I was thinking as I was walking in this morning about where the students are drawing positive, academic energy from.  They can get energy from me.  They can get energy from the group.  They can get energy from themselves.

In a perfect world, there’s a balance.  Not one source gets overdrawn or overused.   You have reserves in each, too, so that sometimes when you need it, you can pull on those. And positive energy creates more positive energy.

But it breaks down.  A few kids wear me out and then I can’t give any positive energy to anyone.  Or the entire group is having a crap day and it feels like you have nowhere to turn.  Or one student has such negative energy that they’re looking to bring everybody down.

I want to think about this more. How can I create more positive group energy so that students can count on that instead of always relying on themselves or me?

We spent today deconstructing the format of the National Issues Forum’s booklet on the Opioid Epidemic.   This brilliant six-page document is replacing a research brief as the precursor to filmmaking.   We’ll be writing these and then leading forums with our ninth graders.

We read it together and then we did three things:

• What are the different parts of this document?
• What is the purpose of each section?
• How will the section help us make a short film?