Lesson 19

 

Students handed in their venn diagrams from last class.

We took a break from regular class work, and watched two pieces of popular illustrated fiction. Both of these pieces directly reference the work we began the year with. After watching, we discussed:

• The ways in which conversations change over time - both in content - and in form of expression
• How allusions to the same work - within different works - may operate very differently
• Whether or not there is any merit in accessing a cannon of texts, in order to have access to a greater common cultural conversation 

Lesson 18

 As a class, we briefly discussed what makes a complete sentence, along with sentence fragments and run-on sentences.

Students then did a sheet on "Words often Confused." - They are expected to ensure that the more common examples on said sheet are memorized.

We then finished the story "The Metaphor," and students began work on a venn diagram for Miss Hancock and Charlotte's mother.

HMWRK: The Venn diagram can be done on any paper by those who were absent. In the centre (overlapping section of the circles) students should write down the commonalities between the two women - differences in the side sections. *****NB - include page numbers and brief quotations for particular traits/roles etc. DUE AT THE START OF NEXT BLOCK

Lesson 17

Most blocks skipped reading, due to the shortened day.

We discussed points of improvement for future writing, and students were able to hear some examples of thorough answers.

Students took a look at their own question sets, before handing them back in (students are welcome to come to tutorials to walk through points for improvement - and will receive their work again when beginning  their next piece of writing)

Students shared their family metaphors.

We read quite a bit of "The Metaphor" together.

HMWRK - Review the text, and Ensure you have read up to the start of the first full paragraph on page 74, which begins with "perhaps." Have a great long weekend!

Lesson 16

 

 Students read their personal novels for a short stretch.

We listened to "Ironic" by Alanis Morisette, and set about discussing what really was ironic about the song (students need to do more analytical work with their stories, and better support claims about literary devices with evidence from the text at hand).

We went through the vocabulary from our last class together.

We talked a bit more about the 6pt scale, and what students should be aiming for in the class.

We read the first few pages of "The Metaphor," but stopped halfway down page 67.

Hmwrk - List all of the people in your family - write a metaphor for each one. You can write thematically connected metaphors (as in an extended metaphor, into which they all fit), or a separate one for each of them. Don't forget yourself!

Lesson 15

 

Students worked through their themes in groups, and then we critiqued the statements as a class.

The block that did not have an earthquake drill also had the opportunity to discuss characterization (direct/indirect - as per our conversation last class) and to pull quotations that reflected one of the two possible forms.

Groups of students received 3 vocabulary words, and set about writing a definition, and using the word in a sentence to  illustrate its meaning.

Next class, we will begin a new story.