It runs better. It's an open world game and there's maybe one small loading screen and then this bad boy of a town is all yours, If these cutscenes were prerendered (a select few are but for the most part) then it would seem weird going from that to a loading screen. THERE ARE NO LOADING SCREENS AFTER CUTSCENES! It's straight into the action. Seamless. Having the graphics of both cutscene and gameplay match each other just enhances the experience for me so good on them! Also you can look in most windows and actually see stuff in there like computers or if the light is on or chairs/tables etc. That's next level! There are tips on the few loading screens you have (such as if you start a side mission, which I'll get to here in a minute) and they go by so fast you can just barely read the tip, it's that quick for me.

Next complaint I don't see much at all anymore but saw when this game was announced was the voice cast. Yuri Lowenthal wasn't the first pick for a lot of Spidey fans but he does an excellent job in this game like I mean they all do but you can really tell that the cast went all out for this game, it's great. Yuri even shares a name with one of the characters so yay. Also he voices older Ben from Ben 10. Even though it would be cool to have different voice actors for different suits such as Tom Holland for the Homecoming suit, Yuri does a nice job. Jameson is in this and he hosts a podcast that plays sometimes while you're swinging, that's a good modern take on him but nobody will ever beat JK Simmons just saying.

The Spiderman juggernaut that was Spiderman 2 (preferably the GC version for me) was a big game to stack against, nothing has beat it until this game in my opinion. Spiderman 2 I could get lost in just doing side missions, I would literally spend my time saving people hanging from roofs, getting mugged and car chases and still be satisfied with that game, it was that good! (also I wasn't too good at knowing what to do in games as a kid so eh) The swinging, the jumping, all felt natural and fun. This game can perhaps even beat that even with nostalgia, the web swinging is the best we've seen, it applies parkour and acrobatics and gravity and momentum to define what I say is the word to describe this game "F-L-O-W". Everything has a flow and it feels good for it to flow. It does a good job of trying to keep what everyone liked with SP2...even a few character chase sequences, which I've always hated and still do but it's still nostalgic and would probably be missed if it wasn't in there. Wallrunning is a lot simpler and easier, web shooting is a lot more fun and gives you control, lots of different variety, lots of different unlockables. Also you can actually unlock that super jump like in SP2 and I love it! You don't get stuck nearly as often, if you're swinging, you don't lose momentum if you run into stairs or a building, he goes straight into wall run mode or just swings around it, feels so good. There's actually a throwback to the Spiderman 2 train sequence where he mentions "That worked last time" when trying to use his webs to stop a train.

I made sure to give a fair amount of effort to do as much as I can in this game. I did all the landmark missions, backpacks, black cat stakeouts, collected most of the suits, unlocked every skill, tried different play styles with webbing and such. (I can actually recognize how someone's play style is different than mine when I watch because I've played it so much) You don't like the white spider suit? Well you can unlock others and play as those instead, you barely have to use the white spider suit but doesn't go without saying each suit interchangeable quirks but not making any more powerful than another. Use the environment to your advantage, there's some stealth involved here but you don't have to use it, it's actually pretty fun. You can throw trash cans and concrete mix and shock people with stuff. You can crawl in vents.

Side missions and side stuff. Are they fun? I'd be lying if I said every single one was great but there are a lot of really good ones, some even bring in certain characters that I shuttered when I saw. Backpacks were awesome because it's always a mystery where they'll be as well as what's in them, plus it unlocks a certain suit. Black Cat missions, obviously I love, get a suit out of that too. Landmarks are kinda fun, I didn't think I'd like it much but I just did it and was like "Wow that's actually a really cool shot" it makes me feel like a photographer (Have yet to try Photo mode though). But here's something cool. If you go to a side mission, it will take you out of your current situation so you don't waste time or get distracted by certain elements and puts you in a separate but same version New York and if you're in a phone call with someone and you go to do a side quest during it, Peter will say something like "Sorry about that, continue" and it will either pick up where you left off in the call or rewind a little bit so you remember. Here's something I didn't think I would see though. Minigames. Yeah...so apparently you can scan an element for it's components and you have to match the lines and then there's one for the neural interface which has you making a path from one side to another, and it's not the best but whatever, it does what it does.

The story is on par. If it were separated into a movie, it might actually work, it's of that quality. The characters are great as well, each being unique to this story without breaking their comic origin too much. Spidey actually got me to laugh quite a few times with his quips. I want to go in depth with the characters because I really like how some of them are handled but I don't want to spoil who all is in this game. The AI is pretty good, I like that it tells you if an enemy can see you and can highlight where all the enemies are by pressing R3. I even had the final boss dodging some of my attacks, I had nothing but respect for that though, no salt.

Now this game is among the greats but that goes without saying there are some aspects that could be improved upon. People complained about Quick Time Events when this was revealed and I didn't blame them but now I do because I see a few scenes that look like "Aww I wanna play that" because it was probably a scene meant for QTE but they took it out because of fan backlash (QTE is still in there but not a lot fyi). At the end Peter is faced with some decisions and that's what Spider-Man is about, we even see it at the end of the first Spider-Man movie and done masterfully. This one is done really well but I almost wish we could've played that, and made the decision for ourselves just to see what the outcome would be then go and play it again to do the other route. The problem with that is this isn't a "Mary Jane will remember that Telltale/Detroit" kind of game so putting that in right at the end would feel a bit cheap. Just like the Marvel movies, there's a post credits scene so stay tuned for that. Overall a really good game, highly recommend it and await the the DLC/sequel?. I'm over 80% done with the game after finishing the story so I might as well just 100% it and complete all side missions and stuff.

[thisiswhatwereupagainst]

New Evolution Brotherhood fic ideas

I was thinking about the end of the X-Men Evolution series, and how we see that in the future, Magneto will join the X-Men and become teacher to the New Mutants, while the Brotherhood will go on to work for SHIELD. And so I was thinking, if I were to write a continuation of of Evolution, who will be the new bad guys? SHIELD can be antagonistic to the X-Men at times, but that's not the same thing as bad guys. I personally would like to see lots of baddy groups from the comic books who never made it to canon Evo, such as the Marauders and the Hellfire Club, and I already have ideas about the Evolution version of the Hellions to combat the New Mutants, but how about a new Brotherhood too, who would be foes to both the X-Men and SHIELD? I think that would only make sense. The canon Evolution Brotherhood was just vulnerable teenagers being manipulated by an adult into making trouble for her own ends, not real bad guys with any real goals. This new Brotherhood, however, would be more like the Brotherhood of comics and movies, a true radical organization formed in response to rising anti-mutant sentiment as mutants became more and more well-known. Since mutants only became public knowledge during the course of Evolution, things are probably gonna get worse for them before they get better. The new Brotherhood would be adults lashing back against that with real terrorist activity. (I do love the “teen rivals” idea of the original Brotherhood though, so that would continue with the aforementioned Evolution version of the Hellions led by, of course, an Evolution version of Emma Frost. So they would be the successors to the Evolution Brotherhood in spirit---a pack of mostly good kids misled by an awesome evil lady---while this new one would be more in name.)

For this new Brotherhood, I would pick characters from the comics canon who were involved with the 616 Brotherhood and 616 Acolytes (not to be confused with the canon Evo Acolytes which were nothing like them and had none of the same members), as well as similar groups like the Mutant Liberation Front (which was not run by Magneto in the comics, but had likeminded goals, as evident by the name) So here is my lineup idea and my reasons for picking each mutant. Click their names for links to info pages about them elsewhere on the web!

Obviously, with Magneto gone, a leader is needed. I guess Mystique is the obvious choice, but for a NEW series, I think I would like to have a new Big Bad, and have Mystique doing new things. I think she could be a sort of chaotic neutral type, aiding the “bad guys” and “good guys” alike---helping out the Acolytes and their ilk because she agrees with their cause, but also the X-Men in an attempt to win over Kurt and Rogue, as well as anyone else who suits her ends. No, for the actual leader of the new Brotherhood, I would pick (no surprise from me, I guess) Fabian Cortez. At my RP blog for Fabian and the other first-gen Acolytes from the comics ( @thecorteztwins ) I play an Evolution verse where Fabian and his sister Anne Marie are teenagers, not terrorists, and pretty ordinary nice kids. I find it fun to play a Lighter and Softer version of them both. But if I were going to actually write for the show (or just a fanfic) I think that an adult Fabian Cortez, one who is very like his 616 counterpart, would be an excellent choice for a villain and as a successor to Magneto's role---I mean, he did that for awhile in the comics anyway, and he actually did it pretty damn well until Magneto came back and he got demoted to abused comic relief. Also, Evolution Magneto was pretty despicable and far less sympathetic and complex than 616 Magneto, so the fact that Fabian himself isn't at all sympathetic wouldn't be an issue as far as “is this character a good replacement for that one in terms of story role” goes. I also think Fabian would be a bit more fun to work with, because he's not just very competent and clever and threatening as a villain, he's also frequently hilarious and embarrassing as a person, as you know from my other posts about him. So he can be more fleshed-out, versus just the scary bad guy in the background. No offense to Magneto fans here, I just don't think Evo did Magneto justice, at least to my memory.

Fabian being there means that Anne Marie Cortez is a shoe-in for the team psychic. Since they'll be fighting a team that has both Xavier and Jean Grey (until the Phoenix, as also shown in the future of Evolution) I think it's only fair that the Brotherhood has somebody to balance that, though her powers being much more limited compared those of Xavier (she is not a true telepath, but an empath who can also control minds) keeps her from making their side TOO overpowered in that regard (since if the bad guys have their own Xavier, that would just end every fight before it starts) Her enhanced agility and skill with a firearm (as shown in the comics) can make for dramatic physical fights as well, so she's not just standing there with her fingers on her forehead. It would also be neat to work in my theory that Empath of the Hellions is cousin to the Cortez twins. Also to work out if this version of Anne Marie would want to bring Magneto back to the cause, or just sees him as a traitor and is loyal only to the ideas of the Brotherhood, not its founder. That would apply for everyone I guess, but it would especially apply for how I write her because the way I write her 616 version on my RP blog is someone who is fanatically devoted to Magneto as a religious character, so it would be a radically different Anne Marie for me to write in many ways if I changed that. Which would also be interesting. Delgado or Frenzy or Kamal El Alaoui as the team strongman. I have a bias for Delgado since I write him on my RP blog, and Kamal has a cool extra ability too (takes on qualities of whatever he touches, such as steel or concrete) but I really like Frenzy there. Female strongman characters with visible muscle are a bit unusual, and I don't think we've had a super-strong woman in Evolution. Plus, since she joined the X-Men in 616, she could be this season's Rogue...but honestly, I kinda like her better as classic 80s-90s total asshole Frenzy. I guess there could be a way to make it both, though, and redemption stories are more powerful when the person was REALLY bad first.

