Friday Sept 30

I was in the school today, but marking the OCA, the Assessment we did yesterday.

Some interesting results I'll be able to share with you on Monday.

In any case, I thought everyone deserved a bit of a break , so the movie Malcolm X was watched.

Have a great weekend!

Thursday Sept 29

I was riding this yesterday ....

And helping the BR Golf team do their best!

I did leave some work for this period to do, and I will collect it and evaluate it.

Today was the OCA and we had a chance to work out a few wrinkles in the system. Thanks to all of my students for persevering through some difficulties.

On to tomorrow!

Tuesday Sept 27

Today we talked a little about the due dates, and that the next few days are going to be odd. Wednesday is the School Mass day, Thursday is the OCA and Friday may be an odd day, too.

We also talked a little about the text and took up the homework.

We also read until the end of Chapter 7 in the graphic novel and got questions 11 and 12 for homework.

We did also manage to watch about 25 minutes of the film Malcolm X with Denzel Washington. It was Chapter 8 to 12 on the DVD if you have it at home. In any case, we'll be using that clip.

This is a clip from before the clip that we saw in the film. I love the suit that Mr. Washington is wearing in this scene:

Monday Sept 26

“All right, all right, all right ….. “ Like the actor who keeps saying this, even though it is Monday, everything is going to be ok.

In any case, we took up homework, read the novel ... we got to the end of Chapter 6 on Page 41.

Then we got 9 and 10 for homework.

Please note that the OCA on Wednesday is going to have a different schedule for this class. 

I think.

Friday Sept 23

It was Friday ... a day of gratitude, my friends.

We got a few more essays in, for which I am grateful.

I will post the first due date on Monday. I meant for it to happen today, but instead of that, we read.

We got to page 24 in the text and were assigned question 6, 7 and 8.

Thursday Sept 22

And so today ....

Today I collected essays. A good percentage handed in. Always glad to see that.

Then we read.

Then we got homework: questions 1,2,3,4 and 5 from the unit outline we got yesterday.

(a few extra copies at the front of the room)

Due dates to be posted tomorrow!

Monday and Tuesday Sept 20

Whoa, my apologies for not updating this online area every day.

The last two days have been fairly exciting in my class - we are writing an essay (see rubric below) and getting the next unit on a novel started.

See the Six Steps of Writing an essay - we are going Step Five on Tuesday and Step Six on Wednesday!

Friday Sept 16

Actual photograph from class ... maybe.

My apologies for a late update - my usual habit of updating this blog at the end of the day was interrupted Period 4 on Friday. I had to cover another teacher's class.

On Friday we did mainly one on one's for the essay writing we are doing. Some great ideas were forthcoming in these sessions!

I also gave a bit of an update on what's coming next week, too.

Wed Sept 14

OK, the last day for the stories we are going to be doing ... and the first day of essay writing.

Due dates were posted by the end of class and appear on the side of this blog - note ... if you are on a mobile device, you need to go to the bottom of the page and click on the "Web Version" to see the sidebars on this blog.

So we read "Tell Tale Heart" today in class and got questions for homework.

Tomorrow ... is another day!

Tuesday Sept 13

Well, it was a pretty good class today - we took up the homework on "Vital Factor" and read "Why Canada has to beat it's Literacy Problem by June Callwood.

I also checked to see what was what with the assignments that are going to be coming in this week and they all looked good at first glance.

...and we are off!

If you are reading this, welcome to my Period One English class!

This is a place where I'm posting brief descriptions as to what we do in class, some research ideas and the like.

Today we took up homework from Friday on the story "On the Sidewalk Bleeding" first. Then we read the story "Vital Factor" by Nelson Bond.

I mentioned that my students should see the pictures of Mars put out recently by JPL.