Today, along with Core Skills and our Gaming Quest, we worked on critiquing skills.

Abigail began the day with our Halloween clad Eagles by asking:  “Is it more important when pursuing excellence to practice hard or have a world class example?” and demonstrated how feedback improved a butterfly drawn by a six year old child.

We then each critiqued writing from the Eagle’s journals, so students could practice the art of writing as “re-writing.”

Ms Anna continued the day with a workshop on critiquing itself, using fresh baked zucchini bread as a tool to practice the four rules for critiques: (Be kind; Be specific; Be helpful; and Critique the work and not the person;) as well as a procedure for giving powerful feedback:  (1) Presentation of work (audience is silent; presenter asks a focusing question); (2) Audience feedback (warm; cold; warm) and (3) Presenter reflection (comments on how and why the feedback was helpful.)

Eagles ended with a story boarding exercise, sequencing and editing photos to hone their storytelling and story boarding skills for the film project.

In between, Mr Temp held court as Curious George’s Man-in-the Yellow-Hat, discussing this week’s MyHJ “look-in-the-mirror” experience on loyalty (look closely, and you’ll see George in the background.)