Monday June 19

Tuesday June 13

We got to the cool part of the story - Malcolm X's second transformation. He also worked with Muhammad Ali, leading up to this fight in 1964 against Sonny Liston.

What. A. Bout.

Right, we read to the second page of Chapter 11 where he starts talking about his Hajj. It was also interesting to see the shift in the point of view of the GN and we'll see how it changes in the film as well.

I posted Question Set Five inside the D2L, too.

Monday June 12

I do have mark updates for everyone - I did think that I spoke to everyone on Friday about their marks, but I may have missed people.

If so, let me know and we can sit and chat about the marks I have for you.

Today we tried to keep it relaxed in class and we watched the film. We have just over an hour left in the film. It should be all good for finishing the film by Friday.

I did get a number of people asking about the remaining days in school - we will be working on Malcolm X until the end of the semester. It's what we have left to do in our box of things to do for this course.

We will be reading tomorrow (Tuesday) and working through the novel for the rest of the week. Question Sets will continue to be posted online, too.

The expectation is that if you are away, that you check in to the D2L site at some point in time, too.

Malcolm X as Malcolm X

Thursday and Friday June 9

We continued our study of Malcolm X. We read to page 70 or so.

I did post question set 4 on the D2L site, too.

And ... I'd like some Discussion going on the two Discussion ideas in the Discussion area of the D2L, too.

All of this is getting "marked" and included in the final mark for this course - our study of Malcolm X counts!

On Friday, we also talked about a few films, the links to the IMDB pages will be on the right-hand side in the Malcolm X links.

Don't forget to get a plan together for this summer - get some volunteer hours done of you don't plan on taking a summer school course or working!

Ok, woo!

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday June 7

These three days we worked on the Malcolm X unit.

We've read to page 53 in the text and gotten up to Question Set (QS) 3 made available in the D2L system.

I've also opened up three topics in the Discussion area as well. I'll have to remind my students that all of these will be used in the course evaluation, too.

I don't see the point in working on something, handing out assignments and then not assessing them for the course.

On to Thursday!

Friday June 2

A Friday in June.
A nice sunny Friday in June.
Half of the class missing.

Are these things related? Dunno.

We continued our online study of Malcolm X, we read until page 35.

I did add another topic to the Discussion part of the course - I already set up a Discussion about the value of reading a Graphic Novel in the class. The second Discussion is the setting of this piece of literature.

OK, well, it's Friday ... a sunny Friday in June. Be safe and I'll see you on Monday.

Wednesday and Thursday June 1

We got to June.

Oh, isn't that a great sentence to write ... I'm going to type that one again.

We got to June. Today is June the first. It is the first of June today.

Wow.

We worked in our D2L coursework. We got things assigned and ... students did them.

It's June.

Tuesday May 30

Wow. Just wow.

So many things conspired against us today. But at least we got done what we needed to get done.

We wrote the Ontario Comprehension Assessment, part 2 today. It's going to help us get ready for next year and the OSSLT.

I also extended the deadline for the Malcolm X webquest on the D2L system by a day.

There is always more Malcolm X.

Friday and Monday May 29

We've been working on the Webquest for Malcolm X these days.

I did let everyone know that if I'm away, or the door is locked, someone should go to the VP's office to let them know that something is up.

In any case, the Dropbox for the Webquest will close today.

Thursday May 25

This was the first day ... first official day of the Blended Learning Unit on Malcolm X, the graphic novel.

I put up a webquest and asked that students watch at least one video and comment on it.

There was a total of three questions to answer before moving on to the first question set for this unit. We'll get to them tomorrow as well.

Onwards!

Wednesday May 24

Last day of Culminating Activity.... ahhhh

Done. Done. and Done.

On to our next unit!

Tuesday May 23

We are almost done the CA

Tomorrow is the last day!

Thursday May 18

Today is Day 4 of the Culminating Activity

No work should leave the portable.

Don't forget to complete Appendix A before you leave - it will be with the rest of your material that the teacher will hand out and collect at the end of the period.

