Mr. Dodd's (Online) Classroom

Information and updates for my EN8, EN9, EN11, SS10 and SS11 courses.

[doddclass]

Socials 10, Wed. October 9

Thanks to our work blitz today most of us are on track again. Thanks. Tomorrow we'll discuss the 1837 rebellions a bit more and assign the questions I neglected to give out today...

[doddclass]

Socials 11, Wed. October 9

Today we did our quiz on government structure and parties. It looks like some people had some trouble with this; once I mark your quizzes I'll make a decision on whether we could use a rewrite or not.

The quiz took most of the block. Beyond that, we looked at the idea of voter participation in government affairs (page 312 in Counterpoints) and started a small group discussion on whether voters should be able to speak in the House of Commons and what this might look like. We will continue this activity tomorrow and present to the class.

Have a great afternoon.

[doddclass]

English 11, Wed. October 9

We had lots of work time today which was kind of wasted for the last 20 minutes. Remember that there are always things to be completed in this class (reading, catch-up, terms/definitions list) and that we shouldn't have any time that we are running around the class distracting others!

I read out loud the story "The Elephant" today (sorry for more elephants!) which serves as an interesting symbol for communist Poland. We had a symbol analysis sheet to complete and we also did a story analysis sheet (we've done these in the past). If you missed this today, you should probably come pick it up...

There's a great summary of both the story and its symbols here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/30214154/The-Elephant-Short-Story-Summary If you haven't finished this story yet, this is a good read to help you out.

[doddclass]

English 9, Wed. October 9

Good work today. We worked through a story analysis sheet for the story "Fireworks" today and did another worksheet looking at character traits of the protagonist. We had lots of work time in class for it today so I expect everyone should have it ready to go in the morning for me.

Just a reminder to this group that you should have something to read every class. It was nice that everyone was able to finish their work in a fairly quick manner today, but things got a little out of hand for the rest of the block because people didn't have anything else to work through. Bring a book! We don't get a lot of independent reading time, so take advantage!

[doddclass]

English 8, Wed. October 9

Good work today. We worked through a story analysis sheet for the story "Fireworks" today and did another worksheet looking at character traits of the protagonist. We had lots of work time in class for it today so I expect everyone should have it ready to go in the morning for me.

[doddclass]

Socials 10 for Tuesday October 8

Today we had a brief run through of some of the causes of the 1837 Rebellions in Upper and Lower Canada. We looked at issues such as oligarchies controlling an undemocratic government, unequal taxation and clashes between classes. We worked on the questions on p. 71 (#1-3) and then we had time to work on the review question (p. 81, #1).

I'm hoping that most can have the review question done by Friday, but we'll assess everyone's progress as the week goes on.

Thanks everyone.

[doddclass]

Socials 11 for Tuesday October 8

Thanks for another relatively productive work day.

Just a reminder that we likely won't have any more class time to work on the previous set of questions on government structure. Today I handed out a review for the QUIZ TOMORROW and we got a little extra time to work on past assignments. 

[doddclass]

English 11 for Tuesday October 8

GREAT work today! Did it help that I read the story first today? I'll ask that in class tomorrow.

Today we read Hemingway's short story "Hills Like White Elephants" and had a short discussion about symbolism. There was a question sheet that everyone worked very hard on today -- this needs to be finished for the start of class tomorrow (Wednesday).

Bring books to English class! You could have had tons of reading time today if you were on the ball...

[doddclass]

English 9 for Tuesday October 8

Good work today everyone! Hopefully most of us can figure out how 'characterization' works now -- the idea that we can tell a lot about characters through their actions, words, appearance etc.

I believe most of you had this finished during the block today, it's homework for anyone who did not. Tomorrow we will read a new short story and put our character trait identifying skills to the test...

Make sure you're bringing a book to class! A lot of you finished a little early today and this would have been a great time to get some reading done!

[doddclass]

English 8 for Tues. October 8

Good work today everyone! Hopefully most of us can figure out how 'characterization' works now -- the idea that we can tell a lot about characters through their actions, words, appearance etc.

I will give you the first few minutes tomorrow to finish/ask me questions about the assignment. Following that, we'll put our character traits identification skills to the test with a short reading.

Make sure you're bringing a book to class! A lot of you finished a little early today and this would have been a great time to get some reading done!

[doddclass]

Also, here's that Daily Show clip regarding the U.S. government shutdown from Friday's class.

[doddclass]

Here's that goofy video we watched on Monday about majority and minority governments.

[doddclass]

Socials 10 for Monday October 2nd

Thanks to those that got some serious work done today on the review. Work ethic, hooray!

The chapter 2 key terms should be completed by this point (or ready for me tomorrow at least). I may give you more time to summarize the chapter outcomes, but I think we'll move on to discuss the chapter a bit more in depth. If there were any issues you were having in your summaries, please talk to me tomorrow about it. Hopefully you've all picked up a couple of the key terms already (it was nice to see that some of you today could differentiate Upper/Lower Canada, Chateau Clique/Family Compact etc. etc.) but we'll make sure everyone's on the same page tomorrow.

Thanks all! Remember, working hard = no homework! Can't complain about that.

[doddclass]

Socials 11 for Monday October 2nd

I was very happy to see that many of you are still on track or not that far behind! Let's keep using our class time wisely and I'll keep feeling comfortable giving you a work block :)

Today we worked through the list of questions that have been assigned over the last week and a half. All of this work is due by the end of class tomorrow. In addition, I will be giving you a review sheet tomorrow on government structure (parties, levels of government, roles, passing laws etc.) which should be completed by WEDNESDAY, the day you will get a QUIZ on it!

The assignments up to this point have been:

-p. 302, 1 3 4

-p. 307 1-5

-p. 309 1-4

-p. 311 1-3

I also plan to give out a handout tomorrow regarding how to access Counterpoints (our SS11 text) online so you can work from home as well. Hooray!

Have a great afternoon

[doddclass]

English 11 for Monday October 2nd

Hope you all got some work done this block (HOPE being the key word here...)

Please complete the questions for "Cathedral" by tomorrow morning. You should have 1-6, including the imagined conversation between the narrator and his wife. If you're having difficulties with this, remember what you wrote about for the other questions: was he a sympathetic character? Did he even respect his wife? Did he change through his experience drawing a cathedral with Robert?

YOU WILL NOT GET TIME IN CLASS TO WORK ON THIS! If you need to ask me anything about the questions, I'll be around before and after school and at lunch so track me down!

[doddclass]

English 9 for Monday October 2nd

Hey everyone!

Hope you all had a great rest of your day. Today we were given a news article ("Is sugar toxic?") and a set of questions about meaning in such articles (why are they written? what is the author telling us? what are they hiding?)

Questions are due for Tuesday's class, so please see me if you didn't get them or if you have inquiries about them.

Run-on worksheet: this needs to be completed and handed in at the start of Tuesday's class. We've had lots of time to work on this now, please see me if any of it is still confusing!

[doddclass]

English 8 for Monday October 2nd

Hey everyone!

Hope you all had a great rest of your day. Today we were given a news article ("Is sugar toxic?") and a set of questions about meaning in such articles (why are they written? what is the author telling us? what are they hiding?)

If you didn't get the article or questions, please come get them from room 314! You will get LIMITED time to work on the questions in class.

Run-on worksheet: this needs to be completed and handed in at the start of Tuesday's class. We've had lots of time to work on this now, please see me if any of it is still confusing!