Merry Christmas!

Hello everyone!

Well, we've been tracking Santa and the sleigh on the NORAD Santa tracker. Last we looked he was in South America. And my kids tell me there are zero days left to follow preparations at the North Pole. How exciting! Anyway, thought you should know that if you tune in now to CTV or NBC West, you can watch It's a Wonderful Life. Also on CBC is Miracle on 34th Street - a remake of a classic!

Our stockings have miraculously been filled, and the Santa presents are all wrapped in previously unseen "Santa" wrapping paper. I am looking forward to eating some of the cookies and carrots left out for Santa and the Reindeer, and you'll be pleased to know The Language of Composition is beside me right now!

Anyway, since you have all been so good, I know you'll have a great day tomorrow - Merry Christmas!

The Great Debaters

The Movie:
Well, finally my great debate over which movie to show has come to a winning conclusion, I think. Of course, the essay we read for homework encouraged me to follow my convictions and show something with a curricular tie-in: namely the power of language, education, persuasion, and of course, a dose of American history. Next term when we begin studying persuasion, we will discuss fallacious reasoning; argument; counter-argument; syllogisms; etc.

Some interesting notes about the movie. It stars Denzel Washington and Forest Whitaker, both winners of the Oscar for Best Actor: Washington for Training Day and Whitaker for The Last King of Scotland. Interestingly, there is oddly coincidental casting of the young actor who plays James Farmer Jr. He is named Denzel Whitaker.

The movie, inspired by a true story, is set in 1930's, Depression-Era, Texas at Wiley College. There are references to the Fire-Side Chats of President Roosevelt, and to the New Deal - the President's plan to stimulate a dying economy and offer relief to the unemployed and starving. The plot highlights the continued struggle of African Americans to educate their population and combat the anti-literacy laws of the 1800's and the Jim Crow laws, which were still in existence.

As you've seen so far, there is also some interesting discussion of the derivation of certain words: denigrate, meaning, in some cases, to "blacken" from the root Niger, and lynching, from the name of a slave master Willy Lynch.

Finally, the scene where the students are practicing speaking with their mouths full reminds me of my university rhetoric course, where we learned of Demosthenes, a reknowned Greek orator. A common story tells of his talking around mouthfuls of rocks to improve his diction, but it is unknown whether this is fact or merely a legendary example of his perseverance and determination.

Note: We may need to finish the movie during coffee break Friday - I'm guessing 5 minutes or so; hope you'll stay.

Your essays:
Back by Friday, if all works out well. I've marked about half. Some very good efforts, so far. Really interesting topics.

The essay you read for homework:
We will commence with this after Christmas and do a second, close reading.

That's all for now - two more sleeps, people!

The Ironic Teaching Life

Hello,

Sorry to those of you who found the lack of a post, following my sick day, a significant impediment to your learning. Nonetheless, it strikes me as ironic that I am now responsible for missed homework. In an effort to assist you with the blog, I have taken on more work for myself and lessened student responsibility. Hmm. Perhaps we can find a way for you to take turns writing the blog - guest bloggers if you will! I once worked as a ghost blogger - interesting work impersonating someone else. It would be a good exercise in writing and replicating voice if each of you wrote as me. Would I be flattered or offended by the results?

Anyway, today we finished up the Kyoko Mori essay and discussed (briefly) some of the fundamental differences between Japanese education and American education. By the way, I took note of some very good homework efforts out there - even if I don't mark it, you are helping yourself by doing such good work, and I do notice!

Then we moved on to the viewing portion of the class; we watched scenes from Giant, On the Waterfront, A Fistful of Dollars, Dirty Harry, La Dolce Vita, and a questionable selection, to please some male viewers, from Apocalyspe Now.

Finally, we continued to delve into what I will term The Great Movie Debate of 2010: what can we watch as a class? I still think It's A Wonderful Life has the curricular connection and is different enough from what you normally watch to be worthwhile. That being said, none of you has seen The Class, from France, and it is highly educational, interesting, thought-provoking and challenging. Further, it won the Palme D'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, and having lived and worked in Cannes, that makes it a sentimental favorite! Perhaps we have a winner ...

Homework: Read On the Uses of a Liberal Education as Lite Entertainment for Bored College Students. Try to see the prof's point of view.

See you Wednesday!

Filled with Glee

It's 8:30 a.m., and the Glee Christmas soundtrack is playing in my livingroom, where the dance party has already commenced. The baby is rolling a Barbie suitcase around, and I have been informed the girls are all ready to go to California! (Other days they're going to Brazil). Welcome to my "day off."

Anyway, lest I forget the blog again, let's review what we did yesterday:

1. First, in groups of four, you wrote the criteria for the narrative essay including expectations for words, sentences, paragraphs, the essay as a whole, and the ideas you will communicate. Please remember that I expect the essay to be edited, peer-edited, and to include a rough and good draft when you hand it in. This entire package will be worth 60 marks.
2. Second, in the same groups, you wrote, and will finish for tomorrow, a ten-question test using the words from one of the vocab units we've studied. The test format is like the one I gave you on the alien-encounter, and you should supply a word bank for the test-takers.

For those of you who have seen me to conference on your essays, I am impressed with the writing so far. Because of the time allotted for this essay, I hope to see a relatively error-free effort sans sentence fragments, run-ons, and spelling errors.

For tomorrow: Hand in your essay! Also bring your textbook for some follow-up questions on the Emerson essay and a chance to read another essay or two in the education section of the text.

Oh- they're singing the Wham song -must run and dance! (Do you even know who Wham is?)

Write, Forrest, Write!

Hello all,
Sorry for the late entry. Last class you spent some time (at least you were supposed to be spending time) writing your essays. I would like you to do peer-editing tomorrow, so please come with a draft - or most of a draft - ready to get some feedback. The more of the essay you write now, the better it will be for you. You simply can't do a great job of writing this assignment on the fly.

I did postpone the due date for the essay - it is now due with a rough and good draft on Thursday, Dec. 9th.

We also finished reading From Education by Emerson, and Ms. Mountain was reminded that "taciturnity" is derived from the word tacit and thus is pronounced in a similar fashion. The learning never ends! Because Taylor didn't study for the vocab test, I postponed it until tomorrow, so study!

Homework: essay - write, people, write! VOCAB unit 4, Senior words