As we work our way through the first major essay, it is clear that many students need a refresher on referencing sources such as quotes and statistics in the body of their work.

Many lessons, guides, and examples can be found via Purdue University’s Online Writing Lab, a helpful (and free!) tool available for students.

Relevant Purdue OWL lessons for referencing sources include:

• MLA Citations – The Basics
• Formatting Quotations
• The Works Cited Page

In addition, here are some of my tools and samples that may be useful:

• Guide to Using Quotations and Statistics
• Quotes and Citations – Lessons & Examples
• Student Sample Essay

We will also work our way through a number of examples in class using our own writing. In the meantime, as rough copies come together, please make use of the resources on this page.

This week in ICS2O – Grade 10 Computer Science we will apply our knowledge of the Scratch programming language by creating a side-scrolling game, (similar to Superior Mario Bros. and Flappy Bird.

Students will follow a tutorial that will help them create an animated background to give the illusion of a large “level” in a game. Afterwards, students will customize their project to provide additional characters, interactions, and animations. Fun!

Here’s the assignment and success criteria.
Here’s the tutorial.

Looking forward to seeing what students create!

It has been an amazing first week in ENG3U – Grade 11 English and ICS2O – Grade 10 Computer Science. What I appreciate the most about these two classes is the high levels of initiative, collaboration, and inquiry that students bring every day. I know, I know – it might still be the honeymoon period and I shouldn’t jinx it, but I feel like this group will sustain themselves for the semester, provided that I bring my A-game to class, too!

The ENG3U class is working on developing essay writing skills, with a specific focus on thesis writing and the development of topics/arguments. We watched a short episode called “White Bear” from the British Netflix series Black Mirror, which includes many themes, (such as social media and technology use, victimization, and crime and punishment) with the ultimate goal of students having to create a thesis statement based on the episode. We will discuss what students came up with before moving on to additional work with essay development.

Next week, about half the class is off to Wawa for curling on Monday and Tuesday – so good luck, GCHS Knights!

The ICS2O students have begun exploring – and getting right into – the Scratch programming language. This teaching language gets students to understand the process of programming in a visual manner. Experienced coder Derrin created this very short demonstration of movement in Scratch that I appreciated. The smooth gliding of his character’s jump is pretty awesome:

So – that’s it for the first week. Thanks to my students for making my job really, really awesome!