Monday, September 29 - Friday, October 3

Monday! Welcome to week two! Today we went to the library to get a book from the Banned/Challenged listBanned/Challenged books. If you click this link, you get the assignment sheet and the list of books. We discussed the term paper that you will write about your chosen book. Hope you enjoy your selection, but if you don't change it this week!

Tuesday, Today we began in earnest with silent reading of our Banned/Challenged books. Remember once you have completed the reading of your book do the following:

For classroom display, provide the following:

a book jacket (go online to get an image of the book) photocopy which shows

• your name

• a brief summary of the book

• reasons for challenging

• do you agree?

As well today, we reviewed the elements of a short story in preparation for reading our next story. We also looked up some info on the story author, George Bowering and learned that he is from Penticton; he was the first Canadian Poet Laureate and he was a writing professor at UBC. We read "A Short Story" in class marking up the text looking for ruptures, focus and repetition.

Wednesday, I gave back your pieces of writing about The Lottery and asked you to put them into your writing folder which should remain in the classroom. We went through some editing errors that I noticed in your writing. Here is a link (link) to a document which I will keep updating throughout the semester which contains your most common writing errors and how to fix them. After each in-class write, we will debrief your common errors and then the next class there will be an Edit Sheet/Quiz where you have to identify and fix the errors. Our first edit sheet/quiz will be tomorrow. Next, we read the last page of "A Short Story"(!) which somehow didn't end up on your photocopies. As if the story wasn't challenging enough already! We also did the graffiti activity: quotes from "A Short Story" where placed on the tables around the room and you circulated from table to table commenting on the quotes. 

It was interesting to listen to you struggle with this difficult text. For some there were lightbulb moments. For others, your lightbulb moments will come during our further discussions of the story.

Here is a link (link1; link 2) to the documents with the lines from the story that were part of the graffiti activity.

Thursday, Today we completed the graffiti activity and began to clear up some of the remaining confusion surrounding the story. I asked pairs to come up with three topics that you think the story deals with. Tomorrow we will begin turning those topics into thesis statements, the thesis statements will eventually become essay outlines and finally, the outlines will be turned into your first essay! WOOT! WOOT!