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Welcome to |
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Thanks to everyone for welcoming me into your classrooms for 2 weeks in October! I’m looking forward to spending the spring teaching and learning together! Here are a few guidelines that will hold true for all my classes:
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Welcome parents! Some of you may be a little concerned knowing that your son or daughter will have a student teacher for a good part of this term. For parents of Grade 12’s, you may be especially concerned that this student teacher doesn’t jeaopardize your son or daughter’s chances of graduating or getting into college or university! I am sympathetic to your concerns and so I’d like to try to put your mind at rest by telling you a bit about myself. I graduated from UBC with honours standing from my B.A. in English Literature in 1998. Since then, I have worked and travelled in 5 continents teaching English and developing educational materials and programmes for museums, parks, zoos, and non-profit organizations. I’ve helped Guatemalan students pass the TOEFL test and I’ve taught young Canadians how sailing can be a metaphor for life. I am passionate about English Literature and I am realistic about the aims and outcomes of high school English Language Arts programmes. I know what students will need to get into and safely through university – and to navigate through the ideas and texts we encounter in daily life. My underlining goal in teaching is always to promote critical thinking so that students can approach univeristy, jobs, the media, politics, and literature with an open but critical mind, bent on exploring, discovering, evaluating, and understanding their own values and beliefs as well as those of others. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to work with your young adults – I know they will teach me just as much as I hope to teach them. I am honoured to be a part of their life long educational jouney! One of the units your son or daughter may participate in this term is “Literature Circles.” If you are interested in learning more about this book-club style, innovative approach to teaching and learning about literature, please check out the Lit Circles Resrouce Centre, Seattle web site at http://fac_staff.seattleu.edu/kschlnoe/LitCircles/overview/overview.html
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Oxford English Dictionary Online - The Oxford English Dictionary is the standard I use for spelling and word use. Look up definitions, spelling, and synonyms on this site if you don’t have your own hard copy of the OED. WriteExpress Rhyming Dictionary - Having trouble with a poetry assignment? Check out this rhyming dictionary! It’s not perfect, but it can get you going. Wordsmyth Online Educational Dictionary-Thesaurus - This is a helpful tool if you are looking for new or better words for a piece of writing. It’s not the official OED, though, but it’s geared towards writing so it’s sometimes useful Online poetry - What is poetry? Just words on a page? Maybe not. Check out some of this new, innovative poetry on line. Here’s a cool one to get you started http://www.poemsthatgo.com/gallery/summer2001/ee/ee.htm On Line Summaries, Notes, Cheat Sheets, etc. Hey, guys, I know you aren’t stupid. I know that, if you’re having trouble getting through a novel we’re reading, you’ll find ways of getting around reading it: Coles notes, web pages, summaries, whatever. But with the internet, you have to be careful because anybody can post whatever garbage they want, and you might end up looking pretty silly if you rely on just anything you find! Here are some online resources I’ve checked out which seem to be fairly reliable. But please make an effort to read the actual texts, too, ok?
Thinking of Plagiarising? Aside from the fact that it’s actually illegal and could get you into a lot of trouble, plagiarising means that you won’t learn or remember anything from the assignment and may fail other assignments as a result of not knowing the material. Especially don’t waste your time with papers you can purchase online. We have very sophisticated software which can detect these papers as well as inconsistancies between your in class writing style and your “take home” writing style. If you’re having trouble with a writing assignment, please, please, please, just come and see me, ok? Virtualsal.com has some excellent antiplagiarism techniques and software. This web site is also a great resource with a glossary of literary terms, punctuation rules, and essays on such subjects as purposes of language arts education. I've also made use of www.plagiarism.com and www.plagiarism.org You're welcome to check them out! Writing the LPI or TOEFL this year? There are lots of great on-line LPI and TOEFL practice tests and tutorials. Check out Cert 21 for starters. Please let me know how you like these practice tests or if you find some better pages and I’ll put them up on my site for other students!
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Questions? Comments? Concerns? Email Me! |
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