January 9

ELA 9 Indendent Novel Reading – Initial Observations

Everyone’s picked a new novel they’re going to read on their own, but good readers think about the writing as they progress through a book. It’s important to consider certain questions at the beginning of a book; it helps establish a deeper Image result for beginning a new book quoteunderstanding of the complex plot the author developed and helps you make connections to the rest of the text as you read along.

Activity:
After you’ve read enough of the beginning of your book (maybe 20 – 40 pages), pause a moment to consider some of the following prompts. You don’t have to answer all of them and shouldn’t respond with a Question-Answer format. Just journal your thoughts as they come together.

Prompts to consider from the beginning development of your book:

  • The setting is a super important part of a book’s beginning. Whether a series of events happens in the past, the present or the future, the possible outcomes depend on when in time the events happen. Where it is happening, that you understand the surroundings, the locations the main character goes back and forth from, and where they are in relation to others around them, these are also all parts of the setting to consider. Some authors may develop this really clearly at the beginning while others maybe don’t pay enough attention to it. How is the development of setting affecting the way you are reacting to the book? 
  • Main character development – We usually have to be able to relate to a character if we want to follow them along through their experiences. Even if they have very different qualities than you, you often can find similarities with them from the ideas they have, the way they treat people, the hopes they have, their background etc. How are you connecting with your novel’s main character? 
  • What about the author’s style of writing do you like, so far? Or what about it do you not like, so far? It can be how they use dialogue. It can be whether personality shows through in descriptions of how characters act around others. It can be how they divide the chapters; some of the most popular books have chapters that end with a bang and entice readers to keep reading! Some authors may use sentences that are too long. Others may use some that are too choppy.
  • Establishing the problem: Every story is about a character in a situation they don’t want to be in. The rest of the story is about their attempt to solve their situation and the distractions that get in their way. If an author develops the beginning of a book for too long, though, without identifying the problem, a reader may lose interest and feel the pace is dragging. An author may fail to create a believable problem, oversell the danger and not deliver with an exciting story to follow. With what you’ve read so far, a) are you aware of the conflict the main character wants to solve and b) is it an interesting problem/does it make for a good story in your opinion?

 

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December 6

ELA 9: Dec 6 Writing/Speaking Challenges

We’ve played a bit with some creative activities. Here is a collection of some Speaking and Writing Challenges to choose from to experiment a bit more.

Speaking Challenges:

Narrate/Record the letter addressed to Inspiration.

Narrate/Record this break-up letter addressed to KFC staff.

Voice Acting Challenge: Record this Gollum-like character who is utterly useless

 

 

Writing Challenges:

Write about the worst customer service experience you ever had.

Write a poem about how nasty Poison Ivy is.

Write a completely fake bio of yourself. (reinvent your life)

Write a Dear Diary entry as a dog.

Finish this sentence: “Nothing makes me more uncomfortable than…”

Write a story in 140 characters (letters)

Write an exchange between comical/bitter rivals

 

 

Visualizing Challenge:

Create a meme out of this cat image

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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November 30

ELA A10: Quest and Journey Stories

Your next section focuses on the theme of Challenges and what greater challenge story exists other than Quest stories? You probably have read stories or novels that include a quest story and it may

Image result for how to read literature like a professor for kids

be the elements of it that draws you to these story types.

The following short text will give you an explanation of what a Quest Story must include to be a true quest. Take notes on your handout so that you may assess the short story you eventually pick to guage whether it is really a quest story or not.

B7 How to Read Literature Like a Prof – Quests-23t2h03

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November 2

ELA A10 Essay Prompts for Individual Novel Reading 2017

Almost all of you have selected a novel to read that interests you personally. Some of your choices are more related to the Mystery theme of the first half of ELA A10 and other c

Image result for young adult novel reading

hoices are novels related to the Challenges theme for the second half of our course. Either way, there are a number of essay prompts for you to select from so that you may consider them and watch to collect evidence to support the essay prompt while you’re reading your novel.

You’ll want to look for examples in the book that support the topic of your essay and collect those examples by page number and possibly even which phrases specifically on that page you’ll use in your supporting paragraph.

