Wednesday Nov 30

Today we got further along in the Unit on Flipped.

We read until page 95.

I also had to change the due date to Dec 7th. See the picture on the right for confirmation ....

We have these questions for homework, too:

Tuesday Nov 29

Well, we got Flipped started and ... we read to page 77 today. Man, this unit is going to go by pretty quickly I think.

Which is ok, as we have about 30 class days left in the semester.

In any case, we got these questions assigned for tomorrow:

Flipped questions!

Monday Nov 28

Stuff was due today ... and out of a class of a whole bunch, I got a few more in.

Sad, sad teacher. As an FYI, there are 33 teaching days left in this semester.

Before we started reading, we talked about perspective and this picture up on the big screen at the front of the room:

The painting is called "Nude descending a staircase" by Duchamp. It's actually a fairly famous painting and a student or two had already studied it in Art class this year. I mentioned "perspective" when looking at this painting and then mentioned the same thing when talking about Flipped.

We read to page 41 of Flipped and got questions 1-4 from the Unit Outline. The teacher also handed back a bunch of stuff that had been in the return box at the front of the room as well as freshly marked stuff too. Not every student got something back, but a number of students did.

And this is what the teacher started reading today:

So far, a pretty good read.

Thursday Nov 24

It was a rather chilly morning  .... I collected a few essays, lots of "Mondays" and a few "emails" ...

it's chilling when things aren't handed in on time, too.

Had a few one on ones about missing assignments, too.

We also started reading Flipped.

Watch this space for links for help with that novel, too.

OK, be safe and we'll see you on Monday!

Wednesday Nov 23

We got to Step Four in class ... well, that is I got to step Four in front of the class.

Seems I will go home tonight and finish my essay off and be ready to hand it in tomorrow.

On wards!

Monday Nov 21

So ... I worked a little with an essay outline .... and I'm trying to see if this link will work.


And we worked on the essay, doing one on one conferences with each student today.

All good.

Friday Nov 18

Well, I went looking for today's post ... and I couldn't find it anywhere.

I do apologise to the loyal followers of this blog. I thought I had this done.

I did not.

We did the quiz on ATTWN and got to work a bit on the essay. I showed my students how I would do the essay on my phone while having my phone hooked up to the projector at the front of the class.

Monday will be better. Pinky swear!

Thursday Nov 17

Today was a step forward to finishing the novel for once and all.

We took a look at the six steps of essay writing today.

I volunteered that I would be working on an essay in front of this class for the next few days. I did complete step one and two, but I didn't write them down, so I have homework for the essay writing for tomorrow.

I would ask that my students have the same parts done as me by the end of class tomorrow.

Tomorrow is, of course, Nov 18th and the second part of the assignments on And then there were none are due.

Wednesday Nov 16

Today was to be a nice relaxing day. At least that was the plan.

Ah well, we watched to the end of the film, I encouraged students to finish up their work on Part 2 of the novel study ... and perhaps work on the start of their essay.

And .... yeah.

Tuesday Nov 15

Hey, we finished the novel today...

All 204 pages of glory.

We sat and tried to watch the film ... and someone did a jump scare. What a terrible thing to do....

;)

In any case, we will go forward with the study of the novel and the essay as well over the next few days.

Monday Nov 14

I did try and keep today as calm as I could - It IS Monday after all.

However, we tried ... we tried to get to the end of the book before we ran out of time and failed...

Ah well, we read to page 203 ... one page left...

We also took up to question 23 in the homework, too.

We also thought about how this song was quoted in the novel several decades before it was published by Bon Jovi:

Friday Nov 11

Lest we forget.

Because of the length of the services we had today, Period 2 was only about 5 minutes long.

That was long enough for me to let my students know about the due date and reminders about doing the vocabulary for the novel.

Please be safe this weekend.

Thursday Nov 10

Today went ... well.

We got to read until page 170 - we are getting almost to the end of the book. Very cool.

We also got questions 21, 22 and 23 for homework.

We then watched the mini series version of the film.

A nice day, I must say.

I will state that I needed to be like the waves in this video again ... Shhhh .....shhhh .....shhhh

Wednesday November 9

...we moved right on to Wednesday.

A nice day, in the bigger scheme of things. Things will continue as they have for us here. Or at least they should.

We did read until page  in the book and didn't get any questions on the text as we watched a good chunk of the miniseries version of this novel. For some it was a chance to get work handed in to me, for others it was a nice opportunity for us to "get further in" to the book itself. It's a really well-done series. You can check it out at the BBC website.

I did also talk very briefly to the rest of my students about their marks I'm inputting for them this week for the midterm.

Tues Nov 8

A very "not bad" day at all in class today.

We started with a short quiz on the novel.

I did collect the Journal on the novel today, too. At least Part One.

We read to page 135 of the novel. We also got 18, 19 and 20 assigned from the questions from the novel study. We did chat about what material was owed, at least a little bit.

I will promise to get some more copies of the questions for class for tomorrow.

Monday Nov 7

So ... yeah.

We did a couple of cool things today. The coolest was reading from the book - we got to page 124 in the book and ... had a firm talking to about behaving in class.

Shhh ...... shhhhh ......shhhhhh ...... shhhh ....... shhhh........ shhhh......

We also got a chance to conference with each student about the midterm mark today. Most are ready to go, some have some material still to hand in. 

On to tomorrow!

Friday Nov 4

It is Friday, but I won't be posting that song here ...yet.

We did read until page 106 of the novel and got 13, 14, 15 and 16 for homework from the questions. Then we did watch some of the film/mini-series from the BBC.

I also mentioned the other things that are due soon today, too!

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Thursday Nov 3

So ... there was a still a number away today. I'm honestly hoping you are keeping up with your courses, including this one.

 Today we did a fair amount of work together on the Theme and Terms Study for And then there were none. We did also have an example of student work from a quiz. We took a look at the structure of a level four answer from a quiz that was done recently. It was a very good dissection and discussion of what worked and what did not work.

We also did a couple of fun things - on "How to use your phone for things other than Instagram" or "How to use your phone as a tool, not a toy". I showed students a few apps I use - Learn Swift, Polar Beat, ICE and At Bat to name just a few.

Learn Swift is an app designed to help people learn how to put together their own apps for the iPhone. Sky View Free is an astronomy app that shows the constellations, the planets and other interesting things. Polar Beat is an app that can monitor your heart rate as you exercise, as long as you have the heart rate monitor chest strap. (A student asked me; I have the H7 Polar HR Monitor). At Bat is an app that let me watch major league baseball games off of my cell phone with a monthly fee. I watched most of the Blue Jay 2016 season either on my phone or on my Apple TV at home.

I also had a few students repeatedly request to follow me on Instagram during the class. After some discussion and a first and then a second refusal to allow them to follow me, a third request was put in by four or five students in class. We then had a discussion of digital boundaries and appropriate use of social media. This type of activity is not something I ever encourage.

After we finished with the projected material, we got to read to page 98 of the text. It's almost halfway through the book, and we have some material due soon! (Due dates on the right side of the blog).

One other thing I said I would post for this class was this:

Tues Nov 2

And indeed it was.

Tuesday Nov 1

So we did some one on ones today - giving back essays, updating and discussing some things owed to the teacher for class and some even did quizzes for me.

Preparation for midterm marks being entered this weekend/Friday-ish.

Then we had a light discussion of the Theme/Terms study we need to get started in the next few days.

Actual picture from class today. Well, not really.