Welcome!

Welcome to my site for class notes!

This website has been dormant for the past 6 years and I’m just starting to use it again, so much of the material in the drop down menus above may be outdated. However, the blog posts below will contain descriptions of our classes and links to some of our class material.

Scroll down for the latest posts. Or if you want to find your class fast, click on the link on the right –>

You can contact me directly at mrturnersenglish@gmail.com. To discuss more sensitive or confidential information please contact me at jonathan.turner@burnabyschools.ca

Final Classes

As we wind down the school year, all of our major assignments are now complete. The remaining classes will feature short, “one-off” lessons designed to strengthen various skills. If you miss a class and would like to know what we did, please email mrturnersenglish@gmail.com.

In the meantime I am still accepting revisions of old assignments (including assignments from the previous term) until Saturday, June 22nd.

English 12 — Tues. June 5 to Thu. June 7

Tuesday: We did a practice poetic vocabulary quiz created by the students of the class, then used the poems as the basis for further writing practice.

Period 1: Practice quiz based on “The Kiss” by Anne Sexton

Period 4: Practice quiz based on four different poems related to the theme, “Motivation”

Wednesday: We took our poetry quiz for marks, then looked at what the provincial looks like online, doing e-exam “D” (from 2010/11). We just did all multiple-choice questions (stand alone and synthesis texts) and discussed the analysis question.

Thursday: We will do the synthesis response from the same test as another practice in-class essay.

English 12 — Mon. Jun. 4

Today: We review poetic terms by taking and going over this practice quiz. A similar quiz will be given on Wednesday for marks.

We then created multiple choice questions for poems that we read during this unit, and shared those questions on Google Docs.

Homework: Please bring a book for silent reading. We will resume silent reading when everyone has a book.

 

English 9 — Mon. June 4 to Thu. June 7

Monday: Students who have finished their Imagination project studied Edgar Allan Poe’s poem, “The Raven”. We listened to the audio recording available on the Google Drive, and learned about the basic plot and main themes of the poem.

We then focused on its use of literary techniques, using the first three stanzas to find examples of the techniques listed below. Students were assigned individual stanzas to annotate on Google Docs showing any 5 of the following:

• internal rhyme
• allusion
• alliteration
• onomatopoeia
• archaism
• personification
• metaphor
• assonance
• definition of a difficult word

Tuesday: Students who completed their project work got caught up with our study of the Raven.

Wednesday: After completing the annotations, students then write a stanza of original poetry imitating the rhyme and meter of “The Raven”. The poem does not need to be especially creative or deep–we are merely working on writing understandable lines in rhyme and meter, and strengthening our understanding of the form the “The Raven.”

Thursday: We look at Gustave Doré’s illustrations for “The Raven”, adding the appropriate illustration to our annotated stanzas on Google Docs and writing a description of the interesting details and overall intent of the illustrations.

English 12 — Thur. May 31 & Fri. Jun. 1

Thursday: We peer reviewed our practice in-class synthesis essays, emphasizing the positive and recognizing the successes of the writers.

Also: We prepared for tomorrow’s final in-class synthesis essay be previewing the texts we will read.

PERIOD 1: Read the short story “May” by Ali Smith. You will be given the specific writing topic tomorrow.

People who were absent from period 1 may either email me to receive the story, or you will receive a different, poetry-based topic in class tomorrow.

PERIOD 4: You have a choice of topics and texts. Choose:

1. Assess the effectiveness of any two texts—which is more successfully motivational?
   • Desiderata (poem)
   • If (poem)
   • Invictus (poem)
   • Any texts from the topics below

2. Assess which texts provides better advice for dealing with adversity
   • When I Am Overcome With Weakness (poem)
   • Things That Won’t Help You On a Bad Day (poem)

3. Topic: “Will“. How might the writer of “Will” interpret and respond to “Let’s Beat up the Poor”
   • Let’s Beat Up the Poor (fiction)
   • Will: To Live is to Choose (essay)

Students who were absent may email me to receive the texts. If you were not able to receive the texts to preview them, you will be assigned topic 2.

Friday: We wrote our final in-class synthesis essays. If you were not here today, you may make up this work during class time next week.

English 9 — Tues. May 29 to Fri. Jun. 1

All week we are continuing to work on our imagination projects.

Tuesday: We reviewed the expectations for the creative writing assignment, focusing on the idea of taking inspiration for various elements from the texts we have read.

Wednesday & Thursday: Working on projects.

Friday: We have a presentation from a Burnaby Public Librarian for half the class and are continuing to work on our projects for the remainder.

English 12 — Period 4 — Tues. May 29 & Wed. May 30

Tuesday: We reviewed the multiple choice questions and the irony analysis from Part A of the practice provincial exam, then continued, answering reading the texts and answering the multiple choice questions for the synthesis portion.

Wednesday: We wrote and completed the synthesis essay from the practice provincial exam.

English 12 — Period 1 — Tues. May 29 & Wed. May 30

Tuesday: We wrote an in-class synthesis essay from a past provincial exam.

Wednesday: We reviewed the completed multiple choice questions and discussed the texts for the synthesis portion of the exam in preparation for peer reviewing the in-class essays tomorrow.

English 9 — Wed. May 23 to Mon. May 28

We have been working on our self-directed “Imagination” projects for the majority of our class time.

On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, we looked briefly at different materials that are available in the shared folder on Google Drive.

On Monday we practiced explaining and justifying our illustrations using these sentence structures:

I am illustrating ________________ from ________________. I am trying to show or emphasize __________________________________________________________________________________.

Homework: At this point you should be finished or nearly finished your first of the two assignments for this project. If you are not yet finished the first one (the illustration for most of you) please catch up on that at home.

English 12 — Wed. May 23 to Mon. May 24

We have been doing test prep, doing practice provincial exams from the examples available online with a focus on the literary terms and also doing timed, in-class writing.

If you have not submitted your synthesis essay, it is overdue! It’s important that you submit that ASAP in order to benefit from the feedback you receive prior to your next and final synthesis essay for marks, which will be an in-class, timed-write situation.