Astra or Amelia Voght for team teleporter. Amelia was the teleporter for the 616 Acolytes, while Astra was with the 616 Brotherhood. I prefer Amelia for her interactions with Fabian, but Astra would be great for Magneto stories, either pursuing her personal grudge against him (like she had in the comics) or trying to recruit him back into his old life, or both. And if she's trying to recruit him, how does Fabian, the current leader, feel about that? Does he support it, because having Magneto will attract more followers? Or is he opposed to it because he doesn't want his position threatened? I think I'd have to go with Astra for these reasons, and I think Amelia's interactions with Fabian could easily be duplicated with Astra (Fabian is a creep, then pays for it, basically) Just as Astra has a past with Magneto in the comics, Amelia has a past with Xavier, so she could be used for doing an Xavier-centric story, but I think we already know Evolution Xavier is pretty terrible, and I think Astra going after Magneto could make for more actual conflict, so again, I'd pick Astra. But I would still like having Amelia for reasons other than her powers and her connection to Charles, mainly that she was the one who questioned the Acolytes cruelty and, unlike Scanner or Neophyte (see below) she wasn’t meek about it. I think someone like that is important for the team dynamic---you’ve got the sadistic assholes (Carmella, Kleinstocks, Senyaka, etc), the people who aren’t that evil but also don’t care (Phantazia) or are oblivious (Milan), the ones who feel it’s wrong but are too afraid to do anything (the aforementioned Neophyte and Scanner types) and then Amelia, the sole one saying anything. In order not to make her redundant next to Astra, I would tweak her powers, so she no longer teleports via mist, but has powers like those of Mist Mistress, making her a composite character (like how Evolution Avalanche is a combination of comics Avalanche and Rictor) Mist Mistress never got a civilian name in the comics, and Amelia never got a codename, so it works out pretty well! Neophyte or Scanner as the one who, as previously mentioned, is not as cruel as the majority of their comrades but lacks the spine to take a stand. Their powers are different, but their abilities are visually similar and both non-combative, and both of them are meek types who aren't cruel like many of their teammates but too scared and submissive and unsure to actually question Fabian, who they obey and who bullies them behind closed doors like the big dickwad he is. So I would pick just one to use so it's not redundant. Scanner is an adult woman and Neophyte is a teenage boy, so Fabian's interactions with Scanner would have an extra gross edge that they wouldn't with Neophyte. I'm not sure if that's a reason to pick her or a reason NOT to, to be honest. On the one hand, it helps show how awful he is. On the other, this is a kid's show. I think I'll go with Neophyte. Fabian can still be gross to other women in the series, but then they can kick his ass. Plus Neophyte being a teen gives him a chance to connect more with the New Mutants (I picture most of the X-Men being young adults at this point, but the New Mutants will still be teens) I'm not sure about Chrome. He would either make the Brotherhood too over-powered in a fight (since he can turn everyone to metal)...or he would do the reverse and be an enormous liability, since he's making a bunch of metal WHEN THEY ARE FIGHTING MAGNETO. I guess if I picked Delgado for the team strong guy, I would use Chrome too, since it would feel weird to use ¾ of the first-gen Acolytes team from the comics (Fabian, Anne Marie, Chrome, Delgado) and then not use one of them. But since I picked Frenzy for the team muscle, I'll leave out Chrome. Phantazia aka Eileen Harsaw. She was a member of the 616 Brotherhood who could manipulate electromagnetic energy. I'm fond of her, as there aren't that many Brotherhood women as there are men, and she's a little-known 90s character which is my favorite kind. So I would like to include her in this new Evolution Brotherhood. I'm also going for a team that's well-balanced, so since they've thus far got Fabian's support powers, Anne Marie's psychic powers, Frenzy's physical strength, Astra's teleporting, and Neophyte's transport/spy powers, Eileen's offensive elemental/energy powers are a good addition. It will also be neat to see her face off against Magneto, as their abilities seem similar. Not much is known about her, but Blob refers to her as “Ms. PhD” in the comics, suggesting she may be very intelligent or well-educated, and I think something could be done with that as well. The Kleinstock brothers, from the 616 Acolytes, have a mix of physical and energy powers.  Like their comics counterparts, they're just there to be evil sadistic assholes, in order to contrast people like Neophyte. In the comics, they were originally triplets (Eric, Harlan, and Sven) but Eric was killed in their first mission, so most of their appearances have just been Harlan and Sven. I would like to keep it to just Sven and Harlan as well, to avoid confusion with Magneto due to him sharing a first name with Eric, but I also would like for Eric to still be acknowledged. I'm just not sure how to do it. Evolution was dark, but people rarely actually died, so I don't think having Eric die is the way to go. Then again, maybe the Eric/Erik thing won't be such a big deal, since Erik will usually be referred to as Magneto anyway? Francisco Milan was the Acolytes technopath in the comics, and he was precious. Just a precious nerd. I need this precious nerd in the new Evolution Brotherhood. He's not a jerk like Frenzy or the Kleinstocks, but he's not really...aware enough to question things like Neophyte. It's not that he's stupid or callous, he's just totally focused on his own little cyber-world and I don't think he notices much else, he just hacks what they tell him. As in the comics, he probably gets picked on for his non-combative powers by the other Acolytes, and is super happy whenever he gets used to, and very ashamed when he feels he's failed (read: performed less than perfection) LOVE THIS PRECIOUS NERD, EVERYONE! Unus the Untouchable (Angelo Unuscione) or his daughter Carmella Unuscione. Unus was a member of the 616 Brotherhood, Carmella of the 616 Acolytes. I really like the friendship that Unus and the Blob had in the comics, so I'd like to reproduce that in Evolution. But since Unus is old enough to have an adult daughter, he'd be a lot older than Blob is in this universe, since Blob would be a young adult himself when working with SHIELD. Plus, if Blob is with SHIELD, he and Unus would be enemies if Unus is with the Brotherhood. So what I'm thinking is that Angelo “Unus” Unuscione is an older guy who works with SHIELD and was one of their first mutant members, and he becomes a father figure to Fred. Fred's never shown to have any parents in the picture, so this seems like a much-needed thing for him. As for Unus, his daughter being with the Brotherhood provides obvious drama and conflict and an interesting background story, and it also shows why he'd want to mentor a substitute child figure. So, Unus for SHIELD, and Carmella for the Brotherhood. Carmella, by the way, is very much one of the BAD Acolytes in the comics, so she's a horrible person in the Evolution Brotherhood too. Maybe Barnacle as the team Toad Like Frenzy, Carmella, and the Kleinstocks, Senyaka is one of the horrible bloodthirsty human-hating members of the 616 Acolytes, and his Evolution counterpart will fill that role in the Evolution Brotherhood. I don’t particuliarly care for Senyaka but he’s an iconic member of the Acolytes, so including him feels right, and we could use a really scary guy like him.

Lorelei was a Savage Land native in the comics that Magneto artificially mutated, and she served in his Brotherhood. For her Evolution version though, I think she'll just have a cameo. I can't see her as full-time member at all; in the comics, she was totally naive of what was going on and just did what Magneto told her without thought or opposition since he was her creator. She doesn't seem like she at all understands the human/mutant conflict or why she's supposed to fight the X-Men. Her Evolution counterpart would of course not be from the Savage Land, but an ordinary young mutant woman, and therefore know about these things, but I still see her as someone with a personality that just has no interest in participating in this fight. So my idea is that when Anne Marie is captured or otherwise can't fight, they find and recruit her, by payment or force, to fill in for her on a single mission. Anne Marie can control everyone's mind, while Lorelei can only control men, but that's a decent enough replacement in a pinch. Also, Lorelei's name as a Savage Land girl was Lani Ubana, and since the name Lani is a real-world Hawaiin name, her Evolution version would be Native Hawaiian. She'd have a corresponding Hawaiian surname has well, since I doubt Ubana has a coincidentally real-world counterpart as well. Also, Fabian is probably a huge creep to her so she should use her powers to make him slap himself. Solarr or Strobe or Crucible (commonly known as Burner but I prefer his Crucible codename) or Firefist, purely for the sake of a literal firefight with Pyro (which should also happen with Magma of the New Mutants) I like Solarr but I would pick Crucible because in the 1990s animated series, he and Gambit are established to be old friends, and it would be neat to use that in the Evolution universe, especially since the original cartoon was never really clear on how they met or the details of the relationship, so that could be established in this story. Also Solarr is a tall ginger so I think that could get confusing with Fabian around; I’d still keep him as a baddy in the Evo sequel, just not part of this group (Solarr was always about money and never mutant rights anyway) Alternatively for our fire/heat user guy, we could use Reignfire as the team’s evil counterpart to Sunspot. Rather than being Sunspot’s sort-of clone like in the comics, he could be his older brother or cousin instead, to make things less confusing and convoluted. I might also throw in Feral as a cruel counterpart to the Hellion’s Catseye (since she’s included in my Evo Hellions who would also be in this Evolution sequel I shall never write) and/or Mellencamp just to have an overtly monstrous-looking team member. Also maybe work in my Evo ideas for Polaris not so much as a Brotherhood member but more like a target, like maybe part of Astra’s schemes to get at Magneto. Though that would naturally have to involve my ideas for an Evolution version of Zala Dane too!

[heyymonkey2]

First Night Back in Fuuga Chapter 13: She Can Never Escape Him

Ao3 Link

Continued musings after Chapter 138

Yona goes through a range of emotions at dinner

Yona and Hak hold hands facing one another, staring, drinking the vision in. Yona is in her bright, flower-embroidered kimono she changed into for dinner, Hak has removed a few of the more formal layers from his kimono. They’re in front of the horse they’ll share back to Fuuga proper, where they’ll have to pretend, at least in public, that this magical event didn’t just take place.

“Talk about a power couple,” Yun jokes in awe to Jae-Ha next to him.

“Don't they look great together?” Jae-Ha admires.

“You heard 'em -- the rain is coming. Let's go!” Mundok warns out toward the couple before he rides away himself.

Hak hoists Yona up onto their horse first, then mounts behind her. They ride back a little behind all the others for a final few private moments to revel in their new status.

“Maybe later I can teach you how to ride…”

“Hak!” Yona smacks his arm. Whenever there’s an awkward silence, he still makes his perverted jokes. He may be her husband now, but he’s still the same guy.

“What? I don’t know what you think I meant.”

“You’re not cute at all.”

“You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. Today was a new level, even for you.”

Yona blushes and wraps a hand around his on a rein. She smiles at the contact.

“I cried so much.”

“You cried so much.”

She smacks him again, “I saw you cry, too, Tough Guy.”

“Princess, I love you more than I can handle.”

Touched, smiling, “I’m glad we did this once we knew. Waiting would have been torture.”

“It’s already been torture.”

They can see the lights of the great hall ahead and hear the music.

“There’s a room for us tonight. Simple, but private.”

Yona gives his hand a squeeze.

“I can’t wait.”

The feast is incredible -- meats, vegetables, breads, fine alcohol -- everyone in the Wind Tribe is amazed at the quality of the dinner Mundok is throwing. Yona and Hak stay separated, but are constantly glancing at one another through the crowd. Perhaps holding eyes a second too long, but thinking only about each other. Distracted by the profundity of the afternoon and the promise of the night.

Both men and women comment on how gorgeous the princess looks, almost in disbelief she didn’t just arrive from the palace. Her beauty is only enhanced by her spirit being as lively as it’s ever been -- she’s jubilant this evening.

When Yona is bent over receiving a sweet kiss from little Tae-Yeon, she notices Hak watching her again. Her eyes sparkle when they meet his. How will they ever keep their love a secret? She wonders if it’s all over their faces. Inside, the feeling fills every inch of her. Warm, hopeful.

As many eat dessert, Jae-Ha sits next to Han-Dae.

“So I hear you’re the fastest around. I wonder if we should compete?”

No answer. Jae-Ha looks up and notices Han-Dae’s line of sight -- he’s watching Hak watch Yona.

“You know those two pretty well, right?” Han-Dae asks.

“Sure.”

“Is there more than meets the eye?”

Jae-Ha raises his eyebrows as he considers how to answer this one. Damn it, they are not doing a good job with the secret romance thing so far.

“Whatever would make you ask that? It’s his job to watch her, after all.”

“It was probably nothing, but recently I saw them--”

“She’s my lover.”

Han-Dae turns to Jae-Ha, eyes wide, “WHAT?”

“The princess and I. So I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t spread any rumors about she and anyone -- myself or otherwise.”

Jae-Ha quickly rises, his face red from a lie that may have not been OK to tell, but what was he supposed to say?! He walks to inform Hak when someone grabs his arm.

“We should talk,” Mundok tells, not asks.

Meanwhile, Yona watches Ik-Soo and Yun catching up at the side of the room. Yun is glowing.

“To this most auspicious of days,” Kija lifts a cup to toast Yona. She turns and smiles brightly at his acceptance, clinks, and drinks with him. But as she lowers her cup, she sees a soaked and solemn messenger approaching.

“Princess?”

“...yes. Who are…?”

“A messenger from the palace. I have an urgent letter for you -- sent from the king.”

After handing her the letter, he hurries back on his way. Yona stands in shock, then drops the letter as though it could burn her hands.

“Yona!” Kija grabs it from the floor, “What is this?”

“I have no idea what it could be.”

“Then allow me to open it first.”

Yona nods as Zeno and Shin-Ah gather discreetly to observe what’s going on and to get her out of there quickly if that’s what becomes required.

Once it's opened, Kija is perplexed. What he’s looking at doesn’t seem to have meaning, “It’s… a ribbon and a hairpin.”

Yona’s breathing quickens, just short of hyperventilation. She closes her eyes to prepare herself, then, “Let me see.”

Kija hands her the objects that were enclosed in the blank paper. She recognizes the meaning immediately, “This isn’t from Soo-Won. It’s a warning. From Min-Soo,” the ribbon is the same as the boy always wears, sending it was a method they had agreed upon if a warning would ever be necessary, “Soo-Won found the hairpin I traded to Ogi for help,” the one enclosed isn’t the one Soo-Won surely has, but the meaning it symbolizes is definite to Yona, “Soo-Won would almost certainly recognize the hairpin Ogi had. He gave it to me that day…,” her breathing quickens once more.

“Miss, should we take you out of here?” Zeno offers.

“No, no… not from my own… no, I should, I should tell Hak,” she rises, a little shaky, leaving the letter and objects behind, and heads toward her husband across the room who’s engaged in a heated conversation with Tae-Woo.

Once she’s near, she can hear them. She slips behind a pillar the second she realizes what it’s about--

“It's too ominous -- it feels like a death dinner!”

“That's ridiculous. You’re being superstitious, Idiot.”

“Why would Gramps throw a farewell dinner with the best of everything when he's usually so stingy? There's only one explanation -- he thinks you’re gonna die.”

“I’m not gonna die. The princess needs me.”

“The Wind Tribe needs you. A lot of people can be her bodyguard. But nobody can be what you are to this tribe, Lord Hak.”

“No one else can be her bodyguard.”

“That’s not true -- and you shouldn’t be her bodyguard anymore after refusing Soo-Won’s offer to return to the general post.”

“What?”

“I thought you and Gramps talked about it? Soo-Won offered to set his personal feelings aside after Xing and let you come back. He knows as well as anyone how good you are for Kouka and for the Wind.”

Hak’s expression tightens, “You listen to me, don’t ever trust that guy, you hear?”

“Why not? You say you don’t, but you do.”

Hak is shaking his head in disbelief at Tae-Woo.

“But since you’re sticking with her, even though she's probably not in much danger, it's a promised death for you by the king.”

Too. Much. Yona has to stop this conversation, she’s feeling too many things right now. She slips around the pillar and approaches Hak, who’s still trying to drive home some point to Tae-Woo. So she reaches up to touch Hak’s arm, which shocks him, along with the seriousness of his conversation, so he instinctively bats her hand away.

The memory of the night she reached up to Soo-Won after she confessed her love for him and he batted her hand reaching up toward him away flashes through her mind.

She stands in utter shock staring at nothing, tears in her eyes, then suddenly she’s walking. She walks and walks, out the door and into the rain. She has a hand to her chest as she tries to breathe. She’s desperately trying to catch her breath. The sky is gray, the rain steady. She didn’t even bring a cloak. Her beautiful kimono is getting all wet, ruined. Soo-Won haunting her, even here, even today. She’s hyperventilating.

