Friday, October 7, 2011

SS 11: Friday, 7 October

Today I collected your "The Nature of Canada in 1900" paragraphs.  We also did an activity to highlight the nature of the conflict and competition that helped lead to the First World War and did a worksheet highlighting some key vocabulary terms linked to the causes of the war.  We also viewed a PPT on Europe in the era prior to the war. 

We read pp 21-24 in the text and completed Ex # 3 (outlining the chronology of the events that led to fighting in the war).  Please ensure these two things are done for homework.  Expect a quiz on Tuesday.

En 12: Friday, 7 Oct

Today we finished the Form and Structure discussions and lit devices and started a new activity that will have a creative element.  Earlier, I introduced the notion of connotation vs. denotation and today we got a list of loaded words that we will work with to expose a deeper understanding of this concept.

No homework unless the Form and Structure assignment is still incomplete.

En 11: Friday, 7 Oct

Today I checked Act I vocabulary words to find that half of you failed to finish.  That was disappointing.  We read and discussed Scenes 6-7 and then you set to work noting responses to the 10 small-bullet questions for the act.  When that was done we broke into groups and discussed one of the big-bullet questions.  We'll share our thoughts with each other next class.

Ensure you have the 10 questions and the vocab work done for Tuesday's class.

 

En 8: Friday, 7 Oct

Today we had a check-in circle and then we debriefed the Chapter 7-8 questions.  I was disappointed that half of the class failed to get the Chapter 8 questions done.  At the end of class we chose five adjectives (words that modify or "describe" nouns - people/places/things) for the protagonist, Rhayader, and then placed them next to the appropriate sin or virtue on the list of virtue and sins in the study guide.

ex. strong   (might be paired with the virtue "fortitude")

Please have your five adjectives paired on your lstudy guide ists for Wednesday's class.

Thursday, October 6, 2011


Today we took our brainstorming activity from yesterday's class (what was the nature of Canada in 1900?) and moved it forward with a lesson on writing the perfect "so-what" paragraph.  We used the worksheet shown above to help organize our ideas and give us complete arguments to use in our paragraphs.  Please hand in your finished paragraphs and your completed what/so-what tables tomorrow.

En 11: Thursday, 6 Oct

Today I checked to ensure everyone was finished the contractions worksheet.  Then we read and discussed Act I, sc 3-5.  We finally got to meet Macbeth, Banquo and Lady Macbeth.  Hmm, things are not sounding good for Duncan.  We used the last 20 minutes of the class to complete the Act I vocabulary sheet - please ensure it is done for next class.

We'll finish reading Act tomorrow.

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

En 8: Wednesday, 5 October

Last class Poya gave us a visit and discussed her home country, Taiwan and her exchange to Canada.  I then introduced the concepts of accent and dialect, and then read Chapters 7-8 with two distinctly different English accents (to illustrate the differences between the soldier's and officer's speech patterns in The Snow Goose).

Today we took time to get our photos taken whilst working on the study guide questions for those two chapters.  I took time to tell the story of Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner and the story of the good Samaritan.  I also listed the seven sins and virtues, and we briefly discussed numerical symbolism.  For homework, please complete the guide questions you were unable to finish in class.

En 12: Wednesday 5 Oct

Today was a pretty relaxed class.  We have been working pretty steadily for the last two days to finish the Form and Structure poetry activity and today we started to discuss our responses.  I wanted to make sure we had a chance to enjoy our discussion and so I loosened the reins and we had lots of analogies and stories to help us connect to the topics under consideration.  Tomorrow I'd like to finish with this activity and give you a chance to finish the "devices section."  We are also going to to return to connotation vs. denotation and do a "creative" assignment.

SS 11: Wed 5 Oct

On Monday we reviewed for the government unit test that we wrote yesterday.  Today we had a PPT discussion on the nature of Canada at the turn of the last century.  Tomorrow we will do a "what/so-what" activity and then write our first paragraph.  There is no homework.

En 11: Wed 5 Oct 2011

On Monday we got an intro to Macbeth and played with the opening scene.  Yesterday we saw how where we stopped when we read changed the meaning and ease of understanding of the play.  We also read II, ii and got Mr Lewis' class mad because I spoke the Sergeant's lines so loudly.  Today we learned how to block a scene.

For homework, please read the remainder of Act I 
(scenes iv-vii = scenes 4 to 7).