Check out your "Stats"

Hello grade 8 bloggers,

   Recently, google and blogger have announced that there will be changes made to blogger to make it even easier and more interactive for users (both writers and readers of blogs). Last week we checked out the new views available on blogger. All you have to do is type /view at the end of your blog url, and you have the opportunity to view your blog in five new ways. It's pretty fun to play with. As I played with this, I realized that I want to include more pictures with my blog posts, as some of the views depend on those. This is one of the reasons I love things like this, they show me what I need to continue to work on.

   Also, when I log in to blogger, I have an older user interface than you do. This is because I started my blogger account before recent changes were made. Zak had this issue as well. If you want to be able to use blogger's newest interface, you simply need to change one of your settings. Go to the settings tab, then select "basics", three quarters of the way down the page, you'll have the option to select your post editor, select the most recent one. Tah-dah!

   Finally, I encourage you to check out something I discovered on blogger this weekend. When you are in your editing area of your blog, you will notice tabs like "posting", "comments", "settings" and "design", all of which you are familiar with. There are two other tabs, ignore "monetise" because it adds annoying ads and pop-ups to your blog, but check out "stats". In "Stats", there are several options of how to look at the visitors to your blog. You can see how many people visited each page, based on day, month or all time. You can see where in the world blog visitors have come from. You can see how people found your blog. It's really, really neat.

  Take some time to check these things out once you're all caught up on your assignments.

It Gets Better - Part 2

Hello R8A,

I'm sorry that I'm not there with you today. The cold that I've been had for weeks has gotten even worse. I'm going to a few appointments and hopefully I'll get much better really soon! I miss you all. Please make sure to read through the new posts and prioritize your tasks. I've changed your SOLE assignment due dates, so you can do your individual assignments and tasks first.

Tomorrow, Wednesday, October 20th is the Day of Purple. People all over the world will be wearing purple clothes to show support for people's individuality and in memory of the young men who have taken their own lives because of LGBTQ bullying.

I will be decked out in a cool purple dress and purple nail polish at my doctor's appointments. Will you wear purple tomorrow?

Click here to read my post, It Gets Better. Reflect on reasons why it is important to show your support. For a bonus, link back to this post and create a new post on your blog.

Mystery Photos

To prepare for upcoming lessons, examine these photos, observe what you see and make inferences about why I am sharing these with you. We will be working with these images later this week.


For a bonus, leave a comment where you make several observations and inferences about these photos.

Tweet Up

Hello R8A (and other readers out there in Blogville!),

This afternoon, Mateen and Noah stuck around after school to take part in a "Tweet Up" (a twitter meet-up) with professors and students at Algonquin College. Twitter was not being terribly reliable (it was VERY slow), but Mateen had a chance to answer lots of questions about his interesting part-time job (app developer). If you are interested in seeing what went on, you can see a summary here.

I am having such a blast with you this year, R8A and I can't wait to learn more about ALL of your hidden talents. We'll do an assignment very soon called "HOW are you creative?", where you'll have a chance to showcase your unique talents. Feel free to leave a comment below giving us a clue about what those are!

Assignment #5 - Island Man: Work With It

Today in class, you were introduced to the poem, Island Man. I want you to work with the poem on your blog.

Copy the text of the poem to a new post on your own blog. Link to this post. Select the 10 most important words in the poem (in your opinion) and put them in italics. Select two photos or images from the Internet and embed them in the poem at appropriate places.

Finally, answer the question: "Where would you most like to wake up?" (answer in at least 5 lines describing where you would like to wake up and your reasoning)

Here is the poem:

Island Man (for a Caribbean island man in London who still wakes up the sound of the sea)
by Grace Nichols

Morning
and island man wakes up
to the sound of blue surf
in his head
the steady breaking and wombing
wild seabirds
and fishermen pushing out to sea
the sun surfacing defiantly
from the east
of his small emerald island

He always comes back
groggily groggily
comes back to sands
of a grey metallic soar
to a surge of wheels
to dull North Circular roar
muffling muffling
his crumpled pillow waves
island man heaves himself
another London day

For a bonus, practice reading the poem aloud. Do you read it the same as I did? Differently? You may be asked to perform it in class. We still have more work to do with this one!

Here is one reader's interpretation of Island Man.

Does this look familiar?

It Gets Better

I am so proud of all of you today. We had a wonderful, thoughtful discussion at the end of the day before our long weekend. I am proud of you for listening to one another, supporting one another and showing maturity.

There was a lot of heavy stuff that we talked about and you are all probably processing the discussion in different ways. In fact, I heard one of you educating a student in another class about the importance of the words we use.

I wanted to make some videos available to you if you are interested in watching them. These are some of the things I was referring to in class today. I have embedded youtube clips, which you will not be able to watch at school, but you can at home.

For a bonus, write a post on your own blog (link back to this post and leave me a comment to let me know you've done it) reflecting on what we talked about today and/or relating the issues to your own experiences. Not everyone got to share their stories today, but now you have a chance to share them online. Start a post, write a poem, a story or your thoughts.

