So far you have completed job shadowing, created a resume, cover letter, and reference list.  Recently we conducted mock interviews in the classroom, where you were able to practice your interviewing skills.  You had a chance to act like an employer who was interviewing others for a job and you were able to practice your own interview skills by pretending to be at a job interview and responding to questions. Now, it’s time to reflect on the process.

Please type a 200 word (or more) reflection on the mock interview process by answering the following questions.  Feel free to Bullet Point each response or write as a one paragraph journal reflection.

1. How did you feel while you interviewed a classmate?  Do you believe that seeing an interview from the employer’s perspective makes you more prepared or not?  Please explain.
2. How did you feel while you were interviewed by a classmate?  Did you feel anxious, nervous, scared, prepared, overwhelmed, confident, etc.?  Please explain why you felt that way.
3. How do you feel about your responses?  Do you think your responses to the questions were adequate or do you feel you could have done better? What question did you find easy?  What question did you find difficult to answer?
4. What advice would you give someone who is participating in a mock interview or a real interview? What advice would you give yourself; in other words, how do you think you could improve for your real interview?
5. Yes, I know these mock interviews weren’t real, so imagine how you would perform in the interview if it was real.  What have you learned you need to do to be better prepared?  How should you dress for an interview?  How should you behave before, during, and after an interview?  What should you bring with you to an interview?
6. Evaluate the activity.  Be honest.  What do you think was good about this class activity?  How do you think we could improve this activity for next time, next year? Do you believe this is a skill you do need or do not need in real life?  Please explain.
7. Take one of the 20 interview questions below and write a response that would be GOOD and one that would be BAD, then explain the difference with reasoning. It’s always good to practice job interview questions so that you become more and more comfortable.

Sample Interview Questions for High School Students

Prepare for Perfection!

Possible Interview Questions: Personal

1. Tell me about yourself? What made you apply for this job?

2. What clubs or organizations are you a member of?

3. What have you learned from your hobbies, interests and outside activities?

4. What qualifications do you have for this job?

5. If I asked your teachers or your guidance counselor to describe you, what would they say?

Possible Interview Questions: Cooperation

6. How do you feel about working with others and as part of a team?

7. Describe a time when you worked with a team successfully? How do you handle team conflicts?

8. Do you follow instructions easily? How do you work under pressure?

9. When required, would you be willing to work overtime?

Possible Interview Questions: Self confidence

10. What do you consider to be your greatest strengths, weaknesses or faults?

11. How do you think a teacher who knows you well would describe you?

12. Why do you think you are suitable for this position?

13. Why should we consider you for this job instead of other applicants?

Possible Interview Questions: Motivation/initiative

14. How did you prepare for this interview? What is important to you in a job?

15. If you didn’t understand an instruction, what would you do?

16. What motivates you to put forth your greatest effort?

17. Describe your most rewarding experience in schoo

18. Where would you like to be in 5 years?

19. What are your long-range and short-range goals and objectives?

20. When and why did you establish your goals, and how are you preparing yourself to achieve them?

*If you find any creative job interview images to add to this blog, please post them so that you can enhance your blog post and have more people visit and comment on your blog post.

Type a 200 word Blog Post about Current News. Peruse the news sites and read an article about something that interests you: sports, national news, local news, education, politics, entertainment, health, etc. After you read the news article, do the following in your blog post:

• Summarize your article and insert a link to the article. If there is an image that you could also share on your blog, please do so.
• Evaluate whether you believe the article is one sided (biased) or if it seems neutral and allows the reader to come to his/her own conclusion.
• Analyze what you found shocking, surprising, amazing, saddening, exciting, frustrating, etc. about the article. Share your personal thoughts.
• Ask your readers questions to get them thinking about the article’s topic
• Scan the article before you submit it to make sure it’s appropriate for all age levels (there are topics on the news that may not be appropriate for younger kids, so please refrain from those overly sensitive topics)
• (You can use any reputable NEWS site like:)
  • http://abcnews.go.com/ 
  • http://www.cbsnews.com/
  • http://www.nbcnews.com/
  • http://www.cnn.com/
  • http://www.foxnews.com/
  • http://www.reuters.com/news
  • https://www.usatoday.com/news/ 
  • http://www.msnbc.com/

Periods 4 and 5/6 You need to complete the Senior Research Presentations Reflections.

Type a 200 word Blog Post reflecting on the presentations in the auditorium. Make sure you include the following information:

• You can choose to write a general reflection Or about each individual student presentation
• Summarize the presentation
• What was interesting in the presentation?
• What was confusing/uninteresting in the presentation?
• What do you think went well with the presentation? (Was the presenter loud, clear, engaging, etc.)
• What advice would you give the presenter?

