Hello 2015 – 2016!

Hello and welcome to the blog you won’t be reading. I created this massive thing a number of years ago and have fiddled around with it ever since. If you want to see what my classes did three years ago, snoop to your heart’s content. But if you want to know what you’re doing THIS year, look to the right and click on your particular course.

Each course I teach has its own blog and each blog has multiple blogs within the blog. For example, if you’re in English 11, can click on your link and you’ll see links at the top of the page for blogs within the blog: Lord of the Flies or Titanic or Poetry or Macbeth. There’s also a section at the top that tells you all of the assignments for each term; you can keep track of what they are and you can also print out the handout for each assignment. If you ever feel like you’ve lost track of what you’re doing, just go to my blog.

So that’s it. There are only a couple of rules I’d like to emphasize: Don’t use your cell phone in class unless we’re specifically using phones for a purpose. It just distracts you. Hand in work on the day it’s due. If you can’t for a reason, tell me the reason. Be on time. If you get stuck or don’t know what you’re doing, show up for Flex Time or come to see me after school. There you go. That’s it.

Happy New School Year.

October 1: for TOC and students

You’ll be reading the short story “The Painted Door” in class and starting the questions. Please don’t hand in any work today, new or old. 

Here’s the block order for the day: 

8:24 – 9:18            Block 1 – 2

9:24 – 10:19          Block 1 – 1

10:25 – 11:20        Block 1 – 4

11:20 – 11:48        LUNCH

11:53 – 12:48        Block 1 – 4

12:54 – 1:49          Block 1 – 3

1:49 – 2:44            Tutorial

Where’s my class’s info?

If you’re looking for English 10, look to the right, under Edna Mode and click!

And if you’re looking for English 11, look to the right, under Edna Mode and click.

I like being repetitive.

Instructions for TOC

Message for all students: If you have any outstanding work — essays or poetry assignments — you MUST give it to me on Monday morning. That’s Monday June 9. DO NOT give it to the TOC and DO NOT put it in the letter box. Give it to ME in person on Monday morning. Thank you. 

Message for TOC: There is a pile of handouts on the small table by the white board at the front of the room. The handouts have an article on Bangladesh and another by Margaret Atwood. These handouts may be used for both English 10 students and English 11.

For the English 11 students, the instructions are at the top of the article. They are to write a synthesis essay, taking points from both articles. They should take the whole period to do it. This is in preparation for the Final Exam.

For the English 10 students, they may be given the same handout but they are to write a compare and contrast essay. Instructions are in orange pen on the white board. They are to find two points that are the same and two points that are different and write a four paragraph compare and contrast essay. This is in preparation for their Provincial Exam.

The Writing 12 students are finishing writing a novella. Each student is at a different place and should just work on their own.

Please tell my students I am sorry I’m not with them but I will be back on Monday.

Thank you,

Christine Watson 

It’s time!

It’s the end of the year and time is running out. All Poetry assignments are due TUESDAY JUNE 3. After that, we’ll be focussing only on preparation for your Final and Provincial Exams. 

The Grade 10 Mock Provincials are as follows: 1-1: Wednesday June 11; 2-3: Monday June 16; 2-4: Monday June 16.

The Grade 10 Provincial Exam is June 24th.

The Grade 11 Final Exams are as follows: 1-2:  Wednesday June 11; 1-3 Friday June 13; 2-1: Thursday June 12.

The Writing 12 novella is due the last day of classes. 

To see the English 10 Poetry Assignment, go here.

To see the English 11 Poetry Assignment, go here.

I hand in my Term Three Report Card marks into the Office on Wednesday June 11.

I hand in my Final Report Card marks into the Office on Tuesday June 17. 

MY DEADLINES ARE YOUR DEADLINES.

 

new blogs — not by me

15now.wordpress.com    16now.wordpress.com    17now.wordpress.com   You’ve written your first posts on your blog but you might want to look at other people’s posts. I’ve created them according to age, not grade, because I can’t think of a human being in the whole world who would be enticed to read something titled “Grade 11 Blog.” (I’d run from it and I’m the teacher!) The more stories you send, the more I post. I will just keep adding to each blog as the stories come in. Don’t forget to click “Older Stories” under the circles and if you want to comment, you have to click “like” first and the “comment” box will show up.

 

 

 

Don’t forget!

You can go to my English 10 blog here, my English 11 blog here, and my Writing 12 blog here.

Review

Hi again. Here’s your review for the day. This is the blog you go to that’s the general one. If you’re in English 10, go to the English 10 blog at the right and if you’re in English 11, go to the English 11 blog at the right.

Here’s the review for everyone: Get your mom and/or dad to sign the Course Outline so I know they know about this blog. Create your own wordpress blog and give me the link on a comment on my blog. Create a twitter account and click follow to follow me. (If you don’t want me to follow you, create a school oriented twitter account. I can’t send you messages if we don’t follow each other, though.)

That’s it! All homework info is on your English 10 or English 11 blog.

New Year. Same Chairs.

