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...

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 ...