English 12
Today we had our first short story presentation for "The Day They Set Out". Thanks group 1 for a wonderful and engaging presentation!

With this, we moved forward into a very brief exploration of the possible role of music in this short story. With that in mind, we began work on a DEJ for "The Day They Set Out" due on Thursday.

Homework

1. If you haven't finished your essay yet, you need to come in early in the morning and during lunch to finish it.
2. The creative/narrative response to Omelas is due tomorrow (Thursday).
3. The DEJ for "The Day They Set Out" is due on Friday.

English 9

We began our Worldview Symbol Presentations. Pretty interesting so far! More to come tomorrow!

Homework
Be sure to complete your Walter Mitty DEJ for Tomorrow.

English 12
Today we started the next step of our creative work with Omelas. We traded our short story responses with a partner, and began work on a quatrain that encompasses what happens in our partner's story.

Homework
Read "The Day They Set Out" and complete your quatrains by Thursday.

English 9
Today we worked through the questions for Walter Mitty, and had some class time to finish up our presentations.

Homework
Presentations are tomorrow, be ready!

DEJ for Walter Mitty is due on Thursday. If you haven't given me your 3 questions, please hand them into the bin ASAP.

Greetings all!

English 12
Behold, the link for the PowerPoint example.

(more to come as the day progresses)

English 9
Today we began reading "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty". You have some homework this weekend, here it is!

Complete the 3 questions for Walter Mitty:

1. How would you evaluate the status of Mitty's relationship with his wife? *USE QUOTES* - 1/4 PAGE SINGLE SPACED
2. What do Mitty's fantasies have in common? - 1/4 PAGE SINGLE SPACED
3. Are fantasies an important aspect of our lives or are they a distraction from reality? - HALF PAGE SINGLE SPACE

Do as much work as possible on your Worldview Presentation. I will check my email several times this weekend if you have any questions. jrogers@sd38.bc.ca

Our presentation day is Wednesday, October 12.

Greetings all! Here's today's plan.

I will check this blog throughout the day. If you have any questions, email me jrogers@sd38.bc.ca

English 9
Unfortunately we don't have access to the laptop or iPad carts today. Use your electronic devices and brainstorming to work on your Worldview presentations. As an inquiry you have several choices as to how you will present. Here are some guiding questions to think about as you decide on your object, and what you will talk about in front of the class:

1. How does your symbol represent your worldview?
2. Explain the history and significance of your symbol.
3. How does your symbol represent the culture/values of your family, or where you are from?
4. Is there a story about your family that the symbol reminds you of?

These presentations won't be long - 3-5 minutes each. Here's what I'll be looking for:

• Speaking in front of an audience: clarity, volume, pacing.
• How effectively do you explain the elements of your symbol using the traits/characteristics and values/culture of your family?
• Does your visual component (PowerPoint, Prezi, or any of the options we discussed in class this week) present your visual and interpretation clearly?
• What will you add to the presentation? Tell a story that the symbol reminded you of? Is there a story behind the object itself?

English 12
Take some time today to work on your first creative assignment - the Narrative Response to Omelas.

On Friday, we'll have the ipad cart, so we can put a bit more time into our presentations then. The priority today should be on developing your creative responses to Omelas. If your response is in good shape, you could work with your group on the presentations. The first presentation should on Wednesday next week.

Link to the example PPT for short stories is coming!

English 9
Today we wrapped up the subject/predicate component of our grammar work. We began working on Haikus for "The Sniper".

English 12
Today we'll check out an example of a presentation for our short story unit. I'll post a copy of it here for your reference once we've seen it in class.

English 12
The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas - Usula Le Guin

Read this before tomorrow's class!

English 9
Today we did some practice with subjects and predicates. Tomorrow we'll wrap that up and discuss our presentations and a little "The Sniper" assignment!

Happy Monday, everyone!

English 9
We have a few things on the go now - first, we have your Worldview: Culture presentations, next we're beginning to take a look at some grammar items. Lastly, we've got our short story unit. Busy times!