She needs to calm down.

[unixcommerce]

Think You’re Too Small To Offer Employee Benefits? Think Again

Forget the small size of your business. Offering benefits creates a powerful incentive. For example, a retirement plan helps create a strong team. It produces happy workers. And they stick together for years.

For you, it means less employee turnover. That means teamwork makes the dream work, as the saying goes. Combine a 401k with other benefits. It acts as a magnet for new candidates.

Are You Too Small to Offer Employee Benefits?

You may think you’re just too small to offer benefits. But Small Business Trends met with Kevin Boyles of Millennium Trust Company. And we discussed exactly that. The conversation focused on retirement plans.

We also cover a few state mandates on companies’ obligations for employee retirement plans. And look at the roots of misconceptions around the issue of SMBs’ ability to sponsor a retirement plan. We check out an an online portal for employers. And examine a self-service account dashboard for employees. And we discuss an enhancement through Morningstar (NASDAQ: MORN) that’s unique to Millennium Trust.

More About Kevin Boyle

Image: Millennium Trust Company

Boyles serves as the head of Workplace Savings Solutions for Millennium Trust. He holds the Certified IRA Services Professional (CISP) designation from the Institute of Certified Bankers. And he also possesses the Certified IRA Professional (CIP) designation from the National Association of Federal Credit Unions. He spent 18 years with Ascensus. The company previously existed as BISYS Retirement and Universal Pensions, Inc.

Boyles speaks in over 30 states and Canada. He contributes content and quotes to a variety of publications. They include U.S. News & World Report, American Banker Magazine, Plan Advisor Magazine, Financial Advisor Magazine, The Federal Credit Union Magazine, the New York Times, the Washington Post and more.

Boyles operates from Oak Brook, Illinois. Millennium Trust serves all 50 states.

* * * * *

55 Million U.S. Workers Do Without

Small Business Trends: Millions of small businesses still don’t offer a retirement savings option for their employees. Why?

Kevin Boyles: The short answer is, there are a number of factors involved. For definitive data, we conducted our comprehensive Small Business Retirement Survey as a deep dive into these employers and how they view retirement.

Our research verified much of what we knew anecdotally – that cost was one of the major factors, for instance. But the surveys also revealed that many employers didn’t think their employees even cared if they had something available or not. That specific finding surprised us, because employees emphatically want to save for retirement through work! We know this through our survey data. The other thing that surprised us was that over half of small employers have looked at offering something, but still chose not to.

Why Some Employers Decided Against

Small Business Trends: With the owners who “researched but ultimately did nothing”, were they afraid? Overwhelmed? Some other reason?

Kevin Boyles: Well, first off are the three main factors the employers in our survey felt were barriers. Those were cost, complexity, and the belief that their businesses weren’t large enough to offer something. That’s the easy answer. Of the ones who researched plan options, the vast majority only researched a 401k plan as an option. And unfortunately, 401k was the type shown most often.

So we contend that when an owner does a search, what he or she is shown is an additional major factor. And if all they’re being shown are 401k’s, well, what do you think they’ll assume? Going only by what they see, they would assume it’s the only choice out there. The truth is, while 401k plans are awesome for hundreds of thousands of businesses, they are simply not the right fit for many small businesses, primarily because of cost, complexity, and the “we’re just not big enough” mentality. And because they aren’t shown the whole other universe of options out there, they end up doing nothing, even though employees would appreciate something.

401k Alternatives for Small Companies

Small Business Trends: Let’s get into that whole other universe.

Kevin Boyles: There is a whole universe of options that most small business owners never come across, and that is why we created our Retirement Savings Selector Tool for Small Business. Its purpose is to ask an employer a few quick questions to get a meaningful comparison of the options available — including 401k. We feel it’s imperative for employers to get access to an agnostic resource to help them vet all available options.

Every State is Different, So Learn and Comply

Small Business Trends: In recent years, a number of states introduced retirement savings programs for small businesses. How do you see those fitting into the overall mix?

Kevin Boyles: In a word, favorably. These programs are an excellent link in the chain of giving more American workers access to save for retirement through their workplace, which is critical to combat the savings crisis that is happening in our country right now.

AARP has published research that shows that people are 15 times more likely to save for retirement if they can do so through work. There are a few drawbacks with state-sponsored plans, though. The first is reach.

Only Three States Have Mandates

As of right now, only Oregon, Illinois, and California have a state mandate for employers to offer a savings option for their employees. There are a couple of other states that may eventually do the same, but these kinds of mandates are far from being nationwide. You also have states like Washington, which offers retirement marketplaces where different providers can serve their solutions for small businesses in that state.

The next drawback is that the mandated programs have different rules from state to state. In Oregon, all employers must either offer a retirement plan for their employees, or else they’re mandated to participate in the Oregon state program. In Illinois, you don’t have to participate or be subject to the mandate if you have fewer than 25 employees. That’s just one example of differences between three states with these programs that are up and running today.

The final drawback is that the investment options offered in these state programs are somewhat limited compared to what you would find in conventional, private sector offerings. So yes there are drawbacks, but these state programs are extremely well-intended and are moving the needle in the states that they exist in. We see them as existing very harmoniously next to more robust solutions like what we are bringing to the marketplace.

Priced Right for Small Companies with a Dose of Morningstar, Inc.

Small Business Trends: As for what you’re bringing to the table, is it wholly unique?

Kevin Boyles: The answer is yes, with a touch of no. The yes part is that what Millennium Trust has done is take the universe of what we call “sub-401k” or “IRA-based” solutions that already exist in various pockets out there and has woven them together into a cohesive, turnkey solution that’s never been done in exactly the way we are doing it.

Another unique element about our Workplace Savings Solutions is that we have hired Morningstar to display a world-class, multi-manager lineup of mutual funds and a series of target date funds for employees to choose from. It’s comparable to what you would see in most good-sized 401k plans, so the employer is offering the same quality of investments in these types of programs. The invest lineup is available in all of our Workplace Savings Solutions, including SEP plans, SIMPLE IRA plans, or payroll-deducted IRA programs for employees.

And finally, we structured our program pricing so that the employer simply pays a one-time, $250 implementation fee to establish the program and typically has no ongoing cost to their business.

SEP, SIMPLE, and payroll-deducted IRAs aren’t new by any means. So through that lens, it’s less unique. Because all these things have been out there for years. But we believe we are trailblazing as we’re taking all of those disparate pieces. And bundling them into an easy-to-understand solution that’s not only very simple to use but very affordable, too. We understand the why. We understand the barriers to entry. Both real and perceived. And we are poised to help small business owners and employees, at scale. From coast to coast.

Image: Depositphotos.com

This article, “Think You’re Too Small To Offer Employee Benefits? Think Again” was first published on Small Business Trends

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[she-willnotfall]

Here's a Quick Way to Solve Low Ranking

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[sallysklar]

Jersey Jazzman: The PARCC, Phil Murphy, and Some Common Sense

Jersey Jazzman: The PARCC, Phil Murphy, and Some Common Sense

Miss me?

I'll tell you what I've been up to soon, I promise. I'm actually still in the middle of it... but I've been reading and hearing a lot of stuff about education policy lately, and I've decided I can't just sit back -- even if my time is really at a premium these days -- and let some of it pass.

For example:

Gov. Phil Murphy just announced that he will start phasing out the PARCC test, our state's most powerful diagnostic tool for student achievement.

Like an MRI scan, it can detect hidden problems, pinpointing a child's weaknesses, and identifying where a particular teacher's strategy isn't working. This made it both invaluable, and a political lighting rod.

That's from our old friends at the Star-Ledger op-ed page. And, of course, the NY Post never misses a chance to take down both a Democrat and the teachers unions:

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy is already making good on his promises to the teachers unions. Too bad it’s at the kids’ expense.

[...]

Officially, he wants the state to transition to a new testing system — one that’s less “high stakes and high stress.” It’s a safe bet that the future won’t hold anything like the PARCC exams, which are written by a multi-state consortium. Instead, they’ll be Jersey-only tests — far easier to water down into meaninglessness.

The sickest thing about this: A couple of years down the line, Murphy will be boasting about improved high-school graduation rates — without mentioning the fact that his “reforms” have made many of those diplomas worthless.

First of all -- and as I have pointed out in great detail -- it's the Chris Christie-appointed former superintendents of Camden and Newark, two districts under state control, who have done the most bragging about improved graduation rates. These "improvements" have taken place under PARCC; however, it's likely they are being driven by things like credit recovery programs, which have nothing to do with high school testing.

The Post wants us to believe that the worth of a high school diploma is somehow enhanced by implementing high school testing above and beyond what is required by federal law. But there's no evidence that's true.

In 2016-17, only 12 states required students to pass a test to graduate; the only other state requiring passing the PARCC is New Mexico. Further, as Stan Karp at ELC has pointed out, the PARCC passing rate on the Grade 10 English Language Test in 2017 was 46%; the passing rate on the Algebra I exam was 42%. That's three years after the test was first introduced into New Jersey.

Does the Post really want to withhold diplomas from more than half of New Jersey's students?

The PARCC was never designed to be a graduation exit exam. The proficiency rates -- which I'll talk about more below -- were explicitly set up to measure college readiness. It's no surprise that around 40 percent of students cleared the proficiency bar for the PARCC, and around 40 percent of adults in New Jersey have a bachelors degree.

I don't know when we decided everyone should go to a four-year college. If we really believe that, we'll have a lot of over-educated people doing necessary work, and we'll have to more than double the number of college seats available. Anyone think that's a good idea? NY Post, should New Jersey jack up taxes by an insane amount to open up its state colleges to more than twice as many students as they have now?

Let's move on to the S-L's editorial. The idea that the PARCC is somehow the "most powerful diagnostic tool" for identifying an individual child's weaknesses, and therefore the flaws in an individual teacher's practice, is simply wrong. The most obvious reason why the PARCC is not used for diagnosing individual students' learning progress is that by the time the school gets the score back, the student has already moved on to the next grade and another teacher.

There are, in fact, many other assessment tools available to teachers -- including plenty of tests that are not designed by the student's teacher -- that can give actionable feedback on a student's learning progress. This is the day-to-day business of teaching, taught to those of us in the field at the very beginning of our training: set objectives, instruct, assess, adjust objectives and/or instruction, assess, etc.

The PARCC, like any statewide test, might have some information useful to school staff as a child moves from grade-to-grade. But the notion that it is "invaluable" for its MRI-like qualities is just not accurate. How do I know?

Because the very officials at NJDOE during the Christie administration who pushed the PARCC so hard admitted it was not designed to inform instruction:

ERLICHSON: In terms of testing the full breadth and depth of the standards in every grade level, yes, these are going to be tests that in fact are reliable and valid at multiple cluster scores, which is not true today in our NJASK. But there’s absolutely a… the word "diagnostic" here is also very important. As Jean sort of spoke to earlier: these are not intended to be the kind of through-course — what we’re talking about here, the PARCC end-of-year/end-of-course assessments — are not intended to be sort of the through-course diagnostic form of assessments, the benchmark assessments, that most of us are used to, that would diagnose and be able to inform instruction in the middle of the year.

These are in fact summative test scores that have a different purpose than the one that we’re talking about here in terms of diagnosis.

That purpose is accountability. That's something I, and every other professional educator I know, is all for -- provided the tests are used correctly.

As I've written before, I am generally agnostic about the PARCC. From what I saw, the NJASK didn't seem to be a particularly great test... but I'll be the first to admit I am not a test designer, nor a content specialist in math or English language arts.

The sample questions I've seen from the PARCC look to me to be subject to something called construct-irrelevant variance, a fancy way of saying test scores can vary based on stuff you're trying not to measure. If a kid can't answer a math question because the question uses vocabulary the kid doesn't know, that question isn't a good assessor of the kid's mathematical ability; the scores on that item are going to vary based on something other than the things we really want to measure.

As I said, I'm not the best authority on the alleged merits of the PARCC over the NJASK (ask folks like this guy instead, who really knows what he's talking about when it comes to teaching kids how to read). I only wish the writers at the Star-Ledger had a similar understanding of their own limitations:

If this were truly for the sake of over-tested students, we wouldn't be starting with the PARCC. Unlike its predecessors, this test can tell educators exactly where kids struggle and how to better tailor their lessons. It's crucial for helping to close the achievement gap between black and white students; not just between cities and suburbs, but within racially mixed districts.

Again: the PARCC is a lousy tool for informing instruction, because that's not its job. The PARCC is an accountability measure -- and as such, there is very little reason to believe it is markedly better at identifying schools or teachers in need of remediation than any other standardized test.

Think about it this way: if the PARCC was really that much better than the NJASK, we'd expect the two tests to yield very different results. A school that was "lying" to its parents about its scores on the NJASK would instead show how it was struggling on the PARCC. There would be little correlation between the two tests if one was so much better than the other, right?

Guess what?  

These are the Grade 7 English Language Arts (ELA) test scores on the 2014 NJASK and 2015 PARCC, the year it was first used in New Jersey. Each dot is a school around the state. Look at the strong relationship: if a school has a low score on the NJASK in 2014, it had a low score on the PARCC in 2015. Similarly, if it was high in 2014 on the NJASK, it was high on the 2015 PARCC. 80 percent of the variation on the PARCC can be explained by last year's score on the NJASK; that is a very strong relationship.

