Tuesday, October 14 - Friday, October 17

Friday
Happy Friday! We got of to a ROARING (!) start today: we did some more short story terms review via the website Quizlet (see under links). The questions were very well handled by both teams; there was, however, concern expressed again about the impartiality of the judge! We tried at bit of Hemingway trivial next, but sadly had more wrong than right answers due to the level of difficulty of the questions. The remainder of the class was given to reading Hemingway's story and some peer editing of essays. On Monday there will be a short quiz on the short story so make sure you finish reading it and doing the sticky notes by then. Have a great weekend!


Thursday
Following silent reading, the essays on A Short Story were collected. I was very impressed that just about everyone handed in the drafts today! In pairs you then checked over a classmate's writing for the required elements of a quality essay. Afterwards, we revisited the information we found out about Mr. Hemingway yesterday: valued the truth, passion, bravery; wrote in clear, crisp, unadorned prose; lived in various places around the world; loved hunting and competitive sports; took his own life. The remainder of the class was spent reading The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber. Everyone was asked to spend 15-20 minutes reading the short story for homework.            


Wednesday

 Who in the heck is Ernest Hemingway anyway??? This is the question we addressed during the class time today. We tried to answer the following questions about Hemingway based on some quick research and the video clips posted below: What did Hemingway value? What did he talk about? How did he talk/write? Hemingway's life details. We discovered that, in the video clips at least, he is portrayed as a macho, adventurous man who had a strong moral code, valuing courage and passionate love. We associated him with war, big game hunting, boxing, and drinking.  Of course, we also noticed his crisp, clean prose. ( I put this in italics because I am quoting a colleague's summary of Hemingway - thanks Ms. Schleppe!) 

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzoOA473wq0
2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kw9spMYA-XU
3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6n34E2vXzs



Tuesday

Short story terms competition! Well, despite their resounding victory in Pictionary, the girls team went down fighting today: victims of a very unfair point awarding system! The knowledge and enthusiasm of both teams was impressive. Keep reviewing those terms! You will be doing yourself a huge favour come February when the provincial exam is looming. I gave you some more time to complete essays your "A Short Story" essay. Next time I will ensure that you have the opportunity to type your draft! We agreed that typed drafts would be submitted to me on Thursday. 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Monday, June 19 - Thursday, June 22

Image
Thursday I will be at school by 8:00-ish tomorrow. I will have doughnuts and coffee/tea ready.  1. Read two of the synthesis pieces from a past exam. 2. Let's take a deeper look at the synthesis part of the exam. First, some tips from the experts: see below. 3. Score some of the synthesis responses from students who wrote the exam. rubric:  https://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/exams/specs/grade12/en/14_scoring_guides.pdf sample:  https://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/exams/exemplars/en_synthesis/en12-synthesis-samples.pdf Tips from the experts ie. people who have marked the exam for many years... The Synthesis Essay: Everything that pertains to the Stand-Alone text also pertains here. Most English teachers have students compare and contrast things now and then, but we would do well to teach this more directly. Essays with well-synthesized ideas have the connection between the works as their subject, and  use one text as the perspective from which to view the other...
Read more

Monday, January 11 - Friday, January 15

Friday At the beginning of the class, reading time was made available for everyone to tackle more of the Hemingway story. We will use this story to help review synthesis essays. I ran through some review of synthesis essay writing, and put a poster up in the room that shows what things to use in a synthesis essay plan. We will look at this in more detail on Monday. Thursday There is so much great literature in the world, but one writer everyone should read (in my opinion) is Hemingway. Today we did a brief bit of background on Hemingway via the Interwebs and through the depiction of him in Midnight in Paris. I read the first six pages of the story "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" aloud; somehow the class deteriorated into the sounds African animals make (my fault, I think - although I do think I do a particularly strong zebra imitation). The reading assignment for tomorrow was to complete to the end of page fifteen. Wednesday Today's class was shorter ...
Read more

Monday, May 16 - Thursday, May 19

Image
Thursday Mark multiple choice for the poem response section of the poetry test. To be or not to be… 2 column note taking and personal response: Discuss the similarities and differences in the two versions you selected: were lines cut; did it matter;  setting (time and place); props; lighting/atmosphere; staging of scene (movement(s) of actor); t race Hamlet’s arguments/mood/tone of voice throughout the soliloquy. How does this Hamlet think through his question?  How does Shakespeare use imagery, diction, and meter to enhance Hamlet’s decision making process? This work is due today - self-reflection. Mel Gibson  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vf2TpWsPvgI Kenneth Branagh  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjuZq-8PUw0 Adrian Lester  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muLAzfQDS3M David Tenant  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1u8OlUS7BhU Ethan Hawke  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Up-oGfiosE Chart about film version #1 of Hamlet - due Tuesday...
Read more