Well, it was a decent start to the Poetry unit today.
I got to read a few poems to start off the class, including the one in the video above. I also got to read a poem by Antonio Machado, too. I got through the German in the video rather well, but my Spanish wasn't good at all.
I did show how to read a poem while using the Writer's Almanac website, too.
Here are the poems we did yesterday and today. I also got the due dates posted on here and on the wall in the classroom.
I'm hoping that everyone is getting themselves ready for the in-class essay writing on Monday and Tuesday.
I'm hoping that everyone is getting themselves ready for the in-class essay writing on Monday and Tuesday.
I'm hoping that everyone is getting themselves ready for the in-class essay writing on Monday and Tuesday.
I wonder if I repeat that .... that it'll happen.
In any case, today was the last day in the library for helping people with their CA preparation. Monday we are back in the portable and going to be writing the final CA essay in class.
I'm hoping that everyone is getting themselves ready for the in-class essay writing on Monday and Tuesday.
We were back in the library ... and working along on the "research" part of the essays that we are going to write on Monday and Tuesday.
Should be downright epic.
I did get a number of links for this CA. I posted them here for all to see with code names. If, by the way, you don't like your own code name, let me know. Mr Pink is still available.
At least we were able to get through Chapter 11 and into Chapter 12.
We are going to finish the book, either tomorrow or Monday. Tomorrow is a Mass day, so the schedule is a little off. I did have it up in class so that students could see the different starting times of the different classes.
We also chatted about the CA for this course, the days remianing and the exam days.
We had Batman in as a guest reader today ... not really, it was me, just with a bit of a throat issue. Not sure if it's a cold, but it certainly made my throat sound like
In any case, we are almost done the novel. We got to the start of Chapter 11 in the novel. We got questions 16, 17, 20, 23 and 25 for homework.
I also confirmed that my students got the Theme Study and Character sketch sheets, too.
Monday ... well, I'm not sure exactly what happened, but I didn't update this blog.
Well, we've been reading quite a bit. We got to page 126 in the cool teacher textbook. That's a fair amount of reading done.
Tuesday was a bit slow of a reading, as my throat wasn't quite agreeing with me that reading should be done. Ah well, I showed it who was boss ... um, sort of.
We also got the short quiz done on A Separate Peace part one. We need to work on being patient and quiet during those quizzes.
I also showed the outline of the dates and what we are going to be doing when for the culminating activity. I should be able to get it to my students by the end of the week. Need one more proofreading session.
Speaking of which, I let people know about the dates for the Culminating Activity for this course. In any case, I did get word that the CA will consist of an essay. I do have them, but I also asked my students to use their electronic devices to write them into their own calendar apps. We'll work on it together in class during those days I asked the students to input into their own devices.
I'll post the dates later on, too, loyal non-student readers. Although you might ask and see if our students did, in fact, input the dates for themselves.
Right. For the current unit, we read to page 71 in the teacher version and the 78 in the blue version. We also made mention of the name of the river in class, called "The Pooky Bear" river. An inside joke there, sorry.
We also commented on the "life is over" idea that people have for Phineas. It warmed my heart to have some of my students reference Wheelchair Sports, even the Invictus Games as places where people with physical disabilities can excel.
today we got reading ... we finished Chapter 4 in the novel.
"it's ok to be jealous of your friends ..." line was discussed. I gave an example from my own life with a university buddy of mine, Dr. Geordie Rose. He was a teammate of mine back at McMaster in the early 90's and has gone on to do fairly well for himself.
At one point in time, we were asked about what we thought about what a game of Blitzball might look like. I did have a few suggestions:
I won't lie, it was a tough slog through A Separate Peace today.
We made it to page 19 in my copy of the book but that's complicated by the fact that we have three different versions of the text. We did get into chapter 2, though.
And we also got questions 1-5 for work for tomorrow. I will post due dates tomorrow, too.