As for the Worldview: Culture component, we are now deciding on objects/symbols that we might bring in that represent our family values/culture. You have choices here because we all might feel differently with how we identify with our family. That said there are a few major central ideas that we need to discuss. This object must symbolize where you are from or what your family values (or both!). You could bring it in, or show us in your presentation.

1. How does your symbol represent your worldview?
2. Explain the history and significance of your symbol.
3. How does your symbol represent the culture/values of your family, or where you are from?

Homework
Create 4 sentences which we'll use tomorrow to locate simple, complete, and compound subjects and predicates!

English 12

Depending on your class, we'll be finishing essays and beginning our short story unit. Block D will get a little more time, as we lost some writing time for the cops for cancer event. If you need extra time to finish, please come during lunch or before school.

English 12
Many of us our in the final stages of our essay. The goal is to finish our good copies by the end of tomorrow's class. If you need more time, you can come in during off hours next week to wrap up your work.

English 9
Today we went over our answers for semicolons, and did some exploration of the parts of speech. Then we started our next short story!

Well, that was a brief hiatus! Computer problems aside, we're back in action with the blog.

English 9
Today we presented the remaining poems we created collaboratively. Guess what? You made sonnets!

Then we began some grammar work - semicolons!

English 12
Today should be our last day for writing this essay. Block D will be at the cops for cancer event, so we'll be doing our third writing block tomorrow instead. Block C will begin editing tomorrow.

Good day, everyone! It may be fall, but don't fall behind!

English 9
Today we discussed conflict in literature, and came up with a few examples. After that, we tried our hand at some poetry - namely, making our own quatrains. The quatrains must be about the conflict in "The Most Dangerous Game".

English 12
IT'S SUPER FUN ESSAY WRITING DAY(S)!

**If you have questions about your thesis or quotes, please see me ASAP**

English 9
Today we finished discussing the questions we had for "The Most Dangerous Game." and began working towards our own world view. Here are some of the questions that help us to understand our own worldview:

Experiences

1. What previous experiences do you feel had the biggest impact on you?
2. Have you ever had an experience that changed the way you think about the world and other people? Explain.

Homework
Complete a full-page single spaced journal response for the above question. That's a full page in total for both questions - combined!

English 12
Today we spent some time refining our thesis statements and preparing evidence for our essays on Monday.

Here's what to bring:

1. Works Cited, or Bibliography of websites and sources you might use that I haven't provided.
2. Thesis statement.
3. Copy of the quotes you're going to use for your essays.

English 9
Greetings, everyone! Today we'll be having a discussion about this short story so we can make some sense of it all, and I'll even introduce an idea that'll turn this whole story upside down.

English 12
We'll be looking at some 5 and 6 point examples for synthesis essays. Then we'll need to decide on a topic and begin searching for quotes in our materials.

English 9
For "The Most Dangerous Game," do questions 3, 4, and 5.

Homework
For homework, we'll need to complete our first DEJ and the above questions. Bring it all in tomorrow.

English 12
Today we'll be looking at the components of the synthesis essay, as well as a quick overview of how I'll be marking it.

Currently, we have 14 topic choices. This is too many - having too many choices can slow down our thinking and congest the process of gathering evidence and decided on a "good fit". Here is the list of topics we have currently. We'll be trimming this down today (this has been updated to reflect our elimination process).

• 1.    How have different societies shaped people’s values and behaviours?
• 4.    How does people’s cultural background influence people’s judgement towards the ethics of the other societies?
• 5.    How does the diversity of moral outlooks on controversial actions in cultures show that right and wrong are determined by culture?
• 6.    If infanticide is committed for what is perceived as a means of survival, can it be said to be morally correct because it prevents the collapse of society?
• 8.    Does our own cultural values limit our ability to observe other culture’s beliefs as morally iniquitous?
• 12.    Should we try and question cultural actions we deem as immoral and try to change them to what we think is right?

Greetings!

English 9
Today we'll be looking at the short story, "The Most Dangerous Game".

With our remaining time, complete a DEJ (finish it for homework if you are unable to complete it in class). Due Wednesday.

