Monday, February 1 - Friday, February 5

Friday
We went to the library at the beginning of the class to select a silent reading novel that was realistic fiction. When we got back to class we looked at another example of a good response to a text. In addition, we looked at some transitions (notice how I began this sentence with a transition?) that will improve the flow in your persuasive writing.

Thursday
At the beginning of the class I explained a definition of realistic fiction (see info in the links section of this blog). I would like everyone in the class to select a realistic fiction novel to read during silent reading for term 3. Next, we returned, one last time, to the story Rock Bottom and I asked you to write a response to the story where you persuade me about your view on the theme of the story. We looked at an example of a strong text response and I pointed out some things that a strong response should include such as a topic sentence, Points Examples Explanations, a conclusion, just to name a few.

Wednesday
I just realized today how international our class is. We have students who speak Spanish, Finnish, German, Cantonese, Mandarin, French and English!
We did our first in-class timed write where I showed you an image and asked you to imagine yourself as the homeless person on the sidewalk. After 11 minutes of writing, we discussed some ways to improve the writing by adding: 5 senses details, -ed describing words, -ly adverbs, vivid verbs, and a hook at the beginning of the piece (in this case, a question, or a piece of dialogue). By the end of the allotted time, I requested that written piece be emailed to me. For the remaining 10 minutes of class, we had a quick game of pictionary!
Tuesday
We reviewed theme statements and also some ways that might help you determine what the theme of a text is. We continued our discussion of empathy and finished up with a statement of belief about empathy from each group. Following that, we got into the short story "Rock Bottom." During reading I asked you to identify "ruptures" in the story: places that made you stop and pay attention or places where you were forced to re-read. These ruptures were to be noted on a post-it an placed in your folder.


Monday

Welcome! For this first day of English 11 we began with some thoughts about how to read a text and think deeply about the text and its message. We began by discussing what our definitions of empathy are. After some group discussion around examples of empathy and our belief statements about empathy versus sympathy. We discussed the idea that one way of thinking about the difference between the two might be to do with imagination. If you can really imagine what it would be like to be in someone else's position, put yourself in their shoes as the saying goes, then you are showing empathy. If you are merely expressing your compassion for someone, then, as we discussed, you may be dealing more with sympathy.


Rockbottom Thinking
Rockbottom short story