If you are "Done", go back and complete any material you missed from the Blended Learning Unit.

Wed May 17

This was officially Day 3 of the CA.

Woo !

Tuesday May 16

We finally finished off the film Coach Carter today - whew! man, that film seemed to go on and on!

We finished up Appendix B and C together, just to make sure everyone had something in those boxes, as I handed out the Newspaper Article assignment -I believe is Appendix D.

I'm sure a student will remind me ...

In any case, we did some work together, reminding ourselves about writing articles that we've done in previous units.

We also took a good look at reflecting on what we are doing in class with a bit of a checklist on Appendix A.

In any case, I do have the due dates for the Culminating, I'll post them tomorrow.

Onwards!

Monday May 15

We worked our way through to very near the end of the Coach Carter film today.

We also took notes on the film and made sure we understood what was happening through discussion and note taking.

And note taking.

On to tomorrow!

Thursday and Friday May 12

We continued our efforts to watch the film Coach Carter. We have about an hour left in the film. We worked a little on our rough notes, too.

Tuesday and Wednesday May 10

We did the last bit of the BLU today - responding to the "BLU Wrap Up" email.

I'm still not quite getting why this is difficult, but I have to move along to the next thing.

The next thing, as repeatedly announced in class, is the Culminating Activity for the course.

We started it by watching a very poorly lit/projected version on Netflix.

Meh, I will get a better projector tomorrow. Pinky swear.

What we saw in class today, sadly.

Monday May 8

Class today

This was our class today - stuck in the 1900's ... the EARLY 1900's. I'm going to break out the chalk and horses soon.

Seriously, we worked on the BLU for the course. I'm hoping that things will go better tomorrow, which is our last day for the Blended Learning Unit.

Keep on eLearning!

Friday May 5th

We continued work on the BLU - the Blended Learning Unit.

I did work with two or three people today on the various tasks. I got one young person almost all the way through the unit in one 75 minute period.

I still have three people not yet logged in. I have more than a few without even the first assignment completed.

We will continue this on Monday - my students can, of course, keep working on the unit over the weekend.

;)


via GIPHY

Thursday May 4

So we continued work on the Blended Learning Unit (BLU) today.

There are still a few that haven't been able to log in yet. We'll have to catch up in the next few days.

Speaking of which, I had to set a deadline for this unit of Tuesday, May 9th. We should be done the postings and submissions by then, please.

Tuesday and Wednesday May 3

So, I thought I had a post yesterday. I'm guessing the technology gremlins ate it.

We'll keep going

Today was a short class, as today we followed the Mass Schedule.

We worked on our Blended Learning Unit ... our "BLU" for short.

I tried to get people logged in and working on the D2L Brightspace Learning Management System, there are a few out there that just can't seem to get in.

Others, of course, are way ahead.

It's all good.

Monday May 1

That ... was a very quick April.

And now onto May - one of my favourite months, to be frank.

We are just finishing up the unit on Eye of the Dragon. The next unit we are going to be working on is going to be online/blended.

I'm going to go with more of a blended way of teaching this unit, as a fully online unit wouldn't be in the best interests of my students. So, what I'm aiming to do is get my students started in online learning. A short video to get them going is here.

Thursday April 26

So today we did the character sketches as a group. If you weren't here, you can come on Monday and we'll work together to get them done. An e-copy of the assignment is here.

I also got a new student today. I had to have them do something to catch up to the class. I put their assignment here.

Of course, if you are a student that has been in my class for at least three weeks, you've already done a similar thing and don't have to repeat it.

Please recall that stuff is due on Tuesday. We are handing stuff in on Tuesday. And a quiz, too.

All is good.

Wednesday April 26

Right. We finished the novel!

Ahhhhhhhhh!

Well, we got the following questions for homework:

We also mentioned this in class, a very famous picture from Canadian history. It was discussed while a similar moment happened in the novel - heavily armed people confronting each other while under a great deal of stress.

