1. Because the majority of students were away playing golf this afternoon, myself included, the oral presentations were postponed. This was a fortunate turn of events for some students who admitted they weren’t prepared to present their poems. I hope they use this next evening to their advantage. I am looking forward to the presentation of these poems!!

1. We reviewed today some of the possible topics for their reflective essay. Some students were still a little unsure, believing that they just had to write about memories of their childhood and how they know different things as adults, like that it wasn’t a ghost they heard but a skunk instead. We’re looking more for a belief you had as a child that has changed as an adult; some sort of new realization of something in your past and only now do you recognize it’s impact on your life or the value of the experience.

   Examples former students used were memories of being held back in elementary school and how they have always felt insecure about school as a result of that. Another could be the memory of being bullied in elementary or middle school and coming to the self-realization that you yourself have been a bully to some. One girl got very personal and wrote about how she felt less valuable than other people she knew and didn’t feel like she got enough attention at home so she decided to start “cutting”, a self-mutilation act where people physically cause to themselves the emotional pain they may feel inside. Students don’t have to come up with anything as personal as any of these examples, but in these examples students found new realization or value in past experiences. That is the purpose of this assignment and it is one, I hope with all sincerity, that these students can find personal enjoyment and enlightenment from. Plus they get a mark. lol

2. Once we had corrected the direction some of the essay topics were going, we focused on the formulation of a good Thesis statement for their essay outline. We reviewed the main parts of an essay, as far as organization goes.
   1. Opening sentence: meant to catch the reader’s attention and maintain it.
   2. Thesis statement: must contain the three topics your essay will address, in the order they will be discussed. (We also talked about how you must order your three topics from the least valuable topic to the most. The emphasis at the end, hopefully, leads the reader to a really strong climax near the end of the essay.)
   3. Transition sentence: is not always necessary but, if done properly, shows maturity in your writing and control. This sentence is meant to smoothly transition from the thesis into the first topic paragraph.
   4. Topic sentences belong at the beginning of the first, second, and third body paragraphs. You want to make a statement that again catches the reader but, of foremost importance, your sentence must contain the topic of that paragraph.
   5. Closing statement: is your thesis statement reworded. You can list your three topics again, in the same order they were presented, or you can use one general sentence to nicely round your discussion of the topics off. It must bring the focus of the entire essay back to the reader’s mind.
3. Students spent the majority of the class working on rough draft writing and consulting with peers. This was the second of three writing periods they will use of class time. The essay will be due this coming Friday, typed.

1. Students started out the class by choosing a poem from several available on the table. All the poems were different and of equal difficulty. Students had to individually analyze the poem they had chosen and respond to several questions on a given handout. They did very well on their own and paid great attention to the task.
2. Once completed, they were to take the short story on the table and start reading silently.
3. They reminded each other that their “I am Canadian” poems are due tomorrow. Don’t forget the symbol / image to be drawn on the side of the poem.

1. Students were reminded they have to orally present poems tomorrow. They were asked to find a poem of at least 15 lines length that fit into our theme of “The Unknown”, memorize it, and come dressed the part to create the right mood. They seemed interested in the assignment and excited to find the right poem.
2. Today, we will be looking at more poems in their handout. The poems “Silver” and “The Listeners” are particularly nice poems. We will try to get through “The Legend of Qu’Appelle Valley” as well.

1. Many of the boys were absent today as they left for a weekend volleyball tournament. However, the ones in class had some great discussions relating to our theme of things Unknown. We read through two poems, “Six Blind Men of Hindostan” and “The Poltergeists” and went through the attached questions, answering them together. We read the second poem together aloud in choral reading and the students had fun with it, chanting it out like a scary tale.
2. We had a wonderful discussion, though, about individual beliefs that people have. Our beliefs are our most valuable thing we possess, and when confronted with someone of different beliefs, we sometimes get our back up and find ourselves in a defensive mode. This can happen in schools, just the same as outside of school. We discussed the idea of religion, the Creation Theory versus the Evolution Theory, the need for scientific thinkers to require ‘facts or evidence’ to convince them while faith believers understand facts and evidence to be contradictory to what faith requires. It was quite an open, personal discussion that everyone participated in and I appreciated their willingness and seeming comfort in sharing such individual thoughts as a group.
3. We will work on a few more poems for Monday and students were reminded they have to orally present a poem of at least fifteen lines length to their classmates on Tuesday for a mark. They have the details as they were all present yesterday when it was assigned. Check your sub-units for areas your poem may fall under.

Hope you had fun away at your tournament, boys!

1. Students had this class to work on their brainstorming and rough drafts of their body paragraphs. They have to find three memories or parts of their past that they would like to reflect on today, looking at the past with new eyes and the new insight they’ve gained with age. They worked very well, being considerate of their peers, and used their time well. We will use two more classes to construct this essay. Tuesday (our next class) we will look at fine tuning those paragraphs and constructing their thesis statements.
2. The drawing/map assignment of a familiar area of their childhood was due today.

