Kuwnetong Bangtan: Titas of BTS Membership Kit

 

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The Lighthouse Diary #41: Back in BA! Virtus et Ars!

We are officially back in the Academy.

The week began with an assembly headed by our Head of School. For the past two years, we have done this ritual online and reverting to face to face work made this experience bitter sweet and meanungful indeed. This school year, we are focusing on the theme of SHARED RESPONSIBILITY giving emphasis on how the pandemic has greatly affected our lives, our relationships and the ways we view the world.

We had the usual in-service preprations and my staff and I had the opportunity to introduce our new BA Library System, powered by Koha, to our faculty. Tech issues included, I think it was, nonetheless, a venue where teacher librarian collaboration was given importance. We hope to be more active in research skills facilitation and reference services this academic year.

It is just the first week of in-service and we are feeling the crunches. We are taking things in stride to counter the mounting pressure from DepEd and the IB. Always, I go back to what I gathered from a decade of working in the Beacon Academy as stated below.

In Beacon, we recognize the necessity of constant reflection and how the insights, discoveries and realizations gleaned from it can inform us to take action. We pay attention to the process and not just the product because, while the results of our endeavors lead to the achievement of goals and objectives, the knowledge we have of our journey towards the finish line allows us to appreciate our identity (individual and collective); to stay true to our purpose and to value our ethos.  

Virtus et ars!

I am nervously excited to begin the new school year. Covid mutations and family concerns weighing upon me, personally. I take comfort in the knowledge that I belong to a community who cares and understands. 

Book Launch: Sulatan sa Panahon ng Pandemya

 

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Truth Telling, yes. Also, Truth Seeking! ( 2 of 2 )

 In seeking the truth with children as companions, I have learned to listen more to what they are saying and to be sensitive to how they are saying it. Just this summer, I had the pleasure of discussing the book The Wild Robot (Peter Brown, 2019) with a student who pointed out that Roz the Robot, the main character in the book, is able to make benevolent choices because of her computer brain. She is not human and therefore, more logical in her approach to decision making. Programmed to help humans, she did not retaliate or sought vengeance on the bears who attacked and bullied her instead, she helped one of the bears survive a fatal fall. This bear broke her robot foot and rendered her incapable of speed and agility.

“Teacher, if Roz was human, she would have left the bears to die. But she is one to avoid drama. She knows a life is in danger so she did what she is programmed to do. Save lives. Help humanity.” So, she reasoned. She is 12 years old, a sixth grader who studies in a private school.

Moving from this fictional sequence in the novel, I directed our discussion to computer programming and Artificial Intelligence. Earlier on, as part of our pre-reading activity, we read two encyclopedia articles on the aforementioned topics. She was impatient at the time but when we reached the part where Roz is able to adapt and adjust in the wild, she appreciated reading the non-fiction articles. It grounded her understanding of the life forms that can exist and co-exist. We were reading a work of science fiction, but we both agree that in real life, humans fall prey to their own emotions. Logic, though cold, can be a thinking tool to help someone understand another person way better than relying on to personal judgement.

This recent teaching and learning experience made me realize the many ways in which authors, content creators, readers and consumers engage in truth seeking. As a teacher librarian, I can no longer keep to known and tested criteria in selecting and evaluating learning and reading materials. OPVL and CRAAP are useful tools. Since information and knowledge have become mercurial even volatile, it is handy to keep such tools and to use them responsibly. In truth seeking, context matters as well as culture. Assessing information and the truth it holds require a closer look at those who created them. Opportunities to converse and to dialogue beyond the book and the four corners of a device or a gadget must be created as often as possible. Or else, we go back to our own comfort zones and echo chambers.

Here is what OPVL and CRAAP stand for.

OPVL – Origin, Purpose, Value, Limitation

CRAAP – Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy, and Purpose

OPVL and CRAAP can be used to guide the reader, the teacher and anyone using information and knowledge for daily life. These tools should no longer be confined in classrooms and academic hallways. Best to use alongside meaningful reading selections and experiences.

I do not claim to be the shinning, shimmering, splendid woman of Truth, but definitely, in telling truth and in seeking for the truth, it is necessary to know when to stay tethered to it and when to hold it lightly. Be prepared to let it go especially when it comes from the process of discernment.

Truth Telling, yes. Also, Truth Seeking! ( 1 of 2 )

There is this story I heard about Truth, a long, long time ago.

One day, a man asked, “What is truth?”