Welcome back to school and welcome to my classroom. If you’re lucky, you’ll get one of the two lawn chairs but if you don’t today, don’t despair: You’ll get one another day. I’m really looking forward to the new year and hope you are, too. If you want to know the basic stuff about the year (ie. when the holidays are, etc.) go to my Year Overview/Misc Info blog. If you want to know the kind of things we’ll be doing this year, go to the blog for your course. It’s all at the right side of this message. Be warned, however. I like being organized, but it’s not a train schedule. I might not do exactly the same things I did last year. We shall see.

Phone Message

Did you know you could use your phone as an agenda? Of course you did. Did you know the school has an app for that? It’s called Gator Blocks and here it is. If you have an Android phone, Gator Blocks will be set up for your phone in the Fall. For now, you’ll just have to take out your agenda and push pretend buttons.

[ https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/gatorblocks/id645248154?mt=8 ]

IMPORTANT TO NOTE

To see all assignments for Term 3, please click on your course: English 10, English 11, English 12.

Make sure you have completed and handed in every assignment by May 31!

ALL ASSIGNMENTS MUST BE COMPLETED AND HANDED IN BY MAY 31. NO ASSIGNMENTS WILL BE ACCEPTED AFTER THAT DATE.

What are we doing?

English 10: Week of May 27 – 31: You will be working on your Poetry Analysis and completing any of three Poetry handouts you missed. Handouts: Sea Lullaby, Velvet Shoes, I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

English 11: Week of May 27 – 31: You will be working on your Poetry Analysis and completing any of the of three Poetry handouts you missed. Handouts: Sea Lullaby, The Brook, Kindness.

English 12: Week of May 27 – 31: You will be working on your Poetry Analysis and completing any of the four Poetry handouts you missed. Handouts: Kindness, The Brook, Sonnet 116, It is Dangerous to Read Newspapers.

 

Useless Fact of the Day

 

• In 1829, two sisters in the US, Susan and Deborah, weighed 205and 124 pounds. Susan was five years old and Deborah was three.
• It has been calculated that in the last 3,500 years,there have been only 230 years of peace throughout the civilized world.
• In 1778, fashionable women of Paris never went out in blustery weather without a lightning rod attached to their hats.
• Pirates thought having an earring would improve their eyesight.
• Before 1800, there were no specially designed shoes for the right and left feet.
• Marilyn Monroe had 11 toes.
• There was once a town named 6 in West Virginia.
• The hummingbird is the only bird that can fly backwards.
• A can of Diet Coke will float in water, while a can of regular Coke sinks.  
  
• The oldest word in the English language is “town.” 
• Ancient Egyptians shaved off their eyebrows to mourn the death of their cats.
• Grasshoppers have white blood. 
• China’s Beijing Duck Restaurant can seat 9,000 people at one time. 
• On average there are 178 sesame seeds on each McDonald’s Big Mac bun. 
• The Bible is the number one shoplifted book in America.
• Average number of people airborne over the US any given hour: 61,000.
• Your nose and ears never stop growing.
• It is possible to lead a cow upstairs but not downstairs.
• The very first bomb dropped by the Allies on Berlin during World War II killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo.
• A pregnant goldfish is called a twit.
• 111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321
• Your stomach has to produce a new layer of mucus every two weeks otherwise it will digest itself.
• To escape the grip of a crocodile’s jaws, push your thumbs into its eyeballs — it will let you go instantly.
• A group of unicorns is called a blessing. Twelve or more cows are known as a “flink.” A group of frogs is called an army. A group of rhinos is called a crash. A group of kangaroos is called a mob. A group of whales is called a pod. A group of geese is called a gaggle. A group of crows is called a murder. A group of officers is called a mess. A group of larks is called an exaltation. A group of owls is called a parliament.

Absolutely Fascinating

Go here! The Oxford Project.

My first thought was Oxford, England because that’s the only Oxford I ever think of, but apparently there’s also an Oxford, Iowa and in Oxford, Iowa there is one very enterprising photographer with an ingenious mind. What this photographer did was photograph every single citizen of this tiny little American town and then twenty years later, come back and photograph them again, this time writing down their stories and connecting them to the photographs. The pictures are interesting in themselves but the stories are even more interesting. He first photographed the town in 1984. A lot changed in that 20 year period. That’s what’s fascinating about the stories. Look yourself.

A Good Change

English 10: http://watsonwork10.wordpress.com

English 11: http://watsonwork11.wordpress.com

English 12: http://watsonwork12.wordpress.com

When you return from Spring Break you will have somewhere new to go. I have created separate blogs for each grade I teach. This means info for you will be easier to find! Everything will be the same, except you won’t have to look at posts and pages from other classes.

This blog will remain as is to keep your comments intact. All of your Term 1 and Term 2 work is still here!

 

Michael and his mom discuss fallacies

12: 1984: Propaganda Techniques

12: 1984: Propaganda Techniques

 NB: See 1984 Major Assignment at 12: CURRENT ASSIGNMENTS. 

