1. Students came in to find a “game plan” on the board and work on their desks. Not every day do I ask them to do work entirely independent of the class and friends, but today was one of those days. Yesterday, we read a somewhat dry essay that talked about the Saskatchewan perspective or voice in Canadian literature. The overall purpose or message of the writing was to pass along to those from other areas the insecurity a man can come to feel when considering his place in his environment. The vastness of the land around him, the absolute presence of the sky above him, and everything that is in between can impress upon someone searching a feeling of smallness. This was part of the message of the essay the students read. 
2. Today, they had to answer six questions regarding that essay. Then, they had another essay to read (written more in story-like fashion) and answer six similar questions. Once completed, they were to look for ways the two essays were similar (6 examples) and ways each essay was specifically unique from the other (6 examples from each essay). These things are all due tomorrow with no excuses. They had the duration of yesterday’s class, an approximate 50 minutes, so they should be able to have it completed.
3. Also, tomorrow, there will be a comma assignment / exam. Students were asked to remind themselves of the types of commas that we have recently discussed and studied and be prepared to use that knowledge for this exam.

1. I was confused and forgot that we had not finished watching the movie for the novel we have just finished studying. We pulled the DVD out again and students began watching again the movie. It will be continuing tomorrow. 
2. The TKAM essays will be due on Thursday. 

1. Students had two periods of class today. For the first, they continued working on their Marginalized Creative Writing Assignment and the challenge was put to them to incorporate some sense of foreshadowing or symbolism into their writing. 
2. In the second period, we began discussing, again, the notion that this course and its literature are broken up into these sub-units but the larger picture is that there are two concepts to consider here: The diverse Nature of Canada and the Voices (and experiences) of the people within it. Any and all pieces of literature that we have or will study can be interchanged into any of the sub units that apply to them. For their exam, they will not be asked to discuss in-depth Marginalized voices but they may be asked a question about voices and the marginalized voice will be one that they could discuss with the others.  
3. In line with this, I asked students to cross out all the literature from our Marginalized voices sub-unit except “The Komagata Muru Incident”. The reason for this is that the other literature are listed in other courses on the resource list. I shared these pieces of writing with the class to help them formulate better their concept of what Marginalized means, but they will only be able to refer directly to the play about the Komagata Muru. (They have a lot of literature they can reference, so this shouldn’t back anyone into a corner or leave them with a disability.) 
4. We read this essay that discussed and analyzed a lot of writing by Canadian authors about Saskatchewan residents, specifically. It was a long and somewhat tough piece of literature to discuss when we were all so tired and worn out from the weekend, but we compromised by ending our reading before the end but with each student contributing an answer to share what benefit this piece of literature may have to their comprehension of the unit. 
5. Their creative writing assignment is due next Tuesday. 
6. Today was also my last Monday with the Grade twelves. Miss Campbell will be returning to school next week! She will be continuing with the class from there. 

1. We began class with a discussion about moving forward with a positive, faith-filled attitude despite physical limitations. I shared a story of a young woman named Jennifer Gabrysh who recently had a diving injury and broke her neck to become paralyzed from the neck down. She has little control of her body. She is beautiful. According to our societal perceptions of beauty, this girl is beautiful. However, she now lays in a hospital bed, when she’s not in a wheel chair, and people come by to say hi and keep her company, they get their pictures taken with her, and it seems, from the pictures on her website, that things are going great. This will not always be the case. Eventually, her body’s muscle tone will deteriorate and her body will begin deforming because of the mobility, as much as physical therapists will try to counteract it. She is keeping a positive and faithful spirit about her, but her life is going to be extremely limited from this point forward. How do you stay positive when you are facing a lifetime knowing you will only ever have your mind, not your body, to control. It would take a pretty courageous person. 
2. We began reading a story about a man born in Ireland during the Depression. He was deprived of oxygen during birth and had Cerebral Palsy, but at the time it was undiagnosed or a disease that little was known about. He existed in his family’s home but as a dog or disabled child no one spoke of or paid much attention to. Somehow, though, he made a step forward to begin communicating, which eventually led to great writing skill, as he is the author of the story we are reading. It is a pretty deep topic, especially for a chilly, early Monday morning after a seriously eventful weekend, but the kids did great in participating in our discussion. 

Click here to Jennifer’s facebook page.

1. Students were given back the exam they wrote yesterday to see how they did. They could not keep them, though, because one student has yet to write his.
2. We got back into the discussion we began the other day about our unit on Challenges. We looked at definitions within the essay and then read it carefully together. Afterwards, we considered some questions and students discussed the concept of man vs nature and how you could determine who won. If nature’s elements end up killing the man, does that mean that nature won, even though the man Chose (by his human quality of charity and self-sacrifice) to give his life to another person (by continuing to give away the rope)? 
3. I shared with the kids my own personal fears of physical limitations, but then left them with a video of the extreme: the deaf-blind. They were quite intrigued by the video and drawn into the idea of how difficult life could actually be for some people. 

