Final marks!

Great news! I was impressed with many of your final exams. Wow, there are some great English students out there.  It was a long exam but so many of you were patient and tried your best in your last composition.  The class average for the final exam was 75%.

When you look at the marks, please not that the column called "Term 3" is actually your final exam mark.  Click here to look at the marks.

I had a great year and thanks so much for the class evaluations.  You've give me lots to think about and improve upon!

Mr. Pfeiffer

Final Exam day and Term 2 Marks

Today we wrote our final exams.
Click here to see your Tentative Term 2 Marks.  Check back for your final exam marks and your final mark.  They should be completed by Wednesday of next week.

Thanks so much for being a great class.  I hope everyone had a chance to type out a teacher/course evaluation and drop it off with Mr. Louttit in the library today.  If you didn't have time to do this, you can always type one out and just leave it in the office for me to read.

Studying for final!

We focused on three things today (like yesterday):
a. we worked on our final exam review
b. students with assignments not done, worked on them
c. we watched 20 minutes of The Boy with Striped Pajamas

Remember, our final English 9 exam will be this Thursday afternoon.

Pineapple Sauce

We learned that Bruno's arrogance led to his demise.
We did a year end review handout.
Students worked on their Bruno Paragraphs.

Save what you need to save.
River was wearing pants -- finally.
Keyon's bike seat is up in a tree.
Dawson tried to make Mr. Pfeiffer lose his cool.
Eva mentioned peanut butter.
Doree worked like a DEMON.
DAni had a cool hat.
Dom got his work done.
Alex worked WITHOUT any string.
Wes had a copywrite on his paragraph. (the idea was stolen from Daniel).
River broke his sunglasses.

Select Samaritan

We began by looking at the poem, Select Samaritan, and answering the questions on the worksheet.  We noted that the parents in the poem were remarkably racist, and although it was shown rather subtlely, they were rather horrible people. This worksheet was handed in.

We continued with our reading of the novel.
Students were given a final exam review booklet to work on.
Final exam will be on Thursday June 20th in the afternoon.
We watched the first 15 minutes of the movie The Boy in the Striped Pajamas.  We will not have a big novel test on The Boy in the Striped Pajamas.

Students worked well on their Bruno paragraphs -- we'll work on this on Friday.  This paragraph will be due on Monday.

Paragraph writing

We looked at a paragraph on Schmuel [below]  and discussed what was positive about it and what areas needed improvement.  We read chapter 17. Then students worked well for 40 minutes on their Bruno paragraphs. See below for what was included in today's lesson. (Oh, I also handed out updated marks today to each student)

-->

Satisfactory Paragraph
In the novel The Boy in the Striped Pajamas Schmuel is a kid who is cautious and forgiving.  He is cautious because is very careful about the stuff he does.  He knows that he if makes a mistake like getting caught being near the fence he would get in TOTAL trouble.  Bruno asks him if he’d like some food when he’s at his house and Schmuel says, “I can’t . . . He’ll come back.” (167) That shows that he is cautious.  Schmuel is also a forgiving kid.  He forgives Bruno for not saying that he was his friend when Lieutenant Kotler asked him, “Do you know this boy?” Bruno answered, “I’ve never spoken to him,” so then Schmuel was probably beaten up by Lieutenant Kotler (172).  Bruno did not see him for a week and he knew what he had done was “so terrible” (174).  Even though Bruno did this seriously bad thing to Schmuel, Schmuel said “It’s all right.” (174)  I think it’s pretty nice that Schmuel forgives Bruno because he got totally beaten black and blue for it.  This paragraph has shown that Schmuel is both cautious and forgiving.

Positives: 

On topic

Not much plot summary

Organized

Uses quotations rather well

Quotations have page #’s in brackets

The content is logical and correct

Areas of Improvement:

Vocabulary should be elevated

Transition words aren’t used (much)

Level of thought could be improved (level of interpretation)

Some sentences are rather short.

Sentence variety should be improved

Using a metaphor or simile or personification should be considered

Improved Paragraph

In the novel The Boy in the Striped Pajamas Schmuel is a complicated character who displays some character traits that oppose one another.  While on the one hand he is an understandably cautious character, at certain times he is also a brave risk-taker. . . . and on and on and on. . .  

