Thursday 8th

As I came into school this morning, I noticed some boys walking along the corridors in their suits and ties. I was told there would be a football game at school in the evening and the boys in the team wear suits - or at least a shirt and a tie - to look professional when they show up to the game. By the way, they love it - just like they do for their graduation speeches with me.

Periods 2 & 3: English 1 IB

First of all, the students read the reminder on the blackboard: blogs (the next one, due tomorrow, is about Thanksgiving), test (Tuesday, 20 Oct.: they need a Hilroy Book for tests since no tests on a loose leaf will be accepted, and they need to write in blue or black ink, as it is a formal test; it will be an open book test so once again they are reminded of they way they must quote Shakespeare: act+scene+line); projects (videos must be ready to be watched in class on Oct. 26 - the project is group work but the reflections on the project must be done individually following the outline in `Google Classroom´).They are also reminded to bring their mouse to class tomorrow  because Mr. Katz is going to show them how to create their own Google Sites for their portfolios. I like the way teachers remind students of things over and over again: they tell them how to jot things down, what to include in their notes and they make sure everybody understands; I think that `we´ tend to say it one time and then mention it from time to time but not in a clear and relevant way. We take it for granted that they will remember and when/if they don´t, we get angry...

First activity of the class: students had to answer a question on their in-class writing books; this question was related to one of the scenes in AMNSD (= "A Midnight Summer's Dream): Have you ever been so upset, angry or annoyed that you have had to walk out/away? They had to write 50 words minimum in 7 minutes and they needed to focus on the situation and the emotions they had felt but they did not have to give too many details.

Once the students had finished, they left there books in a box (homework for the teacher - but, because of the protest, teachers do not spend so much time on correcting so, instead of getting the corrections in one or two days at most, students may have to wait fot a week or longer- unless Madison, the student teacher, corrects them in this case)

Next Madison chose the readers for Act IV, Scene 2 of AMNSD. As usual, there were lots of volunteers:

These were the lucky ones:

At some time during this lesson, a teacher came and asked for a chair for a student to write a test, why? I do not know and Glenn did not know. There was only one free chair so he sat at Glenn´s table to do it.

As the students were reading Act IV aloud, there was a fire drill. There are 6 fire drills a year in Quebec and one lockout (in case of a shotgun or a terrorist attack). So far, they have already had the lockout and 5 fire drills - including this one today; the last one will be in the spring. They do not do any drills in the winter: it would be too cold (the average temperature in winter  here is around -20 C) since the students leave their coats and jackets in the lockers . In case of a real fire in winter, they would go to the school next door,  Félix Leclerc or a church down the road - everything is planned. The good thing is teachers know in advance when the fire drills take place so they can plan their tests in advance. 






It was cold and little bit windy at times no students were wearing coats, but plenty of them were in t-shirts.

During recess, a former student of Mr. Katz came over to just talk to him. I find this so nice, all these students coming for small talk. 

Also, two girls came to ask for help to film a video for their project; they needed their cell phones, the whiteboard and the computer:

Period 5: English 3 IB

In-writing activity: `Tell me one thing that would make you happy right now´

While the students were doing the writing activity, Mr. Katz handed back a former homework assignment: a propaganda poster related for a character in Farenheit 451. These got 10/10 (and they were so proud when I wasked for their permission to take a photo of the posters!)

Mr. Katz read aloud quite a few pages of Farenheit 451, stopping from time to time to focus on some quotes or to make sure the students were following the story.As they were going over the dates of the next test and project, some students asked for a whole class to work on it, so they negotiated extra reading of the novel (pages 115-138) at home in exchange for a whole period for their projects next week.







Period 6: English 3 IM

The topic for the write-in activity for this group was: `If you were taken away from home for a long period of time, what would you miss the most?´Once more, this topic was related to the novel they are reading, Monster, where a boy spends a long time in prison.

This was the last period and this group, normally talkative, was specially fidgety (they did the planned reading, though) so Mr. Katz finished the lesson nearly 10 minutes before the bell rang. He told them they could just take some leisure time (they can never leave the room) but he played a mockumentary on his computer and in no time at all they were asking him to play it for all of them. This is the mockumentary they watched: `The Majestic Plastic Bag´ (The narrator is Jeremy Irons, so, enjoy the audio!)



Y las luces de la ciudad, a las 6:30 p.m.:

Temperature today: 8 (feels like 6)-12 (feels like 11)