Right away he heard a knock on the door. When he opened it, he saw a beautiful woman at his doorstep.

Too surprised to speak, too mesmerized by her beauty the woman took his hands and said, “I heard you. You wish to know what is truth.”

He nodded still in awe of her radiance.

“Let us walk then, but do not let go of my hand.” She spoke.

And so, he did.

He left his house, walked out the gate with her, strode past the bushes and the trees down the path and across town while people looked at him and the strange beautiful, brilliant woman. She led her to the woods and out towards the river until the man got tired and could not walk nor hold her hand any longer.

He let go of her.

Then she told him, “There. There. That is Truth.”

And then, she vanished.

I often think of this story at times when my implicit biases and prejudices are challenged. I remind myself that my truth is what I hold dear but, at any time, I need to let go of my truth. This belief system has been helpful to me personally and professionally when I conduct work in the library.

When selecting, reviewing and making decisions to acquire and purchase books and reading materials for children and young adults, perspective taking is of utmost importance. There are criteria used for such methods as learned from the academe. Guidelines and standards from the institution exist as well. There is truth in these theories and institutional rules, however, I think about the young readers I teach and converse with and they never cease to amaze me for their candid and honest take on themselves and the world around them. So much for holding my truth and the structures of traditional thinking. With children and young people, the need to seek the truth with them and to hold it lightly are essentials for growth and survival.

Reading Into Writing: On Character Development

In my reading and writing workshop this summer, I had my students pick books they want to read. I have four middle grade students and I meet them separately. In our meetings, we read, discuss and write our responses to their chosen book. We read aloud together. We think aloud together and in some cases, we argue. In the end, we learn together.

One of our favorite activities is the character map. We make a chart or a map of the character's journey. We use the Beginning-Middle-Ending framework as a final map but, in between reading of the chapters, we take note and become more aware of events, words and langauge that struck us while reading.

Here is a character map of "Lu" on Alvin, the main character in the middle grade novel, The Land Without Color by Benjamin Ellefson.

The simple character map was made over a period of six weeks. Lu and I discussed what Alvin is like with friends, with family and with strange people he met in the Land of Color. The discussion was done after reading the first parts of the novel. In one sentence, I asked Lu to write Alvin's remarkable characteristics.

Towards the middle part of the novel, after several slides and notes on our responses to the story, we took a pause and sorted out the exciting adventures Alvin was having at the Land of Color. I then aske Lu to write 2-3 sentences of the changes he observed of Alvin when interacting with other characters and in making decisions. A few days ago, we finished the book and as one of the closing or culminating activity, I asked Lu to describe what became of Alvin in the end. 

After making the character map, I challenged Lu to write one paragraph that shows the character development of Alvin. Using the sentences he wrote on the graphic organizer, he was able to write a description of Alvin.

My next activity for Lu is to improve the paragraph he has written.

DJ Ahjumma Reviews: Arson: When Hope is Hot

When the MV dropped last week, I was speechless. My initial impression was its connection to More. Both songs have the same downbeats and bass line. After several viewing and listening to the entire JITB track a hundred times, as well as discussing the album at the streaming party over on TOB 0709 Radio with Tita DJs and suki streamers, I was able to make sense of it all.

Arson is connected to More not only in the beats and base roll but also in messaging. It continues what More began pushing Jhope forward to the next step of his solo project. After burning everything on their path as BTS, the haters, the prejudice, the structures and systems that limit the growth of artists and musicians, the awards and the personal challenges, what else is there to do?

The last lyrics of Arson is an open ended question. Jhope challenges himself to seek new terrain and reach higher grounds.

“Now I ask myself, choose what / Do I put out the fire, or burn even brighter…”

Jhope’s aesthetic in Arson is a departure to the bright colors we are used to seeing. Indeed, his confidence to show this side of “sunshine Hobi” is grounded on trust. He trusts his label. He knows he has the support of the six members. He is hopeful that ARMYs will appreciate and love his new album.

And I do appreciate this new side of Jung Hoseok. Sunshine is a source of light. Sunshine is also fire. It is restorative and destructive too. Aha. Isn’t this Bangtan duality at work?

In the MV, the opening scene shows Jhope walking in the midsts of destruction. The feels! Dystopia. Zombie apocalypse. End of the world. Taking one of the concepts of the album as Hope flying out of Pandora’s box, what appears to be a dark and scary depiction of the world turns out to be, ah, hopeful.