There are a number of prompts; you can pick the same one that a friend has selected, because no two people (so far) are reading the same novels.

 

Mystery Essay Prompts to pick from:

  1. Science fiction books often warn society of the potential dangers or misuses of science and/or technology development in the future. Analyze three ways your selected novel accomplishes this.
  2. Identify and analyze three significant themes of the novel you read.
  3. Analyze three characteristics of your novel choice that make it fit the science fiction (sci-fi) genre.
  4. Dystopian societies are futuristic, potential societies that exist with different government, power, and value systems. Example: The society of Panem from The Hunger Games. Analyze how your novel choice also develops this type of alternative society.
  5. The development of conflict and dramatic rise to a climax is an important part of good mystery novels. Analyze the three main events that promote or establish the drama of the plot.
  6. Authors often develop characters with a bias, ensuring readers will either like or not like the character as intended. Analyze how the author of your novel uses this writing technique with three significant characters.
  7. Antagonists stand in the way of the protagonist achieving their goal. Analyze three ways your book’s antagonist accomplishes this.

Challenges Essay Prompts to pick from:

  1. Analyze three ways characters face the obstacles they are struggling with.
  2. Analyze three types of conflict that exists/is represented in the novel.
  3. Identify and analyze the role of secondary characters and how they impact the plot/outcome of the story.
  4. Dynamic characters develop internally/mentally/emotionally. Identify/analyze three characters that grow because of certain experiences they have in the book.
  5. Some relationships are positive influences, while others are negative and destructive. Analyze three relationships in the book for whether they are positive or negative ones.
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September 13

ELA A30 Section A3 – Scandals of the Past (Immigration)

Some students are about to start section A3 in the course, which recognizes all the accomplishments and successes of Canada’s past that we are well versed on, but this section also puts a magnifying glass over scandals in our history that people can go a lifetime not knowing about.

Like that British subjects once arrived on our West Coast by boat and had every right to enter Canada, which was a British dominion. However, the country at that time didn’t want “brown people”, so new laws were created specifically to keep them out. Canada, the Canadian government and its leader at the time, Stephen Harper, had to make an apology to this community of Canadians for their mistreatment in our history.

Immigration is a huge hot topic right now, not just for Canada, but world-wide.

The following poem has become quite popular to express what it’s like to be the immigrant fleeing home.

 

No one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark

/

Poem by poet Warsan Shire:

img_0058
no one leaves home unless
home is the mouth of a shark
you only run for the border
when you see the whole city running as well

your neighbors running faster than you
breath bloody in their throats
the boy you went to school with
who kissed you dizzy behind the old tin factory
is holding a gun bigger than his body
you only leave home
when home won’t let you stay.

no one leaves home unless home chases you
fire under feet
hot blood in your belly
it’s not something you ever thought of doing
until the blade burnt threats into
your neck
and even then you carried the anthem under
your breath
only tearing up your passport in an airport toilets
sobbing as each mouthful of paper
made it clear that you wouldn’t be going back.

you have to understand,
that no one puts their children in a boat
unless the water is safer than the land
no one burns their palms
under trains
beneath carriages
no one spends days and nights in the stomach of a truck
feeding on newspaper unless the miles travelled
means something more than journey.
no one crawls under fences
no one wants to be beaten
pitied

no one chooses refugee camps
or strip searches where your
body is left aching
or prison,
because prison is safer
than a city of fire
and one prison guard
in the night
is better than a truckload
of men who look like your father
no one could take it
no one could stomach it
no one skin would be tough enough

the
go home blacks
refugees
dirty immigrants
asylum seekers
sucking our country dry
niggers with their hands out
they smell strange
savage
messed up their country and now they want
to mess ours up
how do the words
the dirty looks
roll off your backs
maybe because the blow is softer
than a limb torn off

or the words are more tender
than fourteen men between
your legs
or the insults are easier
to swallow
than rubble
than bone
than your child body
in pieces.
i want to go home,
but home is the mouth of a shark
home is the barrel of the gun
and no one would leave home
unless home chased you to the shore
unless home told you
to quicken your legs
leave your clothes behind
crawl through the desert
wade through the oceans
drown
save
be hunger
beg
forget pride
your survival is more important

no one leaves home until home is a sweaty voice in your ear
saying-
leave,
run away from me now
i dont know what i’ve become
but i know that anywhere
is safer than here

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June 8

ELA B10 Starting Macbeth – the Scottish play!

