Good Questions and good answers for The Magic Flute

It is that time again, we have many questions and answers about the Magic Flute, and I would like to share some of them again as my blog entry for this week.
Question #1:

Why did the Queen send her daughter to                             murder Sarastro instead of doing it herself?

Answer #1:

I believe that the Queen sent her daughter to murder Sarastro because the Queen doesn’t care as much about her daughter’s fate as she does her own. I also think this because if the queen was sent to Jail she wouldn’t be queen anymore and a Queen is more important than a princess.

Question #2: 

What is the climax of the story?

I believe that the climax of the story is when the Queen gives Pamina, her daughter, a dagger and tells her to kill Sarastro. I think this because there are a few events leading up to this moment like when they say that Sarastro has enslaved Pamina. Also, There is part of a resolution afterwards solving the problem at hand. This shows up when Pamina decides that she won’t kill Sarastro and Sarastro says he won’t retaliate or punish her mother.

Question #3
What Was the Problem in the Story?

The problem of the story is that Pamino has been captured and that Tamino and Papageno have to go through  tests to see if they were worthy enough of the princess's love.

Question #4
What Was the Resolution in the story?

The resolution was that Tamino and Papageno passed the tests, Papageno and Papagena start making Family plans, and The Queens ends up in a dark hole.

#5

Is it Right for The queen to promise marriage for her daughter without Pamina’s approval.

I would say that is not right to promise marriage for anyone other than yourself. I think this because you are supposed to marry someone because you love them not because they look pretty in a picture. Also, Pamina might not want to marry Tamino, but her mom already told him that they would get married.

#6

Was it right for the Queen to have Pamino do her dirty work?

I believe that it isn’t right because Pamino is a nice and young girl who doesn’t want to disobey her mother, but also knows that Sarastro didn’t do anything to deserve to be slaughtered. This put Pamino in a bad position as she felt that it would be wrong to kill a good man.

#7

Why would Pamina care so much about her mother when she, The Queen of Darkness, is so evil and mean?

Pamina most likely cares for her mother because her mother raised her as a child and she has spent so much time around her.

#8 Was Pamina unhappy when she was with Sarastro.

I believe that Pamina was actually happy when she was with Sarastro because he was a fatherly figure towards her. Also, Sarastro was no trying to kidnap her, he was trying to give her a better life, after all he is a resemblance of peace.

		#9: Was the Evil Queen Deserving of her punishment?

I feel that the Queen was deserving of her punishment because she was unkind to her slaves/laborers and she was too hard on her daughter.

#10) Did the ending bring closure?

I feel that the ending brings the listener or reader closer because the Queen gets what she deserves and the people that went through hardships had something good happen to them.

Feedback

During our faculty meeting last Wednesday we discussed feedback for our students.  I have been giving feedback for as long as I can remember, but the discussion simplified the idea of feedback and the important elements that we must have in every piece of feedback we give to kids.  There needs to be a goal identified, you need to say what progress has been made, and then you need to give the students next steps for their work.  We had many examples but let's just take this first one: "You have correctly answered both parts of the problem, showing me that you were able to interpret both the question and the graph.  Your method of creating tables to show your combinations and prices worked to solve the problem.  Your next step is to find out the cost of buying the shirts if you could only buy packages to fill your order.  What would the difference in cost be?"

Then, after we talked about the three important elements of giving feedback, and charted several examples, we then wrote our own feedback about a task that we gave someone, and they completed.  For example, your best friend is notoriously not a cook.  In fact, if it doesn't come delivered to her house or from a box, she wouldn't know where to begin.  However, she has been practicing her skills so that she can make a steak dinner for a new significant other.  The big night is this weekend and she is making the meal for you tonight as a final practice round.  Before you is plated a grilled New York sirloin, roasted oven potatoes, and green beans.  After the meal, she asks for your feedback.  What do you tell her?

