Lesson 0-2: Line Designs (Day 2)

This is what I wrote last year about today's lesson:

Lesson 0.2 of Michael Serra's Discovering Geometry is called "Line Designs." In this lesson, students learn to draw amazing designs with nothing but straight lines. Serra writes:

"The symmetry and the proportions in geometric designs make them very appealing. Geometric designs are easy to make when you have the tools of geometry."

Serra explains to the students that there are many tools used in geometry -- including the compass, straightedge, ruler, and protractor. As a second day of school assignment, this is a great time to tell students to purchase these tools for use in this class.

Today's assignment officially requires only a ruler. Technically, the compass or protractor could be used to ensure that the angles are right angles, but I expect the students to have access only to rulers for this assignment.

The first question directs students to re-create two designs using only lines. Notice that the first one can also be completed using graph paper. The last two can be drawn on isometric graph paper if it is turned sideways. (Yes, I still recall the problems my class had with isometric graph paper.) One of these is Sierpinski's Triangle, a famous fractal.

Serra also writes about several famous architects -- Ustad Ahmad Lahori, the designer of the Taj Mahal (and a mathematician!), as well as Frank Lloyd Wright. I include the project based on architecture on today's worksheet.

Meanwhile, I skipped Serra's question on the symmetries of the benzene molecule. 

Let's get to today's Blaugust prompt. Today is August 18th. The last two years, August 18th fell on the weekend, so there was no post. In 2017, the 18th fell on a Friday, but that was the year when Shelli didn't have a Blaugust challenge. And thus today's prompt, the eighteenth on Shelli's list, is a new prompt for me:

#myoneword - What is one word that you can use to focus your energies this year?

This is a tricky one. I suppose the one word on everyone's mind this year is "coronavirus," as we consider how the pandemic has wreaked havoc on the school schedule. From this word we can move in two directions. We might choose either "distance" or "online" to describe the type of education we must give these days. Or we can choose "health" or "safety" since we must think about these each and every day now.

But I won't choose any of these words today. Instead, the one word that I wish to focus my energies on this year is "positive."

To this day, I fear that I'm not engaging in enough positive interactions with my students. Back at the old charter school, I yelled too much and wasn't positive enough with my students. As a sub, I've been making an effort to yell much less, but I still don't think that I've been positive enough.

In most summers, I reflect upon my subbing from the previous year and think about what I can do to improve my subbing. This year, I had a "double summer" -- there was twice as much time for me to consider what I should have done and said last year.

The one word I could have chosen this year is "praise." The idea is for me to look around and notice when students are following directions correctly -- and to praise such students. For years I've tried to establish a "good list" of names of students to leave for the regular teacher. But sometimes I fear that from their perspective, making a good list is a "chore" that I'm doing just because I have to, rather than because I'm genuinely proud of that student. Instead, I want to look directly at the students as I acknowledge their good behavior. If I ask them for their names, I want to show that I genuinely want to know more about them, not just so I can fulfill my "duty" of writing the names down on a list. This doesn't mean that I shouldn't keep a good list -- only that I should try to give them praise directly from my heart first.

But I choose "positive" instead of "praise" due to the pandemic. It may be awkward to give praise directly to well-behaved students when they're just a picture on a screen. But I still wish to keep my online interactions with students "positive." Distance learning is difficult for all involved, but at least I wish my online classrooms to have a layer of positiveness surrounding them.

There is some news about the pandemic today in California. One Southern California county has finally been removed from the state watch list -- San Diego County. This means that San Diego schools might soon be open in a hybrid stage.

Removal from the watch list is the first step. The next step is to stay off that list for two weeks -- which takes us to the first of September. Notice that in San Diego Unified -- the second largest district in the state -- the first day of school is August 31st, and so the schools could be open as early as Day 2 there. There are other state and county requirements that must be fulfilled before the schools physically reopen. So I'll be watching SDUSD to see how long after today it is before there are actual students on campus there.

Orange County, meanwhile, is tantalizingly close to being taken off the watch list. This matters because my new district is in the OC. If Orange Country is removed soon, then with San Diego slightly ahead of us, it's more important to watch SD to see what a reopening in OC might look like.

Of course, now that subbing calls during the online stage are possible, I'm not pressing as much for the schools to reopen as I was a few weeks ago. I want whatever is best to keep me safe, as well as keep our students safe. Still, I'm watching both my county and nearby San Diego County so that I know what to expect in the weeks and months to come.

Shelli, the leader of the Blaugust challenge, posted today:

http://statteacher.blogspot.com/2020/08/mtbosblaugust-everything-takes-so-long.html

Whew... another day is done!  I felt really scattered today and even though I got a few things done, I realized that everything takes 3-4 times as long!  Sigh...

Indeed, she points out that it takes so long to create her favorite activities online that she might be forced to settle for traditionalist lectures!

There's one more Blaugust poster that I wish to link to today -- Denise Gaskins. That's because the lesson she posted today is closely related to mine on line designs:

https://denisegaskins.com/2020/08/18/how-to-draw-minecraft-blocks/

Earlier in this post, I briefly mentioned how my students had trouble drawing isometric cubes for an Illinois State project at the old charter school.
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First of all, Gaskins decides not to use the word "isometric" -- instead, she uses the word "Minecraft," in reference to the cubes in that video game. (The word "Minecraft" is almost Anglish -- craft is definitely from Old English. The word mine -- as in yours and mine -- is Anglish, but the intended meaning from the game is "mining," which is French. Still, it might be nice to use "Minecraft," as Gaskins does, as a pseudo-Anglish/"Plain Engligh" word for isometric in this case.)

I understand now that drawing isometric cubes, while easy for me, can be difficult for some students (whereas those students can easily draw a person, which I can't). Gaskins breaks down the drawing into several steps, the first of which is "make a Y."

You can follow the link above for the Gaskins version of this lesson. Her lesson can either replace or supplement my worksheets for today.

Here are the worksheets for today: