Metaphors

Hello Bloggers!

It's been a while since I/we blogged last, so I figured it was about time to dust off the cobwebs.

Grade 8's - you've been spending the last couple weeks learning about poetry and the use of figurative language. As you know, figurative language can be pretty cool and can definitely make things interesting. So, why not try your hand at interpreting some metaphors?

As you know (I hope!) a metaphor is similar to a simile, but doesn't use the words 'like' or 'as' to make a comparison. Below, I've listed a variety of metaphors for the concept of life. Your job is to select the one that you like/agree with/connect with the most, and explain what it means to you. Simple enough? Let's give it a try!

Metaphors for Life

Life is...

...a game

...a dream

... a movie

... a song

... a battle

... a dance

... a journey

... a party

... an opportunity

... a mystery

Digital Lit Circle Summary Posts

Hello Grade 8 Lit Circlers,

Recently, some of us have been a little forgetful, and our Lit Circle discussion hosts have been neglecting the post discussion summaries.

In order to help you with this, Miss Pollock has posted some very useful guidelines. Please head over to her blog before completing and posting your summaries to make sure that you've fulfilled ALL of the expectations.

Lit Circle Discussion #5 Questions

Hello my wonderful blogging buddies,

Lit Circle Questions are once again posted! Most of them are being hosted by Hillsdale students. They are linked below! Remember to get involved early.

Arianna is hosting the Sketches discussion.

Jess is hosting the Wave discussion.

Tanisha is hosting the Shaken discussion.

Kyle is hosting the Wounded discussion.

Aaron is hosting the We All Fall Down discussion.

Branded will be hosted by one of Miss Pollock's students. That link will be posted as soon as possible.

Also, just a quick reminder to discussion hosts--you also need to respond to the question you've posted. A few of us have forgotten about this in the past, so let's try to make sure that gets done quickly.

Persuasive Blogging

Hello Bloggers,

I hope you are all having a wonderful week. Only one day left until the weekend, and only one week until March Break. I don't know about you, but I'm definitely ready for a week off! Fun in the sun, here I come!

However, we do still have lots of school time left before the break. As many of you know, Ms. Pollock and I had the opportunity to attend the IDEAS conference in Kingston last week, and to present a workshop all about blogging and ways it can be used in the classroom. Many teachers left with our blog URLs in hand, so I suspect that our blogs may be playing hosts to some new guests! Now, blogging can definitely be an intimidating thing, as you know. Remember some of the challenges we had when we got started? Well, we definitely don't want to let things like that scare anyone away from blogging, which brings me to your new assignment.

Since we are studying persuasive writing in class, I've decided to also do a little persuasive writing on our blogs. Your assignment is to write an open letter to any teacher who might happen across your blog, and to explain to them why they should use blogging with their classes. In your open letter, you should have:

-A salutation (be creative with your salutation)

-An introduction paragraph that introduces who you are, tells a little bit about yourself (no personal details, please), and presents your thesis.

-A body paragraph that presents your three arguments, as well as the details and evidence that supports your arguments

-A concluding paragraph that restates your thesis and thanks your reader for viewing your blog

-A closing and signature

As with any writing assignment, you will be expected to use the writing process. Good writing always goes through many steps before it is published, so think about your blog post as it's very own publication!

Digital Lit Circles Discussion #4

Hello again, Bloggers!

Lit Circles Discussion #4 posts are up and ready for you. To access these wonderful discussions (which are already well underway), please head on over to Miss Pollock's Blog.

Note to the Sketches group: There are TWO dicussions for you to participate in this week. Please remember to visit both blogs to comment.

Oscar Challenge 2011

Hello Bloggers,

It's that time again! The Academy Awards (also known as The Oscars) are on Sunday, which means it's time for us to make our Oscar predictions. To add a little healthy competition to the mix, I've decided to make this a little contest. Below, I've listed the major categories for this year's awards. Your mission: predict as many winners as possible! I've assigned each award category a points value, and it's up to you to collect as many points as possible. The more, the better. Next week, after the awards ceremony has taken place, we will calculate the points collected by each and every participant. The participant with the most points will be the winner of a fantastic super-awesome surprise prize! All you have to do is post your predictions on your blog, and then come back here and comment to let me know you've decided to participate. Happy voting!

