January 14

Today, we did a Writing into the Day with a quote about positive thinking.  In response to this quote, we had a debate about whether positive thinking leads to success.  Some people said that positive thinking is the key because positive thinking will lead to a positive environments which will lead to positive decisions, which will result in success.  Some argued that a negative outlook will lead to less motivation and drive to complete tasks that will lead to success.  Others said that positive alone is not enough. These people said that a person has to want to succeed and be willing to do the hard work that will help a person meet his/her goals.  In this way of thinking, a negative thinking person may end up more successful than a positive thinker because he/she puts in more work.  We talked about how thinking and doing go hand in hand.  We also talked about how people can learn from their mistakes, meaning that they find a positive from a negative.

After our discussion, we did an alliteration exercise to help us remember each other's names.  Then, we discussed how to post and comment on the blog as well as the expectations for reading responses and inquiry process posts.

For the last 20 minutes of class, we brainstormed about our trajectories as students using the  "School Trajectory" handout and shared our trajectories with our inquiry groups.

Homework:
1.  Post the following on your blog (in one post) before next class:

• A picture and/or description of your student trajectory.
• Respond to all the bullet points on the "Schooling Trajectory" handout.  

2.  Make sure to complete at least one more post on your blog this week.  Respond to something from class this week or about something outside of class that helps you think about schooling/education.

3.  Respond to at least two of your inquiry groups' posts by Sunday (January 20) at midnight.