To begin our look at Macbeth, we considered the possible influences for our choices:

  1. Fault: we make our own decisions, exert free will, so we alone are responsible for successes or failures
  2. Fate: timing of events/sequencing can be all it takes to set up a circumstance that leads to our downfall – could it be just coincidence or destiny that leads us to success or failure?
  3. Influence: people that surround us has differing levels of influence on us. Those who are more persuasive can be quite impacting, so could it be less our success/failure and more someone else’s at times?

To start the play, it’s helpful to have a basic overview of what the play is about and who the players are. This summary cartoon does a great job of that. Watch up to about six minutes in. That leaves the ending/tragedies that unfold still to be discovered as we read/perform the play.

 

 

There’s also the continued conspiracy theory that Shakespeare isn’t the sole author of all he’s credited for writing. An interesting film/documentary was made looking into that possibility.

 

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June 2

June 2 Social 9: Individual Research Project – Imperialism of Past Civilizations

You’ve been earning points as Teams, so far, but in this Project you’ll work Individually and be able to earn points yourself. You will still work with your Team and share ideas for research methods, how to take good notes or what format to use to share what you’ve learned with your Teammates. The points you earn, though, will be yours individually.

For your Research Project:

  • gather/develop notes, collect maps, images, diagrams etc to help with your explanation of your findings
  • make sure you write things out in your own words – cutting and pasting what you don’t understand is a waste of your time
  • use dictionaries or Google search words you aren’t familiar with to help you understand
  • use a variety of sources for your research:
    • the first few sites from a Google search aren’t necessarily the best ones for you
    • you can also search through YouTube videos to gather information
    • sometimes with your search you can add “PPT”, “PDF”, or “Textbook” and find different sources to help you

As a Team, you will divide up the Six Civilizations to be researched, so that each is covered by a member of your Team. When the research time is finished, you will teach your peers about the Imperialism of your two selected Civilizations and time period.

  • Understanding your audience is your own classmates should help you understand how to develop your notes and information
  • Civilizations to be studied: one member from your Team must research two of the following civilizations. For the groups with Four Teammates, you will have some overlap, but you will all still do the research and notetaking individually. Example: Team Coke might divide them as follows – Cole (Rome/Spain), Eve (Macedonia/France), Olivia (England/Mongolia), Kaylin (Spain/Macedonia)
    • The quality and degree of thoroughness of your collected information and ability to make it understandable to your peers will play a large role in how many points you individually may acquire through this project.Image result for imperialism
    • The Civilizations to select from are:
      • Rome
      • Spain
      • Macedonia
      • England
      • France
      • Mongolia

Research Guiding Questions:

  1. Define the following terms in a way that you are able to understand them:
    1. Worldview of a Civilization
    2. Imperialism
    3. Colonization
    4. Assimilation
    5. Paternalism
  2. What is the difference between Imperialism and Colonization, or is there a difference?
  3. With Imperialism examples of the past in general,
    1. what were the reasons for it?
    2. what methods were used?
  4. What are some of the Pros (benefits) and Cons (negatives) you can recognize of Imperialism?
  5. What is the difference between Assimilation and Paternalism? In your opinion, which was a better method to use when going through Imperialism expansion of territories?
  6. Research/gather information specifically of two of the civilizations listed above. (Remember that all six civilizations must be covered collectively by your team. You’ll have to discuss and decide who will do which one.)
    For each civilization you’ve selected, identify the following:

    1. What was the Worldview or perspective of that civilization that led to its Imperialism expansion?
    2. What triggered or led up to the Imperialism? What were the factors that caused it to happen in that civilization and at that time?
    3. What methods were used for their Imperialism? How did they go about it and how successful were they?
    4. What were the ultimate results of your civilization’s Imperialism?
    5. What Pros and Cons can you identify of that civilization’s Imperialism history?
      Remember: You’ll each gather information for all five questions for BOTH your Civilizations. 
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