Writing 12, Monday, September 13

Today we read for fifteen minutes. Worked with the flip dictionaries and applying titles to lists. Focussing on trusting the image and building up writing muscles. Working with rhythms and sounds and fabulous words from the Flip. Explained the Author Presentation assignment. Wed. we'll be in the library to find books. Pick a partner and get started right away. I collected the first list poem.

Homework: Write a new list poem. Type it up for Wednesday's class

Thursday: Two poems due for marks. These poems may be the two list poems or any two new poems you've written this month. Focus on clarity, unique and apt imagery that appeals to the five senses. Focus on using language to provoke feeling.

English 9 Friday, Sept. 10

Finish the vocabulary words 1-8. Study their meanings, parts of speech and synonyms. Be prepared for a practice quiz on Monday. The real quiz takes place Friday. Also, be sure to check your agenda daily since you write the homework down each day before the end of class. This weekend read the number of pages in your USSR book that you committed to reading.

Also, check to ensure that the sentences you wrote for the vocabulary words contain the word's meaning.
For example,

She has empathy for her father. (This sentence is not acceptable since it does not include a reference to the word's meaning) Fix this error by adding more information.

She has empathy for her father because he is upset about losing his job.

or

She has empathy for her father; she understands that he is upset due to the loss of his job so if forgiving him for acting angrily around the house.

Proofread each sentence for spelling or grammatical errors.

Look forward to seeing you Monday.

English 11 E, Friday, Sept. 10

Vocabulary:

All grade 11 students are studying/learning/using the same 75 words. These words are found in the books you'll read this year.

For each word, complete the following

Part of Speech:
Definition:
Synonym:
Sentence: NOTE: Ensure the word's definition is included in your sentence.

For example, empathy-to understand how someone is feeling. Shelby has empathy for her father who has just lost his job; she understands his feelings of despair.

For those students who were absent today, here are the first eight words. Complete all eight for Monday. Pick up the list of 75 words on Monday, also.
1. foreordained
2. propinquity
3. convalescence, convalescent
4. Belsen
5. gallivanting, to gallivant
6. gangling, gangly
7. florid, floridly
8. resplendent, resplendently

I will be checking this homework on Monday.

Keep this list in the front of your notebook as we'll be accessing it frequently. Weekly quizzes. Memorize the word. Use it in your writing.
Read your USSR book this weekend. Aim for three books by the end of September.

Also, finish reading Morley Callaghan's story, "An Enemy of the People". Keep looking for examples of irony. Be able to provide oral responses to all the questions we wrote down in class.

We will be writing a paragraph on this story Monday. Good copy due for peer editing on Tuesday.

Writing 12 Friday, Sept. 10

Building Poetry Muscles via attending to detail. Sit yourself down in any location: your room, kitchen, den. A laundromat, a park, on a bus, in a car and record a list of details. No need to editorialize. Art galleries are great for this. You can also use books. Open up a how-to-repair manual, a poetry book, a National Geographic and start recording details. Buy yourself a Flip Dictionary: absolutely wonderful for writers as it contains gigantic lists that writers need: all the lakes in Siberia, brain surgeon terms, diseases of the liver, poisonous plants, names of wind, plus it's a thesaurus. Why didn't they call it Flip Thesaurus?

Homework:

Create a list poem on any topic or re-vise the one you did in class today. Type it up. Ensure that your details are sharp. No room for vague ideas. Edit for areas where you rushed. If you say car, change it to Ford Galaxy. Tree? Change it to pine or the pine we planted last summer. Appeal to all five senses. How does the colour green sound _- a single violin, tender shoots pushing through the damp earth. How does green feel--my father's hand, one callus on the thumb from the hammer. How does green look? I remember Wednesday, riding the number six bus, ribbons in my hair. Don't worry too much about the conscious connection at this point. Aim for clean, fresh language. Write it. Edit. Revise. Bring it to class on Monday.

Type it up.

English 11 E, Wednesday, Sept. 8

Great to meet you all today. I'm very excited about this course and hope that it meets your expectations.

Tonight, find a book you wish to read for USSR and bring it to class.

Start looking for a literary event or two or three. Look forward to our short story unit which starts tomorrow.

Sweet dreams.

English 9 Wednesday, Sept. 8/10

Welcome to English 9. Great to meet you all. Tonight's homework involves finding a wonderful book that you wish to read. I suggest starting it tonight, if you can. Be sure to bring it to class every day for USSR time.

Also, start thinking about a literacy project that excites you. How could you promote reading and writing to your friends, school or community? Stay tuned for more ideas.

Visit the English dept. website and visit The Claremont Review website and enter the contest. Good luck.
Sweet dreams.

Tuesday, September 7

Writing 12

It was wonderful to meet you all today. Tonight begin reading the two magazines you chose. For Thursday morning, bring one poem from either magazine that you really like. Be prepared to read it aloud to a small group of four. Present what you like about the poem. The goal here is to teach the group some wonderful aspect of poetry writing. Feel free to bring poems that puzzle you, too. That kind of poem often generates good discussion. Here's a favourite poem of mine:

Try To Praise The Mutilated World (published in the New Yorker magazine the week after the 9/11 tragedy) translated from the Polish


by Adam Zagajewski

Try to praise the mutilated world.

Remember June's long days,

and wild strawberries, drops of wine, the dew.

The nettles that methodically overgrow

the abandoned homesteads of exiles.

You must praise the mutilated world.

You watched the stylish yachts and ships;

one of them had a long trip ahead of it,

while salty oblivion awaited others.

You've seen the refugees heading nowhere,

you've heard the executioners sing joyfully.

You should praise the mutilated world.

Remember the moments when we were together

in a white room and the curtain fluttered.

Return in thought to the concert where music flared.

You gathered acorns in the park in autumn

and leaves eddied over the earth's scars.

Praise the mutilated world

and the grey feather a thrush lost,

and the gentle light that strays and vanishes

and returns.

Translated by Renata Gorczynski

I love the rhythms--try to praise the mutilated world (even the soft sounds of the repeated phrase soften me as a reader because I don't want to praise the mutilated world, why would I ever want to do a thing like that??? but of course, we must, we live in the dual world: good/bad. We have great capacity for love and an equal capacity for hate. Remember that juxtaposition in grade 10? Romeo and Juliet.

Look forward to hearing your poems.
Ms. S.