The Diary of Anne Frank Project Options

Our journey through the short life of Anne Frank has revealed a person, I think it's safe to say, that we could imagine as a friend. We've seen face to face the fear and the longing, the unfairness and the brutality, the sadness and the horrors of the Holocaust. And we've seen it all through the eyes of this remarkable 13-year-old girl.

To complete our experience, it's now time to explore topics, feelings, and moments in Anne's story and create our own responses to them. Here is a link to the Anne Frank: Final Project Options. If anyone is going to DC next week, you may want to take a look at them now to get a jump start. You will find a wide variety of choices for all different interests. Choose a project that fascinates you and jump in! I'm also open to hearing other project suggestions, so please don't hesitate to ask.

Experiencing Anne's story one last time, whether in poetry, artwork, dramatic monologue, eulogy, essay, article, presentation, digital collage, will be the grand finale to end our journey. Take the time to sink in deeply to a part of the play, certain character, or experience. Afterall, we read about other people's lives so we can learn and have our own lives changed. Let your project, no matter the format, be one that you complete with a spirit of excellence and one that you will remember long after we've closed the pages of her story.

                                       

When I Grow Up, I want to be a YouTuber! TED Talk #3

When I grow up, I want to be a doctor, photographer, policeman, fireman, teacher, veterinarian, YouTuber!  Wait, what?!  A YouTuber?!

If any child mentioned YouTuber on a list of dream jobs ten years ago, people wouldn't have had a clue what he was talking about.  Boy, has things changed.

Media has changed.  Communication has changed.  No longer is the Internet a place for professionals and computer geniuses only.  Everyday people are creating and jumping in the deep side of the Web.  It's the ultimate technological power-to-the-people movement.  In this case, the power to create video.  

The pool of video online is wide and deep!  Sometimes funny.  Sometimes sweet.  Some well made.  Some  very well made, but, honestly, most are really, really, really bad.

What fascinates me is that even a horrendously horrible video can still score hundreds of thousands of views. That's right, hundreds of thousands.  It's crazy!

Why do some videos go viral and some fizzle out?  What is the key to getting a large audience for that video of your cat playing the piano?

This guy knows.  I bring you this weeks TED Talk from Kevin Allocca.

Kevin Allocca is YouTube's trends manager.  That means he gets paid to watch YouTube videos all day!  He's got some deep thoughts about web video today.  In this talk from TEDYouth, he shares the 4 reasons a video goes viral.

Here's the link.

Enjoy the video and keep those cameras running when you, your friends, your cat, your parakeet, your dog, your grandpa, or your brother does something interesting.  You never know who will be the next trend in YouTube videos.

In Their Own Words

It's always very interesting to read first-hand accounts of events rather than just read about them from someone else's reporting.  For this reason, you may want to check out the following links to transcripts of interview with two important people who knew Anne.

Here the transcript for an Interview with Miep Gies.  As we know, Miep was a crucial helper to the Frank family while they were in hiding.

Miep Gies

Here is the transcript for an interview with Hanneli Pick-Goslar.  Hanneli was one of Anne's closest friends and a Holocaust survivor.

Anne and Hannah.  Anne is kneeling. 

Both of these interviews are based on questions that students asked themselves.  Because of this, they may be questions you are wondering as well.  If you still have any questions that you are burning to know, feel free to leave a comment and we can discuss them in class.

Google News Archive

I know it. You know it.  Whenever we are given something to research, our first instinct is to Google it.  My 4-year-old nephew knows about google.  My 84-year-old grandmother knew to Google.  Googling is so common that it has now officially become a verb.

There's nothing wrong with googling, but there are other ways!

Sometimes you're looking for something more than just a generic google search.  Maybe you want research that's more focused, more specific, more timely, more unique.  Maybe you're just looking for options to explore.  Today, I bring you Google News Archive.

Google News Archive is a collection of newspapers/articles scanned in to an electronic archive.  It is a searchable database for a multitude of topics.  All you do is enter in your keyword and lots of articles (real scanned copies of newspaper articles) pop up.  The archives can add a new level to any research project/ task you're working on.

Click this link to access the Google News Archive.

I've also created a very brief Google News Archive screencast to walk you through the site if you would like a tour.

Happy Researching!

Our Library

In the beginning, there were books... then a few more..... then a few more... then some more.... and more.  So many, in fact, that the people of the world needed a building to house these glorious books in (yes, that's when books were written down on actual pages, you know, pages made from paper!)  The people of the world came together and built the very first library.

According to my research, the earliest libraries date back to Egypt and the Messopatianian era.  Having a library was very elite because so few people actually knew how to read.  The books all had to be hand scribed as well, a very time-consuming and exact process.

Today we are lucky to have wonderful libraries all around us, as well as a wealth of digital reading material at our fingertips.  Here are a few of the most impressive libraries out there today.  

No question about it, there are some fantastic libraries out there, but you don't have to travel very far to pick up some great books.  Our own Deering Middle School Library has tons of resources in print and digital forms.  Be sure to check them out!

And who could ever forget our favorite library here on the White Team: the Enos Library, open for business every day in room 47.  

Hundreds of books to choose from.  Are you a fan of realistic fiction?  We've got that.  More into Sci-Fi?  We've got that.  Is dystopian lit your thing?  Oh, yea, we've got that... a lot of that actually.  It's all the rage.  Many of you have seen for yourself, I've got pretty good taste.  Let me make a suggestion.  No charge :)

If you are interested in checking a book out, please use this form :  Enos Library Check-Out Form

If you are checking in, please use this one:  Enos Library Check-In Form

Happy Reading!!

***All lost books will be paid for by hours of scraping gooey, disgusting, chewed up, stale,old, really old, we're talking old enough to have been stuck there when I went to this school in the 90's, pink bubble gum off the bottom of the tables, or anything else I think of that may actually be worse!   Don't loose my books!