Number 10

1. "Most Beautiful Work Award" - I am most proud of my tragedy essay. I put a lot of work into organizing it right and making sure my ideas got out in the essay. I've always been afraid that my writing will be confusing in its order and organization (because when I start off I spill all my ideas out), but after this essay I've learned to trust myself to wisely organize an essay or other piece of writing. I also like the ideas I came up with in the essay about how the definition of tragedy changes with the times (the Greeks loved their rulers, so it was tragic when rulers were revealed to be flawed; we hate politicians nowadays [unless they're truly beneficient to the people], so our focus lies on what happens to the everyday commoner).

2. "Lesson Learned" - One particular pointer I've found helpful is to pad quotes with explanation. I've started to notice that it's really helpful when reporters do this in articles, even if they comppletely repeat the point that was made in the quote. I've started doing this in my writing, too. I feel I've also gotten better at analyzing writing for a specific point--like in our inquiry projects. Although it can detract from the simple joy of reading, searching text for answers to a question can also add a lot of depth to the reading experience.

3. "Lessons I'd Like to Learn" - To feel ready for college, I'd like to go deeper into analyzing writing. It would be interesting to discuss quotes from the "great minds" of the past couple thousand years, sort of like what we did with Socrates.
I don't know if this is part of the senior curriculum, but I would love to do some creative writing. I think we all have ideas that are waiting to turn into an awesome story.

High Tech High is named High Tech High for a reason. The founding fathers wanted us to employ technology in our learning adventures. In our everyday lives, is technology employing us?

Michael Pollan, in his book The Botany of Desire, poses the question: We have developed crops like corn and potatoes well beyond their original potential. Now that corn has grown out of its grubby, near-death shrub-like form it started out as, and potatoes have undergone a similar journey, we must ask ourselves: who has used whom?

It almost seems like technology is evolving, very quickly, through us. Heck, if at the beginning of our evolution, if we had wanted to evolve more quickly, we couldn't have done better than to have someone else use us.

Poetry on Technology

My group's essential question is:

How will advancing technology affect who we are as humans?

So far, our poems seem to be answering that it will make humans an inferior being, lowering our status in the world. Technology will be greater than we are. However, in some cases, if we are wise, we will still have overall control over technology because we created it. It's only our own ingenuity trying to subjugate us.

What do you think? Did Terminator have it right? It's tempting to hand complete decision-making control over to technology sometimes--will this result in our demise or does technology promise us a brighter future? And please don't say "a mix of both"--be specific if you answer the question.

Thank you!