1. Students came early to class, sat and were writing their exam even before the bell to start class rang. Their essay was just long enough that everyone managed to write comfortably without rushing or feeling they were cut off. 
2. A fun incident happened when Eric asked if I could read his writing, and upon returning to his seat, someone asked him what he was asking about so Eric held up his exam paper for them to look at to see what his question was in reference to. He didn’t realize, until I hinted slightly, that he was actually showing his answers to the other person, though that wasn’t the reason they were looking. Eric was slightly embarrassed as his classmates gave him a fun razzing. I’m glad there is such a light-hearted but inclusive mood in this class. They’re great students and I feel very fortunate to be able to share this time with them. 

    Notice the pointing finger that Brady was more than willing to offer?  Brandon seems pretty involved there too. lol At least they’re having fun… writing an exam! 

1. We began the class by quickly discussing a few of the left-over questions. Students were asked to come to school having already chosen which dynamic character they wanted to write about and the three ways that individual evolved throughout the novel. We looked at an example of the essay they will soon be writing, written by a former student two years ago. Students were impressed and challenged by the writer’s last line and are interested in writing something as intruiging. 
2. While discussing the do’s and don’t’s of this essay assignment, a few random people happened to come upon our class and were invited to share their wisdom with the Gr 11s. Lindsey informed them of the importance of the opening statement “catching the reader’s attention”. She also shared a few examples of catchy openings with them. Paul and Brandon came by to discuss what should be in a concluding paragraph, and Reid and Brian joined the class to share with them the Three Don’ts in writing a Literary Essay. (See the video below to watch their presentation… lol) 
3. This essay will be due a week from tomorrow with the rest of this week to work on their writing, with possibly one class for viewing. (I anticipate few people in attendance on Friday when we have two classes together.)
4. Because the boys will be gone for Provincial Playoffs on Friday, the novel study exam must be on Thursday. It will be entirely multiple choice and I don’t anticipate anyone struggling with it too much.

   Brian and Reid tutor the Grade elevens on the elements of a literary essay.

commas1.ppt

1. We read, for the third time, the poem “What I Remember of the Evacuation”. We discussed the questions and focused on the use of so many ‘and’ words giving the poem a perspective of a young girl speaking. We also looked at the negatives of what she “heard” that were separated from the rest of the poem by the brackets around it. 
2. We also read the poem by the same author titled “Woodticks”. It is a very moving poem that effectively relays the woman’s remembrances that are so close to the surface.
3. Students will be writing a creative writing piece with a major focus on their correct comma usage. To review commas, we looked through an eight step power-point presentation that gave examples of the correct usage. (click on the power point above) 
4. We won’t be having class again until Thursday and will continue with the writing assignment then. 

1. The students were to write an exam today on their novel study and the movie The Village. Many students said they were unaware of an exam today and I could have been more clear in making sure they were all fully aware so I postponed the exam to tomorrow. Today we began the second unit of A10.
2. We began with a quick game of charades. It was challenging, for some, to find a way to act out their topic. The topics were all phobias, as well, which tied nicely in with the discussion that followed. Our unit is about Challenges and   Fears and how we face them. We had a bit of a discussion and then students individually had to respond on their handout to several personal questions, like giving an example of a challenge they faced or listing words to describe how they felt at the time of the challenge. We had a thorough discussion about the topic and then began reading an articled titled “The Man in the Water” but were disrupted by the bell. We will continue reading it tomorrow. 

See here for the link to the Gr 10’s charade video… A second video to watch…

1. Students began class by copying a bit of information from the board about the key parts of Chapter 25. The also copied down eleven possible themes that can be found in the novel and we discussed each and several examples of how they applied were given. This will be a potential exam question, to explain how any number of them apply to this novel study with examples given as evidence. 
2. We then moved on to a somewhat rushed discussion of a select few questions from the given chapter questions. Some of the questions we simply orally discussed while other questions we considered more thoroughly and students wrote their responses down. We have just a few to discuss at the beginning of tomorrow’s class and then students will begin writing their essay to complete this novel study. 
3. For homework, and in anticipation for their essay writing tomorrow, students had to choose one of the major characters, either Scout, Jem, Dill, or Boo, and show, citing evidence from the novel, how that particular character matured somehow within themselves throughout the novel. We will have a greater discussion of it tomorrow in class.