Only girls ALOUD

14/03/08

2008-03-16T22:22:00.000-07:00

march 12
The All Girls English class has been working hard on their character sketches of a survivor. I am really interested in Laura's survivor Bethany Hamilton, who was attacked by a shark which resulted in the loss of one of her arms, and Lance Armstrong: survivor of multiple cancer's, researched by Nicole. It was a pretty ordinary Wednesday, with nothing unexpected besides going to the computer lab instead of work in the classroom.

march 13
Mrs. Adam's class had their first important test first thing this morning on short stories. Although some/myself could've been more prepared, it was a fairly manageable quiz. Once the test was over, the class worked hard away on their concept maps and "Thank you, Ma'am" drafts. With one more day to go until spring break, it was hard to stay focused the whole block.

08/03/08

2008-03-09T15:13:00.000-07:00

Is it just me, or is the nearness of Spring Break making everyone a little bit insane? Now don’t get me wrong, I like English, I really do. But sometimes those classes feel like they go on FOREVER! I think its Spring Break fever.
Our class is still working on short stories, and I’m really enjoying it. Some teachers make you analyze the heck out of everything you read, but Mrs. A doesn’t, which is cool. We look at a specific thing in each story, but not to the point where it isn’t fun to read anymore. That’s great, because most of the stories we’re reading are quite interesting. One thing I find strange though, is that no where on our lesson layout does it say we’re going to try writing our own short story. You’d think that after we spend so much time studying them we might get to write one, wouldn’t you? I think that’s a bit strange.
We’re also just finishing up our persuasive paragraphs. I’m glad we’re done those. I like writing, but unless there’s an issue I feel REALLY strongly about at the time, I don’t like persuasive paragraphs. I find them harder to write than any other types of paragraphs, even the descriptive ones we’re we couldn’t use all those words. All in all, I think our class is getting pretty bored of paragraphs.
In general, the all-girls class is much calmer than most. I find it helps me focus a lot more. I think next week might be a kind of crazy though, as Spring Break is getting closer everyday. I shudder to think what the test on Friday is going to be like. Hopefully we cal hold it together for the remaining 5 classes, because I really don’t want homework over spring break!

27/02/08

2008-02-27T20:31:00.001-08:00

Here's a question for you Ms. Adams.
What's up with not being able to use "you" in the persuasive paragraph? Aren't we supposed to be appealing to the readers wants' and feelings? So to do that we would need to use "you". For example: to get this you should do this or when you do such and such you will feel like this. It's easer to persuade the reader when the reader is involved.

I was surprised that we got little if even any homework on both days. Which was nice, but I guess not everything can be great. There was an assembly on Tuesday for a rock band, and we didn’t get to go. Instead of going we sat in a class room that smelled mildly of pot while reading a boring paragraph. It got better toward the end of class though. Someone finally decided to cover up the smell of pot with perfume even though it was a very drastic change in sent. On Wednesday we watched a you-tube clip of Bart Simpson for a character personality paper. I think lots of the girls liked it but I don’t really like the Simpson’s so I found it very boring. The overall vibe of the past two days has been very up beat though. I expect this was because Ms. Adams didn’t give out any homework and that the dance was tonight (Wednesday, 27). Hope everyone has a blast at the dance.

19/02/08

2008-02-19T19:57:00.000-08:00

Why is our class BLOGGING? Why is it all girls? I think it is a cool idea and like it better then co-ed.
I hope the girls who don't enjoy it will later learn to. This is the first two days of the blog being done
by the students. In our class we have been working on paragraphs. So far we have done narrative, descriptive and today
we started working on our persuasive paragraphs. Everyday we do silent reading at the start of class and from what I see everyone enjoys it. It is really quiet and nice in the class and so far is great. The teacher of our class is also great so far, hopefully she stays that way. English is our first language and one of the hardest ones to learn, I guess that is why we all have to take it still. Soon our class will be starting short stories and I think some of the students are looking forward to that. Short stories, when you have the right ideas, are the easiest thing to do, I enjoy doing them and reading others to see what they come up with, hopefully we can do that in our class I always look forward to that. our class is fairly quiet and cooperative but at times loud. Today our class got a new student as well, she just came from courtenay middle and her name is megan. some students already know her but others from lake trail and other schools probably have no clue who she is. Hopefully everyone in the class gets to meet new friends and have fun. I'm outt.

17/02/08

2008-02-17T18:01:00.001-08:00

15/02/08

2008-02-17T17:58:00.000-08:00

This week we continued looking at paragraphs. We finished a draft narrative paragraph and self-assessed it before handing it in. On Thursday we began a descriptive paragraph with the TOC, but we were a bit confused by what we were supposed to do. Friday, when Ms. Adams came back, we went over the assignment and fixed our paragraphs. During the week we also created a behaviour contract for the class. The behaviour contract is basically some rules we all agree to so that we can sit with our friends.

08/02/08

2008-02-17T17:57:00.000-08:00

For the first few days of English, we looked at an article about single gender classes and wrote a letter to our parents explaining why there are no girls in this class. For the rest of the week we looked at paragraphing and at how to write a narrative paragraph keeping in mind the 6 traits of writing. On Friday, we had cookies! Yeah.