PERIOD 4 PRESENTATION TOPICS in order:

1. Danyale White – Child Abuse Awareness
2. Payton Schudieri – Scientology As A Cult
3. Emily Czyz – Conspiracy Theories on Area 51
4. T Cook – What Are Millennials?

PERIOD 5 PRESENTATION TOPICS in order:

1. Sabrina Lopez – Metaphysics
2. Lisa Hicks – Spiritual Intervention of Suicide
3. Mateo – Entrepreneurship in Business

 

Edublog Challenge 5 is on Family and Culture:

Directions: Write a post about your family and culture – include their interests, where you might have been together as a family. Remember to include grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles. Write about your ethnic or cultural backgrounds.  Feel free to design or explain your family tree.  Explain any of your family traditions, whether it’s for holidays or birthday celebrations.  What makes your family so special or different from others? Does your family speak any other languages?

* Adding a photo or image of your family and/or images of places where your family has traveled to together on family vacations.  You could also add images of your cultural flag or any traditional meals or other traditions.

Family Tree 

 

1. Edublog Challenge Class List: http://studentchallenge.edublogs.org/march-2017-classes/
Link to OUR class Blog https://mrsmaslowski.edublogs.org/
2. Edublog Challenge 1 was to Create/Update your About Me Page. You should have done that a while ago. Edublog Challenge 2 is Commenting http://studentchallenge.edublogs.org/2017/03/12/week-2-learning-to-comment-well/
For this challenge, you need to create a video or a short blog about tips on commenting:
–Think about your use of social media (Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, etc) How should you respond to people publicly and how should you NOT respond to people publicly?
–Give some guidelines on what everyone needs to know about commenting on blogs or peer papers or social media, etc.
–Some examples could include:
-Top 10 Things you Should NEVER post on social media (make it serious or funny)
-Top 10 Things you Should understand before commenting on someone’s Social Media Post
(Here’s an example of a Very Good Blog Post on this topic: http://per2nick.edublogs.org/2017/04/04/edu-blog-challenge-2-comments/ )
3. Visit these blogs and leave comments on at least 3 student blog posts.
http://plewes5b.weebly.com/
http://huzzah.edublogs.org/
http://mrsrombachreads.edublogs.org/

1. Peruse  https://www.visittheusa.com/experience/world-heritage-sites-united-states to learn about the 22 UN World Heritage Sites in the USA.

2. Go to http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/75 and type in your ASSIGNED USA UN World Heritage Site in the SEARCH bar to learn about this amazing site. Then go to the link in above in direction #1 to learn even more info about that world heritage site.

3. Write a summary sentence about your assigned site as well as add an image (+) related to this site. Make sure you add DIFFERENT info than the person who posts BEFORE you. https://padlet.com/mmaslowski/UNWorldHeritageSites 

4. After your short summary and image on PADLET, please compose a 150 word or more summary of your assigned USA UN Heritage Site to share your expertise of the site as well as include your link to the site ensure others could access your research. Make sure you include the name of this UN site, its location, its significance in decoding the cultural heritage, and any other interesting/intriguing facts.

5. Please add at least one image of this site so that your audience can see its culture and beauty.

 

 

1. Peruse http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/682/ to learn about Bwindi Impenetrable National Park in Uganda
2. Peruse http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1022 to learn about Tombs of Buganda Kings at Kasubi in Uganda

3. Pick one of these two UN World Heritage Sites and write a summary sentence about the UGANDA site as well as add an image (+) related to this site. Make sure you add DIFFERENT info than the person who posts BEFORE you. https://padlet.com/mmaslowski/UNWorldHeritageSites 

4. After your short summary and image on PADLET, please compose a 150 word or more summary of the Uganda UN Heritage Site to share your expertise of the site as well as include your link to the site ensure others could access your research. Make sure you include the name of this UN site, its location, its significance in decoding the cultural heritage, and any other interesting/intriguing facts.

5. Please add at least one image of this site so that your audience can see its culture and beauty.

 

 

 

All human beings should be treated with respect and dignity and be proud of being an individual. No one should be stereotyped by their race, gender, background, social status, etc.  We are all human beings and we should be proud of who we are because there is no other person like us. Don’t judge a person by the outside appearance; don’t stereotype a person or generalize an entire group or race of people.  We are all human and we all deserve love and respect; and, we should all show ourselves respect.  We all Matter.  You Matter. Let’s make a difference and be more awesome!

