December 18th, 2014

Today we are in the library lab finishing up our Google Lit Trip assignments. These are due in my dropbox by Friday, December 19th.

We will be finishing our Into The Wild movie and you will be asked to finish reading the last part of the novel.

Please ensure that you have responded to all of the journal questions by tomorrow. Here is a link to the journal questions if you are missing any: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ykucmk51vkxp20d/IntotheWildquestionsfullbook.doc?dl=0

December 11th, 2014

We are starting our Into the Wild Google Earth Lit Trip today in the library lab.
Here is the assignment:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/zssy46zqwb9y772/INTO%20THE%20WILD%20GOOGLE%20EARTH%20LIT%20TRIP.docx?dl=0

This will be due by Friday December 19th
You will have 2 full blocks to work on this, one today and one next Thursday.
Please ask for help in order to use your time wisely. Mr. Haworth, Mr. Wilson, Ms. Mackenzie and myself are available to help with any technical or literary questions : )

December 8, 2014

***Your Chris/Alex paragraphs are due on Friday the 12th (you will not have any more class time to work on this)****

December 1, 2014

***Your Rebels and Outcasts comic life project is due. Please put it in my Teacher Drop Box (under schoolwide student share on the server)***

Terms and Devices: Terms we went over today that you will need to know for the provincial = alliteration, antagonist, audience.

Into the Wild: We are on chapter 9. Please make sure you are caught up with the reading and are up to date with your journals.

November 18, 2014

Grammar - We are up to Lesson 28 in our grammar booklets

Into the Wild: We have read up to chapter 5. Make sure  that you have completed chapter 1-3, and 4-5 journal responses. Today we completed an open book quiz on chapters 1-4. On Thursday (20th) we will be completing our Rebels and Outcasts research project using comic life. Please see previous post for assignment outlines.

Wednesday November 12, 2014

Welcome to the second half of the semester and congratulations for making it this far!

Into the Wild: Here are our journal questions. You should have the first page (ch. 1-3) responses completed this by the end of this week (Nov.14)
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/16606516/IntotheWildquestionsfullbook.doc

Rebels and Outcasts Research Project: On Thursday you will be beginning a short research presentation. Here is the assignment:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/16606516/Rebels%20Project.docx

Wednesday, November 5, 2014

*We have begun our novel: Into The Wild
*There is a Grammar Quiz today
* Here is your next assignment that you will be working on today:https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/16606516/Into%20The%20Wild%20journal.docx

****A Reminder**** that I have not received many of your 250 word image response writings. Please submit by the end of the week.

Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Today we:

Grammar: We have completed up to lesson 19.

Writing: We discussed writing strategies and looked at some sample provincial exam writing responses. We began some brainstorming and paragraph writing in response to one of the following photos: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/16606516/photos_for_story_beginnings.pptx

Thursday October 23, 2014

Writing
We've been looking at a lot of different types of opinion writings and you've been working on your own rants. Your 1 page double-spaced rant (rough copy) was due today. I will be editing these myself in order to give you all some excellent feedback.

Grammar
We are on Lesson 17. Please ensure that you are up to date.

Stay tuned next week, we will be finishing our good copies of the rants, you will have the option of presenting to the class (or not) and we will attempt to write a finely crafted complaint letter or letter of gratitude (your choice).

Thursday, October 16, 2014

Your Fairy Tale Stories were due TODAY!!!

Grammar: We completed lesson 13 today.

Writing: We looked at different types of writing and answered some questions regarding persuasive writing. We watched some of Rick Mercer's Rants and read some student opinion pieces. You will be working on creating your own rant in the next few classes.

Friday October 10. 2014

Fairy Tales
This week we worked hard on our Fairy Tale remixes.
We will have one more block to work on these on Tuesday and they are due at the end of class.

Grammar
You wrote a grammar quiz on Tuesday and we have begun a new booklet. You should be up to lesson 12.

The Ant and the Grasshopper
We looked at an Aesop's Fable and compared it to a satirized version by Mark Twain. You completed and handed in 4 response questions.

Have a great long weekend!

Monday October 6th, 2014

 *If you weren't here on Friday, we had donuts and watched The Simpsons episode Mypods and Boomsticks. You handed in a worksheet identifying the 4 types of satire present in this episode.
We also completed grammar worksheet lesson 8.*

Today (MONDAY) we:

Grammar: lesson 9
                 *there will be a grammar quiz tomorrow on lessons 1-9*

Fairy Tales: We worked on our stories up in the library lab. At this point you should be beginning your rough draft or ready to begin writing next class. You must mark up your "maps" with the satirical changes you plan to rewrite into the story. This will count for prewriting marks.

Oct.1, 2014 Remixing the Fairy Tale

In order to begin your next creative writing assignment you will need to do some initial work:

1. Choose a fairy tale. These websites are helpful:               http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/
                                                                                  http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimmtales.html
                             http://www.dmoz.org/Arts/Humanities/Literature_in_Art/Fables_and_Fairy_Tales/
**Print out the one you have chosen**

2. Use these Literary Mapping Tools to dissect your fairy tale:
    http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/interactives/lit-elements/

3. Use this Plot diagram tool to investigate the structure of your fairy tale:
    http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/interactives/plot-diagram/


** MAKE SURE YOU PRINT OUT AND SAVE EVERYTHING YOU DO.
**THESE COUNT FOR MARKS**

Tuesday September 30, 2014

Today we:

Grammar - You did lesson 6 on contractions.

Satire - We discussed satire. Please view this link for definitions: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/16606516/Satire.docx
           - We looked at a clip from SHREK and discussed these forms of satire.

Red Riding Hood - We read a modernized version of Red Riding Hood and you handed in 4 examples of politically correct language from the story.

Monday September 29, 2014

Today we:

Grammar = You completed page 5 on suffixes.

Descriptive Paragraph = You were given several descriptive paragraphs from famous authors to analyze and answer a few questions on.

Humour = We discussed various comediens and what makes them funny and read an article telling us about different categories of humour - satire being the one we will look at more in depth tomorrow.

Welcome to Comm 11/12

In order to be successful in this class, you need to attend regularly. Most of you have made it through the first week with great success! Here is what we worked on this week:

1. Grammar = Pages 1-4 (12 marks total).
2. Personal Paragraph = You wrote me a paragraph on a topic of your choice and we worked on improving word choice and adding sensory words to it (12 marks).
3. Sense Poem = We continued to discuss sensory words and using adjective prepositional phrases as ways to describe our specific nouns. You created a "Sense Poem" from a handout template and handed this in (10 marks).
4. Vinyl Cafe  = We listened to an episode of Stuart McLean's Vinyl Cafe called "School Days" and you worked in groups to come up with what you thought was the recipe for this story. You then came up with a shared school experience and a general message or moral for this story (3 marks).

If you are missing anything from this week, or unsure if you are missing something, please come see me in room 219. I've attached a course outline here: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/16606516/comm_12_course_outline_2013_-_version_1.doc