Wednesday 14th

 Today the teachers protested in front of the school again as part of the `work to rule actions´. Some students joined them. They encouraged any cars passing by to show support by blowing their horns. This protest in front of the school takes place once a week; it lasts for about 15 minutes before the first period starts at 7:55 but some teachers are usually there at 7:10 a.m. Today they asked the principal to join them but he answered that he was on duty...

These photos were taken at a different school:

 

These are the regulations of the `work to rule´:

Today was Day 3

Period 2: English 3IB

The class starts with an in-class writing activity: Think of the different reality shows on TV these days (Survivor, Amazing Race, The Bachelor / Bachelorette, Big Brother...) Would you be a good contestant on any of the many shows? Explain. 

As usual they had to follow the instructions:

• Date
• 60 words
• # (hashtag)

Next they start working in Farenheit 541; they skim the reading they did at home as homework assignment, they revise what alliteration is and learn what hyperbole is.

Since their test is next week, they are asked to read the 10 pages that are left of the book for tomorrow.

A Real Madrid fan in Canada


Period 3: 3IM

Next week this group has a test so Madison agrees with them when to email a reminder to them; they agree the best day is Friday after school has finished so they will remember to revise during the weekend. This is something I have never done; I do remind my students of the dates of the tests off and on but not with an email just before it.

Ater the students had read aloud some pages of the book, Madison told the group about point of view and narrative voice. She used the novel they are reading, Monster, as an example of first person narrative and to make it even clearer, they did a written activity. She showed them a photo taken during a baseball game: someone is throwing a baseball bat to the spectators in this photo. She asked the students in each group/table to choose one spectator in the photo and tell their story of that moment in first person, "I".

Periods 5 & 6; English 1 IB

These students have been extremely talkative and fidgety for a couple of days. Even though they have a test next week and that usually makes students concentrate more on the classes, this is not what is going on with these groups. As a way to stop this, Madison will prepare a new seating arrangement for tomorrow, and she told the students so.

Madison started reminding them of a few things: the blog, due Friday, which will be marked  out of 10 instead of out of 5 because it involves 2 activities: since Thanksgiving was last Monday, they have to think about someone (or a couple of people) who they would like to say thanks to and they should explain why, including some examples. The second activity consists of taking a selfie with that person and emailing it to the teacher, or asking them to take a selfie and then sending that photo to the teacher. (Sometimes I am surprised by the activities the students are asked to do. For example, in this case, the writing part is really interesting, not only because of the way it is related to life outside the school and the way it makes students reflect on the people around them, but also because of  the fact of making students thinking positively about the people they know; on the other hand, marking that task with the same score as a selfie is something I find disproportionate. But I also think that these easy tasks are the ones that help every student to pass the subject at the end of the school year. There is always one thing or another that is very easy but gets a mark - and one task after another helps students get enough points to pass)

  

And then there was some reading in the class with lots of volunteers.

Today Madison had to explain the meaning of these two words: tedious and brief

The IB teachers at our school had a meeting after school today to talk about the students' personal projects. These projects are mandatory in the IB programmes for the students who want to do Grades 11 & 12 in IB; however, schools with IB programmes organize them differently. For example, in some schools students prepare these projects during Grade 10; they have the whole school year to work on them and, thus, they can focus on getting good marks during Grade 11. In St. Thomas, they decide the topic of their projects and choose their mentors in March and present the project in November; they do it like this because they think students can do the bulk of their work, with no distractions from other subjects,  during the summer. This project is a 10-page paper that somehow shows what the students have learnt in their IB years at school but it is also personal so they choose a subject they are interested in and they like. A committee assesses the projects. 

Examples of projects: a student built his own hockey stick, another built his own bicycle, and they both wrote the processes in their papers; another student created a fictional nuclear war, which involved lots of readings and very careful writing. This last student got 32 points out of 39 but you only need 9 out of 32 to pass. It doesn't look too hard... 

This photo shows the way how students show their projects after they have been assessed

And this was the sunset from St. Joseph´s Oratory, a Roman Catholic basilica in Mount Royal.The wind was so cold!!!

Tiempo en Montreal hoy: 3ºC / 11º C