Tuesday April 25

My classroom today .... not really, but close

So, yeah. Lots away. I'm hoping that my students will check this blog and make sure they know what we did while they were away today, doing stuff.

In any case, we read to the end of Chapter 133 and got these questions for homework:

Monday April 24

Not sure what happened to Friday's post. I'll have to look into that.

In any case, we read to the end of Chapter 114. Yes, that is really the sentence that needed to be written. We had four questions for homework from those chapters.

We'll keep reading until we can read no more.

Thursday April 20

We had a nice day today in class.

We read to the end of Chapter 101 and then stopped. We got the questions for 94-98 and number 3 for 99-102.

Then, I showed people their marks in one on ones.

Tuesday and Wednesday April 19

Happy Easter everyone!

We did have a class yesterday, but I didn't get a chance to post anything.

We've now read to page 290 in the book. We've also set the last due date for this unit - May 3.

Thursday April 13

We did our quiz yesterday ...

And today we did some stuff. Not very much stuff as it was only a half hour class, thanks to the Liturgy schedule

We are without any homework, as it IS Easter.

Please be safe and we'll see you on Tuesday!

Tuesday April 11

So ... it's the last day before stuff is due.

And my students are getting frantic, sort of. I want to see better habits forming in my students. I'll work harder to see what we can do together.

Here are all the questions that are due tomorrow:

And don't forget the Theme Study sheet as well.

Today we worked on that theme study sheet and read to page 243.

Then we got some time to work on stuff that is due tomorrow.

Monday April 10

Today we read to page 231 ... and got three questions for homework.

We wanted to get the idea of what a loom looks like: here is a link to one. And also during the reading, we had a reference to ZZ Top, the band. Here is a link to one of their songs.

We also took up the first side of the Theme Study sheet. It was the side with "Setting and Internal conflict", too.

We then talked a little about the Culminating Activity / Final Assessment. We need to think about what software we want to use. We took a peak at the list of Ministry licenced software on the OSAPAC site. The link is here.

On with tomorrow!

Friday April 7

Again, nothing spectacular happened in class yet today. We have about ten minutes left in class as I'm writing this update and I'm hoping nothing happens in those minutes either.

We showed up, we got to work and we were good at it.

We read to page 214 in the novel and got two handouts from the teacher. The first one was the next set of questions and the other was the Theme Study sheet.

I have extra copies in the room for Monday.

In any case, I also got the due date up in the class and I'll post it here, too:

Thursday April 6

So .. today we had another day where nothing much exciting happened.

We took up the homework, we read the novel to page 199 and we had a chance to do the homework in class.

We also go Ch 55-59 #2 and 4 for homework.

Tomorrow we'll do the same, with any luck, get the Theme study started and get on into the weekend.

We also set the due date for Part 3 for EOTD for Wednesday April 12th.

Wednesday April 5

Today was nice and boring in my classroom and it was very much welcomed, to be frank.

We read to page 187 and got a few questions for homework.

I am noticing that a fair number of my students did not get a chance to write anything down today while we talked about yesterday's homework. I also got a chance to see the emails that were sent in for the Newspaper Article assignment. Some very good writers in my class.

We are on the next part of Eye of the Dragon tomorrow! It's starting to "get good" as they say ....

Tuesday April 4

Today ...we had a short quiz on Part 2 of the novel.

Very quick, too.

We had to hand in questions as assigned and a newspaper article.

In any case, we did a bit of reading until page 167.

We got a few questions for homework too.

On to Wednesday!

Monday April 3

Today we did a smidgen of reading - we got to page 160 in the text and then we did some work on the newspaper article assignment due tomorrow.

Some also spent the time working on the material due tomorrow as well.

In any case, we'll have a short quiz on Tuesday and then move on in the unit.

Thursday and Friday March 31

Thursday was the OSSLT .... very exciting ... not.