Character Trait

We reviewed the idea of juxtaposition from last day.
We read chapter 16.
Then students were given a handout on character traits and what to do when your English teacher asks you to discuss or write about a character.

We proceeded to do an example on the board where we talked about Schmuel.  Myah noted that Schmuel's cautious nature juxtaposes his bravery. 

This week we'll be working on a composition and the topic will be. . . discuss the character of Bruno from The Boy In the Striped Pajamas.

ch 14/ 15 and the word Juxtaposition

We discussed the reason that the author so subtlely implies that Kotler and Bruno's mother were having an affair.  The answer is that since the novel is from Bruno's naive point of view, it makes sense that that relationship is not clearly stated.  Bruno himself does not know what is going on between the two.

We discussed the word justaposition; it means a stark contrast between two things or ideas.  Bruno's friendship with Schmuel is justaposed with his cowardly betrayal of Schmuel in chapter 15 -- when Bruno states that he has "never spoken to [Schmuel]" and that he's "never seen him before in [his] life."

Letters handed in today!

Students handed in their Letter to Grandmother assignments today.

Today we discussed how Bruno, the protagonist, can be understood in another way. He can be understood as a symbol -- he symbolizes all the German people during World War 2.  Bruno, like most German people, does not know what is going on in concentration camps.  In fact, most German people during the war, willfully refused to believe anything bad was happening to Jewish people.

I handed back our work on transition words and then we worked on another transition work exercise.

We continued reading our novels.  We finished chapter 11, read chapter 12 and 13.

The author gave us, as readers, a pretty clear example of foreshadowing in chapter 12 (the boys could, if they choose, go under the fence).

We also chatted about the final exam: it is primarily a skills exam.  There is only PART of the final exam you can study.  You can study our notes on plot, setting, character, theme, and poetic devices. There will be no specific exam questions on the novels, stories, and poems we've read.

Oh, and the class was at first worried and then amused with Dawson: it looked like he was storming out of the class, but really he was just answering the door.

Chronology in TBITSP

Today we discussed and examine how time is portrayed by authors in novels.  Some authors like Tolkien, use time in a very straightforward manner.  In The Hobbit,
Other authors, like John Boyne, the author of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, make time go forward and backward.  We noted that chapter 8 and chapter 11 are flashbacks to earlier times. 

We worked on the letter assignment from last week.  The letter is due at the beginning of class tomorrow afternoon.

TBitSP - chapter 10 and Letter Assignment

Last week, in my absence, Ms. Vincent was in class and she discussed her connection with the events of W.War two -- specifically her grandfather's time in a prison camp in Holland.

You read up to the middle of chapter 10 and you worked on the Letter Assignment below (this assignment will be due this week). 
Today we began with a review of connecting words and a handout where you connected sentences to make a better paragraph.

 

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas:

Chapter 8

The following paragraph ends Chapter 8:

That day he sat down with a pen and paper and told her how unhappy he was there and how much he wished he was back home in Berlin. He told her about the house and the garden and the bench with the plaque on it and the tall fence and the wooden telegraph poles and the barbed- wire bales and the hard ground beyond them and the huts and the small buildings and the smoke stacks and the soldiers, but mostly he told her about the people living there and their striped pajamas and cloth caps, and then he told her how much he missed her and he signed off his letter 'your loving grandson, Bruno'.

Write the letter that Bruno sends to his grandmother, and do it in a way that reveals your creativity and your understanding of the novel.  Use your novel (and your chapter questions) to help furnish you with details to enhance your writing.

The first paragraph of your letter should deal with the events in Chapter 8, specifically, the details we learn about Bruno’s grandmother and grandfather.  Be sure to make reference to the different opinions they have regarding Germany and Hitler’s leadership.

After this paragraph, your remaining paragraphs can deal with the information Bruno referred to in the excerpt above, and you may go into other details to give your letter credibility and creativity.  Plan out your work before you dive in to your writing.

You may choose to adopt a voice[1] for Bruno that is less naïve than the one presented in the novel, but please remember that he is only 9.

---

[1] “Voice” is the characteristic speech and thought patterns of a first-person narrator --a persona. Because voice has so much to do with the reader's experience of a work of literature, it is one of the most important elements of a piece of writing.