Monday Oct ...I forget what day it was ...

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.

So we read the first scene from the online text of the play and we watched it.

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.

Friday Oct 28

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.

Thursday Oct 27

We finished the film Renaissance Man.

What. A. Movie.

We did get about half way through a session introducing the next thing we are going to do - Othello.

He's a fine fellow.

We'll finish it tomorrow.

We also had the mini projects due today, too. I'm fairly happy with the percentage of in on time.

If you are up for it, here's another feature length film that may help for the Unit....

Wednesday Oct 26

So ... we almost finished Renaissance Man today. I think we have like 10 minutes left in the film.

We saw an amazing speech today, too. We saw this one:

And we also heard about this television show ... the name of which came from Henry V's speech in his play .... it's Band of Brothers ....

Tues Oct 25

I'm still not getting the whole "wait until I get my list so I can tick each student off" thing when due dates come by.

I'll have to check in with my students tomorrow.

In any case, I now have a big pile of marking to do ! (Wahoo!)

After we did the quiz, we got the Othello Unit and we also got to watch a bit more of Renaissance Man.

Monday Oct 24

Today was a day of halves.

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.

What. A. Film.

Friday Oct 21

Today was a weird day, too.

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:


Shakespearience In School Experience from Shakespearience on Vimeo.

Thursday Oct 20

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."

Not quite. Check the spelling.

Wednesday Oct 19

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:

                 

Tuesday Oct 18

We finished the book.

We were assigned the mini Projects today. I will post the due dates tomorrow.

We got time in class to work on stuff ... but it wasn't really .... yeah.

Here is the 'Comic book version of Catcher in the Rye":

Monday Oct 13

Sorry for the late update - it is a weird week.

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!

Friday Oct 14

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.

FYI, we are doing Othello by William Shakespeare. I'll get some links up on this blog soon. Pinky swear.

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:

Thursday Oct 13

Character sketches.

That is all we worked on today. See the list from the handout given out in class.

Character sketches.

That is all.

Wednesday Oct 12

Viable career option? 

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.

Got 14 and 19 and 20 for homework!

Tuesday Oct 11

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.

Thursday October 6

So ... stuff was due today.

And we did a short quiz.

And then we read .... until page 158. At least I think that's it.

All good.

Wedneday Oct 5

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.

Tuesday Oct 4

This is Holden's Breakfast from Chapter 15

I saw this breakfast here.

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":

Monday October 3

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.

This is my dad. Not really.