Students had two essays to read for class today. The first was a short essay titled “Beyond My Father’s Shadow” where a young man reflects on the life his father lived before becoming a parent and how the author’s own life compares to his father’s. Students were to find two passages that impacted them, write their reasoning for choosing those two passages, and then have a partner respond with their own thoughts of those two passages. The final step was to respond once again, to the whole essay and it’s content, and reflect on your own thoughts about your parents and their influence / impact on the direction of your own life.
We then moved on to an essay titled “Back to Wolf Willow”, which is a reflective essay, meaning the author is looking back to the past, analyzing his memories, and coming to understand how it measures up to the actual reality. Students were given “Before, During and After” questions to respond to individually.
They will soon have a larger assignment of writing their own reflective essay.
There were two periods of class today for the Grade twelves.
They began by discussing briefly the questions left over from yesterday’s reading of “The Lonely Land”. We then discussed whether a study of Canada’s natural land was necessary for Canadians. This will continue in an upcoming assignment for them.
Students watched a video about Grey Owl, a Englishman who moved to Canada and created a false identity as an Aboriginal man who gained notariety for his environmental beliefs, a new philosophy in his era.
Students read, individually, the excerpt from Grey Owl’s own writting called “Jelly Roll and Me.” They had to read invididually and do the questions attached.
Once finished responding to the four questions, students were to read the very short essay titled “The Mysterious North”. Once finished that, they were to choose one of two questions to reflect on and write a personal response, in paragraph form, and post it on the blog for today’s date. (We didn’t get as far as this but will continue tomorrow.)
Two questions were posed, after reading the recent resources regarding Canada’s natural landscape:
“Is it important to appreciate and protect the natural world of Canada? Explain why or why not.”
“Of what value / importance is the North to Canada?”
We took the last ten minutes of class to view the entries / winners of the Fall Fair that are set up in the gym for tonight.
Students continued their storytelling today. I shared with them, in the quiet darkness of the locker room we sat in, the story of my tortured night trying to get home to my townhouse in Australia. I was alone, a foreigner, lost after dark and feared the same fate as three other young girls who had been snatched from the city, were murdered, and left in the Australian outback. We got pretty involved in the story!
They also collaborated with me to assess their effort on the project. They had four marks set aside for their own self-assessment so they have a part in assigning whatever mark their work receives. Some students did a most impressive job of creating chilling stories. Well done!
We continued from where we had left off on Friday. Khalen had just added a great comment at the end of class about the possible outcome of the poem/song “My Hometown” by Bruce Springsteen. For the most part, many people believe the author drives his son around his hometown for a last look before moving on to somewhere more prosperous, but Khalen noticed that perhaps the author wanted his son to have that same hometown and decided to stay to raise him son in the same way he’d been raised. We had a good discussion looking for strong clues as to the real outcome of the story.
I shared with the students a bit about how your childhood is always a constant measure of where you’ve come from, how far you’ve come in life. We then read the poem “Home Street” where the author discusses that line from which you measure your adult accomplishments. He used the metaphor of his home street being the equator from which he travelled. How far he has come from that dividing line is measurable through his metaphor.
We moved on to the next poem, “(I Remember), Back Home” and looked for the happy and unhappy memories to create a list and discussed the attached questions.
Students took a little trip down to the elementary end of the school and wandered through their old Kindergarten classroom. We talked about the boundary they may have felt existed when they were that young. As young kids, often times there is a physical limit to how far away from the “front step” we are comfortable going. Being in that room was a helpful reminder of how far they’ve come from grade school and also how intimidating a place the school was at the time.
When we returned, the kids have the assignment of creating either a drawing or a map of their childhood, a special place where they spent time as a child, and they have to be as detailed as possible in representing how they “remember” this place to be. The assignment is due on Friday: /3 details of drawing, /3 descriptive labels of what is included in the drawing and what memories it represents, 3 a reflective journal response (handwritten if you like) attached to the back discussing what they recall of their own childhood boundaries and what they were. (9 possible marks)
Students came prepared to share their creative ghost stories they had worked on over the weekend. We gathered upstairs in the girl’s locker room with the stairway and room completely dark. We had nothing but a small votive candle to guide our way. I started off by sharing a spooky ghost story about the tunnels in the basement of the school and then students took turns telling their ghastly tales. Some did a fantastic job of adding very detailed parts to their story for emphasis.
We didn’t get through them all so tomorrow we will continue again with the storytelling, however everyone had to hand in the work they had completed today for marks. Anything not submitted today will have 5 marks removed for being late.
We continued once again with the poem “The Provinces” that we had just started at the end of last class. We wrote on the board the descriptive words the author used to bring the characteristic / personality out in the provinces mentioned.
The ultimate question the author asked was whether there was a unified Canada and if so what was the thing that brought it together.
Next we looked at the poem “The Lonely Land” whose author found beauty in two seemingly opposite scenes of Canada’s landscape. His lasting thought was of the strength of Canada’s natural territory and how it can be broken against or by itself but remains strong. We will finish the questions tomorrow and then move on.
invididually and do the questions attached.