I'll put some more of these below, but let me point out one more thing: the students who took the Grade 7 NJASK in 2014 were not the same students who took the Grade 7 PARCC in 2015, because most students moved up a grade. How did the test scores of the same cohort compare when they moved from Grade 7, when they took the NJASK, to Grade 8, when they took the PARCC?  

Still an extremely strong relationship.

No one who knows anything about testing is going to be surprised by this. Standardized tests, by design, yield normal, bell-curve distributions of scores: a few kids score low, a few score high, and most score in the middle. There's just no evidence to think the NJASK was "lying" back then any more than the PARCC "lies" now.

And let me anticipate the argument about "proficiency":  

Again, I've been over this more than a few times: "proficiency" rates are largely arbitrary. When you have a normal distribution of scores, you can set the rate pretty much wherever you want, depending on how you define "proficient." I know that makes some of you crazy, but it's true: there is no absolute definition of "proficient," any more than there's an absolute definition of "smart."

So, no, the NJASK wasn't "lying" about NJ students' proficiency; the state could have used the same distribution of scores from the older test* and set a different proficiency level. And no, the PARCC is not in any way important as a diagnostic tool, nor is there any evidence it is a much "better" test than the old NJASK.

Look, I know this bothers some of you, but I am for accountability testing. The S-L is correct in noting that these tests have played an important role in pointing out inequities within the education system. I am part of a team that works on these issues, and we've relied on standardized tests to show that there are serious problems with our nation's current school funding system.

But if that's the true purpose of these tests -- and it's clear that it is -- then we don't need to spend as much time or money on testing as we do now. If we choose to use test outcomes appropriately, we can cut back on testing and remove some of the corrupting pressures they can impose on the system.  

ADDING: This is not the first time I've written about the PARCC fetishism.

ADDING MORE: Does it strike any of you as odd that both the NY Post and the Star-Ledger came out with similar editorials beating up Governor Murphy and the teachers unions over his new PARCC policy -- on the very same day?

As I've documented here: when it comes to education (and many other topics), editorial writers often rely on the professional "reformers" in their Rolodexes to feed them ideas. If there is a structural advantage these "reformers" have over folks like me, it's that they get paid to make the time to influence op-ed writers and other policy influencers. They are subsidized, usually by very wealthy interests, to cultivate relationships with the media, which in turn bends the media toward their point of view.

One would hope editorial boards could see this past this state of affairs. Alas...

ADDING MORE: From the NJDOE website:

A GUIDE TO PARENT/TEACHER CONVERSATIONS ABOUT THE PARCC SCORE REPORTS 

ABOUT INDIVIDUAL STUDENT SCORES a) What if my child is doing well in the classroom and on his or her report card, but it is not reflected in the test score?

PARCC is only one of several measures that illustrate a child’s progress in math and ELA. Report card grades can include multiple sources of information like participation, work habits, group projects, homework, etc., that are not reflected in the PARCC score, so there may be a discrepancy.

Report cards can also reflect outcomes on tests made by teachers, districts, or other vendors, administered multiple times. The PARCC, like any test, is subject to noise and bias. It is quite possible a report card grade is the better measure of an individual student's learning than a PARCC score.

If there is a disconnect between the PARCC and a report card, OK, parents and teachers and administrators should look into that. But I take the above statement from NJDOE as an acknowledgment that the PARCC, or any other test, is a sample of learning at a particular time, and it's outcomes are subject to error and bias like any other assessment.

Again: by all means, let's have accountability testing. But PARCC fetishism in the service of teachers union bashing is totally unwarranted. Stop the madness.

SCATTERPLOT FUN! Here are some other correlations between NJASK and PARCC scores at the school level. You'll see the same pattern in all grades and both exams (ELA and math) with the exception of Grade 8 math. Why? Because the PARCC introduced the Algebra 1 exam; Grade 8 students who take algebra take that exam, while those who don't take algebra take the Grade 8 Math exam.

The Algebra 1 results are some of the most interesting ones available, for a whole variety of reasons. I'll get into that in a bit...  

* OK, I need to make this clear: there was an issue with the NJASK having a bit of a ceiling effect. I've always found it kind of funny when people got overly worried about this: like the worst thing for the state was that so many kids were finding the old test so easy, too many were getting perfect scores!

Whether the PARCC broke through the ceiling with construct-relevant variance is an open question. My guess is a lot of the "higher-level" items are really measuring something aside from mathematical ability. In any case, the NJASK wasn't "lying" just because more kids aced it than the PARCC.

elaine July 17, 2018

Source

Jersey Jazzman

Jersey Jazzman: The PARCC, Phil Murphy, and Some Common Sense published first on https://buyessayscheapservice.tumblr.com/

[succeedly]

Literature Performance Odyssey with Drama and Student Leadership

Marynn Dause on episode 318 of the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

They only had a 2 ½ weeks to teach the entire Odyssey. So, teacher Marynn Dause met with her students. They decided to follow the pattern of Homer and become storytelling bards themselves with powerful results. Marynn shares this innovative approach to teaching the Odyssey invented by her students along with their advice for using this method in your classroom.

Listen Now

Listen to the show on iTunes or Stitcher

Stream by clicking here.

***

Enhanced Transcript

Marynn Dause: Literature Performance Odyssey

Link to show: www.coolcatteacher.com/e318 Date: May 23, 2018

Vicki: Today we’re talking with someone I made friends with on Twitter, Marynn Dause.

She is a ninth-grade literature teacher.

Marynn, you are doing something fascinating with teaching The Odyssey.

Tell us what you’re doing.

Marynn: Yes, hello, and hello to everyone listening.

My students and I were sort of stuck with two and a half weeks to tackle twenty-four books (or chapters) of The Odyssey by Homer.

We had 2 ½ weeks to cover 24 chapters

We have a very collaborative classroom, I let the students lead their learning as much as possible.

So, during our Monday morning meeting, I just said, “You know what, guys? We don’t have a lot of time. There are a lot of chapters, and frankly, I have never taught this in a way that has worked for all or my kids. I need your help.”

We brainstormed, and what we ended up coming up with was the kids said, “How did people originally interact with this text?” Because that’s something that I want to emphasize is the original intent of the author and how they wanted their audience to receive it. I explained about Homer as being a poet, a bard, an oral storyteller.

The kids said, “How did people originally interact with this text?”

They said, “Well, why don’t we do that? Can’t we just tell the story the way that HE would have?”

So I took their idea and did some research and ran with it, and what we ended up doing is we parcelled the story out and the kids took charge of learning the chapters, and reciting and performing them for their classmates exactly the way that Homer would have two and a half thousand years ago.

Vicki: Wow, so they memorized it? Or they just filmed it? Or how does this work?

Marynn: Different groups chose different strategies, and it really ended up depending on the strengths of the teams themselves. I gave them a wide variety of options. When we were planning the whole thing, I had the kids brainstorm different ways of storytelling and they came up with thirty-seven different ways to tell a story.

Vicki: (laughs)

Marynn: Yeah! (laughs)

We talked about different tools, and we worked on, “Okay, how are we going to do this?” But most of them ended up deciding that they preferred actually doing spoken stories.

Most of them preferred actually doing spoken stories

We had skits. We had popsicle stick puppets. We had miming. We had the type of thing where people hit a scene, they freeze, and the narrator steps forward and narrates what’s going on, and then they do that a couple of times.

So lots of different live performance options that the kids ended up preferring as they went along.

Vicki: Now did you film these? Did you capture these on film for the kids who weren’t there? How did that work?

  Marynn: Yes, I did somewhat. We have to be a little bit careful about our photography rights and recording and that kind of thing with the students, but any time that we knew somebody was going to be gone, we would record it and send it just to that person.

Or, I mean we actually do have the books themselves. Sometimes the kids would say, “Don’t worry about it, Ms. Dause, I’m just going to read the chapter.”

One thing that I was really pleased by was that, as we went through this process of taking the story chapter by chapter, the kids began to feel more confident in their reading ability, and so they were not intimidated by the text anymore.

The kids began to feel more confident in their reading ability

They would say, “Oh, I’ve already done my chapters with my group. I can handle this one. It won’t be a big deal.”

Vicki: Wow. So did you cover it all in time? Were you able to get through, or did you get stuck? Sometimes teachers are afraid of projects because they’re like, “Oh, we just won’t get it done! They’ll spend the whole time playing!”

Marynn: I know what you mean.

We actually did, and it was one of those things where having the limited amount of time sort of lit a fire under us, you know what I mean? It’s like, “Okay, well… we have to get this done one way or the other. It is a curriculum requirement.”

“If we fail, and we’re right back to where we started, where we have less time to read the full things, so, go, go!” And the kids would cheer each other on.

What we did is we took two and a half days at the beginning — I teach on a four-by-four system, my classes are ninety minutes long — about two and a half days at the front end for the kids to read their chapters, annotate it like crazy, and a lot of them either wrote skits or sort of did bullet-point plans on a piece of paper, and then they would put together costumes.

Each table would perform one chapter, and we would do feedback from the group. I included a question and answer session after each performance so the audience could make sure they understood what had happened, and they got bonus points for asking questions. Answering questions was actually one of the requirements for the performers.

Answering questions was a requirement for the performers

Then we would take a day after each round and prep for the next one, and anything they couldn’t fit in in class, that was their only homework.

I usually assign three or four really quality-thinking assignments each week, but I said, “Look, guys, this is going to be a lot of work, so as long as you’re working on this, I’m not going to give you anything extra because I want all of your attention for my class focused on this effort.”

Vicki: Marynn, before we started recording, you showed me that you have a lot of observations from your students that they had — things they wanted to share.

Tell us the things the students want everybody to hear and know about this method of approaching The Odyssey.

  Marynn: Absolutely.

I did tell them, “I can’t find anybody else who’s done this before, so you are learning for all the schools in America, you might be, so who knows.”

A couple of major points. I asked them for highs, lows, and for advice that they would give other schools.

I asked them for highs, lows, and advice that they would give

Vicki: Awesome.

Marynn: Their highs, summarized, were that:

this is very creative and interesting

it’s engaged and made the text come alive

I felt that I could move and understand it

it was interactive and fun, lots of stars around fun

It improved my comprehension,

I learned a lot out of my comfort zone

I remember the whole story

One little guy said, “Usually, when I read, there’s so much going on, I can barely keep up with the story. Forget the characters, it’s not going to happen. But now, when we’re talking about the characters, you can say, ‘Yeah, you’re Achaea remember? And I can remember, and that helps me comprehend.”

Some of their lows were, “It’s time consuming!” (laughs)

Vicki: (laughs) Yeah, they had to work, right? (laughs)

Welcome to teaching, right? But it’s great that they’re doing it.

  Marynn: Several of the kids said, “It was a lot more work than I expected.”

I did think it was interesting that they pointed out, “This is really fun and most of us prefer to do live acting, but that didn’t fit everybody’s style.”

It really does depend on your learning style. You need to know performing techniques. I messed that up. I didn’t show them stage drama techniques until the second and third round, because I didn’t predict how much they would need to know.

They wanted to get that learning about the skills at the front end.

The other thing they noted is that, “If the performance is unclear, if the group has a tough chapter with a lot of details and a lot of characters, it can get a little muddy. It can be hard to understand.”

So they said, You really have to emphasize the Q&A structure.”

And we also, in the middle, we started having the groups to read a summary of their annotations before they performed. That way, we knew what we were looking for before they went on stage.

Vicki: But they recommend this for other classrooms?

Their advice column was actually the long one

Marynn: Absolutely, and their advice column was actually the longest one.

Vicki: So what’s their advice?

Marynn: I’m going to try to pick the most pertinent moments.

They said practice. Do not procrastinate. For the love of all that is good, make sure that you practice!

A lot of the kids said just do it. Just break out of your comfort zone.

Understand that everybody in the room is going to be doing the same thing, and the sillier you look, the more we enjoy it. So just GO.

They did actually recommend — several of them set up Google Remind accounts, like remind.com, and they used Remind instead of a group chat. So they would all be on a Remind group together so they could communicate when they were at home. That way, they didn’t need to know each other’s numbers, but they could still talk.

Vicki: Yeah. Wow.

Marynn:Yeah, I thought that was good.

Other than that, they said definitely work on your group collaboration at the front end. Like have a really clear conversation about who is going to be in charge of what, and how you are going to make sure it happens, first?

Vicki: (agrees)

Marynn: Several of them, I actually led some conflict resolution workshops because they found out the hard way that they didn’t know how to do conflict resolution.

Vicki: Yeah. And that’s so great about having teams and working in this way, because you’re teaching much more than your topic, and you’ve got done on time! We do want to say that!

Marynn: Yeah.

Vicki: So, Marynn, the thing I think I would like to most point out to our teachers, besides the fact that this is a fantastic teaching method…

But I like what you’ve modeled for us by going to your students and saying, “Students, what do you want to say to people about this method of teaching?”

Actually, we’ve had 301 episodes as of the day we’re recording this, and I’m sitting here thinking, “You know, we need to all do a better job of getting feedback from students and letting the students speak, and then we could be the voice for them.”

I think that you’ve really modeled something powerful that we all need to be doing a better job of when we’re talking about teaching strategies. Because I really like their recommendations and, you know, when kids say it’s time-consuming, or a lot of work, I hate to say that I don’t mind that, but the point is you don’t really give homework.

They’re really doing most of this work in class, so their goof-off time goes away. A lot of kids want a little bit of goof-off time and they’re just not getting it, and we’re okay with that.

So remarkable educators, I think this is a fascinating way to teach. It’s a teaching oddysey in itself, and we’ve just learned so much.

So thank you! And tell your kids thanks!