Friday we read to page 149, the end of Chapter 42. We got the following for homework, and ... well, here is the picture of the entire set of questions due on Tuesday, April 4th

I was also asked to put the link on this post for the Newspaper Article also due. There it is.

OK, well, I'm trying to be helpful but it's Friday.

Wednesday March 29

A nice easy day from the English teacher for my 2P students.

We read from the novel - we got to page 127 before stopping. I'm hoping that my students will take the time tonight, get a lot of water and a good night's sleep before the OSSLT tomorrow.

No homework on the novel - we'll catch up on that later. Next due date is April 4th.

Please ... sleep and water!

Oh, and check out this link. It's for stress relief.

Tuesday March 28

We did a fair amount of reading today - we got to the end of Chapter 29 in the text and got the questions to the end of Chapter 29, too.

I also gave some writing suggestions, too. We will follow up on those suggestions as we get closer to the CA for the course.

We should be reading the book tomorrow,  have the OSSLT on Thursday and get on with handing in things by April 4. If you check the due dates, stuff is due then, too.

Friday and Monday March 27

Man, I'm shaking my own head sometimes.

In any case, we've read to the end of Chapter 29 in the novel.

We did get all the questions:

We do need to get the character sketches done for ourselves.

ok, on we go for tomorrow!

Thursday March 23

Here is the link for the Newspaper Article for Eye of the Dragon.

Wed March 22

Man, I have to apologise ... keeping this blog up to date has been a real benefit to support the learning of my students in this class.

I will do better.

In this class, we continue to read Eye of the Dragon. We got to the end of Chapter 23 today. I will get a picture of the list of questions for the class up on this blog tomorrow.

In any case, I will do better - keep up your hard work.

I also did show all present students an actual mark in class today or yesterday. Of course, I had a number of assignments without a name on them, and so I will get these marks updated before too long.

Thursday and Friday March 3

I am sorry for not posting yesterday.

It was nice and boring in Period One both days. We read the book, we talked about the homework and chatted about Stephen King and his writing.

Educational and a bit of fun. Creepy, too. Eye of the Dragon, like most of Mr. King's writing, is starting off nice and slow. He is setting up the pieces of the story for later on in the book.

We've gotten to Page 39 and got the following questions for homework so far:

Please be safe this weekend and we'll see you on Monday!

Wed March 1

Well, it's Ash Wednesday, so we ran a Mass Day Schedule today, making Period One a very short one.

We got the Unit outline for The Eye of the Dragon. I'm going to wait to post the .pdf file as a link until someone ... there is always that someone ... asks me for another paper copy. I'll provide one paper copy to each of my wonderful students, but any second copy is going to be digital.

We read the book until our time ran out, about ten minutes. We got to page 9 in the text. I'll post the due dates tomorrow!

Tuesday Feb 28

Today was a day that I demonstrated my flexibility. We were supposed to start a unit on Malcolm X, but I got to the book room there were no more copies to borrow. So .... we're going to start Eye of the Dragon by Steven King.

We got a webquest to start. Basically an exercise in 21C learning to activate prior knowledge and to expand knowledge about the author. Here it is, as I had to do this on the projector

Everything will be awesome- the webquest you can email or hand in on paper (how odd that is for a teacher to see in 2017, by the way .... ) as it will be marked.

The rubric was on the screen today, and will be on the screen tomorrow.

Monday Feb 27

So ... I'm back!

We took today to take a peek at the Task Three presentation today.

We will start Malcolm X tomorrow!

Woo!

Tuesday Feb 21

I love long weekends. Hope you enjoyed yours!

Kind of a catch up day: some people wrote their quiz, others took time to get their paragraphs handed in and mostly everyone started with presentation research. 

Remember to sign up for your presentation on the paper at the back of the room. 

We won't have class again until Thursday, which half of it will be to given to working on your presentations while the other half will be our Malcolm X intro. 

Thursday Feb 16

Today we conferenced and then conferenced some more. Lots of great ideas and paragraph writing happening. Looking forward to reading them on Tuesday.