English 12

Friday It was a bittersweet class for me today. I feel fortunate to have had such a wonderful group of grade 12s for my first semester at Isfeld, but I am sad to see you go. I know every one of you will do well on the exam. You have made great progress in the course. Good luck. Don't forget to try to make it to the English 12 breakfast on Monday morning which starts at 8:15. Thursday We completed a review of irony today, and we finished discussing the story Act of God. Following that, we did another exam practice in pairs - this time with a non-fiction piece. Towards the end of the class, we began looking at the lighter side of literature: satire, comedy, farce, pun, parody. Term 2 Novel autograph 3. On-the-line statements about what takes place in the novel. 2. Between-the-line - interpretive comments about the novel. Analyse. 1. Quote and a statement of theme for the novel (what is the BIG IDEA about life, society, or human behaviour? Wednesday At the beginning of the cl

Friday I thought we might get to sonnets today; however, I got a bit distracted by the McLaren P1 (shhhh!). We did manage to go through a section of the provincial exam and I think a few people may have been surprised at how tricky multiple choice can be. Remember, always go back to the text and think about what it is saying or not saying, try to eliminate all the wrong answers as well as deciding on the right answer. We also looked at the break down of the exam sections and the time guidelines. Use this link: English 12 Exams to take you to other exams. Thursday Musical poetry chairs in class today! I gave out the poem Mirror by Sylvia Plath and in pairs, everyone rotated around the room looking at different aspects of the poem at each stop: title, diction/tone, word order, sound, figurative language, speaker, setting, symbols, form, ideas/theme. I was very impressed at the level of understanding that came out of this exercise. Thoughtful, insightful comments were made about the p

Friday Today was the second of two days scheduled to work on the term 2 novel essay. Thursday I was away this afternoon. I left the criteria sheets for the term 2 novel essay with the TOC. Hopefully everyone made a good start on the essay. Wednesday We were scheduled to begin the term novel essay today; however, the network was down so we decided to postpone the essay until tomorrow. Instead, we took a look at some of the more challenging poetry terms and poetic forms. Although it is no longer on the terms and devices list for the exam, we took a quick look at metonymy and synecdoche. The trick to remembering which is which is to remember "nymy" suggests "name" and metonymy is replacing one word/idea with a thing that is symbolic of that thing: "the pen is mightier than the sword" - pen represents literature/words/writing. Synecdoche is using a part to represent the whole ex. He asked for her hand in marriage; Lend me a hand; Nice wheels. At the end

Friday No, we did not play Pictionary today; however, we did do some competitive questions related to the terms and devices on the Provincial Exam. After the prize cookies were awarded, I asked everyone to have their two personal essays peer assessed. I have collected both essays; I will assess one based on the criteria and the other will be recorded as a completed draft. Thursday Today we did the second personal essay based on the prompt : People create their own reality. Only 35 minutes for this one! Wednesday The main event today was the personal essay. To get your brains engaged, we read through another personal essay that dealt with the personal essay as its topic. I read through several of the essays that resulted from this 55 minute write. I was touched and impressed by the topics and quality of writing. Tomorrow everyone will try a second personal essay with only 35 minutes on the clock in which to complete it. Tuesday Reading the term 2 novel is winding down as you w