What habits can you develop, starting today, to strive towards excellence in everything you do?  The middle school students grappled with that question and committed themselves to developing the following four habits, put forward by their classmates:

1) Pay attention to details     2) Take small steps

3) Keep your mind on what you’re doing       4) Keep the space around you clean 

Reflecting on how well they stuck to that commitment today, Eagles gave themselves high marks for the most part- while acknowledging that, when a squadron of F-16s appeared in the sky north of river, most of them failed at habit number 3.

Sarah pointed out that habit #2, taking small steps, helps her as she reads Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.  The language is “difficult but worth it”.  She disciplines herself to only read a few pages at a time, and digests before moving on.  Her journal reflection about that process (“Hardest thing I did this week?”) won the Friday reflection writing challenge- her classmates admired her perseverance and sense of adventure in taking on an classic written in the style of a different era.

What qualities make a presentation persuasive and strong?  After watching a few videos of examples of what to do/what not to do, Eagles came up with their own set of standards and tried them out at the end of the day when two film crews appeared before a panel of Elementary School  peers to present their pre-production documents to a student-moderated panel, hoping to get the green light to move into actual production.

The elementary students provided thoughtful feedback and raised important and challenging questions.  The crews were able to synthesize their effort, their genuine enthusiasm for their projects, and their ever-improving powers of persuasion to receive honest and unreserved GREEN LIGHTS to go, go go forward into production!  Congratulations on a week well spent.