English 9
Lesson One:
Lesson Two:
Lesson Three:
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- To start the course off, we will review the course outline and classroom expectations. Students will decorate their name cards. Names must remain legible.
- Students will watch Weird Al's Words Crimes and try to connect it to some of the things we will learn in the course.
- Students will play a few community games to help use get to know each other and their personality styles.
- End with a writing prompt, what is on thing that you are looking forward to this year. Also, this would be the place to let me any important messages you may have for me.
Lesson Two:
- Ask the class if they know everyone in the class (probably not) Can they make a guess what their peers are like based off of their appearances? What about their actions? No, not 100% accurately.
- Watch this Coke Commercial.
- Randomly pair students off and let them find a spot anywhere on school property to interview each other. They should take about 15 minutes per person and take notes. Discuss how to ask open ended questions rather than yes/no questions. Handout has some question prompts provided.
- Once students have finished interviewing their peers they will come back to class to complete a draft copy. They should aim for an interesting introductory sentence to hook and engage their reader and include a concluding sentence. Here is a sample copy written about a teacher from another school.
- Once students have hand written a copy they can start typing it up. They will include a photo of the person they are writing about that has been approved by the person. They can do this in the classroom or go elsewhere on school property. Once they have typed it up and proof read it, the individual who it is about will get to read it to help peer-edit and approve it.
- Share this document with me. You will be printing off a copy for me to give feedback on and I will print off a copy in colour to be posted in the classroom.
Lesson Three:
- What kind of impact does technology have on our lives? Ask students to reflect on how much time they spend on technology daily. Do they think it is a positive or negative thing?
- Watch two videos: 1 - I forgot my phone. 2 - Apple commercial where boy makes Christmas movie
- Reflect. Is technology positive or negative? Record your own thoughts and then discuss in groups of 4 and report out the highlights from your discussion.
- Our development of technology has led to a lot of problems in the environment, we are now going to watch two contrasting view points of that. This will help lead up to a paragraph we will begin later. 1: MAN. 2: How wolves change rivers
- Answer: Is mankind going to destroy the planet and itself? Why or why not?
- Discuss in groups of 4, report out highlights.
- *Ask students to leave phones/devices in their lockers or bags (room will be locked). We will be reflecting on this later.
- Hand out sheet with enroute activities. Go over the quotes with them and get them into partners. We will be walking to the far upper field.
- While walking, have partners to discuss which one they personally agree with more and why. The first one is from Charles Dickens and the second is from an Aboriginal Elder, Tom Dystra.
- Read the story, The Country Between Us. Discuss chunking, split the story in two parts. Read the first part, students will highlight a quote that they think is important (like language, connection, theme). Discuss with a partner why they chose that quote. Read the second half of the story and write down a second key quote. Discuss with their partner and share out.
- Discuss the story: not about stereotypes, conflict between traditions and the modern world. This is a theme in the course.
- Two minutes of silence. Sit, eyes closed, listen to the sounds. Afterwards, record three sounds you wouldn't hear before industrialization.
- *ask students to write examples on the board for the pros/cons of industry and technology.
- Review notes on how to write a paragraph.
- Outline paragraph.
- Type up, self/peer edit, print and hand in.
- The class will complete a sharing circle to discuss our findings from the tech review. Here is some information about sharing circle protocols.
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