You Begin

I am thinking of the end of yet another year and the passage of time and the fact that many of you are off to new adventures that those of us who are left behind can only imagine.  For those of you who are leaving Steveston-London, I wish you all the very best.  For those of us who remain behind, let's make sure we have a wonderful restful summer, full of days with no activity and no "to-do" lists, and let's come back in September ready to work and learn and do our best to cooperate with each other.

Here's one of my favourite poems about learning:

You Begin (by Margaret Atwood)

You begin this way:
this is your hand,
this is your eye,
that is a fish, blue and flat
on the paper, almost
the shape of an eye.
This is your mouth, this is an O
or a moon, whichever
you like.  This is yellow.

Outside the window
is the rain, green
because it is summer, and beyond that
the trees and then the world,
which is round and has only
the colours of these nine crayons.

This is the world, which is fuller
and more difficult to learn than I have said.
you are right to smudge it that way
with the red and then
the orange:  the world burns

Once you have learned these words
you will learn that there are more
words than you can ever learn.
The word hand floats above your hand
like a small cloud over a lake.
The word hand anchors
your hand to this table,
your hand is a warm stone
I hold between two words.

This is your hand, these are my hands, this is the world,
which is round but not flat and has more colours
than we can see.

It begins, it has an end,
this is what you will
come back to, this is your hand.

Isn't that lovely?  There are, indeed, more words than you (or I) can ever learn and the world is fuller and more difficult to learn than I (or anyone) have said.  But it is marvellous and wondrous and I wish you all the best in discovering its wonders and marvels.

Last journal of the year!

Grade 8's:  Whose "show and tell" speech was most memorable?  Explain why.

Grades 9 - 12:  Finish all the journals you are missing!  If you're up to date, good on you!

Let's keep pushing on until the end!  Don't fall off the boat.  Keep your oars moving things forward!  (Great metaphor.)

In Someone Else's Shoes

Drama 8:  Write about one of the characters you are playing in the Aesop's Fables plays.  Describe the character and how you will portray it.  How will you make us think of the animal?  What happens to your character?

Also, what do you plan to speak about in the show and tell?  Tell me what you think you will say (in one or two sentences.)

Drama 9/10, Theatre Production 11/12:

Who did you play in the extended role play?  What did you do to portray your character (costume, props, facial expressions, voice, activities, interactions with other actors)?

Describe, in detail, one interaction you had with another person in the room.  Who did the other person play?  Do you think they were believable as their character?

Is there anything else you noticed about the activity?  Just to let you know -- I do realize it is quite chaotic -- I don't think you can do an activity like this without it being quite chaotic.  Sometimes art is chaotic and I think we learn a lot when we just let ourselves explore.

Show and tell speeches

Your speech should be 2 minutes long.  Practice what you want to say and time yourself to see if you have 2 minutes.  More is not better.  Brevity is the soul of wit.

Do not start your speech with "so".  It is a good idea to start your speech with something that will engage your audience -- a joke, a question, a quotation.

Do not end your speech with "yeah" (as in "so that's what I wanted to say about my carpentry project . . . yeah").  Think of how you can come to a conclusion.  "I learned that . . . "  "This was one of the most important moments of my life" . . .  "I will always remember . . . "

If you have an item that you cannot bring to school, a photograph is fine.

The item should inspire a story or ideas that can engage the audience.  For example, you bring your grandfather's medals from the Second World War.  You ask us to imagine an eighteen year old boy volunteering to serve in the army, describe a battle in which he took part, or the state he was in when he came back to Canada after the war.  You don't need to spend too much time describing the item itself.

The goal of this project is to demonstrate that you've made progress in public speaking.  That means you need to speak clearly and project your voice.  You need to appear to be confident.  You need to prepare a speech that does not use words and phrases inappropriately (phrases like "sort of" and words like "like").

If you are interested in what you have to say, we will also be interested.  You need to show that you are interested by speaking with expression, by making eye contact with the audience, and by taking care to prepare your speech.

Words, words, words

Journals this week:

Grade 8:  What is a lesson you need to learn?  Tell a story or relate an anecdote about yourself that demonstrates why you need to learn this lesson?

Grade 9/10:  Work on the script for your final project.

Theatre Production:  Work on your script for the sound and light show.