  Marynn: Oh, I certainly will.

Contact us about the show: https://ift.tt/1jailTy

Transcribed by Kymberli Mulford kymberlimulford@gmail.com

Bio as submitted

I’m Marynn HS Dause, M.A.Ed, NBCT, and non-traditional innovator extraordinaire. My secondary ELA classroom in King George, Virginia is more laboratory than lecture hall, and my passion is helping teachers and students progress with excellence and purpose. I’m enthusiastic about the possibilities of edtech for better learning, excited about pedagogy, and always up for a new adventure. I’d be happy to collaborate with you on Twitter!

Blog: http://mdause.wixsite.com/thedauseclause

Twitter: @DauseClause

Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a “sponsored podcast episode.” The company who sponsored it compensated me via cash payment, gift, or something else of value to include a reference to their product. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.” This company has no impact on the editorial content of the show.

The post Literature Performance Odyssey with Drama and Student Leadership appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

Literature Performance Odyssey with Drama and Student Leadership published first on https://getnewcourse.tumblr.com/

[strivesy]

Literature Performance Odyssey with Drama and Student Leadership

Marynn Dause on episode 318 of the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

They only had a 2 ½ weeks to teach the entire Odyssey. So, teacher Marynn Dause met with her students. They decided to follow the pattern of Homer and become storytelling bards themselves with powerful results. Marynn shares this innovative approach to teaching the Odyssey invented by her students along with their advice for using this method in your classroom.

Listen Now

Listen to the show on iTunes or Stitcher

Stream by clicking here.

***

Enhanced Transcript

Marynn Dause: Literature Performance Odyssey

Link to show: www.coolcatteacher.com/e318 Date: May 23, 2018

Vicki: Today we’re talking with someone I made friends with on Twitter, Marynn Dause.

She is a ninth-grade literature teacher.

Marynn, you are doing something fascinating with teaching The Odyssey.

Tell us what you’re doing.

Marynn: Yes, hello, and hello to everyone listening.

My students and I were sort of stuck with two and a half weeks to tackle twenty-four books (or chapters) of The Odyssey by Homer.

We had 2 ½ weeks to cover 24 chapters

We have a very collaborative classroom, I let the students lead their learning as much as possible.

So, during our Monday morning meeting, I just said, “You know what, guys? We don’t have a lot of time. There are a lot of chapters, and frankly, I have never taught this in a way that has worked for all or my kids. I need your help.”

We brainstormed, and what we ended up coming up with was the kids said, “How did people originally interact with this text?” Because that’s something that I want to emphasize is the original intent of the author and how they wanted their audience to receive it. I explained about Homer as being a poet, a bard, an oral storyteller.

The kids said, “How did people originally interact with this text?”

They said, “Well, why don’t we do that? Can’t we just tell the story the way that HE would have?”

So I took their idea and did some research and ran with it, and what we ended up doing is we parcelled the story out and the kids took charge of learning the chapters, and reciting and performing them for their classmates exactly the way that Homer would have two and a half thousand years ago.

Vicki: Wow, so they memorized it? Or they just filmed it? Or how does this work?

Marynn: Different groups chose different strategies, and it really ended up depending on the strengths of the teams themselves. I gave them a wide variety of options. When we were planning the whole thing, I had the kids brainstorm different ways of storytelling and they came up with thirty-seven different ways to tell a story.

Vicki: (laughs)

Marynn: Yeah! (laughs)

We talked about different tools, and we worked on, “Okay, how are we going to do this?” But most of them ended up deciding that they preferred actually doing spoken stories.

Most of them preferred actually doing spoken stories

We had skits. We had popsicle stick puppets. We had miming. We had the type of thing where people hit a scene, they freeze, and the narrator steps forward and narrates what’s going on, and then they do that a couple of times.

So lots of different live performance options that the kids ended up preferring as they went along.

Vicki: Now did you film these? Did you capture these on film for the kids who weren’t there? How did that work?

  Marynn: Yes, I did somewhat. We have to be a little bit careful about our photography rights and recording and that kind of thing with the students, but any time that we knew somebody was going to be gone, we would record it and send it just to that person.

Or, I mean we actually do have the books themselves. Sometimes the kids would say, “Don’t worry about it, Ms. Dause, I’m just going to read the chapter.”

One thing that I was really pleased by was that, as we went through this process of taking the story chapter by chapter, the kids began to feel more confident in their reading ability, and so they were not intimidated by the text anymore.

The kids began to feel more confident in their reading ability

They would say, “Oh, I’ve already done my chapters with my group. I can handle this one. It won’t be a big deal.”

Vicki: Wow. So did you cover it all in time? Were you able to get through, or did you get stuck? Sometimes teachers are afraid of projects because they’re like, “Oh, we just won’t get it done! They’ll spend the whole time playing!”

Marynn: I know what you mean.

We actually did, and it was one of those things where having the limited amount of time sort of lit a fire under us, you know what I mean? It’s like, “Okay, well… we have to get this done one way or the other. It is a curriculum requirement.”

“If we fail, and we’re right back to where we started, where we have less time to read the full things, so, go, go!” And the kids would cheer each other on.

What we did is we took two and a half days at the beginning — I teach on a four-by-four system, my classes are ninety minutes long — about two and a half days at the front end for the kids to read their chapters, annotate it like crazy, and a lot of them either wrote skits or sort of did bullet-point plans on a piece of paper, and then they would put together costumes.

Each table would perform one chapter, and we would do feedback from the group. I included a question and answer session after each performance so the audience could make sure they understood what had happened, and they got bonus points for asking questions. Answering questions was actually one of the requirements for the performers.

Answering questions was a requirement for the performers

Then we would take a day after each round and prep for the next one, and anything they couldn’t fit in in class, that was their only homework.

I usually assign three or four really quality-thinking assignments each week, but I said, “Look, guys, this is going to be a lot of work, so as long as you’re working on this, I’m not going to give you anything extra because I want all of your attention for my class focused on this effort.”

Vicki: Marynn, before we started recording, you showed me that you have a lot of observations from your students that they had — things they wanted to share.

Tell us the things the students want everybody to hear and know about this method of approaching The Odyssey.

  Marynn: Absolutely.

I did tell them, “I can’t find anybody else who’s done this before, so you are learning for all the schools in America, you might be, so who knows.”

A couple of major points. I asked them for highs, lows, and for advice that they would give other schools.

I asked them for highs, lows, and advice that they would give

Vicki: Awesome.

Marynn: Their highs, summarized, were that:

this is very creative and interesting

it’s engaged and made the text come alive

I felt that I could move and understand it

it was interactive and fun, lots of stars around fun

It improved my comprehension,

I learned a lot out of my comfort zone

I remember the whole story

One little guy said, “Usually, when I read, there’s so much going on, I can barely keep up with the story. Forget the characters, it’s not going to happen. But now, when we’re talking about the characters, you can say, ‘Yeah, you’re Achaea remember? And I can remember, and that helps me comprehend.”

Some of their lows were, “It’s time consuming!” (laughs)

Vicki: (laughs) Yeah, they had to work, right? (laughs)

Welcome to teaching, right? But it’s great that they’re doing it.

  Marynn: Several of the kids said, “It was a lot more work than I expected.”

I did think it was interesting that they pointed out, “This is really fun and most of us prefer to do live acting, but that didn’t fit everybody’s style.”

It really does depend on your learning style. You need to know performing techniques. I messed that up. I didn’t show them stage drama techniques until the second and third round, because I didn’t predict how much they would need to know.

They wanted to get that learning about the skills at the front end.

The other thing they noted is that, “If the performance is unclear, if the group has a tough chapter with a lot of details and a lot of characters, it can get a little muddy. It can be hard to understand.”

So they said, You really have to emphasize the Q&A structure.”

And we also, in the middle, we started having the groups to read a summary of their annotations before they performed. That way, we knew what we were looking for before they went on stage.

Vicki: But they recommend this for other classrooms?

Their advice column was actually the long one

Marynn: Absolutely, and their advice column was actually the longest one.

Vicki: So what’s their advice?

Marynn: I’m going to try to pick the most pertinent moments.

They said practice. Do not procrastinate. For the love of all that is good, make sure that you practice!

A lot of the kids said just do it. Just break out of your comfort zone.

Understand that everybody in the room is going to be doing the same thing, and the sillier you look, the more we enjoy it. So just GO.

They did actually recommend — several of them set up Google Remind accounts, like remind.com, and they used Remind instead of a group chat. So they would all be on a Remind group together so they could communicate when they were at home. That way, they didn’t need to know each other’s numbers, but they could still talk.

Vicki: Yeah. Wow.

Marynn:Yeah, I thought that was good.

Other than that, they said definitely work on your group collaboration at the front end. Like have a really clear conversation about who is going to be in charge of what, and how you are going to make sure it happens, first?

Vicki: (agrees)

Marynn: Several of them, I actually led some conflict resolution workshops because they found out the hard way that they didn’t know how to do conflict resolution.

Vicki: Yeah. And that’s so great about having teams and working in this way, because you’re teaching much more than your topic, and you’ve got done on time! We do want to say that!

Marynn: Yeah.

Vicki: So, Marynn, the thing I think I would like to most point out to our teachers, besides the fact that this is a fantastic teaching method…

But I like what you’ve modeled for us by going to your students and saying, “Students, what do you want to say to people about this method of teaching?”

Actually, we’ve had 301 episodes as of the day we’re recording this, and I’m sitting here thinking, “You know, we need to all do a better job of getting feedback from students and letting the students speak, and then we could be the voice for them.”

I think that you’ve really modeled something powerful that we all need to be doing a better job of when we’re talking about teaching strategies. Because I really like their recommendations and, you know, when kids say it’s time-consuming, or a lot of work, I hate to say that I don’t mind that, but the point is you don’t really give homework.

They’re really doing most of this work in class, so their goof-off time goes away. A lot of kids want a little bit of goof-off time and they’re just not getting it, and we’re okay with that.

So remarkable educators, I think this is a fascinating way to teach. It’s a teaching oddysey in itself, and we’ve just learned so much.

So thank you! And tell your kids thanks!

  Marynn: Oh, I certainly will.

Contact us about the show: https://ift.tt/1jailTy

Transcribed by Kymberli Mulford kymberlimulford@gmail.com

Bio as submitted

I’m Marynn HS Dause, M.A.Ed, NBCT, and non-traditional innovator extraordinaire. My secondary ELA classroom in King George, Virginia is more laboratory than lecture hall, and my passion is helping teachers and students progress with excellence and purpose. I’m enthusiastic about the possibilities of edtech for better learning, excited about pedagogy, and always up for a new adventure. I’d be happy to collaborate with you on Twitter!

Blog: http://mdause.wixsite.com/thedauseclause

Twitter: @DauseClause

Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a “sponsored podcast episode.” The company who sponsored it compensated me via cash payment, gift, or something else of value to include a reference to their product. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.” This company has no impact on the editorial content of the show.

The post Literature Performance Odyssey with Drama and Student Leadership appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

Literature Performance Odyssey with Drama and Student Leadership published first on https://medium.com/@seminarsacademy

[growthvue]

Literature Performance Odyssey with Drama and Student Leadership

Marynn Dause on episode 318 of the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

They only had a 2 ½ weeks to teach the entire Odyssey. So, teacher Marynn Dause met with her students. They decided to follow the pattern of Homer and become storytelling bards themselves with powerful results. Marynn shares this innovative approach to teaching the Odyssey invented by her students along with their advice for using this method in your classroom.

Listen Now

Listen to the show on iTunes or Stitcher

Stream by clicking here.

***

Enhanced Transcript

Marynn Dause: Literature Performance Odyssey

Link to show: www.coolcatteacher.com/e318 Date: May 23, 2018

Vicki: Today we’re talking with someone I made friends with on Twitter, Marynn Dause.

She is a ninth-grade literature teacher.

Marynn, you are doing something fascinating with teaching The Odyssey.

Tell us what you’re doing.

Marynn: Yes, hello, and hello to everyone listening.

My students and I were sort of stuck with two and a half weeks to tackle twenty-four books (or chapters) of The Odyssey by Homer.

We had 2 ½ weeks to cover 24 chapters

We have a very collaborative classroom, I let the students lead their learning as much as possible.

So, during our Monday morning meeting, I just said, “You know what, guys? We don’t have a lot of time. There are a lot of chapters, and frankly, I have never taught this in a way that has worked for all or my kids. I need your help.”

We brainstormed, and what we ended up coming up with was the kids said, “How did people originally interact with this text?” Because that’s something that I want to emphasize is the original intent of the author and how they wanted their audience to receive it. I explained about Homer as being a poet, a bard, an oral storyteller.

The kids said, “How did people originally interact with this text?”

They said, “Well, why don’t we do that? Can’t we just tell the story the way that HE would have?”

So I took their idea and did some research and ran with it, and what we ended up doing is we parcelled the story out and the kids took charge of learning the chapters, and reciting and performing them for their classmates exactly the way that Homer would have two and a half thousand years ago.

Vicki: Wow, so they memorized it? Or they just filmed it? Or how does this work?

Marynn: Different groups chose different strategies, and it really ended up depending on the strengths of the teams themselves. I gave them a wide variety of options. When we were planning the whole thing, I had the kids brainstorm different ways of storytelling and they came up with thirty-seven different ways to tell a story.

Vicki: (laughs)

Marynn: Yeah! (laughs)

We talked about different tools, and we worked on, “Okay, how are we going to do this?” But most of them ended up deciding that they preferred actually doing spoken stories.