With a broad concept of Worldviews, we'll begin organizing a worldview of our own this week.

Homework
Finish "The Most Dangerous Game" and get started on your DEJ. Don't wait until tomorrow night to start it!

English 12
For homework, you created at least one question that might be a good synthesis question. Today, we'll be sharing our questions in groups and examine some examples of synthesis essays. Also, we'll discuss how these will be graded.

As the meme above suggests, the goal is to get started on our first synthesis this week.

Quick Guide to Synthesizing Success

1. Introduction covers the premises of the argument and presents a thesis statement.
2. Body paragraphs that draw evidence directly from at least two sources.
3. Conclusion that clearly reveals how the topic was addressed or resolved.
4. A final thought or idea that might suggest further reading, or identifies the implications of the conclusions your synthesis has accomplished. For example, if your essay suggests that Romeo & Juliet can be read as a cautionary tale, than perhaps there may be other Shakespeare plays worth rereading in this light.

English 9
Today we discussed Worldviews. A complicated idea that clearly has a lot of weight behind it. We had a lengthy discussion and drew a mindmap revealing the intricacies of of this idea.

We also discussed the DEJ - or Double Entry Journal. We'll be using this as part of your CLS, so hold on to those pink sheets!

Next day we'll be preparing our folders for submitting work, and start on our first short story.

English 12
Here is a digital copy of our reading from Thursday.

• Case Studies

Today we'll be discussing the flip side of moral relativism and its impact on infanticide. There's a lot of material out there on this, check out the links below:

1. The Challenges of Cultural Relativism
2. BBC: Infanticide and Ethics
3. Culture is No Defense for Infanticide

Utilitarian philosopher, Peter Singer constructs a fascinating argument in support of abortion and infanticide. His argument is based largely on the medical situation of the infant/fetus, however. His argument was highly controversial, and there were calls for his resignation when he proposed it.

There are more articles and responses to this topic than I can list, Google says it all.

Greetings!

English 12
Today we read about a fairly uncomfortable issue: female infanticide. With this article, we'll:

• Read about several case studies from India and China
• Determine a level (if any) of bias in the article.
• Evaluate the weight of these case studies against the backdrop of moral goodness and ethical conflicts we have already discussed.

Ultimately, this will lead to your first synthesis work for grade 12, where we'll draw connections between our discussions of ethics and infanticide.

English 9

Today we applied our knowledge of ethics to form a collaborative code of conduct. I'll be merging class contributions for our final copy.

We didn't have time to discuss DEJs today, or start Worldviews, but we will tomorrow!

Greetings!

English 12 and English 9
Today we'll be finishing our mandalas and taking a closer look at ethics. We have a few discussion topics to cover in this regard. We'll use this discussion as a platform for our next assignment.

Both 12s and 9s are doing mandalas, but our discussion on ethics will differ quite a bit :)

A beautiful beginning to a wonderful school year!

Welcome students of Mr. Rogers' classes. You'll find updates on homework and details on our classes here.

English 12 and English 9
Today we began designing our classroom passports, also known as our Mandalas. For grade 12s, your mandalas should identify the following:

1. Name
2. Values
3. What makes you.
4. What breaks you.

For grade 9s, please use the following to form your Mandala:

1. Name
2. Places you've been.
3. Situations you've survived.
4. What defines you.

Homework
Finish the writing component of your mandalas. We'll want to get right to the next step on Wednesday!

HEY HEY HEY - It's a new day!

English 12 AP
Greetings AP people! I hope university is treating you well. We have a special event tomorrow to go watch Othello at the Bard on the Beach.

If you haven't been before, it's an open outdoor theater. Very cool. I'll be there about 30-40mins before the show to meet everyone inside. There's room to meander and chat before we go into our theater to sit down. Maybe we can grab a bite or snack while we're there/after the show.

If you lost your ticket, no big deal, I will bring an extra copy of every ticket.

The play starts at 7:30pm on Saturday, Sep 10. I will be there by 7:00pm at the latest.