ELA+A10+-+day+to+day


 * October 8, 2010 **
 * Work period


 * October 7, 2010 **
 * Complete the reading strategies questions and short stories assignments


 * October 6, 2010 **
 * Short stories - Ghost Stories of Saskatchewan
 * Listening and reading strategies
 * Discussion of strategies (ie: connect to text, connect to self, connect to world)
 * Other strategies we came up with:
 * Follow along
 * Create images in your head
 * Predict and ask questions
 * Read 3 stories: An Unseen Playmate (as a class), Old Faithful: The Tabor Light (teacher reads), and Uncle Ben's House (read to self)


 * October 5, 2010 **
 * Work period - tying up loose ends and conferencing


 * October 4, 2010 **
 * Continued again and sharing


 * October 1, 2010 **
 * Last class continued


 * September 30, 2010 **
 * Figurative language within the genre of the unknown (brief discussion)
 * Vocabulary of the unknown - brainstorm
 * Review (hopefully) - nouns, verbs and adjectives
 * Common nouns verbs and adjectives found in the unknown
 * Discussion - Alice in Wonderland and Lewis Carol
 * Jabberwocky - background info
 * Discussion - literature that permeates many pieces
 * Read the poem and discuss how we know the function of each word
 * Assignment: using the brainstormed words and words of your own creation write a creative piece (ie: poem, song, story) that would fall within the genre of the unknown


 * September 29, 2010 **
 * Last class continued


 * September 28, 2010 **
 * Back to our discussion of the unknown
 * Class activity: quickly draw a picture of a sasquatch...now an alien
 * How many people have actually seen these creatures? How do we know what they look like?
 * Discussion: where do these images and ideas come from
 * Discussion: what are the origins of these stories
 * For thought: how does this genre shape literature and vice versa?
 * Assignment: Write an explanatory paragraph explaining where you think these images/ideas come from. Spend a little time researching - what are the origins of sasquatch and alien stories.


 * September 27, 2010 **
 * Follow up class: presentations
 * We discussed presentation elements and what makes a good public speaker. We also discussed methods to dissecting a presentation or speech
 * Watch Mike Rowe's TED TALK
 * Collaborative note taking
 * Outline and criticism:
 * Write a minimum two paragraph composition in which you:
 * Outline the main points of the speech
 * Criticize/analyze important aspects of the speech
 * What did you agree with? Why?
 * What didn't you agree with? Why not?
 * What parts jumped out at you? Explain (good time to use quotes)


 * September 24, 2010 **
 * Identifying strength and weaknesses in our writing:
 * Edit your story for any errors. Record the most common error you made. Also record 1 strength you demonstrated as a writer
 * Post your story to the ELA blog
 * Read your classmates stories and comment on each one by doing the following:
 * Write 1 thing you think they did well as a writer
 * Write 1 thing that could use some work


 * September 23, 2010 **
 * Moving on to our next unit: The Unknown
 * As a glass, brainstorm what is meant by the unknown
 * Short story elements discussion
 * Review (beginning, middle, end, rising action, climax, resolution
 * Setting description, Character description, dialogue, simile
 * Write a short story about a time that something creepy/scary happened to you or someone you know. Focus on setting description, character description, dialogue and using at least one simile.


 * September 22, 2010 **
 * Another presentation class
 * Discussion of assessments - how did the presentations go? What did you do well? What do you need to work on?


 * September 21, 2010 **
 * Duh, duh, duh….time to present


 * September 20, 2010 **
 * I am not there…up to you guys to do something
 * Presentation planning and newsletter ideas


 * September 15, 2010 **
 * Final presentation practice class


 * September 14, 2010 **
 * Class time to work on presentations
 * List things you want to do, include etc…
 * Get the planning process done - what is your presentation going to look like?


 * September 10, 2010 (Friday) **
 * You will be working in groups today. Your goal is for everyone in your group to become an "expert" on your assigned topic. You should create an outline of info and cool links to share with your main group (will post these groups later). Your job will be to educate your main group on the topic you became and expert in
 * Some things to address:
 * What the heck is this topic all about?
 * Why is it important for writers to know/understand this topic
 * And more specifically:
 * For the spelling group: whole language vs phonetic awareness. The txt messaging problem.
 * For the euphemism group: may want to look at youtube...tons of vids
 * For the punctuation group: check out Victor Borge phonetic punctuation on youtube. Look at college humour punctuation on youtube. Google the onion (apostrophe, semi-colon, and more)
 * For adverbs: some sweet adverb songs on youtube
 * Now your groups:
 * Kelsie, Ty, Amy (euphemisms, doublespeak and gobbledygook)
 * Caitlyn, Derek, Beau (adverbs and helping verbs)
 * Breanne, Brock, Robert (spelling)
 * Josey, Miranda, Andres (punctuation)


 * September 9, 2010 (Thursday) **
 * Community breakfast - no classes


 * September 8, 2010 (Wednesday) **
 * Class time to complete performance tasks #1 and #2 from September 2nd.