Most of them preferred actually doing spoken stories

We had skits. We had popsicle stick puppets. We had miming. We had the type of thing where people hit a scene, they freeze, and the narrator steps forward and narrates what’s going on, and then they do that a couple of times.

So lots of different live performance options that the kids ended up preferring as they went along.

Vicki: Now did you film these? Did you capture these on film for the kids who weren’t there? How did that work?

  Marynn: Yes, I did somewhat. We have to be a little bit careful about our photography rights and recording and that kind of thing with the students, but any time that we knew somebody was going to be gone, we would record it and send it just to that person.

Or, I mean we actually do have the books themselves. Sometimes the kids would say, “Don’t worry about it, Ms. Dause, I’m just going to read the chapter.”

One thing that I was really pleased by was that, as we went through this process of taking the story chapter by chapter, the kids began to feel more confident in their reading ability, and so they were not intimidated by the text anymore.

The kids began to feel more confident in their reading ability

They would say, “Oh, I’ve already done my chapters with my group. I can handle this one. It won’t be a big deal.”

Vicki: Wow. So did you cover it all in time? Were you able to get through, or did you get stuck? Sometimes teachers are afraid of projects because they’re like, “Oh, we just won’t get it done! They’ll spend the whole time playing!”

Marynn: I know what you mean.

We actually did, and it was one of those things where having the limited amount of time sort of lit a fire under us, you know what I mean? It’s like, “Okay, well… we have to get this done one way or the other. It is a curriculum requirement.”

“If we fail, and we’re right back to where we started, where we have less time to read the full things, so, go, go!” And the kids would cheer each other on.

What we did is we took two and a half days at the beginning — I teach on a four-by-four system, my classes are ninety minutes long — about two and a half days at the front end for the kids to read their chapters, annotate it like crazy, and a lot of them either wrote skits or sort of did bullet-point plans on a piece of paper, and then they would put together costumes.

Each table would perform one chapter, and we would do feedback from the group. I included a question and answer session after each performance so the audience could make sure they understood what had happened, and they got bonus points for asking questions. Answering questions was actually one of the requirements for the performers.

Answering questions was a requirement for the performers

Then we would take a day after each round and prep for the next one, and anything they couldn’t fit in in class, that was their only homework.

I usually assign three or four really quality-thinking assignments each week, but I said, “Look, guys, this is going to be a lot of work, so as long as you’re working on this, I’m not going to give you anything extra because I want all of your attention for my class focused on this effort.”

Vicki: Marynn, before we started recording, you showed me that you have a lot of observations from your students that they had — things they wanted to share.

Tell us the things the students want everybody to hear and know about this method of approaching The Odyssey.

  Marynn: Absolutely.

I did tell them, “I can’t find anybody else who’s done this before, so you are learning for all the schools in America, you might be, so who knows.”

A couple of major points. I asked them for highs, lows, and for advice that they would give other schools.

I asked them for highs, lows, and advice that they would give

Vicki: Awesome.

Marynn: Their highs, summarized, were that:

this is very creative and interesting

it’s engaged and made the text come alive

I felt that I could move and understand it

it was interactive and fun, lots of stars around fun

It improved my comprehension,

I learned a lot out of my comfort zone

I remember the whole story

One little guy said, “Usually, when I read, there’s so much going on, I can barely keep up with the story. Forget the characters, it’s not going to happen. But now, when we’re talking about the characters, you can say, ‘Yeah, you’re Achaea remember? And I can remember, and that helps me comprehend.”

Some of their lows were, “It’s time consuming!” (laughs)

Vicki: (laughs) Yeah, they had to work, right? (laughs)

Welcome to teaching, right? But it’s great that they’re doing it.

  Marynn: Several of the kids said, “It was a lot more work than I expected.”

I did think it was interesting that they pointed out, “This is really fun and most of us prefer to do live acting, but that didn’t fit everybody’s style.”

It really does depend on your learning style. You need to know performing techniques. I messed that up. I didn’t show them stage drama techniques until the second and third round, because I didn’t predict how much they would need to know.

They wanted to get that learning about the skills at the front end.

The other thing they noted is that, “If the performance is unclear, if the group has a tough chapter with a lot of details and a lot of characters, it can get a little muddy. It can be hard to understand.”

So they said, You really have to emphasize the Q&A structure.”

And we also, in the middle, we started having the groups to read a summary of their annotations before they performed. That way, we knew what we were looking for before they went on stage.

Vicki: But they recommend this for other classrooms?

Their advice column was actually the long one

Marynn: Absolutely, and their advice column was actually the longest one.

Vicki: So what’s their advice?

Marynn: I’m going to try to pick the most pertinent moments.

They said practice. Do not procrastinate. For the love of all that is good, make sure that you practice!

A lot of the kids said just do it. Just break out of your comfort zone.

Understand that everybody in the room is going to be doing the same thing, and the sillier you look, the more we enjoy it. So just GO.

They did actually recommend — several of them set up Google Remind accounts, like remind.com, and they used Remind instead of a group chat. So they would all be on a Remind group together so they could communicate when they were at home. That way, they didn’t need to know each other’s numbers, but they could still talk.

Vicki: Yeah. Wow.

Marynn:Yeah, I thought that was good.

Other than that, they said definitely work on your group collaboration at the front end. Like have a really clear conversation about who is going to be in charge of what, and how you are going to make sure it happens, first?

Vicki: (agrees)

Marynn: Several of them, I actually led some conflict resolution workshops because they found out the hard way that they didn’t know how to do conflict resolution.

Vicki: Yeah. And that’s so great about having teams and working in this way, because you’re teaching much more than your topic, and you’ve got done on time! We do want to say that!

Marynn: Yeah.

Vicki: So, Marynn, the thing I think I would like to most point out to our teachers, besides the fact that this is a fantastic teaching method…

But I like what you’ve modeled for us by going to your students and saying, “Students, what do you want to say to people about this method of teaching?”

Actually, we’ve had 301 episodes as of the day we’re recording this, and I’m sitting here thinking, “You know, we need to all do a better job of getting feedback from students and letting the students speak, and then we could be the voice for them.”

I think that you’ve really modeled something powerful that we all need to be doing a better job of when we’re talking about teaching strategies. Because I really like their recommendations and, you know, when kids say it’s time-consuming, or a lot of work, I hate to say that I don’t mind that, but the point is you don’t really give homework.

They’re really doing most of this work in class, so their goof-off time goes away. A lot of kids want a little bit of goof-off time and they’re just not getting it, and we’re okay with that.

So remarkable educators, I think this is a fascinating way to teach. It’s a teaching oddysey in itself, and we’ve just learned so much.

So thank you! And tell your kids thanks!

  Marynn: Oh, I certainly will.

Contact us about the show: https://ift.tt/1jailTy

Transcribed by Kymberli Mulford kymberlimulford@gmail.com

Bio as submitted

I’m Marynn HS Dause, M.A.Ed, NBCT, and non-traditional innovator extraordinaire. My secondary ELA classroom in King George, Virginia is more laboratory than lecture hall, and my passion is helping teachers and students progress with excellence and purpose. I’m enthusiastic about the possibilities of edtech for better learning, excited about pedagogy, and always up for a new adventure. I’d be happy to collaborate with you on Twitter!

Blog: http://mdause.wixsite.com/thedauseclause

Twitter: @DauseClause

Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a “sponsored podcast episode.” The company who sponsored it compensated me via cash payment, gift, or something else of value to include a reference to their product. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.” This company has no impact on the editorial content of the show.

The post Literature Performance Odyssey with Drama and Student Leadership appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

Literature Performance Odyssey with Drama and Student Leadership published first on https://getnewdlbusiness.tumblr.com/

[patriciaanderson357-blog]

Literature Performance Odyssey with Drama and Student Leadership

Marynn Dause on episode 318 of the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

They only had a 2 ½ weeks to teach the entire Odyssey. So, teacher Marynn Dause met with her students. They decided to follow the pattern of Homer and become storytelling bards themselves with powerful results. Marynn shares this innovative approach to teaching the Odyssey invented by her students along with their advice for using this method in your classroom.

Listen Now

Listen to the show on iTunes or Stitcher

Stream by clicking here.

***

Enhanced Transcript

Marynn Dause: Literature Performance Odyssey

Link to show: www.coolcatteacher.com/e318 Date: May 23, 2018

Vicki: Today we’re talking with someone I made friends with on Twitter, Marynn Dause.

She is a ninth-grade literature teacher.

Marynn, you are doing something fascinating with teaching The Odyssey.

Tell us what you’re doing.

Marynn: Yes, hello, and hello to everyone listening.

My students and I were sort of stuck with two and a half weeks to tackle twenty-four books (or chapters) of The Odyssey by Homer.

We had 2 ½ weeks to cover 24 chapters

We have a very collaborative classroom, I let the students lead their learning as much as possible.

So, during our Monday morning meeting, I just said, “You know what, guys? We don’t have a lot of time. There are a lot of chapters, and frankly, I have never taught this in a way that has worked for all or my kids. I need your help.”

We brainstormed, and what we ended up coming up with was the kids said, “How did people originally interact with this text?” Because that’s something that I want to emphasize is the original intent of the author and how they wanted their audience to receive it. I explained about Homer as being a poet, a bard, an oral storyteller.

The kids said, “How did people originally interact with this text?”

They said, “Well, why don’t we do that? Can’t we just tell the story the way that HE would have?”

So I took their idea and did some research and ran with it, and what we ended up doing is we parcelled the story out and the kids took charge of learning the chapters, and reciting and performing them for their classmates exactly the way that Homer would have two and a half thousand years ago.

Vicki: Wow, so they memorized it? Or they just filmed it? Or how does this work?

Marynn: Different groups chose different strategies, and it really ended up depending on the strengths of the teams themselves. I gave them a wide variety of options. When we were planning the whole thing, I had the kids brainstorm different ways of storytelling and they came up with thirty-seven different ways to tell a story.

Vicki: (laughs)

Marynn: Yeah! (laughs)

We talked about different tools, and we worked on, “Okay, how are we going to do this?” But most of them ended up deciding that they preferred actually doing spoken stories.

Most of them preferred actually doing spoken stories

We had skits. We had popsicle stick puppets. We had miming. We had the type of thing where people hit a scene, they freeze, and the narrator steps forward and narrates what’s going on, and then they do that a couple of times.

So lots of different live performance options that the kids ended up preferring as they went along.

Vicki: Now did you film these? Did you capture these on film for the kids who weren’t there? How did that work?

  Marynn: Yes, I did somewhat. We have to be a little bit careful about our photography rights and recording and that kind of thing with the students, but any time that we knew somebody was going to be gone, we would record it and send it just to that person.

Or, I mean we actually do have the books themselves. Sometimes the kids would say, “Don’t worry about it, Ms. Dause, I’m just going to read the chapter.”

One thing that I was really pleased by was that, as we went through this process of taking the story chapter by chapter, the kids began to feel more confident in their reading ability, and so they were not intimidated by the text anymore.

The kids began to feel more confident in their reading ability

They would say, “Oh, I’ve already done my chapters with my group. I can handle this one. It won’t be a big deal.”

Vicki: Wow. So did you cover it all in time? Were you able to get through, or did you get stuck? Sometimes teachers are afraid of projects because they’re like, “Oh, we just won’t get it done! They’ll spend the whole time playing!”

Marynn: I know what you mean.

We actually did, and it was one of those things where having the limited amount of time sort of lit a fire under us, you know what I mean? It’s like, “Okay, well… we have to get this done one way or the other. It is a curriculum requirement.”

“If we fail, and we’re right back to where we started, where we have less time to read the full things, so, go, go!” And the kids would cheer each other on.

What we did is we took two and a half days at the beginning — I teach on a four-by-four system, my classes are ninety minutes long — about two and a half days at the front end for the kids to read their chapters, annotate it like crazy, and a lot of them either wrote skits or sort of did bullet-point plans on a piece of paper, and then they would put together costumes.

Each table would perform one chapter, and we would do feedback from the group. I included a question and answer session after each performance so the audience could make sure they understood what had happened, and they got bonus points for asking questions. Answering questions was actually one of the requirements for the performers.

Answering questions was a requirement for the performers

Then we would take a day after each round and prep for the next one, and anything they couldn’t fit in in class, that was their only homework.

I usually assign three or four really quality-thinking assignments each week, but I said, “Look, guys, this is going to be a lot of work, so as long as you’re working on this, I’m not going to give you anything extra because I want all of your attention for my class focused on this effort.”

Vicki: Marynn, before we started recording, you showed me that you have a lot of observations from your students that they had — things they wanted to share.

Tell us the things the students want everybody to hear and know about this method of approaching The Odyssey.

  Marynn: Absolutely.

I did tell them, “I can’t find anybody else who’s done this before, so you are learning for all the schools in America, you might be, so who knows.”

A couple of major points. I asked them for highs, lows, and for advice that they would give other schools.

I asked them for highs, lows, and advice that they would give

Vicki: Awesome.

Marynn: Their highs, summarized, were that:

this is very creative and interesting

it’s engaged and made the text come alive

I felt that I could move and understand it

it was interactive and fun, lots of stars around fun

It improved my comprehension,

I learned a lot out of my comfort zone

I remember the whole story

One little guy said, “Usually, when I read, there’s so much going on, I can barely keep up with the story. Forget the characters, it’s not going to happen. But now, when we’re talking about the characters, you can say, ‘Yeah, you’re Achaea remember? And I can remember, and that helps me comprehend.”

Some of their lows were, “It’s time consuming!” (laughs)

Vicki: (laughs) Yeah, they had to work, right? (laughs)

Welcome to teaching, right? But it’s great that they’re doing it.

