FRENCH 10/20/30
Today we finished discussing various adjectives used to describe people, places, and things. Then we watched the first 11 minutes of the following Monsieur Haricot video and used our adjectives.
PAA 8
I spent some time learning about band saws and drill presses as I covered for Mr. Poirier who was away at Senior Golf Districts.
FRENCH 7A
The students started some review, which included discussing O Canada, the alphabet and numbers 1-15.
ELA 9B
The students read for 10 minutes and set their goals for the near future. Each week they are expected to read 10 minutes in class and 10 minutes at home, plus 20 minutes every day on the weekends. They will record the pages read and try to meet their goals. Students received a letter explaining the program to take home to their parents. You may view the letter at the bottom of this post.
We also finished our discussion of control over things in the students' lives. Then the students signed up for Google Classroom and typed a paragraph outlining some goals they have for this year and how they plan to attain them.
WARRIOR TIME
Today students had a chance to sign up for their first two week session. Each student was allowed to pick 2 sessions from those available. On Wednesday they will find out what session they were placed in. If you are in 11B and were absent see Miss Riddell tomorrow morning to sign up.
ELA 9A
The students read for 10 minutes and set their goals for the near future. Each week they are expected to read 10 minutes in class and 10 minutes at home, plus 20 minutes every day on the weekends. They will record the pages read and try to meet their goals. Students received a letter explaining the program to take home to their parents. You may view the letter at the bottom of this post.
The students also discussed the video we saw on Mindset last class and made a list of things they can control and those things, which they cannot control.
*Tomorrow is TWIN DAY and the grade 12's are having a BURGER SALE for Telemiracle.
Hello parents of ELA 9 students,
A central goal of reading in ELA 9 is to establish a reading habit in the busy lives of our students. I am hoping we can work together to recapture the pleasure and passion of readers. This letter is long, but the assumptions it rests upon are too important to be treated in a superficial manner. Please take the time to read this and know what you’re signing before you do. The best books challenge our beliefs by helping us see through different eyes to live a different life. For example, Shooter by Caroline Pignat was popular last year, but it is about a school shooting and I think we’d all rather believe that couldn’t happen here and don’t want to live the details. Yet, reading allows us to confront our worst fears and live through them. Students love this book and I recommend it to them.
I won’t know the details of every book students read and refer to this semester, and I won’t remember the details of all the books I recommend to students. What I seek for all of my students is a compulsion to read—for pleasure— for knowledge—for a passion for story or information that will keep them into the pages of a book past our assigned time for reading. This has tremendous benefits. Here are a few:
Reading relieves stress. School is stressful. Reading takes you out of the present and into another place and time; it is a perfect escape.
Reading builds stamina to prepare students for future pursuits. Reading for an hour or two in one sitting is a basic expectation in most postsecondary. In this class we will exercise muscles soon to be strained in the coming years.
Reading for fluency and stamina has been proven to improve the reading rate for students. Fast reading develops confidence and an appetite for books as well as teaching vocabulary in context, which improves writing, but it only happens when students find books they want to read.
But the truth is some of those books might make you uncomfortable. There is a lot of talk in the media that ‘students today won’t read,’ but I believe students substitute all of those other distractions (the internet, TV, etc.) if they feel no passion for the book assigned to them. In my experience, students who haven’t been readers since elementary school will suddenly become quite passionate about reading with the right book in their hands. But those books might challenge your values. Is that okay with you? Can your child choose to read Crank by Ellen Hopkins, which delves into a teenager’s drug addiction? I believe we have to trust these young adults more. We have to trust that books won’t corrupt them anymore than the movies The Dark Knight or Mad Max: Fury Road might. It is more important that they’re reading!
So you may pick up a book left behind on a nightstand and open to a passage with the details of a 12 year old girl being attacked by rebel soldiers in Sierra Leone (The Bite of the Mango by Mariatu Kamara) and wonder why reading it is a homework assignment, and I will answer, “Your son or daughter chose it.” I might have recommended it because I read it and loved it, or the book may be unfamiliar to me because your child borrowed it from another student. The bottom line: I will not place a tight filter on what is read in this class and I’m asking for your support in this.
I hope you will talk to your child about what he/she is reading this semester. I suggest you get a copy of a book and read it if you’re concerned about the content. If you want to know more about a book your children is reading, call or email me—I’ll tell you what I know. Because I respect your role as parents and the traditions you hold sacred, if you want me to more closely monitor your child’s choices this semester, by all means, contact me and we’ll work out a plan that we can both contribute to.
If I don’t hear from you, it means you understand books won’t be banned in my classroom and your child will be allowed to choose what he/she reads.
Thanks for your support,
Miss Riddell
P.S. I started a classroom library this year from my own book collection and some books I purchased. Please send books you no longer need for this library, especially ones you’ve loved, if you can bear to part with them. Better yet… come to class and share a book with us. Share your passion for reading; get to know these amazing students at UCHS. I would love to have you join us some class. Thank you.
I have read and agree to the contents of this letter.
student’s name _________________________________________
parent’s signature ________________________________________
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