English 10

Today in English 10 we spent the first half practicing for our provincial exam: students completed the writing section. I handed out a pink sheet that gave several tips for the provincial exam; students used this while they wrote.

We finished reading Act 2 of Romeo and Juliet. (we learned what the word bawdy means and what the word pun means).

Finally we watched a 12 minuted Ted Talk by Tony Porter called a call to men (watch it again here). We watched this TedTalk to educate ourselves about the role that men should play in helping to improve this world, but also we imagined it would have been a good video for Mercutio to watch.

Oh, I bought donuts for the class. I'd like to wish you all a Froehliche Weihnachten! (that's Merry Christmas in German)

English 8

Students wrote a quiz on chapters 7-9 of the Giver, then read quietly. I marked and returned the quizzes before the end of class and we began a discussion on why this 'perfect world' is starting to show signs that it is not at all a utopia.

English 10

We took some notes and discussed further sentence variety. Students were given Act 1 Romeo and Juliet questions. Students copied out the answers that I gave them (which were written using the types of sentences that I used during the sentence variety discussion). Then students were to finish the last 5 questions for homework tomorrow.

English 10

TIP: There will likely be a surprise quiz on Act 1 tomorrow. When asked by her mother "How stands your disposition to be married?", Juliet replies with WHAT words? (i.e. make sure you know what Juliet says)

We began class by taking a few notes and discussing the following:
-Old English, Middle English, and Modern English
-archetypes and archetypal characters (Romeo and Juliet is an archetypal story; the doomed lovers are archetypal characters)
-an archetype is an original model after which other things are patterned (similar to a prototype)
-unrequited love (love that is not reciprocated)
-the structure of a Shakespearean sonnet (three quatrains and a couplet)

We finished reading Act 1. Romeo and Juliet met at the Capulet ball and both are reveling in the ecstasy of their new-found love but also agonizing that they've discovered that they are each others enemy.

We wrote down the outline for our English 10 final exam and began discussing it. Students were presented with some student samples of the composition from an old final exam. Students seemed generally surprised at how attainable a 4 out of 6 is on the composition.

English 8

Today we began by reviewing the notes we took on formal writing. Then we worked on a piece of formal writing. Students worked on a paragraph; the topic was "Discuss your likes and dislikes of the Community in the novel The Giver".

We I gave students examples of introductions and gave students strategies on how to write their main points. In addition, I reminded students that they must do their best to SHOW ME HOW SMART THEY ARE in this piece of writing (i.e. by making inferences and perhaps even comparing the novel to our world).

This paragraph is due tomorrow. If all student complete the paragraph for class tomorrow, I'll buy donuts for the class.

Students must read chapters 7,8,9 for Monday, Dec. 12th.