  Marynn: Several of the kids said, “It was a lot more work than I expected.”

I did think it was interesting that they pointed out, “This is really fun and most of us prefer to do live acting, but that didn’t fit everybody’s style.”

It really does depend on your learning style. You need to know performing techniques. I messed that up. I didn’t show them stage drama techniques until the second and third round, because I didn’t predict how much they would need to know.

They wanted to get that learning about the skills at the front end.

The other thing they noted is that, “If the performance is unclear, if the group has a tough chapter with a lot of details and a lot of characters, it can get a little muddy. It can be hard to understand.”

So they said, You really have to emphasize the Q&A structure.”

And we also, in the middle, we started having the groups to read a summary of their annotations before they performed. That way, we knew what we were looking for before they went on stage.

Vicki: But they recommend this for other classrooms?

Their advice column was actually the long one

Marynn: Absolutely, and their advice column was actually the longest one.

Vicki: So what’s their advice?

Marynn: I’m going to try to pick the most pertinent moments.

They said practice. Do not procrastinate. For the love of all that is good, make sure that you practice!

A lot of the kids said just do it. Just break out of your comfort zone.

Understand that everybody in the room is going to be doing the same thing, and the sillier you look, the more we enjoy it. So just GO.

They did actually recommend — several of them set up Google Remind accounts, like remind.com, and they used Remind instead of a group chat. So they would all be on a Remind group together so they could communicate when they were at home. That way, they didn’t need to know each other’s numbers, but they could still talk.

Vicki: Yeah. Wow.

Marynn:Yeah, I thought that was good.

Other than that, they said definitely work on your group collaboration at the front end. Like have a really clear conversation about who is going to be in charge of what, and how you are going to make sure it happens, first?

Vicki: (agrees)

Marynn: Several of them, I actually led some conflict resolution workshops because they found out the hard way that they didn’t know how to do conflict resolution.

Vicki: Yeah. And that’s so great about having teams and working in this way, because you’re teaching much more than your topic, and you’ve got done on time! We do want to say that!

Marynn: Yeah.

Vicki: So, Marynn, the thing I think I would like to most point out to our teachers, besides the fact that this is a fantastic teaching method…

But I like what you’ve modeled for us by going to your students and saying, “Students, what do you want to say to people about this method of teaching?”

Actually, we’ve had 301 episodes as of the day we’re recording this, and I’m sitting here thinking, “You know, we need to all do a better job of getting feedback from students and letting the students speak, and then we could be the voice for them.”

I think that you’ve really modeled something powerful that we all need to be doing a better job of when we’re talking about teaching strategies. Because I really like their recommendations and, you know, when kids say it’s time-consuming, or a lot of work, I hate to say that I don’t mind that, but the point is you don’t really give homework.

They’re really doing most of this work in class, so their goof-off time goes away. A lot of kids want a little bit of goof-off time and they’re just not getting it, and we’re okay with that.

So remarkable educators, I think this is a fascinating way to teach. It’s a teaching oddysey in itself, and we’ve just learned so much.

So thank you! And tell your kids thanks!

  Marynn: Oh, I certainly will.

Contact us about the show: http://www.coolcatteacher.com/contact/

Transcribed by Kymberli Mulford kymberlimulford@gmail.com

Bio as submitted

I’m Marynn HS Dause, M.A.Ed, NBCT, and non-traditional innovator extraordinaire. My secondary ELA classroom in King George, Virginia is more laboratory than lecture hall, and my passion is helping teachers and students progress with excellence and purpose. I’m enthusiastic about the possibilities of edtech for better learning, excited about pedagogy, and always up for a new adventure. I’d be happy to collaborate with you on Twitter!

Blog: http://mdause.wixsite.com/thedauseclause

Twitter: @DauseClause

Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a “sponsored podcast episode.” The company who sponsored it compensated me via cash payment, gift, or something else of value to include a reference to their product. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.” This company has no impact on the editorial content of the show.

The post Literature Performance Odyssey with Drama and Student Leadership appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

[ralph31ortiz]

Literature Performance Odyssey with Drama and Student Leadership

Marynn Dause on episode 318 of the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

They only had a 2 ½ weeks to teach the entire Odyssey. So, teacher Marynn Dause met with her students. They decided to follow the pattern of Homer and become storytelling bards themselves with powerful results. Marynn shares this innovative approach to teaching the Odyssey invented by her students along with their advice for using this method in your classroom.

Listen Now

Listen to the show on iTunes or Stitcher

Stream by clicking here.

***

Enhanced Transcript

Marynn Dause: Literature Performance Odyssey

Link to show: www.coolcatteacher.com/e318 Date: May 23, 2018

Vicki: Today we’re talking with someone I made friends with on Twitter, Marynn Dause.

She is a ninth-grade literature teacher.

Marynn, you are doing something fascinating with teaching The Odyssey.

Tell us what you’re doing.

Marynn: Yes, hello, and hello to everyone listening.

My students and I were sort of stuck with two and a half weeks to tackle twenty-four books (or chapters) of The Odyssey by Homer.

We had 2 ½ weeks to cover 24 chapters

We have a very collaborative classroom, I let the students lead their learning as much as possible.

So, during our Monday morning meeting, I just said, “You know what, guys? We don’t have a lot of time. There are a lot of chapters, and frankly, I have never taught this in a way that has worked for all or my kids. I need your help.”

We brainstormed, and what we ended up coming up with was the kids said, “How did people originally interact with this text?” Because that’s something that I want to emphasize is the original intent of the author and how they wanted their audience to receive it. I explained about Homer as being a poet, a bard, an oral storyteller.

The kids said, “How did people originally interact with this text?”

They said, “Well, why don’t we do that? Can’t we just tell the story the way that HE would have?”

So I took their idea and did some research and ran with it, and what we ended up doing is we parcelled the story out and the kids took charge of learning the chapters, and reciting and performing them for their classmates exactly the way that Homer would have two and a half thousand years ago.

Vicki: Wow, so they memorized it? Or they just filmed it? Or how does this work?

Marynn: Different groups chose different strategies, and it really ended up depending on the strengths of the teams themselves. I gave them a wide variety of options. When we were planning the whole thing, I had the kids brainstorm different ways of storytelling and they came up with thirty-seven different ways to tell a story.

Vicki: (laughs)

Marynn: Yeah! (laughs)

We talked about different tools, and we worked on, “Okay, how are we going to do this?” But most of them ended up deciding that they preferred actually doing spoken stories.

Most of them preferred actually doing spoken stories

We had skits. We had popsicle stick puppets. We had miming. We had the type of thing where people hit a scene, they freeze, and the narrator steps forward and narrates what’s going on, and then they do that a couple of times.

So lots of different live performance options that the kids ended up preferring as they went along.

Vicki: Now did you film these? Did you capture these on film for the kids who weren’t there? How did that work?

  Marynn: Yes, I did somewhat. We have to be a little bit careful about our photography rights and recording and that kind of thing with the students, but any time that we knew somebody was going to be gone, we would record it and send it just to that person.

Or, I mean we actually do have the books themselves. Sometimes the kids would say, “Don’t worry about it, Ms. Dause, I’m just going to read the chapter.”

One thing that I was really pleased by was that, as we went through this process of taking the story chapter by chapter, the kids began to feel more confident in their reading ability, and so they were not intimidated by the text anymore.

The kids began to feel more confident in their reading ability

They would say, “Oh, I’ve already done my chapters with my group. I can handle this one. It won’t be a big deal.”

Vicki: Wow. So did you cover it all in time? Were you able to get through, or did you get stuck? Sometimes teachers are afraid of projects because they’re like, “Oh, we just won’t get it done! They’ll spend the whole time playing!”

Marynn: I know what you mean.

We actually did, and it was one of those things where having the limited amount of time sort of lit a fire under us, you know what I mean? It’s like, “Okay, well… we have to get this done one way or the other. It is a curriculum requirement.”

“If we fail, and we’re right back to where we started, where we have less time to read the full things, so, go, go!” And the kids would cheer each other on.

What we did is we took two and a half days at the beginning — I teach on a four-by-four system, my classes are ninety minutes long — about two and a half days at the front end for the kids to read their chapters, annotate it like crazy, and a lot of them either wrote skits or sort of did bullet-point plans on a piece of paper, and then they would put together costumes.

Each table would perform one chapter, and we would do feedback from the group. I included a question and answer session after each performance so the audience could make sure they understood what had happened, and they got bonus points for asking questions. Answering questions was actually one of the requirements for the performers.

Answering questions was a requirement for the performers

Then we would take a day after each round and prep for the next one, and anything they couldn’t fit in in class, that was their only homework.

I usually assign three or four really quality-thinking assignments each week, but I said, “Look, guys, this is going to be a lot of work, so as long as you’re working on this, I’m not going to give you anything extra because I want all of your attention for my class focused on this effort.”

Vicki: Marynn, before we started recording, you showed me that you have a lot of observations from your students that they had — things they wanted to share.

Tell us the things the students want everybody to hear and know about this method of approaching The Odyssey.

  Marynn: Absolutely.

I did tell them, “I can’t find anybody else who’s done this before, so you are learning for all the schools in America, you might be, so who knows.”

A couple of major points. I asked them for highs, lows, and for advice that they would give other schools.

I asked them for highs, lows, and advice that they would give

Vicki: Awesome.

Marynn: Their highs, summarized, were that:

this is very creative and interesting

it’s engaged and made the text come alive

I felt that I could move and understand it

it was interactive and fun, lots of stars around fun

It improved my comprehension,

I learned a lot out of my comfort zone

I remember the whole story

One little guy said, “Usually, when I read, there’s so much going on, I can barely keep up with the story. Forget the characters, it’s not going to happen. But now, when we’re talking about the characters, you can say, ‘Yeah, you’re Achaea remember? And I can remember, and that helps me comprehend.”

Some of their lows were, “It’s time consuming!” (laughs)

Vicki: (laughs) Yeah, they had to work, right? (laughs)

Welcome to teaching, right? But it’s great that they’re doing it.

  Marynn: Several of the kids said, “It was a lot more work than I expected.”

I did think it was interesting that they pointed out, “This is really fun and most of us prefer to do live acting, but that didn’t fit everybody’s style.”

It really does depend on your learning style. You need to know performing techniques. I messed that up. I didn’t show them stage drama techniques until the second and third round, because I didn’t predict how much they would need to know.

They wanted to get that learning about the skills at the front end.

The other thing they noted is that, “If the performance is unclear, if the group has a tough chapter with a lot of details and a lot of characters, it can get a little muddy. It can be hard to understand.”

So they said, You really have to emphasize the Q&A structure.”

And we also, in the middle, we started having the groups to read a summary of their annotations before they performed. That way, we knew what we were looking for before they went on stage.

Vicki: But they recommend this for other classrooms?

Their advice column was actually the long one

Marynn: Absolutely, and their advice column was actually the longest one.

Vicki: So what’s their advice?

Marynn: I’m going to try to pick the most pertinent moments.

They said practice. Do not procrastinate. For the love of all that is good, make sure that you practice!

A lot of the kids said just do it. Just break out of your comfort zone.

Understand that everybody in the room is going to be doing the same thing, and the sillier you look, the more we enjoy it. So just GO.

They did actually recommend — several of them set up Google Remind accounts, like remind.com, and they used Remind instead of a group chat. So they would all be on a Remind group together so they could communicate when they were at home. That way, they didn’t need to know each other’s numbers, but they could still talk.

Vicki: Yeah. Wow.

Marynn:Yeah, I thought that was good.

Other than that, they said definitely work on your group collaboration at the front end. Like have a really clear conversation about who is going to be in charge of what, and how you are going to make sure it happens, first?

Vicki: (agrees)

Marynn: Several of them, I actually led some conflict resolution workshops because they found out the hard way that they didn’t know how to do conflict resolution.

Vicki: Yeah. And that’s so great about having teams and working in this way, because you’re teaching much more than your topic, and you’ve got done on time! We do want to say that!

Marynn: Yeah.

Vicki: So, Marynn, the thing I think I would like to most point out to our teachers, besides the fact that this is a fantastic teaching method…

But I like what you’ve modeled for us by going to your students and saying, “Students, what do you want to say to people about this method of teaching?”

Actually, we’ve had 301 episodes as of the day we’re recording this, and I’m sitting here thinking, “You know, we need to all do a better job of getting feedback from students and letting the students speak, and then we could be the voice for them.”

I think that you’ve really modeled something powerful that we all need to be doing a better job of when we’re talking about teaching strategies. Because I really like their recommendations and, you know, when kids say it’s time-consuming, or a lot of work, I hate to say that I don’t mind that, but the point is you don’t really give homework.

They’re really doing most of this work in class, so their goof-off time goes away. A lot of kids want a little bit of goof-off time and they’re just not getting it, and we’re okay with that.

So remarkable educators, I think this is a fascinating way to teach. It’s a teaching oddysey in itself, and we’ve just learned so much.

So thank you! And tell your kids thanks!

  Marynn: Oh, I certainly will.

Contact us about the show: http://www.coolcatteacher.com/contact/

Transcribed by Kymberli Mulford kymberlimulford@gmail.com

Bio as submitted

I’m Marynn HS Dause, M.A.Ed, NBCT, and non-traditional innovator extraordinaire. My secondary ELA classroom in King George, Virginia is more laboratory than lecture hall, and my passion is helping teachers and students progress with excellence and purpose. I’m enthusiastic about the possibilities of edtech for better learning, excited about pedagogy, and always up for a new adventure. I’d be happy to collaborate with you on Twitter!