Hobi in a white jumpsuit walking amidst burning men, cars, houses, ashes and soot everywhere is Hope personified. Hope, the last “evil thing” in the box has been unleashed. We know how powerful and delicate hope can be.

When all else fails, we hang on to hope.

More and Arson are darker in aesthetic, grittier and edgier in sound. But there exist hope. It is a gift we give ourselves to survive.

Lyrics: https://genius.com/J-hope-arson-lyrics

clipped from video @Bangtan TV and @BIGHIT_MUSIC

sourced from @BaronDestructo

National Childen's Book Award 2022

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National Children's Book Awards 2022: Kids' Choice

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National Children's Book Day 2022: Congrats to the Salanga and Alcala Prize Winners!

 

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Kuwentong Bangtan: ARMY Anniversary 2022

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DJ Ahjumma Reviews: Hope Wants More

BTS member Jhope has a new single, More. It dropped last July 1, 2022 causing a stir among casual fans and listeners, intriguing and exciting ARMYs along the way. Fans and Kpop followers are waiting in bated breath for the release of the digital album, Jack in the Box, where More is one of the tracks in the album. This is the first official solo project that a member of BTS launched since the group announced the beginning of Chapter 2 of Bangtan during the Festa Dinner in June.

The noise behind More can be attributed to Jhope's known image and personality being the sunshine and vitamins of Bangtan Sonyeondan. The theme of the single is a departure from his established persona. The colors and the tone of the music and its vidoe is dark and starkly grittier compared to the swag of his melody rap and hard hitting hiphop songs he writes, performs and produces. The beat and the chord patterns are reminiscent of 80s and 90s alternative rock and hiphop that one would have an immediate recall of Linkin Park, Limpbizkit and U2. Nonetheless, this new single emerging from Chapter 2 of Bangtan Sonyeondan is a change welcomed by many, ARMYs and casual fans of Kpop.

Jhope's first mixtape, Hope World (Big Hit 2018), is a burst of colors. The album cover shows a landscape and seascape with striking mix of bright colors: lavander, teal, turquoise, bright yellow green in a red orange back drop. Clouds hover above and an airplane flies over in suspended animation. This is a reflection of Jhope's world at the time. BTS was touring actively and winning awards left and right. It was also the year when BTS as a band started asking questions about the future that is yet to come.

Hope World has eight tracks with the title track bearing the name of the mixtape too. HopeWorld, the song begins with the sounds of bubbles that mimic a swimmer or a diver going underwater. Inspired by the book which Jhope read as a young boy, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (Jules Verne), the song is an invitation to his mindscape; his dreams and ambitions; his worries and what keeps him up at night. With an upbeat sound that runs accross all songs in the mixtape, as well as a bit of melacnholy in some songs, Hope World is a wellspring of joyful music that reveals the diverse influences of Jhope as an artist and musician. It was a well recieved work of music from critics, reviewers and ARMYs.

More, on the other hand speaks of hunger and going beyond achievements. It is a song that denotes reaching a certain peak or level of accomplishment that the persona/singer is asking for more. Jhope is involved in a soliloquy by singing out loud on what he can do, what lies ahead, pursuing what ever else is there to conquer and why.

Jhope sings:

Self-learning for 11 years/ My highlighting’s my art of learning 

Endless studying I crash and fall to make my art 

Still make it move from where I stand / Make it mine, make it right 

 Somebody’s favorite song again 

That’s half my life, reason for living, joy of life / Motivated to carry on … 

Bring it all / I’m doing it all

In More, Jhope is determined. The days of the dreamy young man of Hope World who wonders is over. In More, Jhope is Jung Hoseok who has a clearer vision of his identity as artist. He knows what he wants. He knows how to get it.

But the question remains. With More, who is the Jhope who will spring out of the box?

Rating: 4/5 Shots of Soju

Source for lyrics of More: https://www.glamsham.com/music/lyrics/bts-jhope-more-song-lyrics-english-translation

Source for Hope World Mixtape cover: https://pin.it/67LA0YI

Summer Work at the BA Library

 

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The Writing Process: Strategies to Develop the Body of the Essay (2 of 2)

 

The Writing Process 1: Strategies to Develop the Body of the Essay

 

Writing Workshop Notes: Criteria : Focus and Detail and Organization

In my writing workshop this summer, I focused on teaching my students two criteria in writing the essay namely, Focus and Detail and Organization. My approach for this module is a Reading into Writing Approach where in my students and I are reading essays and articles with an awareness of the different text structures. We are learning five structures: process/step by step; cause and effect; problem-solution; chronological order; and compare and contrast. 