Your goal of cooking a nourishing, gourmet, steak dinner was met.  Next steps might be making sure you know whether your significant other likes it rare, medium rare or well done.  You might wonder about how to get all the items on the plate perfectly done at the same time, but using a multi-tasking timer is one way of solving, perhaps, this issue.  (You can purchase one at any of the gourmet cooking places in town.)  Your next step is also to provide atmosphere, use cloth napkins, good china, real silver with monograms, and perfect music (like Barry White, for example) and non-smelling honeycomb candles, that provide romance for your meal.  Don't forget the flowers and marry the wine carefully with the steak!!

I guess my feedback got a few laughs, but I was also pretty serious.  I think if you give them encouragement with some ideas for improvement, that is what they are looking for, or most students are looking for this.  I don't usually let them hand it in, and I don't give them a grade until I am sure it is at least a meets!!

Update on Exceeds Options

What an exciting, and inspired meeting we had on Friday with the Allied Arts team during our teacher inservice day.  The Allied Arts team consists of several different subjects, including physical education, home economics, music, art and health.  You might wonder how are we able to talk about curriculum when we teach such diverse subjects?  In fact, sometimes it is quite a challenge.  At times, it doesn't even make too much sense for us to meet together, because we are thinking about completely different things.  However, on Friday, we came together and got an enormous amount accomplished!  The question on the table for all curriculum teams right now is "How do we create exceeds options for our classes?"

One of the art teachers described that an exceeds option for art, music or home economics looks really different from one in math or language arts.  She encouraged us to think about a general idea of what an exceeds option might be for our different curriculums and projects.  This is what the group came up with, it is a work in progress, but I am thrilled we were able to come together as a team and find these options, talk about them, describe them, and feel really positive about where we were going, how we might find our way to motivating students, how students might be able to find their own options for Exceeds, and what an exceeds option entails for the allied arts classes.  Let's keep students motivated to go deeper into a subject, to delve further when they have a passion for something, and to find mentors in the community to help with these passionate pursuits.

Standard/Topic	What Learning Do We Expect to See at the Exceeds Level?  At the exceeds level we expect students to transfer previous knowledge and demonstrate a complex understanding of the standards.	Why do We Think That Learning is at the Exceeds Level? Self-initiated Student-driven Authentic Proposal oriented Transfer of knowledge from one standard to another or a further understanding of a standard.	How will we know when we see that learning?  What EVIDENCE will convince us?  Provide examples. The students will be able to articulate how their work artifact or performance relates to the standard.
		Passion.

I used to think...but now I know

One of the many techniques I have been learning to use on a regular basis is a formative assessment tool, "I used to think, but now I know".  You give the students a piece of paper, and have them write these phrases with spaces in between to finish the thought.  I give them examples so they know what I am talking about.  For example, in my drama class, we played a game last week where the students each got up and talked about a subject that I chose for one minute.  They also tried to stump me by giving me some difficult topics to talk about.  One topic was "golf", and I had no problem, the other topic was, "what is inside a ping pong ball", and that was not a problem either, I never had space between my thoughts, just kept letting it flow!  So, my example was, "I used to think I could stump Ms. Frank in the one minute monologue game, but now I know she can continue on and on until the cows come home!" I received some interesting responses for this.  "I used to think that standing in front of people was easy, but now I know it is even easier than I thought." "I used to think I was bad at talking to people and now I know that I was right." I used to think these drama games were boring, but now I know they are fun, because it tells you about people" "I used to think not talking as the audience would be easy, but now I know it's hard to not talk when I am the audience." "I used to think that it took no courage to stand and talk in front of a class.  Now I know that it takes more courage than ever, but you just try."

I also used this technique in my music class, when I was teaching them about what opera is.  "I used to think opera had no words in it, now I know that it tells a story and has words and costumes and scenery."  As a formative assessment, it is very efficient, because it tells you exactly where students are at, and where they have been coming from the whole time.  Try it and let me know how it might help you drive your instruction too!! See you next week with more wisdom and fun from this seasoned but still learning teacher!!