And ... I found a bunch of work int he "to be returned" box at the front of the class and returned it today. Weird, no one was looking in it.... hashtag all good.
Just to keep people in the loop, this is what the teacher is reading:
We handed stuff in today - the essay on Othello was due. I also got some Othello part II questions as well.
After that, we had a discussion about the Pathways Presentation that went on during period two. I'm always a strong proponent that there are always many pathways to success.
After a bit of that, we got into the new unit, A Separate Peace.
During the reading, we heard about this and I said that I would post a pic of the northern lights on Jupiter:
Had all students write the quiz ... it was hashtag awesome.
I did get in fewer than all the assignments in, which was sad...
Ah well, we did some talking about the essay writing process and I spoke about what I saw from the class as a whole the last time we did essay writing.
We'll be talking more about the use of summary v analysis, starting sentences with the word "Because", and run on sentences in the near future. I really, completely and wholly support my students taking a peek at the book Elements of Style by Shrunk and White.
After that we did watch about 20 minutes of Coriolanus, a film for comparing Othello and the title character as an essay topic.
We did some work on the character sketches and some work on the essay.
I did show my copy of Nicolo Machiavelli's The Prince to the class and talked a little about it, as a part of the essay study we are doing. I also mentioned Harold Bloom's tome "Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human", too. Both are just incredible resources for students.
So, we had a nice short visit by Anna in class today. She presented on the class project on Samaritan's Purse Canada that we were asked to do before November 18th.
The list above is what we put together from the list of ideas from the small brochure that came with the box.
We then went back to working on our Othello Character Sketches and a bit of the essay work, too.
Well, we finished the film version of Othello. Now we do the script/text version and get through to Thursday. For homework for tonight, we got 20-25 on the Unit Outline.
So many people away on Friday, we changed the due date a day earlier. Needed to.
We will finish Othello this week and get on to essay writing and the next unit soon.
So today we almost finished our play, as we had an extra long class. Or perhaps it was just that it seemed extra long.
In any case, we got 15, 16, 17 and 18 for questions for Monday.
We also saw the due date for Part Two of Othello, which will be Nov 18th. We will finish Othello on Monday and get moving onto the "extra" part of the unit then.
We took up homework, we poked fun at people who were away .... and walked right up to the teacher, asking him what we did yesterday ... at which point in time the teacher kinda cried a little and pointed to the web address of this blog, pinned up on the wall in the room ...
Then, we took up the homework from yesterday, watched/talked about the scenes in the play and chatted a bit about possible interesting essay topics for this unit.
We did take a peek at updated marks for the students as well.
We also tried to take a peek at this, but I was interrupted....
Shhhhhh .... shhhh ...... shhhh ...... shhhh...... It's like I'm at the beach somedays in class....
We got most of the things I wanted to get to today - I do have a mark for each student and wanted to conference with each today, but that just didn't happen. Never fear, we will get to that tomorrow.
We got through Act 2 scene 3 today. I reminded students of the Nov 10th due date today, too.
That was one of the scenes that the actor Michael Maloney has done with Kenneth Branaugh over the years. He is also playing Rodirigo in 1995 version of Othello that we were watching today in class.
Another look for young Michael ... he starts at 2:18 of this video:
In any case, we got to watch a fair amount of the film today, getting to the fight scene between Cassio and Rodirigo.
We also got the due dates for Part One of Othello.
Not that I want to clog up this blog post with videos ... but I forgot about this one until today.
So ... there was a still a number away today. I'm honestly hoping you are keeping up with your courses, including this one.
Today we did a fair amount of work together on the Theme and Terms Study for Othello.
We did also have an example of student work from a quiz. We took a look at the structure of a level four answer from a quiz that was done recently. It was a very good dissection and discussion of what worked and what did not work.
We also did a couple of fun things - on "How to use your phone for things other than social media" or "How to use your phone as a tool, not a toy". I showed students a few apps I use - Learn Swift, Polar Beat, ICE and At Bat to name just a few.
