Grade 8's: What should Ms. Kosar know about you? Have you had any experience in Drama at all (elementary school play, public speaking lessons, improv classes, etc.)? Do you do any activity which requires you to perform (sports, music, dance, etc.)? Do you have stage fright? (Most people have at least a little bit.) What pronouns do you prefer? You can share anything else you would like that will help me teach you.
Grade 9's: If you haven't been in my class before, please answer the above. Thanks!
Our first project is going to be "heritage drama" in which we share stories from our family history. Most of us in Canada have come from somewhere else (unless we are indigenous). Where did your family come from? Do you know when they first arrived in Canada? Do you know anything about their first experiences here? Here is an example of what you might tell me.
My father's family came from Ukraine at the end of the 19th century. My grandparents came in a boat with their five oldest children (my dad wasn't born yet). They travelled across Canada in a train and arrived at a place called "Tiny" in Saskatchewan. (It was very tiny.) They lived in a "sod house" at first -- that is basically a building made of cubes of earth. (There are very few trees in Saskatchewan so they couldn't build a log cabin.) My grandfather was a very hard man, but he had to be -- he had to make sure they got a crop to grow before the winter, or the family would have starved. It must have been very difficult for them in Ukraine to have gone through such hardships to come to Canada.
If you don't know anything -- you can find out. You could ask family members or you could even go online and find out about your home country.