5 POINT CATEGORIES

Best Picture: Black Swan, The Fighter, Inception, The Kids Are All Right, The King's Speech, 127 Hours, The Social Network, Toy Story 3, True Grit, Winter's Bone

Best Actor: Javier Bardem (in Bieutiful), Jeff Bridges (in True Grit), Jesse Eisenberg (in The Social Network),  Colin Firth (in The King's Speech), and James Franco (in 127 Hours)

Best Actress: Annette Benning (in The Kids Are All Right), Jennifer Lawrence (in Winter's Bone), Natalie Portman (in Black Swan), and Michelle Williams (in Blue Valentine)

3 POINT CATEGORIES

Best Supporting Actor: Christian Bale (in The Fighter), John Hawkes (in Winter's Bone), Jeremy Renner (in The Town), Mark Ruffalo (in The Kids Are All Right), and Geoffrey Rush (in The King's Speech)

Best Supporting Actress:  Amy Adams (in The Fighter), Helena Bonham Carter (in The King's Speech), Melissa Leo (in The Fighter), Hailee Steinfeld (in True Grit), and Jacki Weaver (in Animal Kingdom)

Best Animated Feature Film: Toy Story 3, The Illusionist, How To Train Your Dragon

Best Directing: Black Swan, The Fighter, The King's Speech, The Social Network, True Grit

2 POINT CATEGORIES

Best Original Screenplay: Another Year, The Fighter, Inception, The Kids Are All Right, The King's Speech

Visual Effects: Alice In Wonderland, Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part 1, Hereafter, Inception, Iron Man 2

Music (Original Song): Country Strong, Tangled, 127 Hours, Toy Story 3

Music (Original Score): How To Train Your Dragon, The Social Network, Inception, The King's Speech, 127 Hours

Best Makeup: Barney`s Vision, The Way Back, The Wolfman

1 POINT CATEGORIES

Best Foreign Language Film: Biutiful (Mexico), Dogtooth (Greece), In A Better World (Denmark), Incendies (Canada), Outside The Law (Algeria)

Best Adapted Screenplay: The Social Network, 127 Hours, Toy Story 3, True Grit, Winter`s Bone

Digital Lit Circle Discussion # 3

Attention Digital Literature Circlers: The third set of discussion posts are now available on the following blogs...

Sketches discussion is available on Karran's Blog.
Wave discussion is available on Kaitlin's Blog.
Wounded discussion is available on Skylar's Blog.
Shaken discussion is available on Max's Blog.
We All Fall Down discussion is available on Brandon's Blog.
Black and White discussion is available on Jenna's Blog.
Branded discussion is available on Matt's Blog.

Looking forward to seeing how these discussions progress. Don't forget: Get involved early!

Group Reminder

Hello Bloggers,

I've noticed that some members of our Digital Lit Circles groups aren't quite sure who their group members are. To fix this problem, I'm just going to quickly post the members of each novel group. They are listed below!

Branded - Hannah S., Matt M., Qavi, Jeffrey, Shahad, Aaisha, Amrita

Shaken - Max, Tanisha, Tara, Tyler, Jumanh

Sketches - Andrianna, Arianna, Karran, Melissa, Haneen, Hannah, Sara

Wave - Jess, Kaitlin, Breah, Zak, Connor, Ishka

Black and White - Sam, Jenna, Noah, Amy, Claire, Walid

We All Fall Down - Kelly, Brandon, Aaron, Will, Zuhair, Jatinder

Wounded - Skylar, Michelle, Kyle,  Reshad, Mateen, Charlotte

Lit Circle Discussion # 2

Hello Bloggers,

It's time for our 2nd round of Lit Circle discussions. Ms. Pollock's students have been busy formulating interesting questions to share with us, and have begun to post them for us to respond to.
So far, the Sketches discussion has begun on Melissa's Blog, the We All Fall Down discussion topic is posted on Will's Blog, and the Shaken discussion is posted on Tara's Blog. The rest of the discussion posts will be up shortly, and I will link to them as soon as they are available!

