Friday and Monday May 29

So today we continued with the Blended Learning Unit.

A good number of students got a D2L email today (that is an email inside the D2L system) about needing to catch up on BLU A3 and A4.

Lots of people were ok with taking today and working on parts of this unit, but we really do need to move forward.

I've set the deadlines for the BLU as May 30th at 9am.

Thursday May 25

Today was the first day of the next unit - the Blended Learning Unit.  I will post the due dates for the various assignments shortly.

I had all students try to log in here at the eLearning site for HCDSB.

I do have logins and I can reset passwords if needed.

I am introducing the eLearning idea slowly and with luck will see my students start to understand that a cell phone can be a powerful learning tool ... instead of a toy.

Wednesday May 24

The last day of the CA

We are done the Culminating Activity for this course.

Done.

Tuesday May 23

Today was the second to last day for the CA

Almost done!

Thursday May 17

Keep working on your Section Two of the Culminating Activity, please. Due dates are on the wall.

No material should leave the portable at any time.

If you are "done" Section Two, go back and complete the material from the Poetry Unit.

It's a manatee. Because.

Wed May 17

So .. we did a few things today:

We worked on the Proposal Sheet for the CA; if that was done my students worked on watching their films or Section Two of the CA.

I also did one on one conferences about the Poetry Unit we just finished. I'll update the marks ASAP.

Tuesday May 16

So today was the final official day for poetry.

Not a lot of things coming in, I'm afraid. I'll get the marking sheets back for tomorrow.

We moved forward on the Culminating Activity today - I posted the due dates for the various sections of this on the board in the room and I'll make sure the dates go up on the blog, too.

I took a peek at the Proposal Sheets and the Section Two sheets that were out to students and back in to me by the end of the period. A reminder: read the instructions and take your time! We also did a quick powerpoint as a reminder about Shots and Angles in films.

I did try and have a bit of fun in the class but had to go stop to manage some behaviour. Kind of a drag, really.

Ah well, I also let students see that they needed to also log in to the D2L system and complete the first tiny assignment of the Blended Learning Unit (BLU) in the Discussion tab.

Monday May 15

Today we started two things:

The first was a very easy exercise to see if people could log in to the D2L learning system. We will not be using it for the culminating activity, I was just trying to see if my students were savvy enough to get themselves on.

Some were not able to log in, some were able to log in. By the end of the week, we will make that 100%.

We also selected our films for Culminating Activity today, too.

I had a few interesting choices, but everyone present got a film and did a good job of taking the first step and getting the CA started.

Friday May 12

Ansel Adams took this picture.

We finished off today with a few great poems.

First, we read the daily poem from The Writer's Almanac. I had to google who Ansel Adams was, and show some of his work to the class.

We also showed off the list of topics for the culminating activity, which we are going to start on Monday.  I asked students to pick three films for Monday, as each student gets their own topic and people won't be working on the same film.

Don't worry if you weren't there, here's the list:

Thursday May 11

Song of Songs 4 1-8

I also showed students how to get to the eLearning site for this class. I'm going to be using it after the Culminating Activity unit.

So today was ... a day that I tried to keep my students on the cheery side of poetry, but they insisted on "going dark" in their readings.

we did a "Blazon" - a type of poetry where a poet describes someone using flattering terms. We used Song of Songs 4:1-8 as an example. The image at the top of this post is my humble version of the same poem.

We also took a look at William Shakespeare's Sonnet 130, working our way through the definition of it, too.

Finally, I showed this video without the sound for people to admire a few of the limericks of Edward Lear. I did a major project on him as a younger person, and he's someone I like to use in order to lighten the mood on days like to today:

We did get this one for homework:

Wed May 10

We continued with our Poetry Unit. We got the poem "Teachers" by M. Brown.

We also listened to students reciting poems today. That was awesome. Everyone knows they have to read twice before the end of Friday's class.

Onwards!

Tuesday May 9

I tried to do a bit of history today, and we took a listen to this:

I found the lyrics to the song here. Read them, they will not disappoint.

We also had a German and then an English version of this poem

And then the Spanish version of this poem.

For homework, we got assigned this poem (this brings the list of poems to 8 - see list on right-hand side of the blog for the complete list)

Monday May 8, something for Tuesday

Monday May 8

We got caught up on our homework today.

I did return a fair amount of work to the students from the last unit, too.

We studied this poem for homework today:

and here is a reading of the same poem:





I also promised I would post this rugby game and point out the commentator's use of English. I recommend going to minute 40 of this game and listen. It's awesome.

Friday May 5

So I'm coaching rugby today ... or should be.

I'm leaving this class a bit open, but it should still be completed.

I will put this Double Entry chart as a .pdf file here and on the right-hand side of the blog.

Here are the  two poems I'd like you to complete for homework. Yes, you can also keep working on your POET presentation and find your poems to present next week.

This unit stops on May 12th.

We will be doing our culminating activity after that.

Here is the first poem for homework:

Here is the second poem for homework

Thursday May 4

So, we set up and did the first "average day" for the Poetry Unit today. It's going to go like this:

1) poems that students need to read for their Task Two Presentations - reading a short poem/showing an MP4 recording to the teacher / etc. The teacher is also going to read poems, too. Here is an example from another class: YooUUuutbe link.

2) We are then going to take up the homework. For tomorrow we were assigned "The Big Saw" by Milton Acorn, for example.

3) We are then going to do "New Poems" for homework. 

4) then some time will be given in class to get the homework done, or to work on Task Two or Three Presentations.

5) At the same time, the teacher is going to check in with students, making sure they are on task and checking in for assignments owing and projects yet to be completed.

In any case, here is the poem we did for today:

this is by Milton Acorn

Tuesday and Wednesday May 3

We are handing in the ATTWN mini projects .... still ...

We also moved on to Poetry. I thought ... I thought I wrote this and posted it the other day. Meh, the technology gremlins ate my post.

Here is the first poem I did for Poetry:



 And the lyrics are here.

I mentioned a number of things about mental health to start off the class today, and people began to ask about "To be or not to be". I try to end a poetry unit with Shakespeare, but I guess this time around, we started with the end. All good.




 We then got into our poetry for homework:

I will also post the due dates for this unit too.

We also talked about these poems:

The second poem is by Muhammad Ali

Monday May 1

We tried to use today's class to get our ATTWN Mini projects done. We tried.

So, we moved on to the next unit, a very short one, on Poetry.

Now, I have a very broad definition of poetry. Please see the link below for a performance of a great Canadian poet doing his thing.

We'll be studying poetry, reading poetry and presenting poetry for the next two weeks. Watch this space for helpful links and due dates!

It'll be a great way to get your marks up, at least that is the plan.





 Also just remembered to find the "words" to this poem by Christian Bok. Here is the link.