 * September 7, 2010 (Tuesday) **
 * Review and more on sentence structures
 * Practice as a class
 * Two online quizzes and games
 * Start sentence structures performance tasks


 * September 3, 2010 (Friday) **
 * Quick, quick, quick, overview of Sentence Structures (don't worry, will do more on this next week)
 * Writing activity: Write me a letter telling me about yourself (anything you want, try for 1 page)
 * I just want to see a sample of your writing
 * When done: go to this link
 * Try making it to $1,000,000 - good luck. Feel free to cheat and do some research to answer the questions correctly.
 * Have fun and see you next week


 * September 2, 2010 (Thursday) **
 * Complete mini quiz and performance tasks from yesterday
 * Now to really confuse you
 * A clause is not a complete sentence, but a complete thought
 * A clause needs to have a subject and a predicate
 * A sentence needs at least one independent clause (a clause that can stand alone on its own)
 * Let's practice creating some independent clauses (simple sentences)
 * FYI: simple sentences contain only one independent clause
 * Now to join more than one independent clause (a compound sentence)
 * Compound sentences need more than one independent clause. You join these with coordinating conjunctions.
 * The independent clauses in a compound sentence carry the same weight, or are equally important
 * Let's practice some
 * What do we notice about compound sentences with tons of independent clauses: your writing seems immature
 * Getting more complex now: 1 independent clause and at least one dependent clause is a complex sentence
 * You join independent clauses with dependent clauses using subordinating conjuctions
 * More practice
 * Good guide to refer to
 * Whew! Confused...I hope not. Moving on to the last type of sentence: compound complex
 * Compound-complex sentences have at least two independent clauses and at least one dependent
 * If it includes a compound sentence and a complex sentence it's a compound-complex sentence
 * And finally - some more practice.
 * Done, good job.
 * Performance task #1:
 * Write 5 simple sentences (bold or italicize the independent clause)
 * Write 5 compound sentences (bold or italicize the independent clauses)
 * Underneath, write the coordinating conjuction(s)
 * Write 5 complex sentences (bold or italicize the independent and dependent clauses)
 * Underneath, write the subordinating conjuction
 * Write 5 compound-complex sentences (bold or italicize the independent and dependent clauses)
 * Underneath, write the coordinating and subordinating conjuctions
 * Performance task #2
 * Answer the following question:
 * Why is it beneficial for writers to be able to identify different sentence structures, understand the differences between sentence structures and be able to use different sentence structures?


 * September 1, 2010 (Wednesday) **
 * Practice, as a class, creating sentences
 * Pick out the phrases and clauses
 * Check to make sure everyone understands
 * Mini quiz:
 * What does a phrase do?
 * What is a clause made up of?
 * What is the subject of a sentence?
 * What is the predicate of a sentence?
 * Performance tasks:
 * Write 5 phrases
 * Write 5 clauses
 * Write 5 sentences
 * Underline the clause
 * Bold and italicize the phrase
 * Answer the following question:
 * Why is it beneficial for writers to understand phrases and clauses?
 * Post quiz and performance tasks to blog
 * Tag it Clauses and phrases
 * Remember to attribute your name


 * August 31, 2010 (Tuesday) **
 * Finish learner profiles
 * Introduction to grammar, usage and punctuation
 * Collaborative note-taking
 * Post notes to the blog (understanding this process)
 * Clauses, Phrases, Subjects and Predicates
 * Class activity: Write phrases on the board - students transform them into clauses
 * Writing activity #1: 1 group writes phrases, 1 group writes clauses
 * Exchange papers
 * 1 group expands phrases to clauses
 * 1 group adds phrases to clauses
 * Wrap up notes and post to blog


 * Still need to examine predicates, subjects, phrases and clauses further to develop understanding
 * A bit more practice on this tomorrow then a mini quiz and performance task to wrap up


 * August 30, 2010 (Monday) **
 * Back to school, back to school...
 * Sharing - somewhere interesting you went or something interesting you did
 * 1 hope/wish for this year
 * Course Outline
 * Discuss Year Plan
 * Questions and concerns?
 * Learner Profiles
 * Survey
 * Place results on wiki