Oct.10 Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving - have a wonderful weekend with your family & friends :)


Excellent work everyone in developing your inferencing skills to identify and present the key themes of our novel Seedfolks - you all did well in highlighting important life lessons!

Great participation in our 1st Rosary celebration of the year!

Super acordian & autumn art pieces!

Oct.9

Novel Study: Seedfolks Inferencing Team Task

A theme is the central idea, subject or message of a literary work.  A work of literature may have more than one theme.  For example, some famous novels deal with universal themes such as love, life, death, betrayal, forgiveness, justice, revenge, loyalty, friendship etc.

Working cooperatively and constructively within a group of 3-4 maximum, your team task is to infer what you consider to be the central theme or themes of Seedfolks.  On chart paper, jot down key words, phrases, quotes or even symbols that will prompt your group to share your ideas orally with the class.

You may choose to organize your ideas using a graphic organizer such as the one below:

Success Criteria:

• understand literary term theme as an overall message or subject, not a retell
• identify at least 2 personal themes you feel the author wants you to be aware of 
• support your ideas/opinions with what the characters did or said to enable you to arrive at this conclusion
• share your ideas confidently, clearly, logically

Oct.6 Week Reminders Geography & Language

Geography (Di Croce & Tassone) Reminder:

Place of Interest & District/Cultural Neighborhoods Tasks are both overdue. Many remain incomplete.  Samples for reference are on blog (Sept.17 & Sept.24 entries).  Refer to them for success!  Do not simply copy & paste information from online sources, instead, pick out key ideas and organize them in your own words to show what you have learned about these places.  Follow the samples and submit your work before PA Day this week (Oct.10).  At this point, everyone should be exploring a Region around Toronto (see Oct.3 entry with sample) - we will continue to work on the task this week.  

Novel Study (Di Croce, Tassone, Bucci) Reminder:

Chapter monologue follow-up questions should be completed by now, namely:

• Virgil (Sept.20 entry)
• Sae Young (Sept.23 entry)
• Curtis (Sept.24 entry)
• Nora (Sept.25 entry)
• Maricela (Sept.26 entry)
• Amir (Sept.27 entry)

These questions will be submitted with the personal lessons to be learned from 12 character quotes before the PA Day this week (Oct.10).  Remember that the lessons to the quotes are not to be completed on chart paper but on a separate sheet. See sample response Oct.3 entry for success!

Remember this week to bring in any non-perishable food items for St. Simon's Thanksgiving Food Drive:

Oct.3

Geography Task: Regions

Working independently or with only 1 partner, refer to figure 2.3 (pg.23) to begin exploring a region of your choice around Toronto following the criteria below:

• identify where it is located in relation to our Toronto region
• identify its neighboring regions
• identify any major counties, towns and/or cities that make up this region
• identify which areas within this region can be described by any of these characteristics: urban, rural, wilderness, physical/landforms, human/high population density, political centre, climate, major bodies of water, ecozones (part of Niagara Escarpment Biosphere?), functional (a region from which people receive a product)

Sample:

I have selected the region of Muskoka to explore.  It is located north-east of Toronto.

Its neighboring regions include:  Simcoe to the west, Parry Sound to the north, Haliburton to the east, and Victoria to the south.

The towns of Huntsville, Bracebridge and Gravenhurst and the townships of Georgian Bay, Lake of Bays, and Muskoka Lakes form the major cities or municipalities of the region, as shown on the map below:

Key details of Muskoka region:

-known as “cottage country” of Ontario

-vacation, tourist, long-weekend destination

-many lakeside resorts, location of summer camps

-its beautiful natural scenery has invited many Hollywood celebrities to build their own vacation retreats on its many lakes

-  3 major bodies of water: Lake Muskoka, Lake Rosseau, Lake Joseph

-made up of many small villages, towns and rural farming communities

-government is centred in Bracebridge

-home of Algonquin Provincial Park, a historic and vast protected conservation wilderness area made up of unique variety of Canadian wildlife/vegetation; picturesque environment continues to inspire Canadian artists

·       

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Seedfolks Quote Reading Response Sample:

• identify the lesson in your opening top sentence
• explain and support that idea with your own ideas or ideas from the text using at least 3 sentences as shown below:

It is through the character of Florence that I have learned the importance of community.  Living in one of most multi-cultural cities in North America, I am reminded to respect and celebrate cultural diversity.  It is important to create and live in a family-oriented community in which everyone (regardless of ethnicity, religion, language etc) feels welcomed, included and safe.  When people come together on a regular basis for the greater good, as the seedfolks do in the Gibb Street Garden, then only positive things will flourish.  Walls that previously existed between people will come down.  People will have a sense of purpose, someone to lean on through the tough times and a sense of hope for the future.

Oct.2

What major regions can you identify that make up the city of Toronto and the Greater Toronto Area?

• what regions is Toronto further divided?
• Woodbridge/Maple is located where?
• what townships make up region of York?
• Brampton/Mississauga is located where?
• Oakville is located where?

Novel Study: Seedfolks Quotes Analysis 2

Character/Monologue Quote	What lesson(s) do you personally think we can all learn from this character and apply in our daily life?  Explain with supporting details.
8/ Sae Young:  “But just be near people, nice people, feel good, like next to fire in winter… That day I see man use my funnel. Then woman. Then many people. Feel very glad inside. Feel part of garden. Almost like family.”	Through this character, I have learned the importance of…
9/ Curtis:  “You don’t know what you got till it’s gone. All that was five years ago. I’ve caught up with her now. Done fooling around. She was looking for a husband, and now I’m looking for a wife.”	Through this character, I have learned the importance of…
10/ Nora:  “We mustn’t stop living before out time. So I’m forever telling Mr. Myles… Over the narrow, bumpy path we went, his nose and eyes working. Some remembered scent was pulling him. He was a salmon traveling upstream through his past.”	Through this character, I have learned the importance of…
11/ Maricela:  “How nature ran on sunlight and rain and the seasons, and how I was part of that system. The words sort of out me into a daze. My body was part of nature. I was related to bears, to dinosaurs, to plants, to things that were a million yours old. It hit me that this system was much older and stronger than the other. She said how it wasn’t some disgrace to be part of it. She said it was an honor.”	Through this character, I have learned the importance of…
12/ Amir:  “But there at least you know your neighbors. Here, one cannot say that. The object in America is to avoid contact, to treat all as foes unless they’re known to be friends. Here you have a million crabs living in a million crevices.”	Through this character, I have learned the importance of…

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