On most days, Mister Stew will outline the daily course work in this area. Assignment and test due dates will be posted on the EVENTS page. As we all have lives, there may be days where he is unable to update this page, at which time you are expected to rely on the hard drive in your head.
Monday, January 4th onwards We finished Taming of the Shrew and are working on short stories and OSSLT practice.
Monday, December 14th We watched the beginning of Act 3 of Taming of the Shrew, up to the point where Petruchio declares Katherine his "property" and he drags her off to his cottage home. We handed in our Relationship Charts and some were chosen to hand in their questions from when I was away.
Wednesday, December 2nd - Tuesday, December 7th We have been reading and watching video clips of TAMING OF THE SHREW.
Tuesday, December 1st Today we had plans to go to the basketball game but few students were done their work and we were unable to go. We spent the period working on missing work and then read some of TAMING OF THE SHREW.
Wednesday, November 25th We began to talk about the differences between Shakespearean tragedies and comedies and watched the first 15 minutes of "Taming of the Shrew." He handed in our Shakespearan Translation worksheet and began to prepare for an Elizabethan Women quiz on Wednesday.
Tuesday, November 24th Poetry test.
Monday, November 23rdWe presented or handed in our WEIRD AL poems, began work on a SHAKESPEARE TRANSLATION EXERCISE and continued working on the WOMEN IN ELIZABETHAN TIMES article we received on Friday. Remember about tomorrow's test!
Wednesday, November 18th We learned about BALLADS and QUATRAINS, went over the test expectations, the culminating assignment due dates and started studying for our test by looking for examples of literary devices in our texts.
Tuesday, November 17th:We spent the period making FOUND POEMS. The test and culminating assignment due dates are now posted in the EVENTS section. Updated essay topics for the culminating unit are posted in DOWNLOADS.
Monday, November 16th: We read a poem by Jim Wong-Chu titled "equal opportunity" and worked on questions 1-4 on page 92. We started working on our Weird Al-styled parody poems, which are due on one week, on Monday, November 23rd.
Thursday, November 12th: Mister Stew told the class about a movie being filmed in Sudbury. Information is in the DOWNLOADS page. We worked on our Dead Poets Society assignment (due on Friday).
Wedneasday, November 13thWe did a lesson on adjectives. We presented our SENSE POEMS from Tuesday.
Tuesday, November 12thWe learned about SENSE POEMS, the use of ADJECTIVES in poetry and used photos to create our own sense poems.
Monday, November 9th: We finished watching Dead Poets Society. We read Walt Whitman's
Oh Captain! Oh Captain and Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "
How Do I Love Thee". If you missed the Lord of the Flies test your assigned makeup essay is listed in the Events section.
Thursday, November 5th to Friday November 6th: We continued watching Dead Poets Society.
Wednesday, November 4th: We did a lesson on NOUNS. If you missed it, get the note. We continued watching Dead Poets Society.
Tuesday, November 3rd: Mister Stew is away with the flu. Book work: page 14-15, questions 1,2,4 (draw their poem on a full sheet of paper); page 65-67, questions 1-5. Reminder: bookwork from any day the teacher is absent will be collected and marked when he returns.
Monday, November 2nd Mister Stew was away with the flu. Our culminating assignments will be collected when he returns. We were assigned; Book work:
page 10, 1-6 and page 13, 1, 2 and 4 (the "oral presentation" is only about a minute long)
Friday, October 30th We handed in our RHYMING COUPLETS and started watching DEAD POETS SOCIETY. There are a series of questions that you will answer in a review/report of the film. Ask a classmate for the list. IMPORTANT: If you missed the first part of the film, come to Spartan Youth Radio studio at lunch on MONDAY to watch it. Bring your lunch. Homework: Read the
quote from Robin Williams' character Mr. Keating thats starts
"we don't read and write poetry because it's cute..." and come to class ready to contribute to a class discussion answering this following question:
When on your deathbed you look back on your life, what contribution do you want to have made? What verse have you contributed to the play and song of life?
Thursday, October, 29th We learned about RHYMING COUPLETS and RHYME SCHEME. We read
Wednesday, October 28th We learned about RHYTHM, STRESSED AND UNSTRESSED SYLLABLES. We learned about CINQUAINS and FREE VERSE. We each tried writing a free verse poem. We read "Jamaica Market" by Agnes Maxwell-Hall.
Tuesday, October 27th We brainstormed a lengthy list of reasons why we should read, write, appreciate and explore poetry in today's society. We handed in our song-inspired poems from last Thursday and three were read to the class. We read "You Are Reading this Too Fast" by
Ken Norris. We read the essay "Blood Rhythms" by James H. Norton and Francis Gretton and completed questions 1, 2 and 3 on page 4.
Monday, October 26th We added some terms and poet names to our notes. We read poems by
Shel Silverstein and
Robert Frost and discussed the concept of "carpe diem". We wrote a journal on the concept. We were assigned our text books. We played our spelling game.
Friday, October 22nd We wrote our Lord of the Flies unit test. Those who missed it are expected to show up to Homework Club on Wednesday, October 28th at 3:00pm to write it. This is the only scheduled time to write the makeup test. Conflicts must be resolved with a discussion between the teacher and your parents.
Thursday, October 21st We started our poetry unit today. It's hard to describe the opening scene of this unit but it demonstrated that poetry is NOT an academic medium...it's an emotional one. We started three notes that we will use this unit, titled "Poetry Terms", "List of Poets" and "General Notes." We did an exercise where we lsitened to a piece of instrumental music by the band Massive Attack as inspiration for a poem.
Homework: take that rough poem/brainstorm and work it into a more polished piece of poetry.
Tuesday, October 20th and Wednesday, October 21st On both days we watched the 1963 version of the Lord of the Flies film, worked on our culminating and map assignments, went over the list of testable vocabulary words and discussed the upcoming
deadlines.
Monday, October 19th, 2009 Today we learned how to write a basic essay (know thesis, topic sentences, topic, body, transition phrases, etc.); we learned about "deus ex machina" and how it relates to Lord of the Flies; we went over the upcoming
deadlines.
Wednesday, October 14th, 2009 Today we did a Ch9-11 quiz and read half of the final chapter. The rest will be read tomorrow and reader's notes for Ch9-11 will be collected.
Tuesday, October 13th, 2009 Today we did a choral reading of the 10th chapter and part of the 11th chapter of Lord of the Flies. Mister Stew read the rest of Chapter 11. There will be quiz on Ch9-11 tomorrow. Reader's notes will be collected for all three chapters.
Friday, October 9th, 2009 A reminder: reader's notes should contain a list of the main plot points, how characters developed, at least one literary device example, at least two questions you have or answers you found about the chapter and a quote you feel is important. All sections must not only be identified but
explained.
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