Form V English Livejournal Questions:
In order to prepare yourselves to write your Credo, you will write entries of first-person responses to questions about who you are and what you believe. For each due date you should give me a letter of at least 250 words (1/2 a single-spaced page) that attempts to answer one of the student-generated questions below. Should you have another question you would like to answer, please clear that with me beforehand. These letters, if revised, done well, and in the right spirit, can form the core of your credo.
You should post all of your entries on your Livejournal page. There will be some class time devoted to reading these entries aloud, and we will post responses to each others' writing.
The following questions were student-generated in 2001, and have been refined each year. Please give me new questions and reinterpret the ones that are here. If you want to do a question not on this list, then please clear it with me first.
Due dates for your entries: (You must do at least 6 of 8; I'll drop the lowest of the six. Students who write more have a great deal more with which to work for their Credos. Each entry will be worth 20 points. Please see the rubric for a description of scores.)
1. Friday, April 1
2. Monday, April 4
3. Monday, April 11
4. Tuesday, April 18
5. Tuesday, April 26
6. Monday, May 2
7. Monday, May 9
8. Monday, May 16
Questions:
1. What does the kind of music you like say about who you are?
2. What qualities do you have from your parents? What qualities do you not have from them?
3. What is your greatest fear?
4. What activity in your life most closely resembles your personality?
5. What was the kindest thing someone has done for you and why did it mean so much?
6. What do you most treasure?
7. What is your idea of success?
8. What person has had the greatest influence in your life?
9. What experience has had a profound influence on you?
10. Name three things that you must have to live a happy and peaceful life?
11. Name three things you'd like to have but do not need in order to live a happy and peaceful life? Explain.
12. Describe one thing that you used to believe but don't believe any more.
13. What is the most important quality for a human being to cultivate in himself or herself?
14. What is something that you read that changed the way that you thought?
15. What role does religion play in your life?
16. Write about a learning experience that was particularly difficult for you, and then compare that with a learning experience that was much easier.
17. Are your morals absolute or relative?
18. What responsibilities does a friend have?
19. What close friend of yours is the most different from you? What makes that friendship work?
20. How has being a student at Norfolk Academy affected you?
21. What group membership (team, church, neighborhood) has made you feel uncomfortable? Explain.
22. What day in your life would you like to revise?
23. If you could increase one talent or quality in your life (greater athletic skill, music, beauty, etc.) only by decreasing another talent or quality, what talent would you increase and what talent would you decrease? Explain.
24. Can you still respect people with whom you disagree? Give an example of a time that you have done that.
25. What is the toughest thing you've ever had to realize about yourself?
26. Choose a place that says something about who you are, describe that place, and explain how it reveals some aspect of your personality.
27. What character in literature do you most resemble?
28. How can you ever feel like an individual when 5,000,000 other people (or more) wear the same clothes that you do, watch the same movies, and listen to the same music?
29. How would you redesign the American High School so that it better served its students and its teachers?
30. What subject in school most closely mirrors the way that your mind works?
31. What is the most selfish thing you have ever done? What is the most selfless?
32. What athletic or artistic (or any other extracurricular you choose) has helped you learn more about who you are?
33. What do you like about being an American? What do you dislike about it?
34. If you were facing a truly large problem in your life, to whom would you go for advice?
35. Describe your political convictions. Are you conservative? Liberal, something else?
36. When making a big decision do you depend more on your heart or your head?
37. If you could change anything about yourself, what would you change?
38. What object best represents you?
39. How are your morals and political views related?
40. Think back to a moment a year ago and write about how your life has changed since then.
41. Will you pick a job based on money or happiness?
42. What would your perfect life be in 20 years?
43. What is your favorite word and why?
44. What makes you achieve something?
45. How important is self-confidence to you?
46. Do you follow your heart or your head?
47. Is there an activity that you used to hate but now like a great deal?
48. How do you deal with failure?
49. Where do you find yourself at peace?
50. What one belief are you most unwilling to compromise?
20-point Rubric for LiveJournal Entries
20 As rough drafts, these entries represent the best kind of writing that students do for the livejournal questions. Though they will probably require further drafting and refining to become part of the Credo, these entries should eventually become a part of the final draft. These writings are usually quite visual and immediate, may contain some really specific and telling examples, and are examples of memorably crafted and precise language.
19-18 Writing in this category generally contains several rough draft elements that deserve further refining, but also has a good deal of solid work and excellent promise. While not all of the following may be at issue, some of the following may require further revision: grammar and style errors, showing rather than telling, disorganization, or mediocre insights.
17-16 Writings in this category generally compound the errors in the 19-18 range simply by doing them more frequently or with greater severity. These writings seem to show either haste in composition or a lack of revision.
15 and below