Remember:
When things get rough, you'll get through it. It gets better.
Words are extremely powerful. Be cautious about how you use them and how you respond to the ways others use them.
There are people out there who love you and care about you more than you'll ever know. When you need help, turn to them. (One of those people is me, by the way.)



On Glee, Kurt's dad, Burt, responds to Finn's hurtful words about his son.



My favourite actor, Neil Patrick Harris tells you it gets better.



The wonderful Ellen Degeneres talks about teenage bullying and the crisis that we have been hearing about this month.



Chris Colfer (Glee's Kurt) tells you it gets better.

For more information and support, you can check out The Trevor Project.

UPDATE: Please take some time to visit Hannah's blog and read her response to our talk. She has written beautifully and honestly.

Thank you for your tolerance, empathy and support of one another. I am a proud teacher.

Be safe and happy this Thanksgiving weekend!

Assignment #3 - Behind Your Name

Good morning, bloggers.

As you probably remember, at the beginning of the year, I asked you to fill out a questionnaire so I could get to know you better. A few of the questions centred around your name. I asked you what you liked to be called and if you knew of any special significance behind your name.

Inspired by the wonderful Mrs. Burke, I have decided on your next assignment.

I would like you to do some research about your name and write a post telling us what you learned. As well, you are going to learn to create a hyperlink for this post.

First, go to the website, Behind the Name. Open it in a new tab in your browser so you can still have my blog and your blog open. Search for your name. You can type in your name to the search bar or search alphabetically.

Another site that has lots of interesting information about names is Baby Names. Once you have found your name, you can click on "more info" and see a chart demonstrating how popular your name has been in different years. At the bottom of the "more info" page, you can fill out a survey about your name to help the administrators of the website enhance their information. You may do this when you are done writing your post.

Tip: Search your full first name, not a shortened part. For example, if you are Isabella, but everyone calls you "Bella", search "Isabella" to get the most information.

Find out the meaning or the root of your name. My first name is Shauna and when I searched for it, I was directed by a link to "Shaun", then "Sean", then "John" before I got information about the root meaning of my name. You can have a look and see why I am gracious. You may have to follow a similar path to find out where your name started (the roots of it).

Start a new post. In this post, you will answer several questions in full sentences. You may need to copy my text and fill in the blanks.

Start off your post by linking back to this assignment.

Behind My Name: ________ (fill in your name)

Before I started this assignment, I thought my name was ______, because _________.
I think my parents chose this name for me because __________________________.

After searching on Behind the Name (create a link here), I learned that my name means ____________ (use your own words here).

Some other interesting things I learned are _______________________ (maybe there was extra information, you learned the root of your name or where it comes from or who are some famous people with the same name, maybe you looked up your middle or last name).

I think my name does/does not (select one) suit me because ___________________.

If I could give myself a new name, it would be ______________, because _________________. (Connor, this would be an OK time to talk about "Dragon"!)

You may add any extra comments or reflections about your name at the end of the post.


For a bonus, look up the name of a character in a book, movie or TV show that you like and write about why that name does/does not suit that character's personality.

For a sample of how you can do a great job on this assignment, check out mine or Hannah's.

Please leave a comment at the bottom of this post when you have completed this assignment. Make sure you are logged in so I can easily access your blog.

Khaleefa Hamdan

I am so excited that Khaleefa Hamdan, a Fielding graduate, rapper and Slam Poet, will be visiting our school to speak to all Intermediate students on Friday, November 19th.

UPDATE: Even MORE special, he will be visiting R8A on Wednesday, October 13th during period 3.

Start thinking about questions you might want to ask Khaleefa about his proces or his poems. For a bonus, write some questions in the comment section here.

Two of his poems are posted below. They're really fun to read out loud, just wait until you hear him perform them!

Small and Sleek
Khaleefa Hamdan

So I decided to take a walk right, you know just minding my biz

And fiending a kiss from her thievenous lips, day dreaming of hips

And scheming of scripts of stealing a glimpse of seeing her strip

She’ll see me and trip, she’ll scream and she’ll diss and I’ll meet with her fist

When suddenly I heard a tiny voice say “Please, DON’T STEP ON ME!

Cuz you see your leathery weaponry will be the death of me!”


So I looked down and saw an ant so I asked “You say something?”

And he said “I didn’t say something you dumb thing, you think you run things?

I said one thing and that’s don’t step on me,
Christ, you must be blind AND deaf”

I said “Yo, you’ll die if I step” he said “Try I’ll bet I’ll make you cry and jet”

Now this ain’t what I was taught in science class and as the silence passed


I felt as brave as a lion’s ass but time was dyin fast

So I asked “How does it feel to live a meaningless existence?”