Reminder: As group members, you have some specific criteria to fulfill when participating in the discussions

•  be sure that you've finished reading the assigned section before posting your response (and if you've read ahead, double check what is included in the reading for this discussion so that you don't give away any details that your other group members haven't reached yet)
• prepare your response carefully (100-500 words EDITED and PROOFREAD) ***HINT: It's a really good idea to use a word processor such as WordPerfect or Talking Word Processor to draft, edit, and revise your responses before you post them.
• post your response to the comment section of the host's blog
• read the other postings and respond to these at least twice 

UPDATE: The Wounded discussion post is now up and ready for your input on Reshad's Blog.

UPDATE # 2: The Wave discussion post is up and running on Connor's Blog. The Black and White discussion is post is ready on Noah's Blog, and I believe the Branded post is good to go on Qavi's Blog.

Grade 6/7 Glog Presentations

Good morning, bloggers!

Lately, it seems like most of the blogging activity is being done by the Grade 8s. They've got their Digital Literature Circles happening, so that's been a bit of a focus. However, the Grade 6/7 class have been doing some really great work as well. Recently, they were assigned a project which required them to research either an early Canadian explorer (John Cabot, Jacques Cartier, Samuel de Champlain, or Henry Hudson) or a Canadian First Nations group. After they did all of their research, they were asked to create a Glog that presented all of the information they found in an interesting way. Well, have they ever delivered! The Glogs look fantastic, and I think it would be a complete shame if I didn't share them with you.

To view our Grade 6/7 class Glogs, simply click on a link below!

Dayna's Glog

Brandon R's Glog

Alicia's Glog

Casey's Glog

Zach's Glog

Courtney's Glog

Rob's Glog

Caitlin's Glog

Brandon W's Glog

Assignment #10: Buddy Videos

Good Moring, Bloggers!
I hope everyone is off to a wonderful start with the Grade 8 Literature circles. I know that many of our Hillsdale Grade 8s are well on their way to being finished the first reading section, if they aren't finished already. Some are even starting to bug their wonderful teacher about when they are allowed to start reading Section 2 (*cough* MAX *cough*).

The purpose of THIS assignment, however, has nothing to do with the Literature Circles. Our Grade 8 buddies in Ottawa have been working very hard on creating interesting and creative presentations. They presented the finished product last week, and video taped everything! Now, they've uploaded the videos and posted them on their own blogs for us to view.

So, your assignment this time is simply to head on over to your Ottawa partner's blog and view their wonderful video, and then leave a comment once you've finished. They covered some really interesting topics such as Plagarism, Facebook Privacy, Digital Footprints, Cyber Bullying, and more! Once you've viewed the video and left your comment, be sure to come back here and comment on THIS post to let me know you've completed your task.

Here's the catch: The videos often don't work on our school computers becuase of the DDSB web filtering programs. If you can't watch from school, please watch from home.

P.S. Feel free to view and comment on more than one video! Watch and comment on as many as you wish!

Literature Circles

Digital literature circles have begun! Many of the Grade 8 students at Hillsdale and Fielding are well into the first section of their books by now, and are preparing to post and respond to their first set of discussion questions. Students from Hillsdale will be hosting the questions for week one. Take a look at the list below to find out which blogs you need to visit this week!

If you're reading Sketches, Andrianna will be hosting your discussion. (I know, this is a change from the info you've got. Unfortunately, Karran has been sick this week, so he and Andrianna have traded discussion weeks.)

If you're reading Black and White, Sam will be hosting your discussion.

If you're reading Branded, Hannah will be hosting your discussion.

If you're reading Shaken, Max will be hosting your discussion.

If you're reading Wave, Breah will be hosting your discussion.

If you're reading We All Fall Down, Kelly will be hosting your discussion.

If you're reading Wounded, Michelle will be hosting your discussion.

On Friday, discussion questions will be posted. All group members will have until next Friday (Feb.  11) to respond to the question.