Arguments:

• Red Herring: presenting data or issues that are irrelevant to the argument at hand and then   claiming it validates the argument
• Reductio ad Hitlerum: persuading a target audience to disapprove of an action or idea by suggesting that idea is popular with groups hated by the target audience; eg. if you support Obamacare then the terrorists win
• Ad hominem arguments: attacking the opponent, not their ideas
• Straw man: an argument based on misrepresentation of an opponent’s position. To “attack a straw man” is to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition by substituting a superficially similar proposition (the “straw man”), and refuting it, without ever having actually refuted the original position.
• Black and white fallacy: two options are given; eg. “you are with us or against us”
• Bandwagon: “everyone else thinks like we do” and “eventually we will win”

Communication:

• Intentional vagueness: generalities that are deliberately vague so that the audience assumes the speaker agrees with what he thinks; the listener is fooled because he/she doesn’t bother to analyze what is said
• Oversimplification: favourable generalities are used to provide simple answers for complex social, political, economic, military problems; eg. stopping  immigration will create jobs
• Pensée unique: discussion limited by overly simplistic phrases or arguments
• Glittering generalities: emotionally appealing words applied to a product or idea with no concrete reason or analysis
• Thought terminating cliché: a commonly used phrase, sometimes passing as folk wisdom, used to quell cognitive dissonance

Truth and Lies:

• Quotes out of context: selective editing of quotes to change meaning; eg. using quotes taken out of context  against a political candidate
• Rationalization: using favourable generalities to rationalize questionable acts or beliefs; eg. the generalization that  “torture is necessary for national security”
• Disinformation: creation or deletion of information from public records; making a false record of an event or the actions of a person or organization, including forgery of photographs, motion pictures, broadcasts, sound recordings, printed documents, emails, etc.
• Half truth: deceptive statements that may be partly true or only part of the whole truth; could include double meaning or evasion or misrepresentation
• Big lie: repeating a false version of events over and over until people don’t remember the real event
• Direct order: giving only one choice as if it is the only choice; eg. we must go to war
• Unstated assumption: This technique is used when the idea the propagandist wants to plant would seem less credible if explicitly stated; the concept is instead repeatedly assumed or implied

  Propaganda:

• Repetition: a message is continuously propagated in order to take hold within the  consciousness of the whole country; eg. jingles, advertising, images placed on billboards, etc.
• Imagery: propaganda is embedded within appealing imagery; could be pictorial or descriptive; eg. movies and music
• Slogan: a brief, striking phrase that may include labelling or stereotyping; usually intended to be an emotional appeal
• Flag waving: justifying an action on the grounds that doing so will make one more patriotic and benefit a group, country, or idea
• Simplicity: message is designed to appeal to lowest intellectual level; eg. sound bites on TV news, tweets, headline news. Lowers level of attention span, reinforces level of attention span. Lower attention span = less ability to discern deception.

   Appeal to emotions:

• Name calling: inciting fears or prejudice in the audience by using terms that have a loaded meaning; eg. terrorist, murderer, anti-American
• Euphoria: using an event to generate extreme happiness or boost morale; declaring a holiday, making luxury items available, having a parade or ceremony
• Sentiment: message  containing as little detail as possible; instead is designed in such a way that it appeals to some strong emotion or sentiment—such as sex or sympathy
• Appeal to fear: instill anxiety and panic in the general population
• Loaded language: using words with a strong connotation to influence an audience so they have a gut level reaction; eg. something is a reform instead of just a change

 Treatment of those in opposition:

• Scapegoating: assigning blame to an individual or group; this distracts attention from genuine problems and bonds people dysfunctionally
• Labelling: a type of sloppy prejudice; opposing parties make assumptions about all members of that party; eg. all liberals are …; all conservatives are …
• Demonizing the enemy: creating a scapegoat within society for citizens to hate; eg. Jews in WWII, Muslims after9/11, Japanese in WWII
• Stereotyping: an attempt to arouse prejudice in an audience by focusing on the undesirable traits of a social group or country; this could include stereotypical racial features
• Appeal to prejudice: used negatively and positively; eg. “good” citizens and “bad” citizens

Authority:

• Testimonial: Quotations given in or out of context to support or reject a given policy, action, program, or personality. The reputation of the person giving the testimonial is most significant; the target audience identifies with the speaker and accepts his or her opinions and beliefs as his own.
• Appeal to authority: use of politicians, celebrities, authorities to support ideas, course of action
• Plain folks/common man: the idea that there is a typical, down to earth citizen; eg. politicians who are wealthy campaigning in casual clothes, eating hot dogs, etc.
• Virtue words: words in the value system of the target audience that produce a positive image when attached to a person or issue; eg. peace, happiness, security, wise leadership, freedom, truth, family values
• Transfer/association: technique that involves projecting the positive or negative qualities of one person, entity, object, or value onto another to make the second more acceptable or to discredit it. It evokes an emotional response, which stimulates the target to identify with recognized authorities. Often highly visual, this technique often utilizes symbols (eg. flags, swastikas)