He said, “Trying to trick, diss prince?
Cuz in this instance there ain’t a big difference”


I told him “Well there ain’t no colony callin’ me constantly

Haulin’ meat or small and sleek y’all indeed crawl in speed all in streets

I’m in awe you geek, I’m tall and can speak and that’s the difference you bottom freak”

He said “Who you calling freak and stop stalling speech, you live for economies

Like our colony, you humans work and strive and keep hurt alive

And spend your whole lives doing back breaking labour, just so it’ll thrive"


I laughed in his face cuz, well, you know me the low key pro teen, I’m so mean!

He’s a joke like governments who go green “Homie we don’t follow no queen”

He told me “Pull out a twenty, right now! Come on, yeah the dollar bill! 

Watch me ruin your reality and all your skill will fall more, still 

Better haul your will cuz tell me what you see, Queen Elizabeth

See us ants we live and bet and give regrets still it’s a gift we met”


This ant spoke the truth, so like any dignified man with socks on

First I gawked on then realized I got brawn so I stomped him down, then walked on

Content with my ignorance as the clouds, sun, and plants followed me

We are the human race, the over glorified ant colony



Don’t Look
Khaleefa Hamdan

Don't look, don't look, don't look, don't look two percent of the world's population
Owns half the wealth & it's spent becoming nuclear rocket nations
God waited on us to work it out but got impatient, so he stopped his saving
It's like we locked with Satan, invading nations who fight back with rocks they slangin'
And fat cats think in power point & money so they invest in bullets & clips
And they pull it to clip the wings of the white dove, so dead bodies are fillin' the ditch
And mass graves like animals or better yet nuclear waste, no decency
Hell recently, we'll burn torches to look in Death's face to get a decent peek but
Don't look, don't look, don't look, they went to Afghanistan to pop some insurgents
Her pops was in service, got popped & it's hurtin', it's off to the surgeon
They're stopping their workin' to pop in his virgin, she's shocked & she's jerkin'
They swapin' & smerkin', she was a lone angel amongst the rotten & vermin
There was one of them, for every year that made up her age, ten war time crooks
And as they squeezed & forced themselves in she closed her eyes & thought "Don't look, don't look,
Don't look, don't look" is what he said to himself as he thought about what fame is
Payments made to the shameless tucked in the Caymans in laymen's that is famous
It left him dis-turbed how he's molding lives with words of kids who called him mis-ter
He'd write till his wrists hurt, looking at his inserts, it became sweet like a des-sert
So he grabbed his death maker, he used to keep the shells hidden in old books
He sat on his couch, closed his eyes put it in his mouth & thought "Don't look, don't look
Don't look, don't look" she was just your average daily teen using Maybelline
Trying to be a Cover Girl, she's made to dream of being a famous queen
So she's not happy with her body image, she no longer eats, starvin'
Like that's how every star been, star bent her stomach feels like two boxers sparrin'
In her mind, she's always ugly & she'll never realize just what her goal took
Anorexic, whenever she walks by the mirror she whispers "Don't look, don't look,
Don't look, don't look" he was a dull moth who spent late nights writing manuscripts
Thinking "Man, you sick!" tucked away in his room like a phantom's crypt
He was attracted to light made by this firefly, her face plagued his vision
See she's dating a pompous butterfly, so the moth would trace his incisions
Of every single heart break & past scar, he used to look up at the last star
He couldn't turn away like seeing the crashed cars; he was an ape with a glass heart
It baffled him how he came so far; he loved the bizarre words of James O'Barr
This love game is so hard, in order to cope, he made his lame old art in rain or stars
But the sound of their kiss is forever ingrained and burned in his memory
So he's up ripping all the pages out his notebook that were referencing
His truest love, it was never true, so now he sits lightless with his soul shook
Replaying the incident, remembering how the crow said "Don't look, don't look
Don't look, don't look" every night I speak to God through my pen's ink & notebook
Like Lord, this world is full of sin & murder but please, for our sake don't look
Don't look, don't look, don't look....

Alexandria

Today in the library, Ms. Holmes and I issued a challenge to you, the students of R8A. I have been using the school board's library check-out system to help you sign out books lately and I learned that the system is called "Alexandria". Your challenge today was to use the books in the library to determine why that system would be called "Alexandria". Several of you had good guesses, but ultimately, Mateen, Claire and Jumanh solved the mystery.

Alexandria is a city in Egypt where a very important building was located. No, it's not the lighthouse I'm referring to! Alexandria housed the world's first library.

Hopefully one of you will make a fortune one day with this knowledge nugget (perhaps as Jeopardy question!?).

Do you know any other interesting name origins? The library computer system is named after the location of the first library. Are you named for something special? You can leave a comment here or make a post on your blog for a bonus.

Assignment #2 - Empathy

This assignment is due Tuesday, October 12th (thank you, Melissa for the date correction!)

You are to write a post of at least 10 lines in length about empathy. Please use your own words and write creatively about the word "empathy". You may use your notes from your Free Write book to help you out. You can write a rap, a poem, a journal entry, a creative story or a reflection. Please be creative and use lots of detail in your writing.

For a bonus, try to identify the symbol above. Leave a comment below if you have a guess (or even better, proof!).