Please note: You are welcome and encouraged to comment more than once. If a groupmate makes a statement that you find interesting, you are encouraged to respond to what they've said, even if you've already posted your initial response. Be as active in the discussion as you want!

Eric Walters Bio Cube

Hello again bloggers,

This post is intended for Mr. F's Grade 8 class (6/7s, you will have another blog assignment coming up shortly). In class you got the Bio-Cube planning sheet. However, you also need to know where to get all the information you will need to complete it. PLUS, you will also need the link to the actual Bio-Cube creation tool. Luckily for you, your teacher is super awesome and is providing all of these important links for you!

Eric Walters Info

Eric Walters Official Home Page

University of Manitoba Author Profile

Quill and Quire Article about Eric Walters

WEIR Author Profile

Penguin Publishing Author Profile

Authors Unleashed Interview with Eric Walters 

Bio-Cube Tool

Assignment # 9: Due January 14, 2011

Good Afternoon, and welcome back!

I hope everyone had a fantastic holiday. I certainly did! Once again, I was spoiled by my family and friends (including Santa) and I did a little spoiling of my own. But now that the holidays are over and we're back to school, I thought it would be a good idea to take a little time to think about other people. As many of you know, there are thousands and thousands of people in the world who are not nearly as fortunate as we are here in Canada. There are thousands of children who didn't receive a Christmas present, thousands of parents who couldn't afford to provide their families with delicious turkey dinners, and millions of people who didn't get to spend their mornings sleeping in in a warm, cushy bed. For these people, life is a lot more difficult, and I think it's important to remember them, especially at this time of year.


We've all heard the song "If I had 1,000,000 Dollars" by the Barenaked Ladies, but I'll include it below for your entertainment.

In this song, the Barenaked Ladies talk about all the different things they'd do with a million dollars. They could buy a house and furniture to put in it. They would by a fur coat, an exotic pet, a green dress, and a monkey. They'd even take a limousine to get to the store. In our society, a million dollars can go a really long way.


On the other hand, in some countries, it doesn't take a million dollars to make a difference. In some countries, even one hundred dollars can go a really long way.

Step 1:  For this assignment, you will be researching the following organizations:


Oxfam


The Salvation Army


Plan Canada


World Vision


You will need to learn a little bit about each organization. What do they stand for? What do they do with donations? What kinds of donations are available?

Step Two: You will also learn about Ethical Gifts. What are they? How does Ethical Gift giving work? What ethical gift options are available from each organization? You will need to fill out your Ethical Gift Tracking form that you will receive in class. You must record the number of gift options available at each organization, as well as the least and most expensive items. Once you've done this, you will use the remaining space to record the potential gifts that you're interested in, their cost, and their purpose. This form must be completed and handed in to Ms. Crosbie by January 14.

Step Three: Once you've done your research and learned all about these organizations and the gifts they offer, you will have to make a decision. You've been given $100 to spend on ethical gifts. You must decide which organization you will purchase your gifts from, and what gifts you will purchase.

Step 4: You will then create a new blog post under the heading "Assignment #9: If I had $100." In this blog post, you will :

a) Identify which organization(s) you've chosen for your purchase (don't forget to explain why you chose that specific organization)
b) Which gifts you will purchase (don't forget to explain the purpose of these gifts and why you chose them)
c) How you will distribute your funds (i.e. will you spend $100 buying a whole whack of mosquito nets? Or, will you spend $20 on mosquito nets, $50 on a goat, and $30 on medical supplies?)

Step 5: After you've published your post, don't forget to come back to THIS post and leave a comment to let me know you've finished! I can't wait to see what some of you choose to do with your money!

Note: As discussed in class today (January 4), you may combine your funds with those of another person if you both wish to purchase an item that is over $100. You may also spend your money at more than one organization.

One More Sleep

Hello Bloggers!

Well, this is it....the holidays are almost over. Only one more sleep until school starts again.

I hope you all had  wonderful holidays and that you had lots of time to relax and enjoy the company of family and friends. Now, tomorrow, it's back to the grind. See you bright and early at 8:40!