English 10, Periods 5 and 6

Read to Chapter 33 of the class novel.  Your chapter presentations will happen on Wednesday.

English 10, Period 8

Read to Chapter 27 of the class novel.

English 12

For homework, read Chapters 16 and 17 of the class novel.

English 12

Read Chapters 12 and 13 of Catcher in the Rye.  Make sure your motif assignment is complete up to the end of Chapter 9.  Finally, your personal timelines are due next Monday, April 25th.  The final product should be detailed and legible.

English 10, Period 8

Please read to the beginning of Chapter 15 in Indian Horse.  Your response to the poem, "I Lost My Talk" is due next Thursday.  You can respond with a paragraph, a poem, or a hand-drawn image of your own creation.  You will be marked on the Producing Text rubric, so make sure your response is thoughtful and demonstrates effort.  Finally, you should also be collecting five vocabulary words and definitions; this list is also due on Thursday.  See the previous post if you are missing a copy of the poem.

English 10, Periods 5 and 6

Please read to the beginning of Chapter 20 in Indian Horse.  Your response to the poem, "I Lost My Talk" is due next Thursday.  You can respond with a paragraph, a poem, or a hand-drawn image.  You will be marked on the Producing Text rubric, so make sure your response is thoughtful and demonstrates effort.  Finally, you should also be collecting five vocabulary words and definitions; this list is also due on Thursday.

For those of you who may have been absent on Friday, here is the response assignment:

Now that you have read Chapters 11-15, respond to the poem below about your feelings regarding Saul and his introduction to Saint Jerome’s Indian School. Use any background knowledge you have from class discussion to add detail and depth to your response.  You may respond with a paragraph, a poem, or a hand-drawn image of your own creation.

“I Lost My Talk” by Rita Joe

I lost my talk.

The talk that you took away.

When I was a little girl

At Shubenacadie school.

You snatched it away:

I speak like you

I think like you

I create like you

The scrambled ballad, about my word.

Two ways I talk

Both ways I say,

Your way is more powerful.

So gently I offer my hand and ask,

Let me find my talk

So I can teach you about me.

English 12

Read chapters 10 and 11 and do the chapter questions for 9-11.  Start collecting five new vocabulary words and definitions for next Thursday.  Finally, your Personal Timelines are due Monday, April 25th.

English 10, Period 8

Finish your "First Day" journals and start collecting five new vocabulary words and definitions for next Thursday.

Your vocabulary words for week one are as follows:

Block 8 
1.       sanguine (adj):  optimistic; positive, especially in trying circumstances
2.       ubiquitous (adj):  appearing everywhere at once
3.       harrowing (adj):  acutely distressing
4.       juggernaut (noun):  something which is extremely large, powerful, and unstoppable
5.       superfluous (adj):  unnecessary, especially through being more than enough
6.       foreboding (n):  a feeling that something bad will happen; a premonition of something bad
7.       plight  (n):  a dangerous, difficult, or otherwise unfortunate situation
8.       conflagration (n):  an extensive, destructive fire; a large, violent/dangerous situation
9.       (on) tenterhooks (n):  in a state of anxious suspense
10.   ersatz (adj):  an inferior substitute 

English 10, Periods 5 and 6

Read to the end of Chapter 14 of Indian Horse.  Next Thursday, five new vocabulary words and definitions are due, so start collecting them now.

Your vocabulary words for week one are as follows:

Block 5
1.       merit   (v): to deserve
2.       manifest  (v): to demonstrate; to make clear
3.       adroit (adj):  skillful; adept in thought or action
4.       uncanny (adj):  seemingly supernatural; eerily unsettling
5.       supercilious (adj):  behaving or looking as if one is superior to others
6.       sanguine (adj):  optimistic; positive, especially in trying circumstances
7.       ubiquitous (adj):  appearing everywhere at once
8.       harrowing (adj):  acutely distressing
9.       juggernaut  (noun):  something which is extremely large, powerful, and unstoppable
10.   superfluous (adj):  unnecessary, especially through being more than enough

Block 6

1    1.        sanguine (adj):  optimistic; positive, especially in trying circumstances
2.       ubiquitous (adj):  appearing everywhere at once
3.       harrowing  (adj):  acutely distressing
4.       juggernaut (noun):  something which is extremely large, powerful, and unstoppable
5.       superfluous (adj):  unnecessary, especially through being more than enough
6.       kaput (adj):  broken; no longer working or effective                     
7.       pique (n):  a sudden burst of anger
8.       fervent (adj): characterized by intense emotion
9.       capricious (adj):  given to sudden, random changes of mood or behaviour; unpredictable
10.     sardonic (adj): grimly mocking; cynical; derisive humour

English 10 Block 8

Please finish the discussion questions on Chapters 1-10 of Indian Horse.