Now, take the Challenge:  Since it’s Black History Month, please pick a person or group of people who represent Black History so that we learn more about these important people and their amazing accomplishments. Look at the Poster below:

Pick one of the challenges, find an appropriate image or video, and write a 200-300 word reflection on the image/video.  Analyze what the image/video represents and how that one image/video can pretty much say a 1000 words. How is the image an important example of Black History Month?  Explain in detail.  Make sure you include the image/video in your Post.

Super Bowl commercials are very expensive and millions of people watch them, so the creators of these commercials have to be effective so the money that was spent on the very short product was worthwhile.

As we look at some commercials, focus on the persuasive methods that were used and try to relate to how they could help you prepare for your social issue research paper.

Before watching some commercials together as a class, I asked students to focus on 3 aspects (which they needed in their social issue research papers):

1. What is the purpose (message) of the video?
2. How did the commercial show both sides of this perspective (message)?
3. How effective was the shock value to get audience attention to the major social issue and/or product?

 

Now it’s time for students to have some choice as they analyze other commercials and videos.

Directions: Your goal is to find and share at least 3 video commercials in order to write at least 250 words by analyzing the PURPOSE, AUDIENCE, and STANCE of these commercials. Make sure you go to ADD MEDIA and EMBED the videos into your blog post so your audience can view the video and comment on whether they agree or disagree with your analysis….or add more to your analysis.

Here are your options:

• Analyze your top 3 Favorite Superbowl Commercials
• Analyze your bottom 3 Least Favorite Superbowl Commercials
• Analyze your top 3 Most Funny Superbowl Commercials
• Analyze your top 3 Most Serious Superbowl Commercials
• Analyze your top 3 Unbelievable/Unrealistic Superbowl Commercials (ones in which actions happened that we know are not realistic to real life)
• Analyze 3 Different Types of Superbowl Commercials (Food related, Car related, Beverage related, etc)
• If you have another creative idea to analyze 3 different Superbowl Commercials, see me to approve and go ahead
• If you prefer to not analyze commercials, find 3 videos you like and analyze their purpose, audience, and stance. (For example 3 most motivational videos or 3 inspiring videos, etc)  See me for approval

Some added resources to help you complete this assignment well:

Super Bowl Commercials 2017

Super Bowl Commercial Highlights 2017

Best and Worst Super Bowl Commercials 2017

Close Reading of Super Bowl Commercials

Rhetorical Analysis of a Superbowl Commercial

 

Today, February 3, 2017 Students from Period 2 and Period 5 were invited to the Little Theater to be in the audience while Mrs. Blake’s speech team participants had a dress rehearsal.  Students were given the following instructions prior to entering the Little Theater:

Mrs. Blake’s Speech Showcase:

You will pay attention to the students who are speaking in the Little Theater. You will write an edublog post about these students and their speaking qualities; feel free to take notes so you can remember what to write about.  You are an audience member and you will critique the students and their speeches to help them improve for the competition.

 Please focus on the following so you can give them advice to improve:

• how do they use their voice (loud, quiet, tone)
• facial expressions (helpful, distracting)
• engaging/interesting/boring
• were any movements distracting or helpful to bring about the intended message?
• did they succeed in delivering the intended message?
• Any advice? (constructive criticism)
• Any positive comments?

Students have the option of writing about all 5 speech presentations or pick 1-2 to describe or reflect over in detail.  Students need to summarize what they saw and heard and explain in detail their interpretation of the speech as well as giving positive comments and constructive criticism so students can improve before their actual competition.

Here were the 5 Speech Presentations during period 2:

1. Hope spoke from the perspective of a mother grieving the loss of her son Jesse who died in the Sandy Hook tragedy
2. “Hungry Heart” had some repetitive phrases including “We Fall, We Get Hurt, We Get Up Again!” and “I see you…You Matter”
3. The Humorous Duet was performed by Tony and Casey who were arguing brother and sister over Instagram and it was called “Mutually Assured Destruction”
4. The Dramatic Interpretation or “DI” was called “Widow’s Walk” related to the Tragic Events surrounding September 11th.
5. Radio Speaking had to be 4:50 exactly…..and it was!

 

Here were the 5 Speech Presentations during period 5:

1. Humorous Interpretation entitled “Who’s a Good Dog?”
2. An Oratorical Declaration by Grade called “Hungry Heart” had some repetitive phrases including “We Fall, We Get Hurt, We Get Up Again!” and “I see you…You Matter”
3. The DDA (Dramatic Duet Acting)  was about schizophrenia with the person who has the mental illness and the voice she is hearing entitled “What the Voice Wants Me To Do”
4. SOS (Special Occasion Speaking)
5. Radio Speaking had to be between 4:50-5:05…..and it was!