TTH Trial

Our mock trial based on Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart" is scheduled for Thursday and Friday of this week.

Each student was assigned a specific role along with a description and needs to prepare a statement for the trial. These statements need to be submitted on Wednesday!

Students who do not have their statements prepared will not be allowed to participate in our trial.

Source: https://farm1.staticflickr.com/129/383476178_8fe0f5e767_o_d.jpg

What We've Been Up To Since September

As mentioned, I will be using this blog again from here on in to keep you updated on some of our classroom assignments and events, but I thought I would take the time to let you know what we've been up to so far.

In terms of writing, we started out by writing a letter of reference about ourselves. This not only gave me a good idea of individual writing levels, but it also allowed me to learn a bit more about each new student. We applied for our dream job, which some of us took seriously, others not so much -- there were marine biologists and bed mattress testers...

Under the umbrella of recounts (texts that retell a past event), we've read several texts, but here are some of the highlights, along with key assignments:

• "Smoky Night" by Eve Bunting, a child's account based on the L.A. Riots. We used this text to identify text features of a recount and started our exploration of the theme of childhood innocence.

• "The Composition" by Antonio Skarmeta, based on a child's perspective of growing up under a military dictatorship. As part of this text we took a look at human rights in general and our Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in particular. We also connected the story's events and themes to current events, including dictatorships, past and present.

• "What Do I Remember of the Evacuation", a poem by Canadian author Joy Kogawa about the interment of the Japanese-Canadians in BC during WWII. We extended this to the Holocaust and the current global refugee crisis.

• Edgar Allan Poe's poem "The Raven" was our Hallowe'en read. Aside from learning more about Poe himself, we explored the human condition as expressed in the narrator's emotional rollercoaster. We also took a closer look at the myriad of poetic devices Poe so craftily used in his famous poem. Oh yes, we also watched The Simspons' version of the poem. A highlight was "The Raven" media project which asked students to represent the poem in any media format of their choice. These project were then presented in a Gallery Walk, with each project acting as an exhibit. The results were amazing and I hope to share some of them on this blog. We had musical interpretations, comparisons to Harry Potter, "The Raven" as a series of mathematical equations, an interpretative dance performance, collages, short films, "The Raven" represented through famous paintings, etc., etc.

• Sticking with Poe, we read his classic short story "The Tell-Tale Heart". We studied some vocabulary and will now be examining the narrator's state of mind before staging a mock trial based on the story.

And that's pretty much where we are at the moment. 

Snowhawks Ski & Snowboard Club at GMS

I am passing along some information about the GMS...

...Snowhawks Ski & Snowboard Club

This year, Snowhawks Ski & Snowboard School is offering Greenbank Middle School students a four-Monday ski and snowboard program. The program will run the same evenings as the Snowhawks-Knoxdale program. The first outing is Monday, January 4, and the program then continues through January 25. Two trips each to Vorlage and Mt Cascades will provide plenty of variety. Participants are welcome to register for lift tickets and motor coach travel only, or may add on lessons and/or equipment rental as desired. Motor coaches will leave the school at dismissal, and return to school at 9:00 PM. Deadline for registration is Dec 3rd, although space may fill before the deadline. A PDF version of the info-sheet is attached to this message. There is a limited amount of funding to provide assistance to families who require financial assistance. Inquiries should be directed to Snowhawks.

To register please go to: https://snow-hawks.com/For any questions about the program, please contact Snowhawks directly at Ottawa@Snowhawks.com or 613-730-0701.

Ahhh, this brings back memories from ski club when I was in grade 8...

We didn't have snowboards back then, so we tried sliding down the Alps on ironing boards. Ahh, the good old days...

EMF7A Math

We are coming to an end of our mini unit on order of operations and there will be a brief quiz tomorrow. And no, it will not be a speed-walking scavenger hunt! Sorry;)

Source: http://image.mathcaptain.com/cms/images/101/order-of-operations1.png

Back in business!

Thankfully the labour unrest has been settled and I am now in a position to use this blog to provide updates on class assignments and events.

To begin with, you can subscribe to this blog by entering your email address in this box on the right side of this screen:

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Parent Interviews:

Even though progress reports will not have been issued yet, we are going ahead with parent-teacher interviews this week. Unfortunately, I am not available this Thursday evening due to a family commitment.

I am booking interviews for Wednesday evening and Friday morning instead. I apologize for the inconvenience, but will make every effort to set up a meeting time suitable to your schedule.

Having said that, I am teaching five classes this year. As a result, I will not be able to accommodate all requests and will need to prioritize. If a face-to-face interview is not possible, I am happy to conduct a phone interview at a different time instead.

Thank you,
Karsten Gitter