October 30, 2012

Quiet Reading as always

Discussion - Answering Questions about Explicit Information

Reading Passage about the Ojibwa natives and the Skyman

Answer the FIVE attached questions on a separate sheet of paper.

Here are a couple of Key Strategies!

Read the questions first!

THEN, read the article.

THEN, re-read the questions.

THEN, answer them.

Refer back to the question sheet as needed. (this is a crucial step)

Here is the article we are using:

Ojibwa tale of a 'Skyman' visitor may have been alien

The modern Unidentified Flying Object (UFO) craze began in the late 1940s, when a wave of people reported seeing strange objects in the skies above America.

Indeed, it was in 1947 the term flying saucer entered the popular consciousness after pilot Kenneth Arnold witnessed several brightly-lit saucer-like objects weaving in and out of distant mountain peaks while he was flying in Washington State.

This wasn’t the first wave of UFO sightings, however. An earlier wave occurred in Britain in 1909, when hundreds of people described flying objects shaped like dirigibles and emitting beams of light carrying out extremely advanced manoeuvres overhead. A decade earlier, throughout 1896 and ’97, there was a rash on similar sightings in the United States.

But these weren’t the first accounts of alien spacecraft on record. Legends of god-like beings coming from the heavens exist in many cultures. Throughout North America, there are numerous caves that date back thousands of years. These paintings figures and objects much like the modern imagery of aliens and flying saucers.

One intriguing legend comes from the First Nations people of central Ontario. Their ‘Skyman’ tale may in fact be one of the earliest alien encounters on record.

According to the story recorded in 1917 by ethnologist Colonel G.E. Laidlaw, 500 years ago there was a large Ojibwa village about 550 native people living somewhere in our region. One day, a pair of them stumbled upon a stranger sitting on the grass in a field. This figure, a male, was notably “clean and shining bright.”

The natives approached the stranger and asked who he was and how he came to be in the field. “I am not one of you. I do not belong to this land. I dropped down from above,” the stranger explained.

Showing unusual hospitality, the Ojibwa invited him back to their village. The stranger agreed, but on one condition:  “Go home and clean the place where I will stay, and when you come back for me, I will go with you for a few days.”

Agreeing, the Ojibwa men went back to their community, told their fellow villagers about their experience, and cleaned the hut where they would house the ‘Skyman.’

The stranger did in fact accompany them to their village, but he was clearly restless. He watched the skies often and told people that in two days something would come and get him to take him back up to the sky.

One afternoon, Skyman looked up and said, “It is coming.” The villagers craned their necks and turned their eyes above and saw something that looked like a bright shining star streak down from the heavens and hover near the ground.

This was the most beautiful thing any of them had ever seen. Skyman entered the shining star and disappeared from view. The shining star then shot back into the sky and faded away.
This tale seems to be a description of an encounter with an ‘ancient astronaut,’ as seen in many cultures and popularized by Swiss theorist Erich von Daniken of Chariots of the Gods fame.

Many modern UFO theorists believe Skyman was a marooned extraterrestrial astronaut whose own craft was somehow damaged or destroyed. They point to the fact Skyman clearly entered the glowing star as proof the object was a spacecraft of some sort. Was he ‘clean and shining bright’ because he wore a silvery pressure suit? Did he request his hosts clean his quarters out of fear of contracting human viruses against which he had no immunity?

Many researchers believe Skyman was no mythological tale, but rather an actual encounter of the first kind between an ancient alien and an entire Ojibwa community. And it was said to have occurred somewhere nearby. Maybe we too should be craning our necks and scanning the skies.

(Andrew Hind, www.orangeville.com)

Questions for Explicit Information

How did the term flying saucer come into the public?

Who first recorded the Skyman story?

What condition did the Skyman set before he would come back with the Ojibwa? 

What was the Skyman referring to when he told them “It is coming.”

5. What do modern UFO theorists believe could be a possible explanation of this incident? 

October 23, 2012

What up today?

