Note to readers: CE9 students
moved from Website to Blogs in 2009 as their main vehicle for publishing
their work. This page is being maintained for archival purposes. The
new CyberJournal page can be found here.
Your
CyberJournal is a document that records your progress in Cyber English 9. You begin it in September
and add to it each month. You finish it in May. The purpose of this journal is to record your thoughts
about how and what you are learning in English. It is not meant to be a
personal diary. Please choose from the topics suggested below for your CyberJournal.
Each
entry in your CyberJournal must be dated (month only is okay). Also, each entry should be
about 100-125 words long. Give examples, reasons, or illustrations to
show what you mean. Also, be sure you check your entries for conventions
errors. Do your best! These monthly entries are worth 20 points each.
At the
end of the year, you are to write a reflection, thinking back upon the
entire CyberEnglish9 experience. The directions for this assignment are
at the end of this page. Publish
your CyberJournal on its own page. Put a link to your CyberJournal on
your index page.
Choose
only one
topic from the list in the
current month's suggestions to write about in your cyberjournal.
Develop your response to that topic in about 125 words. Proofread
carefully.
September |
October | November |
December | January |
February |
March | April |
May |
End of Year Reflection
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September Suggestions:
Choose
only one
topic from the list
- What is CyberEnglish9
and how
do you feel about being in this class?
- What do you hope CyberEnglish9
will do for you?
- How does this class
seem different from other English classes you've had in the past?
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October Suggestions:
Choose
only one
topic from the list
- What's your
favorite thing about your website
and why?
- What have you
learned by using computers in English?
- Why is it important for
you to have created and maintain a website in school?
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November Suggestions:
Choose
only one
topic from the list
- If an outsider visited
your site, what would you hope he or she would think about
it?
- If you had more time
to work on your site, what would you change or improve about
it and why?
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December Suggestions:
Choose
only one
topic from the list
- What
has been most challenging or frustrating for you in this class and how have you
met the challenge or overcome the frustration?
- Do
you ever find yourself helping other students in CyberEnglish9 to learn something? How does
that feel? Is this a normal role for you or new to you?
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January
Suggestions: Choose
only one
topic from the list
From now on,
as you write your CyberJournal entries, make them hypertext!!
Start linking like a crazy person. Link to things in your site
and to appropriate or relevant external sites. To make links
is to make connections for you and for your readers.
- What steps have you taken
to revise the work you have published on your website? Why
did you decide to make these revisions?
- You've been learning
about literature (lit terms, analyzing literature) and writing
(various genres and literary analysis). How has using a computer
helped you learn these things better?
- What is your best piece of writing in
your website
(so far) and why is it your best. Be sure to link to the page
it's on.
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February Suggestions:
Choose
only one
topic from the list
- Which
new technologies that you have learned could you see using in other
classes? Explain.
- Do
you feel more confident now than you did at the beginning of the
year about any of your skills: computer? writing?
reading? Explain.
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March Suggestions:
Choose
only one
topic from the list
- What are some
of the educational or career goals you have set for yourself
that CyberEnglish9 may have helped you develop or understand?
- How is reading a text online different
from reading a text on paper? Which is easier? Why? Which
do you like better? Why? (What kind of
hypertext reader are you)?
- You can log in to Power School to get
all of your grades. How is this important to you? How
does having access to your grades help you be a better student?
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April Suggestions:
Choose
only one
topic from the list
- A panel of business people told us that one
of the main things they need in their employees is the ability
to work well as a member of a team. Think about what your
Living Histories project taught you about teamwork that would
help you in the future.
- Writing collaboratively can be challenging
and rewarding. Write about your experience writing with another
person.
-
Think about your
multigenre experience. How was it? Was it easy, hard, fun,
frustrating, interesting, confusing, liberating, or something else?
Give examples. And/or write about how creating a multigenre web
project was like or unlike other big projects you've done.
- Conducting an interview and writing an oral
history can be an interesting experience. Besides the facts that
your interviewee gave you, what did you learn by doing an oral
history? Did the experience change you in any way? How did your
interviewee like the experience? Might you consider
interviewing someone in the future for a research project?
Explain.
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May
Suggestions: Choose
only one
topic from the list
- Now that you've
been using the web (blogs, wikis, etc.) for nearly nine months,
you probably feel fairly confident in some of your technical
skills. Compare your skills now with what they were at the
beginning of the year. What's different? Also, what do you
still want to work on? What would you like to accomplish with
your web page next year or the year after?
- Melinda Sordino
wonders what report cards really say about a student. What
do you think? What have you learned in CyberEnglish this year
that a report card would never be able to show?
- How have you
changed as a student through CyberEnglish9 (if you have changed)?
Be specific. What will you do with what you have learned in
this class?
- How has peer review helped you be a better
writer?
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End of the year reflection:
In May, write
a longer journal entry, separate from your monthly entries. Label
it "End of Year Reflection" and write about 450-500 words,
minimum. In this piece, look back on the entire journey, the whole
year in Cyber \English. Write about how you are different now from
who you were in August.
You should look back at each of your monthly
cyber journal entries to remind yourself about how you've grown. But
go beyond that. You may use the questions
that follow to help you develop your reflection.
You should write a short
introduction
and a conclusion.
Be sure that you write unified, coherent paragraphs.
Each paragraph needs a main focus
and a topic sentence. Check for conventions
errors. Consider word
choice carefully.
Listen to your voice.
Does this piece of writing express how you feel and think? Have you
supported your ideas with reasons
(that show why and how) and examples
(to illustrate what you say)?
Include at least five
hyperlinks in your EYR.
This part of your cyber journal is worth 50 points.
Here
are some questions to help you generate ideas; you are not limited
to writing "about" the following:
- What have
you learned?
- Which skills
that you have now that you didn't have at the beginning of the year are most valuable to you and
why?
- How have the
skills you have acquired in this class helped you in other classes or
in other areas in your life?
- In what ways
have you become a better writer? Be specific about how.
- If you were
nervous about making a web page at the beginning of the year, write
about how your feelings have changed.
- How does
having a web page affect how you learn? How does it affect how you
write? Has having a web page that you have made affect you in any
other way?
- Looking
back, what do you wish you would have learned about that you didn't?
Or, what would you do differently if you could go back, knowing what
you know now?
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