A knowledge of these text structures enable stduents to uderstand the text and the author's purpose a litte better. It is also a learning experience in analysis and critical thinking especially when questions and inquiry are integrated when reading the texts. Constant exposure and regular practice in identifying the text structures is a strategy in reading comprehension which flows into writing.

Our output this week is an outline + text structures in the form of graphic organizers. Combining my students' prior knowledge on the traditional framework of an essay, Introduction; Body; Closure/Generalization, with their new knowledge of text structures, they were able to focus on a specific topic, provide details for the topic and develop, expand or extend the body of the essay using  graphic organizers. Also, my students have access and experiences on the topics of their choice. Content is not a challenge but documention and referencing are needed skills as well.

As always, I first model the process and guide my students in wiritng their own. Here is what I modeled and demonstrated for my students during one of the sessions.

Topic: Jhope’s New Single MORE

I. Beginning/Introduction – 2 paragraphs – 300 words

• Jhope’s new single, More, dropped last July 1, 2022 causing a stir among casual fans and listeners, intriguing and exciting ARMYs along the way.

• Supporting sentences for this claim and observation

• Jhope is known to ARMYs as the ray of light in BTS. He is the sunshine of the group whom Suga endearingly calls vitamins at one interview.

• Jhope’s first mixtape, Hope World is a burst of colors that reflect his cheerful and positive personality.

• More is the complete opposite, as many fans and reactors on YT have expressed.

II. Middle / Body – 3 paragraphs – 500 - 800 words

• Compare and Contrast: Hope World and More

• Discuss Jhope’s message in More based on the lyrics of the song (step  by step)

• -> Slected lyrics from 1st stanza / chorus or break /2nd stanza

III. Ending/Closure/Generalization – 1 paragraph – 150 words

• The new single More is darker in tone and theme but its message is similar and familiar to Jhope’s art, style and aesthetic.

Creative Non-Fiction Writing for High School Students

 

Kuwentong Bangtan: NFT and Jack in the Box (2 of 2)

Continiuing the conversation on NFTs, Bangtan and the creative process in this digital age including ownership and intellectual property.

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From Jamie Bautista:  Not a fan of NFTs as someone who saw how speculative markets almost destroyed the comic industry in the 90s. Turning art into scarce “collectibles” as a form of short term earning and investment based purely on demand for the collectibility or scarcity of something is a bubble waiting to burst. I remember people buying comics in Mylar bags to resell them later but never reading the actual comic. The “collectibility” or scarcity for someone to pay more for it later is all NFTs bring to the table. Personally, as an artist, I’m staying away from it. Not judging artists who do it to gain income, but considering the only value it adds to the art is only there if someone will buy it for a higher price due to the artificial scarcity, it reduces art to just a speculative investment instrument (which can lose money and have no intrinsic value if no one later on is willing to pay more to buy it).

From Earl Valdez: NFT is basically unique digital content that is uniquely yours.

Closest analogy is art: the original Mona Lisa is in the Louvre. You may have copies of it framed and printed and hanged on your wall but its value is not like the original painting. The Mona Lisa is non-fungible, all the duplicates are fungible.

Now with digital content, there's a way to secure authenticity. Blockchain technology secures and authenticates content which assures that your NFT is unique and original.

With JITB, it's basically selling a CD without a CD. That can only be non-fungible if it is owned as a unique digital content like no other person has.

From Jamie Bautista: With an NFT, the art itself isn’t actually made non-fungible. People can still make exact copies of it and distribute it. What is made non-fungible is the ownership of the digital item. Basically, it’s a digital proof of ownership. But unlike the Mona Lisa, where it’s uniqueness comes from it being physical (like the texture of the canvas, the actual brushstroke details a high res photo can’t replicate), a digital good can always have perfect copies of it. All an NFT does is tell everyone “guys, the file this NFT points to (as NFTs don’t hold the actual files themselves, just a link to them) we all agree is one of a kind and is listed in the blockchain. And whoever is listed as owning it on the blockchain, they are the owner of this ‘original’ file.” An NFT does not make the digital item more or less accessible or even copy-proof. It’s a certificate of authenticity basically so people can agree that one particular version of a file is the “original” or is “unique”. The value comes from people wanting to buy that certificate for the right of “ownership” (and not of the copyright of intellectual property BTW. Just the ownership of that specific digital file.)