Saturday, January 15, 2011

En 10: notes from 14 Jan

Today we practiced the provincial exam.

En 12: Notes from Friday, 14 Jan

Okay, so most of our class time was spent in a discussion about "Touching Bottom."  I had planned to get the class to select some "quotable quotations,"  then write a strong paragraph to share our writing with each other, but we just had an engaging discussion.  I don't think it's bad to do that, especially at the end of the course.  We need to make sure we don't "slack-off," but you are "there" and I just want to keep you tuned up as you prepare to write your final.  Monday will see us write that paragraph on "T.B." and then we'll look at the "original essay" section from the provincial.  We'll also get ready to read "The Chrysanthemums." 

Have a good weekend.

Friday, January 14, 2011

En 11-2: Friday, 14 Jan

Today we had a lesson on tragic heroes and we discussed how Macbeth may be seen as one.  See the other class' post from earlier this week to see the three pages of notes for this topic.

On Tuesday, we will finish the film, cover the dramatic reading rubric(you should be practicing your lines), and do a prewrite for the character sketch/essay.

Have a nice weekend, everyone.

En 11-1: Notes from Friday, 14 Jan

Today, we did a short review of the upcoming character sketch/essay on Macbeth as a tragic hero.  Please make sure that you come to class on Tuesday with a page of notes to help you with your essay.  You may have a few quotations and even your thesis statement - but no other "finished" writing/paragraphs.

Also, please review the dramatic reading rubric on this post to help prepare yourself for the dramatic reading on Tuesday.  That will end our study of Macbeth...yippeee!

Thursday, January 13, 2011

En 12: Notes from Thursday, Jan 13

Today we read and discussed "The Return" - no work assigned.

We also read "Touching Bottom."  See yesterday's post for homework assignment.

ALSO, PLEASE NOTE THE PASSIVE LANGUAGE LINK IN THE LINKS LIST - READ THE PAGE THEN DO THE QUIZ.  I THINK YOU'LL FIND IT HELPS TO CLEAR AWAY THE FUZZINESS.

SS11: Notes from Thursday, 13 Jan

Today, we revisited the political spectrum with an emphasis on understanding the commonalities between the philosophies that are equidistance from the political centre.  We talked about learning to apply general princples instead of having to learn all of the possible specific cases possible.  Hmmm; what does that mean?  Well, for example,  communist and fascist ideas are at each end of the spectrum, and each has heavy censorship of the media.  Both socialism and conservativism are closer to the centre, and while they have some types of censorship, it is much less than for those at the ends.  Liberalism is in the centre, with little censorship.  Thus, as long as you know where a group is on the spectrum, you can figure out how they would feel about censorship.  By taking the time to cross-reference the different groups on a number of issues (like censorship) you will gain the ability to have a sense of what the different philosophies would look like if they ruled in real life.

En 10: Thurs, 13 Jan

Today, we did some self and peer assessment on our "Blue Against White" symbolism paragraphs.  We also reexamined what makes a good topic sentence and compared topic sentences with thesis statements. 
At the end of class we did the first section of a practice provincial.  Please make sure you've read and answered the questions for "The Writing's on the Wall."

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

En 12: Notes from Wed, 12 Jan

Today we practiced doing self and peer assessment using the synthesis paragraph that we wrote on "Transients" and "Lotus Land."  We also had a discussion on assessment as it has evolved in our class and how it has or has not helped us to improve our writing (or what is expected in order to do well and how improvement is affected by rubrics with clear criteria).  Tomorrow, I will read "The Return" to you and we will have a short discussion before I set you to independent work on "Touching Bottom" (no smirking, please).  I'd like you to prepare notes and quotations for Question 2 (on p. 133) in preparation for Friday's class (which will be a five-block day to accomodate a guest speaker in second block).

Also - what's with the colour yellow in this story?

En 11-2: Notes from Wednesday, 12 Jan

Today we watched most of the film - we'll finish on Friday and then look at the idea of tragic heroes.

En 11-1: Notes from Wednesday, 12 Jan

Today we examined the idea of the tragic hero and then looked at how that idea could be applied to Macbeth.  We will write an essay/character sketch on Macbeth on Friday.  Ensure you find some good quotations to support your thesis.


See me on Thursday if you missed today's class.

En 10: Notes from 12 Jan, 2011

Today, we looked at the list of literary devices we need to know in order to work effectively with poetry.  We identified and defined them.  Then we looked at the poem "The Shark" (on p 280 of the anthology) and worked at identifying devices within an actual piece of poetry.  Please complete that examination for homework.  We have ten classes until the provincial exam.

We will work on the "Blue and White" symbolism paragraphs tomorrow.

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

En 10: Notes from Tuesday, 11 Jan

Today we read and discussed the short story "Blue Against White" (p.92 of anthology).  We looked at the poem "I Grew Up" from p.175 of the Eng 12 text, and examined how we could compare and contrast it to the story.  Finally, I assigned a short paragraph to allow students to write about the symbolism in the story.  Please see the notes sheet.

En 12: Notes from Tuesday, 11 Jan

Today we had a lengthy discussion concerning the "Transients" story and the "Lotus Land" article.  We saw how a piece could be examined at a concrete and/or metaphoric level and how "reading between the lines" could allow us to have a fuller, more complete answer.  Please look at the screen shot for pre-writing notes and the writing assignment that is due tomorrow.

SS11: Notes from Tuesday, 11 Jan

Today we did a quiz on the characteristics of totalitarian states and the post-ww1 map of Europe.  We then reviewed the characteristics of strong history writing and noted the differences between history writing and English writing.

We went over Exercise #3 together.  Please ensure you complete #4-5 for homework if you've not already done them.

Also, please read pp 92-98 in your text.  These pages will give you a good overview of the interwar years and the rise if fascism.

Finally, anyone who has not written his or her "autonomy" paragraph must do so as the admission ticket to our next class.  If you are unable to get it done before class, I will invite you to finish it outside before you join us.

Monday, January 10, 2011

En 10 : Notes from Monday, 10 Jan

Today I returned the Henry V essays and we discussed the elements of sound writing.  Tomorrow we'll be reading a new short story.  There is no homework BUT anyone who has not writing the esssay needs to get that done asap.

En11-2: Notes from Monday, 10 Jan

Today we wrote the Macbeth objective final exam.  We also chose our final dramatic reading parts.  We'll watch the rest of the film on Wednesday, and do our dramatic readings on Friday.

En 11-1: Notes from Mon 10 Jan




Today we finished the film and chose our dramatic readings that are due to be read on Friday.