Drama 8:
Your journal topic is:
What should Ms. Kosar know about you? You should include whether you've done Drama before (maybe at the Gateway classes or RADA or in elementary school), whether you have stage fright, what you expect to get out of the class, any concerns you might have. Hand in the journal on MONDAY!
Thanks to everyone who attended the meeting this evening about the historical vignettes. I am excited that they are going to work on rewrites and that the performances in Steveston next summer will be even better than the ones the Drama club did in 2019!
Drama 8: We are going to perform open and closed mimes today. Try to think of a question of the day that you can ask when it is your turn.
English 12: Reading log topic: What is the theme or the "big idea" behind your book? Why has the writer been compelled to write this book? What message is the author trying to convey to his readers?
Rewrite your personal narrative essay, making the corrections I've suggested. Attach the rough draft to the final copy when you hand it in.
Choose one of the essays and answer the questions on the handout.
Grammar lesson:
How to write dialogue:
Use quotation marks around what is said. You should start a new paragraph every time a new person speaks. If your speaker says a statement, the statement should end with a comma, then the closed quotation mark and then your identifying of the speaker. Here's an example:
"You are so lazy!" Angela told Bruce.
Bruce was shocked. "I'm lazy? What about you? You left the dishes in the sink for three days! They're all crusty."
"That's your job," Angela sighed. "Look at the chore chart."
"Oh," Bruce said, shaking his head. "I'll do the dishes now."
Structure of the paragraph:
The traditional structure of the paragraph consists of a topic sentence, three supporting sentences and a concluding sentence. Obviously, all your paragraphs will not look exactly like this, but it is a good structure to keep in mind.
There are four important elements to writing a good paragraph: unity (the paragraph should be focused on one topic), order (there should be a logical progression of details -- it can be in chronological order, or order of importance, or a series of logical arguments), coherence (you need to connect the sentences, using transitional words, which show order - like "1st", "2nd", etc. - or logic - like "furthermore" or "therefore" - be careful to use the correct word -- "however" and "therefore" are NOT interchangeable; you must ensure you use a consistent verb tense, as well), completeness (all the sentences should support the topic sentence and your conclusion should summarize the idea).
When you are completing your personal narrative essay, keep these things in mind!
Drama Club:
Two things! Let me know if you are interested in performing in the school play, which will be "Spoon River Anthology". Pass this on to anyone who might be interested. We won't be having announcements this year at school, so it is hard to get the info out.
If you are interested in performing this summer in Steveston in the historical vignettes that students did in 2019, let Ms. Kosar know! You will be paid for your acting and it is a lot of fun and great experience!
Email Ms. Kosar or comment on this blog post!
Well, we have that very difficult first day under our belts now. I always feel nervous on the first day (even after 28 years of first days!) and I want to thank you all for having made it manageable. Lots of your teachers really appreciate your wearing masks and following the rules for safety and health.
Everyone, please remember to give your parents the letters I gave you. My hope is that the letter will help allay some of their concerns about this unusual "back to school" and also give them some insight into what you will be doing over the course of the quarter.
English 12: I am looking forward to meeting the second half of my English class this morning. For those of you I saw yesterday, your homework is to answer the questions about the poem, "You Begin" and begin to plan your oral book report. A couple of you had some good questions -- for the illustration of the poem (#2), ideally, I would like a drawing, but if you want to describe your illustration in words, that's fine, too. For the book report, if you would rather speak about a non-fiction book, that's fine. Instead of the plot and characters, you can describe the message of the book and the author's purpose in writing it. Remember to begin each home session with 20 minutes of reading and then write in your reading log. I read your writing samples and was very pleased with the quality of your work.
Drama 8: We will begin mime today! I hope you all remember each other's names. I am going to be working on that over the next few days. Remember to have a duotang, some paper and a pen for Friday. Put the handout I gave you in the front of the duotang.
Drama Club: If you are interested in participating in the Steveston Historical Society's vignettes this coming summer (2021), we are having a Zoom meeting on Thursday at 6 p.m. We will be discussing the idea of turning history into theatre and the coordinator of the vignettes will be there, along with the writer of the vignettes and one of our past performers who are going to be working on updating the script. If you are interested, email me and I will send you the link.
If you are interested in performing in "Spoon River Anthology", please send me an email. I am thinking about how it will be presented and sometime next week, I will start choosing roles, so I need to know if you would like to participate!
Have a great day two, everyone!
Great to hear from many of you about Spoon River! I hope to hear from more of you in the days to come and will start thinking about how we're going to put things together. Also, great to hear from some folks who can help with the logistics and filming and editing. The more the merrier, so make sure you send me an email if you can lend us your considerable talents and skills for this exciting thing (whatever it turns out to be.)
It was also great to see a class of students in the theatre after all these months away. It was only a homeroom class, so just all that administrative stuff that you all know I love, but once I see a group of kids, for some reason, my anxiety level goes down. Now we have a weekend to regroup and we will be up and at it for our first quarter on Monday!
Here's a link to the Guardian Comedy Wildlife Photography awards, which might give you a laugh if you need one. Who doesn't need a laugh once in a while? https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2020/sep/11/comedy-wildlife-photography-awards-2020-finalists-in-pictures
Today, we are putting forth the tender leaves of hope, hope that this school year will bring us back to something we can consider "normal". Maybe, in the months to come, our leaves will blossom into honourable flowers! We have a new beginning ahead of us and we do have the power to make something of it. Let's do our best and have a positive attitude and take the lessons we learned from the last few months into our new school year.
No matter how challenging the last few weeks have been, with all of us trying to imagine school and what we will do, I know that once I get to see your shining faces back in the theatre, I will feel like there are all sorts of new possibilities ahead of us. We will figure all of it out together! Many heads are certainly better than one. A few things to keep in mind to keep yourself (and old folks like me) safe -- wear a mask when you can and try to respect the two metre physical distance from people. Wash your hands whenever you think of it. Try your best to follow the rules -- they've made these rules (like the directional arrows in the hallways) to keep us all safe.
If you are interested in the school play, I am planning something different this year, since it is unlikely we will be able to do a regular performance with an audience crammed into our little theatre and with you guys hanging around at lunch and after school for rehearsal. (Maybe that can happen in the spring!) I mentioned Spoon River Anthology before. It is a series of short poetic monologues spoken by the denizens of the fictional Spoon River cemetery. The idea for this is that each of you could prepare one of the character's monologues and we could get some of our film school students (presently in film school, or graduates, so they'll know what they're doing!) to put it together and we could present the thing virtually. There are lots of monologues, so if you are an alumni, recent or long ago, we would love to have you participate, too! You can tell me if you're interested in the comments section of the blog, or you can email me. I hope to hear from lots of you soon! I will post a couple of sample monologues here in the days to come.
If you did write that short story, look at the CBC's website to see how to enter it into the CBC's short story contest. You could win $6000 and get a chance to go to the Banff Centre for a two week writing residency and get your story published! Here is the URL: https://www.cbc.ca/books/literaryprizes/calling-all-writers-the-2021-cbc-short-story-prize-is-now-open-1.5705720
Won't be long now until we're back in the saddle! It will be very different, and we are having a staff meeting to find out all about it today, so I am looking forward to that. On Thursday or Friday next week, you will be coming in to get all the latest information, so don't stress too much till then.
See you soon, everybody!
