AP Vertical Team - Meeting Minutes - 3/28/07

This morning we met in our vertical team in the library. We gathered in the comfy seats around the circular table. The meeting was intimate yet productive, carrying a tone reminiscent of an afternoon warm cup of dark roast sipped amongst friends in a dark corner of a local independently owned coffee house. Mmmm...I can smell it. Or, maybe that's just my natural aroma.

Anyway, we gathered to talk about portfolios. We would like to assemble portfolios that follow our students through each grade levle. We would also like to define the writing modes we would like our students to (ideally) attain mastery in by each grade level. This would help us become a little more structured, build off each other, and also provide a road map for any teachers new to the building next year.

Mia located a list of possible genres from a textbook, and we used that as a jumping off place. Here is that resource.



















We came to a few conclusions:

• we spent a lot of time talking about research papers in general, and literary research papers more specifically. We need to decide as a department where and when to implement research based writing, what we want it to look like, and what resources we have at our disposal.
• Some writing pieces fit naturally, like the folklore section with English I and family history in English II
• some writing pieces will become core pieces, while others will be extras or optional (such as limericks, cartoons, etc.)
• we need a list of database resources that we have access to for student research
  

Homework:

• Read over the list of contents and organize them into grade levels
• Decide if there is anything missing

We will either be posting these to the blog, bringing in a list, or some variation of the two.