Friday, February 25, 2011

Students are asked to complete the following:

Please visit the website for Fanshawe College and, once you are there, please find the web page regarding Fees, Payments and Refunds.  Please analyse this page by examing two specific areas:

1. Look at the text regarding Fees for Full Time Students and then compare it to the text that the college has chosen to use at the top of the page as the web page header, where it says “Opportunity Maxed!”

Compare these two sections of text in the following ways:

1. Topic
2. Theme
3. Audience
4. Diction
5. Mood

* I have attempted to attach a chart to capture this information here:
nonfiction elements comparison feb 25 2011
nonfiction elements comparison feb 25 2011

 

STUMPER QUESTION:
Using your powers of INFERENCE (taking your best plausible guess based on the information in front of you as well as your experience and instinct), see if you can answer the following question:

What do you think is Fanshawe College’s attitude towards this financial information — or any of the information in this web site? Please explain your answer.

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Students are asked to please complete the following:

1. Please write down the definition of the next concept, MOOD:

Mood in a text can be described as “the emotion that the author intended for the audience to feel.” Pay close attention to that word “intended“; the author hopes and wants for us, the readers, to feel a certain way during and after reading the text. NOTE: We may never feel that emotion for any number of reasons, but we need to use our Grade 12 level analytical skills to infer (make our best guess) as to what emotion the author most likely wanted us to feel. So, to sum up, the author INTENDS for us to feel a certain way but that may not mesh with what we ACTUALLY feel.

For example:
A) Have you ever seen a movie / TV show / YouTube video that your friends told you was very scary / exciting / disgusting, etc. but then when you watched it, you actually didn’t feel that feeling at all?

B) The recent movie PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 2 could be another example. I have had students tell me that although the movie was INTENDED to make them feel scared, it ACTUALLY didn’t make them feel scared at all.

2. Once you have the definition of MOOD, can you now please complete the activity sheet from yesterday about the story DON’T TURN ON THE LIGHT,  which can also be found at the link below.

Don’t Turn On The Light

3. Please visit the site of The Darwin Awards, find a true story that interests you and complete the following:
a. Decide on the TOPIC and the THEME of your story.
b. Decide what the INTENDED MOOD was — as opposed to your ACTUAL MOOD.
c. What AGE GROUP is most likely the INTENDED AGE GROUP for this website? What specific evidence helps you          make this decision?

Thank you and good luck!

Tuesday, February 22, 2010

Hello Grade 12′s!

My apologies that you will be doing some self-directed learning again today. This will be happening from time to time as I have the wonderful opportunity to model some interesting teaching techniques for other teachers who will be coming to the school to observe me teach my grade 10 class (never ours).

In addition to these in-school observations, I am required to attend meetings, again, from time to time.

Thank you in advance for any help you can give me with these situations. I appreciate it.

Here is the classwork for Tuesday, February 22, 2011. Please answer the following questions:

1. What are 2 POSITIVES and 2 NEGATIVES of writing in a C.E.S.A.C. style?
2. What are 2 POSITIVES and 2 NEGATIVES of finding examples of DICTION in a text?
3. Lolly List: Think about the word MOOD. If we use the definition at wikipedia.org as a starting point, then that site says that mood is a “…relatively long-lasting emotional state…“, such as angry, happy, sad, etc. In order to ‘earn’ a lolly, your job is to create a list of 30 MOODS. (Physical states, such as sick, or sore thumb, don’t count!)
4. WRITE DOWN THIS NEW CONCEPT: TOPIC and THEME: When we are thinking about texts we have to read, there are two terms that go together: Topic and Theme. Topic can be described as ‘what the text is about’, which can be summed up in one or two words, such as “Love”, “War”, “Terrorism”, “Courage”, etc. — as opposed to theme which is the ‘message about that topic that we are supposed to get from the text‘, such as “True love never dies”, “War is hell”, “Terrorism is never as simple as it seems”, “Courage is hard to find when it matters most”. To clarify, the topic is usually only ONE or TWO WORDS, while the theme is often a SENTENCE.  In addition, there can be many topics as well as many themes; that is to say, one text (a book, a movie, a song, etc.) can have a number of topics and a theme for each of those topics. For example: think of the movie Saving Private Ryan. One obvious TOPIC, in one word, could be WAR, while the theme might be WAR IS A HORRIBLE EXPERIENCE. But in that story, there are other topics besides War: Courage, Family, Death, Heroism, etc. Another example could be the movie Twilight: One obvious topic could be LOVE, while a theme on that topic could be TRUE LOVE CONQUERS EVERYTHING.
5. Once you have the definition of  TOPIC and THEME written down, watch the trailer for The Fighter below and answer the question below:

One of the TOPICS for The Fighter could be dreams. What is one possible THEME (message) that a viewer could get from this story. (Hint: Themes often start with sentences such as “Never…” or “Always…” or “Remember to…” etc.) So, see if you can think of a theme for the topic of dreams, which is another way of asking: What is the moral or lesson of this story regarding dreams?

If you are looking for an extra challenge because you are feeling “Green Light” then see if you can pull out another topic and theme combo just from the trailer.

If you are looking for an extra hard challenge, choose any trailer of any movie you like and repeat the same process. Good luck! (More trailers can be found at http://trailers.apple.com/

Before Macbeth, Act 3

Historic Highway – Fresh Paint, originally uploaded by Jesse Estes.

Before we read Act 3:

Macbeth has now achieved what he always wanted: the crown. Yet this picture might be used as symbol of what lies in store for him. Any guesses?

Interconnected