Learn Swift is an app designed to help people learn how to put together their own apps for the iPhone. Sky View Free is an astronomy app that shows the constellations, the planets and other interstellar phenomena. Polar Beat is an app that can monitor your heart rate as you exercise, as long as you have the heart rate monitor chest strap. (A student asked me; I have the H7 Polar HR Monitor). At Bat is an app that let me watch major league baseball games off of my cell phone with a monthly fee. I watched most of the Blue Jay 2016 season either on my phone or on my Apple TV at home.
The ICE app is not shown but is a way of letting EMT personnel make a phone call off of your phone, just in case you can't speak to them in an emergency.
After we finished with the projected material, we got to watch a scene from Othello - when Othello is accused of stealing Desdemona away from her family. It's the scene that uses "Anthropophagi" - my favourite word from this text.
We did also discuss the ideas behind this video I found online from the British Arts Council:
One other thing I said I would post for this class was this:
We stopped and started it a few times, especially when we got to talk about how we were going to be doing the play.
I'll add a few more handouts for the Study of Drama type ideas later on in the unit, thanks to the discussion.
We also got a chance to do the terms - Setting, Conflicts and point of view for Othello. We got to discuss two of the themes, too: "Gender", "Blindness v sight", and touched very briefly on the idea that "Heroes can't fall in love". The last one we didn't get a chance to talk about was "Jealousy". We'll get to that one soon.
The other video I wanted to see was this one, but as it was a weird day, my timing for the class was off and it didn't happen:
So we did some one on ones today - giving back essays, updating and discussing some things owed to the teacher for class and some even did quizzes for me.
Preparation for midterm marks being entered this weekend/Friday-ish.
Then we had a light discussion of the Theme/Terms study we need to get started in the next few days.
Actual picture from class today. Well, not really.
Later on, I was playing with an online voice recorder. Might have to get you to click here and listen to see if it worked.
Yeah, I didn't. I was in a costume as were more than a few of my students.
But, I have a different idea about today. I'm all for wearing costumes that are appropriate, and we had those in class. However, I'm also about getting the work done when at work.
I'm sure the grown-ups reading this blog would tend to agree that even if you are at work in a costume, you are still at work. When at work, do the work.
Can't say it was perfect, as the projector just wasn't bright enough. At least I think my students and myself are bright enough ..... ;) What was really cool was that I had both my cell phone and my laptop hooked up to the projector and went almost seamlessly between the two. What a time to be alive!
Tomorrow, I'll see if I can book a brighter projector out of somewhere.
We got questions 1, 2 and 3 from Act 1 for homework, too.
You will have to excuse the late update for today ... it's been a wild few hours for this humble teacher.
All is now good and little ones are finally asleep.
Right ... well, we finished Renaissance Man film study yesterday ... I took a few in today, but I'll be asking for them on Monday.
We started off the day right where we left off with an introduction to Othello power point. We also watched a trailer for the film Coriolanus, too:
Whoa.
We finished that and did a bit of two film versions of the play. We first watched a CBC version and then watched the Brannagh/Fishburne version. Both had some interesting ideas for the class to discuss.
As an aside, I noticed in Period Four when I hooked my laptop up to another projector that the projector I have in Portable 14 is more than a little dim. I may see what I can do about that moving forward.
The first half of the class, I gave everyone a chance to work on the material due tomorrow. During that time I was able to conference with everyone about their marks and what they had not yet handed in.
I have a few more to go, as a few were away today.
The second half of the class we continued working on Renaissance Man, the film with Danny Devito.
Lots of people away from class for various school events .... I hope you enjoyed the time away from school to recharge and let get yourself get involved in different ways!
We started by poking around on this course blog and taking a peek at some of the links for Othello, our next unit.
Then we got the assignment for Renaissance Man (I'll have copies for the missing people in class on Monday) and we got started on it.
At the end of class, we took a peek at a few minutes of this video, too:
Yeah. The OSSLT was "on" today. Not really, but we worked it out by the end of Period One. For Period Three, we continued to watch the film "Renaissance Man".
