Takeaways

I can’t believe we’re almost done. This has been a fun experiment in combining English 11 and Geography 12. In particular, a few things stood out as valuable and interesting for me as a teacher:

• Field trip to Wastewater Facility and the comments that showed that students knew that what happened there was important and necessary for the health of the Fraser River, but at the same time quite gross and smelly. 
• Field trip to the Lheidl T’Enneh exhibit -- I learned a lot from the tour, and I thought your questions going in were very solid. I very much appreciated how you enjoyed your time at the riverside. 
• Friday Seminars -- great discussions and nice to get to know you better: shared quotes, discussions about music, leadership, special places, cool stuff and “findings” you came up with in response to the prompts 
• Thoughtful responses to some of the blog prompts and TED talks,especially on environmental themes. 
• Pretty good results for the 3 or 4 map and airphoto interpretation exercises -- these are difficult and most of you did quite well 
• Field trip to UNBC -- I think many of you made great connections to university life (social and academic) 
• Field trip to Ancient Forest and seeing how students reacted to the woods in different ways. 
• Emphasis on Topophilia -- you had a variety of opportunities to write about places that have significant meaning to you and I saw that some of you kept pushing to really understand what made these spaces important, both in descriptive writing and in probing the “psychology” of place. 
• Variety of reading and writing -- I was impressed with the books that many of you chose to read (or were already reading) and also the fine writing from a few of you who dedicated time to expressing your thoughts with polished writing on your digital portfolios. 

And, like any course, there are a few things I probably won’t do the same way again:

• Into Thin Air -- might give this a pass next time around. This was highly recommended by other English teachers but I think only a few students were interested in the story. I do wish we had more choices when it comes to class sets of books in the bookroom. Also, I need to sort out how to make lit circles work better, and find other methods for students to share their independent reading.
• Flex time -- not in this format anyways... I think many of you were still not ready to use independent time for either open ended inquiry (your questions) or assigned tasks (my questions). This will be important for you to figure out before you do any post-secondary schooling. 
• If you have suggestions for how I could make Lit Circles or Flex time work, please let me know.
• addition (after reading your comments): Less direct lectures on Geography and indirect assignments on English, and more direct lessons on English and integration of English into Geography themes and vice versa. There was a lot of "English" in our course, but maybe too much of it was assigned to Flex and therefore was skipped by those for who Flex did not work. I think this was a challenge for me because the Geography 12 outcomes are very specific (e.g. geomorphology) and require direct instruction whereas the English outcomes are more abstract and can be learned in a variety of direct and indirect ways.  I knew exactly what Geography had to be included, but was more "dreamy" about the English side.

What did you take away from the "Language and Landscape Program?"

TED talks that make you think

WEDNESDAY DEC 4th
On the advice of Ft. St. James teacher Ms. Inden, we watched this TED talk on the aftermath of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster and the resilience of the "babushkas" that refused to leave. We had (what I think was) a great discussion afterwards about emotional attachment, impact of experience on the body and mind, memory of landscapes, nature vs nurture, respect for ancestors (in Aboriginal culture and elsewhere), the power of dreams, and genetics. It was interesting to throw in this CBC story about how memories of fear can be passed on from father to son (in rats, anyways).

TASK: Leave a comment on Ms. Inden's class blog <geography12.wordpress.com> -- choose one of these options:
1) respond to her prompt about what HOME means to you. You are well practiced in this having done a few "topophilia" related writing assignments.
2) respond to the Chernobyl video, your thoughts about why the babushkas were so stubborn about staying and what this says about people's connection to place
You'll notice that many of Ms. Inden's students did both -- connections to home, to place, and also their analysis of the Chernobyl story. You could also choose one of these
3) respond to a comment left by one of her students -- maybe something said struck a chord with you and you could write a bit about your thoughts
4) respond to the class discussion we had with your own thoughts -- was there something you wish you could have added to the discussion?

It was really great that one of our students has some prior knowledge about Chernobyl... Dyllan was able to share some insight into the nature of the disaster and thoughts about what the future held for the region. She also shared some great links:

• Chernobyl 25 Years Later
• Photos of Chernobyl and the ghost town Pripyat
• BBC News: Inside the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant

THURSDAY DEC 5th
Continuing with the theme of TED talks, let's take a look at a few that relate to the theme of poetry, something we'll study in the next couple of weeks. Take a look through the options at http://www.ted.com/topics/poetry -- there are three pages worth of titles. You'll notice that some include poetry, some are about poetry, and some are just "poetic" in nature. Maybe a few that don't fit at all. Look at a few (read the summary), and pick ONE to view. Next, compose a news article as if you were an audience member during the talk and were reviewing or reporting out about what you heard, learned, and thought about the talk. TASK: Save your article or review in your files and place a copy in your portfolio (do not leave it as a comment here). Should fit on one page --  keep it under 400 words. Here are some tips for writing reviews (pull some ideas out for writing a review on a TED talk):
http://www.spiritofbaraka.com/how-write-a-movie-review
http://www.writing.utoronto.ca/advice/specific-types-of-writing/book-review
http://bookercritics.wordpress.com/writing-documentary-reviews/
Also, just read through the comments on the talk you picked -- this will give you ideas about different ways to think about what was said.


FRIDAY - FLEX BLOCK - DEC 6th
For seminar on Friday, we'll be looking ahead to upcoming Geography and English learning outcomes and sharing where we're at with our responses to the Book Circles. Maybe we can try to recreate/imitate the diverse and thoughtful discussion we had today! When you are not in seminar, here's your Flex assignment... find a powerful TED talk, one that makes you think, and respond with your (deep!) thoughts in a well-written paragraph. Take your time to get to know the search tools -- get closer to a topic that really interests you before you start reading or viewing too much -- this does not have to be a talk about something related to our English and Geography topics, it is purely something that grabs your attention. TASK: Try writing down your thoughts immediately after you watch the one you pick, and then come back after a few minutes (maybe after  sandwich break?) to write more and edit.  Proof read your work, read it out to yourself to see if it makes sense, leave a copy in your portfolio, and paste the paragraph into a comment for this blog post. A reminder -- your comment here is both an indication of what you learned and also a way for me to check that you used your Flex time as intended. The comment can/should be left anytime on Fri., Dec 6th.