English 10 Blocks 5 and 6

Please read Chapters 11 and 12.  If you have not finished the journal on your first day at school, please do so.

English 12

Please read Chapter 9 of The Catcher in the Rye.  Also, answer the following questions on the reading "Fish Cheeks" by Amy Tan: Section #1 do questions 1-3 and for Section #2, do questions 1, 2, 4 and 5.

English 12

Read Chapters 7 and 8 of the class novel and answer the questions on Chapters 5-8.
Your first ten vocabulary words for Test #4 are as follows:

1. ubiquitous (adj):  appearing everywhere
2. uncanny (adj):  unsettlingly odd or mysterious; seemingly supernatural
3. uncouth (adj): rough; uncultured; without manners
4. cogent (adj):  clever; logical
5. sham (noun):  falseness; pretense; something counterfeit
6. ardent (adj):  passionate
7. winnow (verb):  to separate into components; to shave down; to separate the "wheat from the chaff" (the good from the bad)
8. vagaries (noun):  random changes
9. ersatz (adj): an inferior substitute
10. demure (adj):  shy; reserved

English 10

Periods 5 and 6:
Answer the discussion questions (#2-5) on the first ten chapters of the class novel.  Be sure to use quotations in all answers except (#4).

English 12

Your vocabulary words are due on Thursday. Also, read Chapters 5 & 6 of the class novel. Use the handout entitled "Discussion Questions" to answer the question assigned to you in class on Tuesday:
Number 1s:  answer question 1
Number 2s: question 4
Number 3s: question 6
Number 4s: question 16
Number 5s: question 20
Number 6s: question 36

Also, we discussed stream of consciousness writing in class.  Some points to remember about this are that this kind of writing is...

1. an intense form of 1st person point of view--readers react intensely to Holden because of this.
2. characterized by the free association of ideas...what is weighing on Holden's mind comes to the fore.
3. full of personal symbolism--the hat, the ducks, the museum, the carousel, a catcher in the rye all mean something to him, so pay attention to what he says when he mentions these things
4. full of discrepancy between his thoughts and his actions (Holden says negative things about people, but then will be nice to them).
5. full of repeated sentence patterns and expressions to let readers know what Holden is really thinking about...

• "sort of", "and all"  Holden uses this kind of hedging, imprecise language because his thoughts are imprecise...he's sorting things out.  This may also show his youth and insecurity
• "That just about killed me"...very intense, odd expression used over and over.  Could this be weighing on his mind?
• slang--he's young
• "goddamn", "chrissakes"--Holden is profane, negative, crass
• "ironical", "phony"--Holden is very concerned with these concepts; angered that things aren't the way he expected them to be and disgusted/confused by the falseness of the adult world.
• switches from "me" to "you" when discussing painful subjects in order to distance himself from them

English 10

Five vocabulary words and definitions are due on Thursday.

Also, if you did not hand in your journal on Tuesday, please do so on Thursday.  In this journal, you were asked to tell be about a time when you experienced significant pain (from an injury, perhaps) or exhilaration (like when you first rode a roller coaster).  Be sure to include descriptions that appeal to at least three of the five senses, and underline these.

If you were absent from class, make sure that you have read up to the end of...
Chapter 5 for Blocks 5 and 6.
Chapter 3 for Block 8.

English 10

Complete the package we began in class on Richard Wagamese.  If you have not completed the paragraph on your name, please do so.  See the previous Grade 10 entry on this site for more information.  Also, you should be in the process of collecting 5 new vocabulary words and definitions for Thursday.

English 12

Please read chapters 2-4 of Catcher in the Rye and answer the questions.  Your vocabulary words (5) are due on Thursday.  Finally, your journal entry on your attitudes on and experiences with profanity are due on Tuesday (about 3/4 of a page of thoughtful content).