Quiet Reading, as always

No journal today

Clean up work - redoing all work from the marked work handed back

New Business:

How do I support my topic sentence?

What actually goes in the body of a paragraph?

Teen and dog business is similar

Body Paragraph - something that proves this correct that comes from the article

First Step - find the proof as a quotation or reference

Second Step - compare what is in the story with what you KNOW

Third Step - you need to jot down the point that PROVES your topic sentence and INCLUDES the reference to the story

I think that the business of marketing stuff to dogs is similar to marketing stuff to teenagers.

Dogs like Jim get birthday parties and in Jim’s case, a cupcake, which he doesn’t need.

Teenagers are also sold things that they don’t need, and so are their parents. Think of the difference between name brands and store brands for clothes. There is no real difference. Teens don’t need high fashion.

Rewrite the above elements into your own paragraph for Q9 on page 5 and resub this in place of the mark that you had there. If your mark was good, then it will be a BONUS mark.

October 18, 2012

Immediately transition in READING.

QUIET READING.

Journal #14

How important is fitness to you? (fitness = health, not abs and such)

What do you do to stay or to get fit?

If not, why not?

Reading Skill # 1 - Reading for Explicit information
reading for the obvious information that is IN the source material
example - answers from the short article or story - who did what?
REFER BACK TO THE STORY
SKIMMING AND SCANNING - if you read the questions FIRST, then you can skim and scan for those key words

October 17, 2012

Quiet Reading, as always, thanks.

Journal #14 - Have you ever experience bullying?

What happened? What did you do? What did you feel about it?

Have you ever been on the other side of it? Explain that too.

Your Paragraphs are Suffering:

Here are the Fixes

Decide on the topic - the entire paragraph MUST be on that topic

KISS is the best band in the world - >

Your topic sentence MUST give that topic and that theme for the whole paragraph - EVERY SENTENCE AFTER WILL BE ABOUT THAT

Your body sentence will all be reasons why, or examples why, or telling why the topic sentence IS.

Your body sentences MUST have examples or explanations - you need specifics.

The pattern is this X is the topic sentence and now Y, Z, Z1 are the proofs.

You need to conclude this paragraph by RESTATING YOUR TOPIC.

Topic 

Proof 1
Proof 2
Proof 3

Conclusion

October 11, 2012

Journal #12

What is your opinion of the Texas school district’s plan to RFID-tag students in high school to track them and know where they are at all times. Further, students who refuse to be tracked will lose rights and privileges.

How would you respond to this kind of situation? What would you do about it?






Step 3 - Musician Presentation Project - ENG2P

If you have this sheet, it means you have completed Steps 1 and 2.

And now, you have earned your way into Step 3, which is going into a little more detail on the artist that you like.

And yes, this is a BIG chunk of work.

A Short Series of Questions about the Artist You Like

For the following questions, I am asking you to go to THREE different sources of information. The most obvious would be three web sites, but if you want to use books or magazines (I have a lot of Rolling Stone magazines in the back of my room).

List the THREE sources that you used for your research.

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Describe the early career of this artist. How did he/she/they get his/her/their start? Do this on a separate sheet of paper in a good paragraph style.

What do you think made this artist/band stand out from the rest? Getting famous usually takes luck, talent and something that people call X FACTOR. (thus the title of that show Simon Cowell does...)

Thinking about that, what X FACTOR could your performer have? Think about what might make your artist/band special and explain in yet ANOTHER paragraph on that same separate sheet of paper.

Give the discography of your artist/band. List the major releases. For each one that you know, give a little rating scale so I can learn which one is your favourite.

List the FIVE best songs by this artist/band in order from 1-5.

b) List THREE songs you don’t like by this artist/band and give a short, one-sentence reason why you don’t like each of these songs.

One you’ve finished this, submit your material and move on to Step 4, which will be much more fun (and have a LOT less writing).

October 9, 2012

 Journal #11 - How would you explain to an alien how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich?