1. Students discussed what they thought after reading the essay “Tundra”. It was easy enough to see who had read the essay as they would be able to answer a very obvious question. This piece of writing had very vivid writing, very poetic and full of imagery. Students each found one phrase that stood out to them and we recorded these on the board.
2. I shared with them a “found” poem I had put together with phrases directly quoted from the essay. I explained how I tried to maintain the author’s purpose in taking these pieces and putting them into a poem. The tone started out appreciative, moved into the mournful for the loss of this beauty, hopeful and ends with a warning note.
3. Students then read the “I am a Canadian” poem by Duke Redbird. This poem was the inspiration for the Molson Canadian “I am Canadian” rant that has become such a popular cultural item. We discussed how all the descriptions of what the author is are metaphors, things he directly compares to being Canadian. The students have to write their own “I am a Canadian” poem, typed, with a sketch or drawing of a symbol that is Canadian to them attached with the poem. I showed them examples of former students’ work. This poem will be due next Wednesday, as decided by the class.
4. Students worked on their poetry writing for the rest of the class except the last five or so minutes when I handed out a sheet and asked them if they could define what “Canadian Literature” is. What makes Canadian literature Canadian literature? We compared themes from American and British literature and discussed whether anything written before Canadian confederation could be considered Canadian as the country itself didn’t yet exist. There is no real definitive answer but it is something to consider when studying literature within the Canadian genre.
5. We had just started a discussion about the constant theme of “Survival” within Can lit. We will talk more about this.
6. Tuesday (the next class they have), the students will be doing a poetry analysis for marks. They will each be given a different poem to analyze, respond to questions, and search for figurative language examples. The focus here is their individual ability to consider literature (in this case poetry) and share their findings.

Here is an example of another’s student’s own “I am a Canadian” poem:

   

I am…

I am an inuksuk alone in the wind.

I am a sunset, precious-gem coloured.

I am a velvet seat of grasses.

I am the sunflowers turned up towards the sun.

I am singing sands in Newfoundland.

I am the ghosts of pier 21.

I am glaciers held between sky-scratching peaks.

I am Castle Butte.

I am a fortress, a citadel.

I am the fragrance of Butchart Gardens.

I am the roller coaster trail of Cape Breton.

I am ’22 Minutes’ and ‘Royal Canadian Air Farce’.

I am a Tower of Peace on a hill.

I am snow in the middle of July.

I am dancing Northern Lights.

I am the C.F.L.

I am the longest bridge over the shortest stretch of water.

I am the colours of fall.

I am the glowing heart in the anthem.

I am free health care.

I am four points on a compass.

I am collapsing elevators and decrepit barns.

I am the longest undefended border in the world.

I am vieux Quebec.

I am a mosaic of shapes, sounds and colours.

I am the past, present and future.

  

1. We’ve looked at a few stories and poems about mysterious things. Now, we’ll have a short little pool of poems to read together and analyze a bit more critically.
2. Students were given a handout regarding the steps to reading poetry and some of the common questions to consider when analyzing it.
3. Next, I read for them aloud a poem titled “Frankenstein” and they had to listen carefully to the story. Just before the end of the poem, at the climax of it, I asked students to predict the ending of the poem. We finished it and they wrote down their initial reaction on a question sheet provided. We discussed the rest of the questions, such as the tone or speaker, together as a group. The class did a great job of looking for figurative language in the poem and found some cleverly hidden ones. Good work!
4. We read another short poem, just for interest sake, written by J.R.R. Tolken titled Poems that was written as a riddle and, without the title to really clue the reader in, it may have been quite impossible to actually answer the riddle. It was a fun discussion.
5. We will continue with a few more poems but students were informed and reminded that their next assignment (highlighted on their resource list) is to orally present a poem. They are to find a poem of at least 15 lines in length that fits into our theme of “The Unknown” (we identified the sub-units to give more ideas of the types of genres that would be fitting), memorize it and present it dramatically for the class, using whatever props they can think to use, such as costume, a darkened room, music in the background or other such things. They will present their poems next Monday or Tuesday; we’ll see how tomorrow’s class goes to determine the due date.

1. We started the class with a review of what the essay is about so far and a reflection on the clues that show this is a ‘reflective essay’. We continued reading the essay together as students underlined or highlighted the phrases or sentences that stood out to them as being especially reflective. We discussed where the smell was  from that ultimately satisfied the author allowing him to trust more of his memories. It was from the wolf willow bushes.
2. We talked about the smells of a place that you may remember when you return after a long break. I shared with the students that as I walked north of the school yesterday, there was a distinct smell that came from around a small creek just a short walk away. We decided to walk out to this creek to see if it would trigger any memories for them. The only problem was that it was raining and basically we really only smelt the rain. However, it brought back memories of playing in the rain and, for one student, his thoughts were brought back to an area of the lake where the grass is especially tall and sharp to step on. He compared it in his mind to the other areas of the lake where he felt less confined and was able to enjoy a larger surrounding than the area where this sharp, prickly grass restricted him. That reflection was enough to make the walk worth the trouble.
3. We returned and I put on the overhead an example of a reflective essay that I wrote last year for my students. It gives another example of what it is like to write a reflective essay and different areas they could consider for themselves. The students have to write a reflective essay in the next few classes and today’s time was spent brainstorming and preparing for this. They’ll have several classes to work on this.

1. Yesterday, students viewed a biography on Grey Owl, the Englishman who posed, quite successfully, as a North American Aboriginal who became one of the most famous men world-wide at the time for his speeches on the need to preserve and protect Canada’s great environment. After reading a portion of his writing and another short essay titled “The Mysterious North”, students were asked to respond in a paragraph to one of two questions:
   1. Is it important for people to protect / appreciate the natural landscape of Canada?
   2. Of what value / importance is the North to Canada?
2. Once students have written a rough draft of their paragraph, checked it for grammar and spelling, they are asked to post their responses on the homework blog attached to today’s date (instead of yesterday’s). We will spend time in class looking carefully at how to do that. 
3. The evaluation mark for the paragraph writing will be worth 10 marks:
    /3                    personal content
   /2                     reference(s) to sources studied so far (indirect)
   /2                     paragraph form (topic sentence, supporting sentences, and summary sentence)
   /3                     grammar, sentence structure
4. Once finished, there is a short essay titled “Tundra” for students to read . It is written with very descriptive language and students were asked to highlight or underline 20 of these strong descriptive phrases. We will continue tomorrow.