Hello, Team!

There’s quite a bit of good news to report this week:

• According to The Weather Network, Greenstone should be free of snow soon. The upcoming weather is looking pretty stellar.
• There are only eight weeks left of school. Seriously. That’s it.
• Students are completing some pretty cool work. Check out this display of Grade 9 Poetry. You can see it in the main hallway:

• Midterm marks should be in the mail this week. Why is that good news? Well, maybe it’s not… but it means you won’t have to keep your progress in class a secret any longer!

Speaking of getting close to the end, I’d like to remind you about the dangers of procrastination. With only eight weeks left, there will be little time to make up missing marks and/or assignments. Therefore it is critical to meet me to discuss any issues that have come up. The longer you wait, the harder it becomes to achieve necessary success. Trust me, I’m a champion procastinator. See my desk, for example:

Anyway, it’s time for a weekly update for our classes. Here’s the plan:

Grade 9 English (ENG1D) will work towards finishing up The Chyrsalids this week. That will take some time and effort, especially because students will also be getting their argumentative essay assignment this week. We will work out Success Criteria for this assignment first.

Grade 12 English (ENG4C) students are finishing off the Business English culminating assignment – a report on improving GCHS. Some of them are fancy. Unfortunately, students will need to finish these on their own time as we move from the computer lab back to the classroom. We will begin our unit on short writing – short stories and poetry this week. Students should be bringing their blue Foundations of English textbooks. Also, our last unit, the novel study of 1984 is fast-approaching.

Grade 11 Aboriginal Beliefs (NBV3E) will complete “The Rez Sisters” this week, and that will be followed by a final unit assignment. Next, we will explore Aboriginal Sovereignty, which focuses on allowing FNMI people to control their own affairs. This is followed by a short unit on FNMI Challenges, and then the Final Task (which is in place instead of an exam). Time will fly.

With that said and done, I will leave you with Othello, my planning assistant, who reminds you to get your stuff done before these next eight weeks burn up. Have a great week!

It’s frightening to think how fast this year has gone by, but here we are, 75% of the way through. Midterm report card marks were sent to the office today so they will be processed and likely be put in the mail next week – so be on the lookout for them.

Here’s a rundown on what’s going on in class this week:

ENG1D – Grade 9 English: We are at the halfway point of The Chrysalids this week. Students are continuing to learn about the novel’s theme, conflict, characters and plot. Students will complete a quiz this week on the first half of the novel. In addition, students are learning about essays. Students will focus on developing body paragraphs this week and then be assigned an argumentative essay to write.

Also, representatives the Ministry of Education and Superior-Greenstone DSB will be in class on Thursday morning to see how we’ve been using descriptive feedback, learning goals and success criteria in the classroom.

ENG4C – Grade 12 English: The class is at the tail-end of the Business English unit. We’ve talked about why, how, and when business English is used and to complete the unit, students will create a detailed report about a business idea for Greenstone. This assignment will involve a fair amount of research and computer work.

NBV3E – Grade 11 Aboriginal Values: I’m pretty sure students are enjoying The Rez Sisters play. We will be getting into Act 2 (the second half of the play) this week. Shout out to those students who have read aloud in class. You’re all awesome. There are some students who have been falling behind with assignments. Time may be provided this week to do some catch-up work. Please see me for information.

As always, here’s hoping everyone has a great (short) week.

Hello, Everyone! I added several files to the lesson and assignment pages of Grade 9 English, Grade 12 English, and Grade 11 Native Studies.

If you need copies of assignments or lessons, use the menu at the top of the site to navigate to the appropriate section. Need something that’s not here? Let me know and I will get it to you!