Thursday Feb 28

Well, we finally all got back to class. We did some reading and catching up with each other from a long time away from each other.

We read to page 23 and were assigned questions 1,2 and 3 for homework. The pages we read were rather dark, with Ishmael seeing and living through some intense events. As we read he mentioned that he was trying to memorize the lyrics for a few songs.

Here is one:





Right. I'm hoping that the snow day I saw for tomorrow is not coming, but you never know. At least we got today in.

Tuesday and Wednesday Feb 27

Wednesday is a snow day.

You can still email me in Task Three Writing. Please use Chesserhandin1 @ gmail.com .... pretty please.

If not, wait until tomorrow .... hopefully it won't be a snow day again ... and hand it in on paper.

now ... enjoy your snow day!

.

...and just to make it official ...

Wednesday was a special day ...

1)    Students should have a copy of the A Long way Gone Webquest handout. I will include copies in the orange folder.

2)    Students are to complete the questions on the handout, working together as a group but making sure they hand their own work in to the teacher either via paper or email. The email address is on the red cork board in the Portable.

Monday Feb 25

So ... it's a snow day.

If you haven't, please email me your presentation, your Task One Homework or your piece of writing from the Short Piece Unit.

The Piece of Writing / Task 3 is due on Wednesday, but ... I can help proofread if you email it to me today.

If you've got all that done, work on the A Long Way Gone Webquest. Link for it is here. As I announced last week, I will never dishonour your time by giving you an assignment and then not marking it. It is the same with all parts of this unit.

Hope you have an awesome day!



via GIPHY

Fri Feb 22

Today we finished off in class presentations. If you have not yet completed your presentation, you need to sit and conference with the teacher as to when we can get it done.

We did also talk about due date and that students will be asked to show a draft version of their Task 3 Pieces of Writing on Monday. Final copy is not due until Wednesday.

We started the unit on A Long Way Gone (ALWG) by Ishmael Beah. I plan on reading every day and asking questions of my students to write about every day of this unit. I have posted the due date on the right-hand side of this blog and on the portable wall.

We did read to page 13 of the text together. During that time, two classics of awesome hip hop were mentioned in the text. Here they are for your enjoyment:

Thursday Feb 21

We did as many presentations as we could today.

We should be finished. We'll see tomorrow.

We worked on our Task Three Writing today and made this video period 4 to share:

Wed Feb 20

If we get time today, we should read this together.


What we did do today was get through a few presentations first. It was a pretty exciting experience and I'm grateful for your sharing of ideas.

We also got a chance to do some limited conferencing about the Task 3 Writing assignment due Feb 27.

I updated the due dates in the classroom and I will change the due dates online soon. It'll depend on the wireless system I'm on at the moment.

By the end of the class, I was also able to chat with students about outstanding work that is owed from Task One. I also let students know that we would be starting the Non-Fiction unit on A Long Way Gone on Monday.

Tuesday Feb 19

We were all welcomed back to learning English today in Portable 2. It was a great feeling to be back at it together.

We talked about the Writing Task 3 that is due Feb 26th.

We did a short presentation as to where the students should be and here is the link to that powerpoint.

We the conferenced for the rest of the class about Task One and Two. I also returned the quiz from Thursday, too.

There are some in the class that need to make arrangements for writing it, too.

Thursday Feb 14

We had our quiz today.

Then I conferenced with students while others finished their quiz and collected Journals.

Tuesday and Wed Feb 13

I'll push the quiz to Thursday, everyone.

Be safe.

Monday Feb 11

Today we finished SHWTD. It may be the last story we do, thanks to all the snow days we've had and are expecting tomorrow.

If we don't get a snow day tomorrow, we will keep right on going.

We also chatted very briefly about the assignment board in the class and the website and how all of the due dates for the assignments are coming close. We chatted about how this week - including Wednesday when the quiz is on for - will work.

We also finished off conferencing about presentations for next week and the expectations for that assignment, too.

Finally, after the film, we chatted about the Culminating Activity in this class and how this film was a very brief introduction to it.


Here are the questions for the film we finished today.

1.     What are your impressions of an average Canadian soldier? Have you met a member of our Armed Forces? What did you think about them?

2.     What does the term “genocide” mean? What other 20th Century events might you consider similar to what happened in Rwanda?

3.     How might race be an important role in this event, or in this film?

4.     How did the world react when it heard about what was going on in Rwanda in 1994?

5.     Gen. Dallaire claims that the word “hero” makes him uncomfortable, in fact, he sees himself as a failure. Is he a failure?

6.     Do a 150-ish word film review of this film that you would share with a buddy of yours.