We also did some quick notes on a powerpoint presentation on "Shots and Angles."
So ... we did some "helping" today - at least I asked if anyone needed help with the questions as assigned, the Terms / Theme study sheet, the vocabulary 26-50 or even the character sketches today.
All was good, evidently.
Then we had some time to work together. As we were working together, I mentioned a few apps that you could use to learn. I've used Udemy, but another one I hear good things about is Swift.
After that, we did a soft start of the Othello Unit by watching a great film "Renaissance Man". Of course, I didn't give my students the assignment to go with this film, as tomorrow is the OSSLC.
And since Mark Walhberg is in the film, I would be remiss to not show my students just how Markie Mark got his start in The Industry:
Monday we took a peek at the material that is due Oct 25th; the terms/Theme study and the character sketches. We also took a look at the questions that should be kept up to date as we go through the novel.
Then we read to page 229 ... getting close to the end of the book!
Man, I nearly wrote "Monday" in the Post title here ... eeps!
Today was a weird one. We talked about the CA/FA/ISU for the course (we decided we are going to call it the "Final Assessment", by the way).
We also talked about what's going to happen Monday/Tuesday next week. We talked about due dates and we talked about the next unit beginning by the end of next week.
I'm interested to see what people will say about this link. ;)
In case, we read until Holden gets to speak to Mr. Antolini in Chapter 23. He mentioned a few things while he was there. The first thing that he mentioned was Holden dancing the tango with his sister. We mentioned this video clip while in class:
Still later, we also brought up the name Richard Kinsella, a boy in Holden's Oral Composition class. I did mention this book and film, too:
So today we read the text until page 191, long enough for the main character to share his idea about his possible career options.
Not that there is anything wrong with his ideas ... but I'm not sure just how viable they are. Not too many kids these days playing without adult supervision.
So today ... today we met Carl Luce at the Wicker Bar on 54th. Yeah, click on that link, it's at least interesting to read.
I also put the link on the right-hand side of the blog - the link takes you to the tour of New York City as mentioned in the novel. Go for it. Enrichment activity stuff.
We read to the end of Chapter 22 in the text and then talked about the various terms and themes in the novel. On the sheet labelled "Theme study" there are four themes mentioned. Before the next due date, make sure you polish those ideas up and get them ready to hand in.
Just as a heads up, we are going to be doing Othello next, probably starting by about this time next week. We had to finish reading the novel and get some Mini-Projects done and done.
When talking about "Alienation" we talked about two of these characters.
Today's roundup is brought to you by the rock band Rush, and the lead singer Geddy Lee:
Top left hand of the screen is rock legend, Geddy Lee
We chatted about the homework I gave last night which was the terms for the novel. We talked about the Themes of the novel, but just need to get the others ready for tomorrow.
Today we read to the end of chapter 17 - a great read.
We need to have the following ready for tomorrow, by the way:
1) Questions as assigned 1-10
2) Vocab 1-25
3) "the terms" - see handout given out today in class.
So we read a bit more today, getting to page 136 in the novel. Which is pretty cool, I must admit.
During the reading, the play Romeo and Juliet was discussed and it seems the version I recommend is on Netflix at the moment. Interesting. Go watch it.
As a group, we discussed the Setting, Internal Conflict and External Conflict of the novel. In addition, we also talked about the Point of View of the novel, too.
Incidentally, I mentioned a possible essay topic when we discussed the Conflicts in this novel. That Holden was both the Protagonist AND the antagonist of the novel echoed another novel with Tyler Durdan and Jack as the major characters.
In any case ... here is a version of "Little Shirley Beans":
This is going to be an extremely brief update, as my laptop is almost out of power.
We read and discussed the novel as well as the plan for the week. I also put the idea out there of an essay topic comparing Ferris Bueller to Holden. We read until page 199 today.
We also discussed the due dates for things in class.
