Blogger Sign Up

Thanks to all for a successful sign up today. Those of you who were unable to successfully create your blog, please try from home tonight.

Remember that titles should be creative and seek to engage the reader, and that your work is on the global stage!

Artifact Analysis Assignment due Friday

Your final draft of the artifact analysis assignment is due Friday. Please ensure that all assignment requirements (two polished, powerful paragraphs and your artifact) are in your google doc journal, at the top, labeled as journal entry 3.

Blogger

A paper copy of this notice went home today.

August 29, 2012

Dear Parents,

This year in grade 8, students will be using the Google service “Blogger” to create blogs, starting with a blog dedicated to the free-reading they do throughout the year. Each student will have their own individual blog that they will be responsible for keeping up-to-date depending on the term’s assignments. Tasks will include written book reviews and creative multi-media tasks.

We have elected to use Blogger because of its ease of use and the ability for students to use their  “cssstudent” accounts. Because we will be using their school accounts, the Blogger account will be managed by the school, which negates the need for the students to meet the “13 years old” requirement stated in the Blogger terms. Please note that students are not exposed to any outside content when signing up or using Blogger.

We are really excited about this learning opportunity, and the chance for students to showcase their writing and deep thinking about literature and story-telling. Please encourage them to share their “litspiration” blogs with you!

Please direct any questions to Mrs. Waite and/or Miss Groeller, preferably via email.

Thanks,

Ivy Waite and Jaime Groeller

Ivy.w@calgaryscienceschool.com

Jaime.g@calgaryscienceschool.com

Worldview

As the foundation, or theme if you will, for our year in social studies, and to some extent humanities in general, we have spent the last few days taking about the concept of worldview. We have investigated this topic by:

• completing a survey of our opinions on 7 important worldview elements including topics such as "human nature," "the good life," and "ethical wisdom."

• discussing as a whole group the worldview survey, exploring and deconstructing the complicated ideas, while promoting understanding of worldview as a concept (notes of these discussions are available in the documents section of the humanities homepage in the class discussion notes, organized by class)

• working as a group, exploring artifacts in the form of photographs in order to determine aspects of the worldview demonstrated

• reading an article, using the "talking to the text" reading strategies, to deepen our understanding

• throughout all of the above learning opportunities, we have continuously updated a "KWL" chart on our google doc journals (journal entry #1)

Currently, we are working on analyzing the Western worldview by selecting artifacts that represent two of the elements of worldview we have been exploring.

Great First Week!

Thanks to everyone for a great start to an exciting year in humanities.

Today we started the Artifact Analysis assignment, but please remember that it is NOT for homework!
(That being said, you should have a clear idea of which artifact you are going to choose come Monday.)

If you have not yet completed the Talking to the Text assignment (1. Read and "talk to"; 2. Highlight strategies according to colour code; 3. Journal Entry #2) it is DUE Monday.

Have a fantastic weekend, and we will see you all soon!

Talking to the Text

So excited to start this new skill with you all today! Remember that you can access any of the documents used in class by clicking on the "Documents" page above.

Here are the strategies once again for your quick reference:

• determining importance
• summarizing
• monitoring meaning
• making connections
• questioning
• making inferences
• visualizing

Book Covers

Book covers are due tomorrow (Tuesday, August 21).