Tuesday May 31

Had a good chuckle early this morning, thanks to a returning student. Seems she kept up to date with what we were doing in class thanks to the blog. The funny bit was the promised to mention the blog to my boss and make us both look good!



(this is an actual photo of me...;))

In any case, we finished off Animal Farm today, went through the characters for the novella, and added at least one link to the Links you can Use to Pass the Class on the right. And I just got the email from the library telling me that they finally got the film version for it in for me. Awesome timing....NOT

I did let everyone take some time to get their homework ready for me tomorrow. (Tomorrow is June 1... let's say that again ... tomorrow is the start of June...

that is just such an awesomely incredible thing to be able to type ... it only happens once a year... tomorrow is the start of June...

In any case, we got it done. Updated the questions that are due, too. See pic at right. Tomorrow, we'll start 1984, which will be way cool. My mom said so.

And we'll be taking a look at this, too...

Monday May 30

OK, whoa, today. Whoosh! Went by in a flash! I proofread a few essays that are due on Wednesday (see DUE DATES on the right...

We read till the end of Chapter 9 in Animal Farm, and assigned some of the questions, too. See the which ones were assigned, check the pic at right, too.

Right, building our discussions, we mentioned a few books that were banned, I also mentioned Tony Robbins:



Isn't he awesome?

Anyway, we also mentioned Jello Biafra very, very briefly... as someone who getting banned for his music all the time.

Finally, there were a few people awed by the idea of the presentation about Dragon Dictation. The iTunes link is here, the BlackBerry link is here ... and the youtube video on how to use it is here:

Thursday May 26

So yesterday ... we looked at this:


which is the basic way to think about essay writing... ;)

We also really got into Animal Farm, finishing up to Chapter Four. Then we got to do some of the presentations in class. That was good.

Wed May 25

So .. what did we do today.

Well, first the good news: the date for the essay has changed to June 1.

The bad news is that the Journal is due today. And we had a unit test today. We also did some of the presentations. (link to Oakville Toastmasters is here, by the way) And we started Animal Farm.

The twisted part is that during the unit test, I realized I didn't have enough copies of the text, so I downloaded the iBook version to read and also found the Project Gutenberg version (.99 cents and free, respectively) The link on right is to the PG free version online.

I also said that I would post the rubric for the essay. Here it is:

Marking Rubric


Introduction           
General Sentence                    /5
               
2-3 elaboration sentences
               
thesis statements               



Organized paragraphs       
strong topic sentences                    /10
       
smooth transitions
               
strong concluding sentences
 
              


Arguments/Ideas/content
logical development           
evidence to support thesis                /10
   
           
restate thesis                        /5
               
offer final insight



And so ... I started to write the "Thinking on Paper" that I think you should do, too. I got this done in front of you, and will make better notes (and may post them tomorrow).



Finally, I took this really cool pic while you characters were writing the test:

Tuesday May 24

Web Quest Shut up and Sing and Fahrenheit 451

1)Go to the Wikipedia pages for the films. After reading the descriptions of these two pieces of literature, can you give your opinion on whether the Wikipedia entries are accurate. Check three of the links in blue at the bottom of the page to “make sure”...

(FYI - make sure you read the “Reception” part of the F451 entry about the job the dual role actor did while filming)

2) Speculate as to why we would be including these two pieces of literature in a course when we also study 1984. You should go and check the Wikipedia entry for this novel as well:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four

3) What does the term “dystopia” mean, anyway? Can you give me another example, say
one from real life?

4)“Mindless entertainment would replace recreational free thinking.” With reference to the film Fahrenheit 451, and maybe SUAS, can you provide evidence for this statement?

5)Create a chart with the titles of the films on the top, and “Film’s opinion of free speech”, “Government’s opinion of free speech” and “How the lead characters resisted” on the left side. Complete the chart.

Day 4

So ... "what did we do today..."

Man, that is so irritating. ;)

In any case, we finished off Digital Nation - the link is still on the other blog post below. We took up the questions for "Did you know" and read a bit of Frankenstein.

Man, I love that book. There is also quite a few apps for that, too. Like this one...

We finished off today with using a bit of the SmartBoard: we used it to check out some of the links on the list for the presentation (Task 2) for this unit, which start May 26th. See the links, as well as the due dates, on the right of the screen.

Finally, we got to see a bit of a preview of Tuesday's work: a film called Fahrenheit 451...



Have a safe and wonderful weekend...

Welcome to day 3!

OK, yesterday we did two stories, "Shut up and Sing" with the Dixie Chicks, and "Flying Machine" by Ray Bradbury.

Both were pretty gosh darn cool. Questions and terms for both are due May 25th, man. Due dates are right next to this one.

Today, though, we are looking at two videos, just to confuse and irritate people. (You are welcome for that, by the way ... ;)) The first one is a YouTube video by Karl Fisch:



and the other is a video from FrontLine, called "Digital Nation"

May 17

So today was the first day of class ... and we did talked about some pretty cool stuff.

We read the story "The Fun they Had", by Iassac Assimov and we read the speech "Perils of Indifference" by Eli Wiesel.

Pretty interesting, no?

In any case, during the Speech, I mentioned a few things, one of which was this scene in Band of Brothers, a television series on HBO a few years ago:



Pretty interesting, no?

Right, we had some discussion about how to care, how to not be indifferent in our culture after that.

Hope it was as cool for you, man - things are off to a great start.

Finally, check out the due dates for the first unit, they are on the right side of the screen!

See you Wednesday!

Right. Let's start

If you are reading this in class, well ... you really should pay attention to waht the teacher is sayin'.

Just sayin'.

It would be in your own best interest to bookmark this blog and make sure you know what is here, as there will be material on here to help you get through this 4C English course..

Just sayin'....