English 12

Thursday We spent a good portion of the class reviewing terms and devices related to short stories. Tomorrow is the day for the presentation of the micro-fiction stories! Wednesday Today you wrote your editing quiz based on errors I noted in the synthesis piece about The Bastard. After the quiz, we returned to working on the micro-fictions. In the links section of this blog there are a variety of web sites you can check for examples of micro-fiction and twisters/tweets. Several students showed me their works in progress today. I can tell you are working hard on the twist at the end of the story based on conversations I am overhearing in class and based on what you have shown me. I am impressed by the thought and cleverness shown in the stories I have seen so far. Looking forward to reading more tomorrow. Homework for tomorrow is to have at least two stories completed so that we can do some peer editing. Don't forget about due dates on the horizon. Friday is the LAST day for you...

Friday Following silent reading, we had a rousing review of short story terms and pictionary combined. Afterwards we returned to discussing micro-fiction and I showed two more short Vimeo films which really demonstrate micro-storytelling effectively. Next week you will be writing your own micro-fiction. Thursday We spent time today doing a 12 minute write about one of the stories you have on your Listmania list that worked with one of the old exam prompts. Next I asked you to come up with 4 stories from your Listmania lists that you could write about if were faced with the 3 exam prompts that I had on the board. The idea behind this is that you practice coming up with a story that can, in some way, address the prompt. I spoke briefly about micro-fiction at the end of class and by way of an example, we viewed a short film on Vimeo called The Other Side of the Game  . Wednesday After we marked the Apostrophe quiz from last Friday, we again looked at the 25 exam prompts. We adde...

Friday My instructions to the TOC 1. Read for first 10-15 minutes 2. Quiz: the apostrophe; terms & devices ( I know you will be bitterly disappointed that yet again I have not completed making the multiple choice quiz on The Bastard, Faking It and Who I'm Not!) 3. Work on the synthesis piece featuring The Bastard. 4. Christmas Poet-Tree decorations! Thursday Don't forget about the quizzes Friday: the apostrophe and terms and devices. I am going to have to postpone the multiple choice a little longer. Today you had class time to create a t-chart plan (worth marks!) for the synthesis piece on The Bastard and work on you first draft. Wednesday I returned the paragraphs you wrote about A.A. Gill's (note the apostrophe please!). If you are satisfied with your grade, you can leave it as is. If you would like to apply my feedback and do a second draft, I will take it in an look it over again and change your grade accordingly. Those who have not yet handed-in a draft ...

Friday We spent a bit too much of today's class reviewing (via a raucous game) some of the more unfamiliar/difficult exam terms. Afterwards, we took a quick look at some sample synthesis exam questions. I asked you to highlight the verb in the question so you know what you are being asked to do and then I asked you to highlight the key words in the rest of the question. These are both good strategies for the Provincial Exam. We will discuss these types of questions more next week. Thursday Parent Teacher Interviews Wednesday Steak Flexes its Muscle paragraphs were due today. It was also the last date to hand-in the term essay on your banned book without a time penalty (time meaning spending some of your free time at school tomorrow). I offered you two readings today: Who I am Not (fiction) and Faking It (non-fiction). Your next task will be to assess which piece (discuss The Bastard and either Who I Am Not or Faking It) demonstrates the greater drawbacks being an imposter im...

Friday Hooray! It took all week for me to get there, but we finally began reading "The Bastard" today. You will just have to wait until next week to see if your predictions about the Bastard and Wilson's daughter are correct. We also spent some time reviewing exam terms and devices with the Grade 10 flashcards which unfortunately seem to be missing the word simile??? Term papers on the banned/challenged books were due today. As long as I get your papers emailed to me over the weekend, that will be fine. Hopefully everyone filled in their evidence sheets for the term assessments. Have a great weekend. Thursday Essays!!! I had big plans to begin the short story "The Bastard" today - seems like I have been trying to start that story for weeks now! Most of the class was spent discussing the term essay; working on the term essay. It's due tomorrow, so I hope the time today was helpful. Wednesday Today we did some "meta-work". I asked you to go thro...

Friday I was away today. Hope the quiz went well. I asked the TOC to get you to continue with identifying the tools of bias/manipulation on your copies of the A.A.Gill article. We will do a re-write of the paragraph on Monday. For the remainder of the class you had time to work on reading your novel; working on your novel autograph; planning your essay; writing your essay. Thursday Forgive all the weird colours! Cutting and pasting from Word is causing all kinds of problems... Once the Hemingway essays were collected, everyone spent time reading their novel, doing the autograph, writing an essay outline, or starting the term paper. In the second half of the class, we returned to A. A. Gill's article about steak. I let you know that Gill is regarded as " a dyslexic writer, a teetotal alcoholic, a high-end restaurant critic who thinks that eating a steak which costs more than the waiter’s daily wage is “uncomfortable and wrong." Reminder,  possible techniques of bias o...

Friday It was Friday today so we did another rousing activity to review/practice some of those 185 Provincial Exam terms and devices. The girls were the clear victors on this occasion! Afterwards we returned to the Hemingway essay; the good copy accompanied by the rough draft and criteria sheet, is due next Thursday, November 13th. Thursday I returned almost everyone's Hemingway essay today. After identifying all those cryptic red scribbles on your drafts, I gave you some more essay tips: use present tense no quotes to prove an event happened not all evidence needs to be a quote use characters last names don't say he does a good job! write so a person who has not read the text can follow your arguments Wednesday After a bit of time on the NetBooks practicing exam terms, we turned our attention back to the Hemingway essay. Again, some positive feedback on the essays I am reviewing would include: improved introductions, better thesis statements, embedded quotes! The...