Work on finishing Step 1 of the Musician Presentation

THEN:

ENG2P - Musician Presentation Project

STEP 2

Hi. If you made it this far, it means you have finished Step 1. Congratulations!

This step is not very hard. All we need you to for this one is explain WHY you chose the performer you chose.

Think about correct paragraph structure, spelling and grammar.

You need to BACK UP and SUPPORT your opinion statements with reasons in order to do a good job on this.

Give me a good copy explaining your choice and then you can move on to Step 3.


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October 3, 2012

ENG2P - Who is Your Favourite Music Artist?             October 3, 2012


You are going to make a presentation on a musical performer or band that you like.

For this project, you are going to need to use some presentation software like Keynote on the iPads or iMacs, Prezi online, OpenOffice or PowerPoint on the PC.

You will need to learn for yourself how to use these software tools, using Google, trial and error and working with those around you.

Your teacher will help you when necessary, but part of the assignment is grappling with these problems on your own and learning how to solve them.

The purpose of this project is to convince an audience (your teacher) that the artist (living or dead) you’ve chosen is worthy of their attention.

You can word it like this: “Mr. Lobb/McClinchy, you should be listening to _____.”

The rest of your project will basically be showing many reasons why.

Another key to this project is PROPER SPELLING and PARAGRAPH structure.

There will be TEN steps to this assignment/project.

Each time you have completed one step, you will be given the next step.

Step 1 is below.

Step 1

Do some initial brainstorming on THREE music artists that you think are important.
Write down FIVE reasons why for each artist in some graphic organizer format.
From that list, choose ONE artist.

Once you have your artist, you need to complete a short biography of that band/performer/etc.

A good biography would have some general background, life story info, discussion about the key changes in that artist’s life and career, something about their history in music, what genre or type of music they make, and so on.

Write out the response to Step 1 in good clear paragraphs, one paragraph to each new element of information.

You should have this step done in a few days.

October 3, 2012

IN PAIRS

You will be tasked with a presentation that combines music, images AND information.

You will do a brief profile on a genre of music.

You will choose one band/singer from that genre and you will give an overview of that artist and his/her career. (hint - dead, old people have more info on them)

You will review one song in some depth - decide why or why not this is good? Remember all the parts - we only did four. (corresponds to instruments)

You will then compare that GOOD song with a poor song by the same band - try to explain what is wrong here.

Recommend (and quickly explain why they are similar) a few similar bands in the same genre that you think might be good.

Maybe choose an artist you don’t know yet, or that fits into a genre you don’t know.

egs

Miles Davis (jazz)
James Brown (soul)
Elvis (first white rocker)
Little Richard (influenced Elvis)
Johnny Cash (he was a cross over hit)
The Beatles (they were the most important band ever)
Madonna (key 80s pop and use of video and image)
David Bowie (genius, strange music, image)
Velvet Underground (super influential, never got famous)
Frank Sinatra (huge in the 40s-70s)

October 2, 2012

Journal Catch up - we’ve done TEN, which means it will soon be time to check them (this week!), so you need to make sure that you have all ten complete.

Take some time right now to make sure that you have and also to make sure that you have them in a form that I can read.

Journal #10 - What would you do if you suddenly had three million dollars?

Journal #9 - What would I do with a complete day off?

Journal #8 - What makes you happy? When have you ever had buyer’s letdown?

Journal #7 - What would do in the case of a zombie apocalypse? Don’t just list weapons and violent acts! Plan a real, long-term response.

Journal #6 - Deportation of the Iranian woman - What do you think your country should do?

Journal #5 - What is the worst thing you’ve ever eaten - descriptive paragraph

Journal #4 - What do you plan to be doing in 10 years? Details!

Journal #3 - What is your worst fear? How do you beat it or manage it?

Journal #2 - If you could be any character in a novel, movie, TV show or story, who would it be and why?

Journal #1 - What book did you choose? Why did you choose it? What attracted you?