Blog: http://mdause.wixsite.com/thedauseclause

Twitter: @DauseClause

Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a “sponsored podcast episode.” The company who sponsored it compensated me via cash payment, gift, or something else of value to include a reference to their product. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.” This company has no impact on the editorial content of the show.

The post Literature Performance Odyssey with Drama and Student Leadership appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

from Cool Cat Teacher BlogCool Cat Teacher Blog http://www.coolcatteacher.com/e318/

[zipgrowth]

Longtime Higher Ed Leader (and Former U.S. Congressman) Argues For a ‘Networked College’

The campus of the future will be “networked,” argues Peter Smith, meaning that more and more academic-related services will be outsourced. That, in theory, will allow each campus to focus its energies on what it can do best and turn to outside companies and nonprofits for the rest.

It’s a key claim in his new book, “Free-Range Learning in the Digital Age: The Emerging Revolution in College, Career, and Education,” due out next month, and it’s one that might unsettle college administrators accustomed to directly overseeing more campus services in-house.

Smith has a unique perspective on innovation in education. He has led experimental colleges, including designing and launching the Community College of Vermont back in 1970, and becoming the founding president of California State University at Monterey Bay in 1994. He’s also been a force in politics, having served as a state senator in Vermont, Lieutenant Governor in that state, and then a U.S. Congressman.

These days he’s back in higher education, as a professor of innovative practices in higher education at the University of Maryland University College.

EdSurge sat down with Smith last month at the ASU+GSV Summit on the future of education, as part of our EdSurge Live video discussion series. You can listen to a complete version below, or on your favorite podcast app (like iTunes or Stitcher). Or watch a video version.

EdSurge: One idea in your book that struck me is what you call “the networked college.” What do you mean by that?

Smith: A college is a vertical stack, and if you go back 50 or 60 years, colleges cooked their own food, they mowed their own lawns, they stocked their own libraries and they controlled their own faculty, or their own faculty controlled them. They control every part of the stack, and then you get your degree. That college is like an information-rich oasis in an information-poor world. You had to go there to get it.

Today that desert has gone green, and there is no more oasis. It doesn’t matter where you are in terms of having access to knowledge or content. So in the new world, technology has enhanced opportunities. Nobody can afford to be good at all the things it takes to put a first-class educational quality product out. I remember in the early part of this decade, or the last decade, when about 10 colleges got together and they were going to create their own learning management system. And it just was a disaster.

You’re talking about the LMS project, Sakai?

Yeah, it was a disaster, or it didn’t work. It was a passive disaster because it was nobody’s first job. They just thought, “Oh, well this is gonna be easy.” Then along come these other guys who say, “We’re going to do nothing but a learning management system, or whatever it might be.”

So in the networked colleges, you’re walking through the literal or the figurative front door of that college, but behind the scenes what you have is outsourced services.

You’ve got to decide these days what it is you’re going to be really good at, and then you’re going to contract out [other things], increasingly. So first it was grounds crews, then it was the cafeteria. Libraries are now completely different than they were even 25 years ago.

The operating reality is that for any college that wants to be up-to-date—however they define that in terms of technologically-enhanced services—they’ll rise or fall on the quality of their partnerships.

My former colleague at the Chronicle of Higher Education, Goldie Blumenstyk, called it the “embedded for-profit university” because there’s all these different for-profits operations within a nonprofit higher-ed institution.

And more and more of it, I believe, will be nonprofit. For instance you look at what Strada is doing right now. They’ve acquired CAEL [the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning], and also InsideTrack. And Strada is a nonprofit.

But the reason it starts in the for-profit sector is because in the beginning, the academy had such a tight hold through tradition and custom and governance and funding, you couldn’t make the changes. And what’s changed fundamentally in the last 20 years is that the drivers of these changes are not controlled by campuses. They’re from the community around the campus. So the campus cannot co-opt the language and then keep largely doing what they were already doing.

The reason we’re here at this meeting, and what the venture capital has done, is allow people to try things that never would have been tried before because the technology didn’t exist, or never been tried before because of the control that the institutions had on the discourse around what is learning and what is not learning. That’s all changed.

Somebody said, “Why are you doing this stuff?” And I said, “In simplest terms, because I can.” And 25 years ago, I couldn’t. So the idea that you can take content to scale, that you can take advising to scale, you can also personalize in a thousand different ways.

You have been described as a friendly critic of some new models of education. What does that critique boil down to?

I’m described by some as occasionally wrong, but never in doubt.

Each of us comes into whatever we do for our life’s choice—if we’re lucky enough to have had a choice—with a predisposition. Mine is towards experiential learning, towards really engaging the learner in real activities, and then asking them to think about those activities and what they learned and why it matters to them. And I go out from there. I think there are people, for instance, who have mistakenly thought that simply having great content was all it took.

And I remember one of the MOOC founders who said five years later, well MOOCs have failed as an educational experiment. And my comment to that was, they never were an educational experiment. They’re just a bunch of courses by very smart people, produced beautifully. So [I’m skeptical of] people who overestimate [the power of] content alone.

In your book you cite examples of people cobbling together an education from various sources, and there was a book several years ago by Anya Kamenetz called “DIY U” that argued that this will happen more often. But that hasn’t really caught on widely, and it seems most people still look for a structured education rather than just to go it alone. Do you think we’re really going to get to a world where “free-range learning” is more common?

No. And what I was talking about, and what I intended with the title of my book, is that what is possible now is learning anytime, anywhere, or from anybody.

Now, my metaphor for that is it’s like skiing in a blizzard with no goggles. Because you’ve got all these resources around, but you don’t know how to organize them. So the notion simply is that where learning happens, how it happens, how it’s recognized, how it is supported and how it is connected to work or whatever is important to me as a person has changed dramatically.

And we are in a world of multiple new models. The work I’ve done in the last 20 years in online or technologically enhanced learning suggests that fewer than 10 percent of the people who are learners are able to self-direct—or really more like 4 percent.

The third section of my book is called a “GPS for Learning and Work.” We can sit in a car and say, “I wanna go to grandma’s,” and it will tell us the fast way and the slow way and the scenic route. Well, [education] is a little more complicated than going to grandma’s. But what’s possible today, and people here at ASU+GSV are working on it, is to say, “Here’s where I am, my knowledge, skills, abilities and my aspirations. Here’s where I want to go. Here’s the gap. Here are the resources I need to fill the gap.” And I can choose my setting—group study or independent study, or this or that. And what will happen is that as people see these things, I think markets will emerge.

So the role for the new institution is to make sense of that world and help learners figure out what they want and how they’re going to get it, and the mode they want. [When] you talk to a worker who’s 52, what they want in terms of higher education is very different than what I may have thought I wanted when I was 18. Now we can really craft educational solutions to personal situations.

Longtime Higher Ed Leader (and Former U.S. Congressman) Argues For a ‘Networked College’ published first on https://medium.com/@GetNewDLBusiness

[unixcommerce]

Think You’re Too Small To Offer Employee Benefits? Think Again

Forget the small size of your business. Offering benefits creates a powerful incentive. For example, a retirement plan helps create a strong team. It produces happy workers. And they stick together for years.

For you, it means less employee turnover. That means teamwork makes the dream work, as the saying goes. Combine a 401k with other benefits. It acts as a magnet for new candidates.

Are You Too Small to Offer Employee Benefits?

You may think you’re just too small to offer benefits. But Small Business Trends met with Kevin Boyles of Millennium Trust Company. And we discussed exactly that. The conversation focused on retirement plans.

We also cover a few state mandates on companies’ obligations for employee retirement plans. And look at the roots of misconceptions around the issue of SMBs’ ability to sponsor a retirement plan. We check out an an online portal for employers. And examine a self-service account dashboard for employees. And we discuss an enhancement through Morningstar (NASDAQ: MORN) that’s unique to Millennium Trust.

More About Kevin Boyle

Image: Millennium Trust Company

Boyles serves as the head of Workplace Savings Solutions for Millennium Trust. He holds the Certified IRA Services Professional (CISP) designation from the Institute of Certified Bankers. And he also possesses the Certified IRA Professional (CIP) designation from the National Association of Federal Credit Unions. He spent 18 years with Ascensus. The company previously existed as BISYS Retirement and Universal Pensions, Inc.

Boyles speaks in over 30 states and Canada. He contributes content and quotes to a variety of publications. They include U.S. News & World Report, American Banker Magazine, Plan Advisor Magazine, Financial Advisor Magazine, The Federal Credit Union Magazine, the New York Times, the Washington Post and more.

Boyles operates from Oak Brook, Illinois. Millennium Trust serves all 50 states.

* * * * *

55 Million U.S. Workers Do Without

Small Business Trends: Millions of small businesses still don’t offer a retirement savings option for their employees. Why?

Kevin Boyles: The short answer is, there are a number of factors involved. For definitive data, we conducted our comprehensive Small Business Retirement Survey as a deep dive into these employers and how they view retirement.

Our research verified much of what we knew anecdotally – that cost was one of the major factors, for instance. But the surveys also revealed that many employers didn’t think their employees even cared if they had something available or not. That specific finding surprised us, because employees emphatically want to save for retirement through work! We know this through our survey data. The other thing that surprised us was that over half of small employers have looked at offering something, but still chose not to.

Why Some Employers Decided Against

Small Business Trends: With the owners who “researched but ultimately did nothing”, were they afraid? Overwhelmed? Some other reason?

Kevin Boyles: Well, first off are the three main factors the employers in our survey felt were barriers. Those were cost, complexity, and the belief that their businesses weren’t large enough to offer something. That’s the easy answer. Of the ones who researched plan options, the vast majority only researched a 401k plan as an option. And unfortunately, 401k was the type shown most often.

So we contend that when an owner does a search, what he or she is shown is an additional major factor. And if all they’re being shown are 401k’s, well, what do you think they’ll assume? Going only by what they see, they would assume it’s the only choice out there. The truth is, while 401k plans are awesome for hundreds of thousands of businesses, they are simply not the right fit for many small businesses, primarily because of cost, complexity, and the “we’re just not big enough” mentality. And because they aren’t shown the whole other universe of options out there, they end up doing nothing, even though employees would appreciate something.

401k Alternatives for Small Companies

Small Business Trends: Let’s get into that whole other universe.

Kevin Boyles: There is a whole universe of options that most small business owners never come across, and that is why we created our Retirement Savings Selector Tool for Small Business. Its purpose is to ask an employer a few quick questions to get a meaningful comparison of the options available — including 401k. We feel it’s imperative for employers to get access to an agnostic resource to help them vet all available options.

Every State is Different, So Learn and Comply

Small Business Trends: In recent years, a number of states introduced retirement savings programs for small businesses. How do you see those fitting into the overall mix?

Kevin Boyles: In a word, favorably. These programs are an excellent link in the chain of giving more American workers access to save for retirement through their workplace, which is critical to combat the savings crisis that is happening in our country right now.

AARP has published research that shows that people are 15 times more likely to save for retirement if they can do so through work. There are a few drawbacks with state-sponsored plans, though. The first is reach.

Only Three States Have Mandates

As of right now, only Oregon, Illinois, and California have a state mandate for employers to offer a savings option for their employees. There are a couple of other states that may eventually do the same, but these kinds of mandates are far from being nationwide. You also have states like Washington, which offers retirement marketplaces where different providers can serve their solutions for small businesses in that state.

The next drawback is that the mandated programs have different rules from state to state. In Oregon, all employers must either offer a retirement plan for their employees, or else they’re mandated to participate in the Oregon state program. In Illinois, you don’t have to participate or be subject to the mandate if you have fewer than 25 employees. That’s just one example of differences between three states with these programs that are up and running today.

The final drawback is that the investment options offered in these state programs are somewhat limited compared to what you would find in conventional, private sector offerings. So yes there are drawbacks, but these state programs are extremely well-intended and are moving the needle in the states that they exist in. We see them as existing very harmoniously next to more robust solutions like what we are bringing to the marketplace.

Priced Right for Small Companies with a Dose of Morningstar, Inc.

Small Business Trends: As for what you’re bringing to the table, is it wholly unique?

Kevin Boyles: The answer is yes, with a touch of no. The yes part is that what Millennium Trust has done is take the universe of what we call “sub-401k” or “IRA-based” solutions that already exist in various pockets out there and has woven them together into a cohesive, turnkey solution that’s never been done in exactly the way we are doing it.

Another unique element about our Workplace Savings Solutions is that we have hired Morningstar to display a world-class, multi-manager lineup of mutual funds and a series of target date funds for employees to choose from. It’s comparable to what you would see in most good-sized 401k plans, so the employer is offering the same quality of investments in these types of programs. The invest lineup is available in all of our Workplace Savings Solutions, including SEP plans, SIMPLE IRA plans, or payroll-deducted IRA programs for employees.

And finally, we structured our program pricing so that the employer simply pays a one-time, $250 implementation fee to establish the program and typically has no ongoing cost to their business.

SEP, SIMPLE, and payroll-deducted IRAs aren’t new by any means. So through that lens, it’s less unique. Because all these things have been out there for years. But we believe we are trailblazing as we’re taking all of those disparate pieces. And bundling them into an easy-to-understand solution that’s not only very simple to use but very affordable, too. We understand the why. We understand the barriers to entry. Both real and perceived. And we are poised to help small business owners and employees, at scale. From coast to coast.

Image: Depositphotos.com

This article, “Think You’re Too Small To Offer Employee Benefits? Think Again” was first published on Small Business Trends

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