October
6
ELA 20: Oct 6 Blog experimenting…
- We started out today in the classroom. I handed out to students their next assignment which is a “Should’ve Been” poem assignment. They have to write a five-stanza poem that carefully describes a particular role (child, ballerina, sports athlete, etc) as being perfect in so many ways but in the final stanza reveal that the individual in that role is actually very flawed and imperfect. It’s a pretty powerful type of poem when done correctly.
- I showed them copies of two poems written by previous students who did a great job of highlighting all the perfections and still surprising readers with their “reality” endings. (Ironically, both of these girls are living in Europe as Eu Pairs and live close enough to see each other all the time!)
- After discussing the poem assignment, we ventured to the pc lab for another stab at our blogs. Students were able to access their created blogs much more easily today and followed through the steps carefully as I showed them how to write a post (such as the one you’re reading right now) and also the more technically challenging things like adding a link to a different web page and embedding a video. Today was merely practice; whatever they wrote in their blogs was meant to understand the blog site and features with little emphasis on the reflective process to start. It will come much easier with time and practice!!
- I also shared with them their mark on Friday’s mid-unit exam. Some of them surprised themselves with marks higher than they were expecting while others fell quite short of their potential. We’re into October, now, so the honeymoon period of summer holidays and slowly getting into “school mode” is long gone. You have to carefully consider all assignments and exams and take them seriously to be as successful as possible in this course!!