This the last day you have to work on your trenches in class.  Any time you want to spend on finishing touches will be done on your own time.  The trenches will be evaluated on Friday at lunch.  Please make sure your best efforts and abilities are reflected in your work.

Work with a partner to start to create your papier-mâché trenches.  You will need to make sure that your trench diarama includes all the components of the trenches (refer to the diagram in your notes), razor wire, sandbags, no-man's land, etc, etc).  The picture on the Smartboard should help you as well.

This can be a fun, but incredibly messy project.  Make sure you clean up as you go..as NOBODY will be allowed to leave the class until ALL MESS is dealt with and everything is returned to where it belongs.

Welcome to March!

I am away at the Board Office today, so I am expecting all of you to work very hard to complete the following:

1) a rough draft of your letter home from the front.  Remember to use as many descriptive words as possible (double check your checklist for all the things you need).  It is important that you finish this today/for homework, as tomorrow you will be copying it on to the rolling papers.

2) the questions about Passchendale (pick 3 of 7).  These media literacy questions will be due on Friday.

We will finish up the last 10 minutes of the movie on Wednesday.

Today we will finish the movie "Passchendale" in class, and work on the rough draft of our letter home from the front.  Tomorrow's class will be spent finishing our letters and transferring them to the cigarette rolling papers.

While I am away coaching at CWOSSA, students are to watch the movie Passchendale, and complete the following:

-3 out of the 7 Media Literacy questions that we discussed yesterday (your choice)

-gather information/visuals/descriptions to make your letter home from the front more realistic and historically correct (you can make point form notes on the bottom of the checklist sheet that we went over yesterday).

This movie will take two periods to finish, and on Tuesday we will be writing the rough draft of our letter home and copying it on to rolling papers for "authenticity" :)    

Today we are going to do some more research on what it was like to be a "typical" soldier during WWI.  Students will be working on a letter home from the front (assignment, rubric, checklist), which will be evaluated for a the use of detail and sense of "realism".

One website you might want to check out as you do some research is http://trenches.jynx.ca/?page=home  There is also a fun little flash review game posted here.

Today we are going to take up the questions from "All's Quiet" and use them as a springboard to a discussion on World War I.  If we have time we are going to take a look at what life was like for the average soldier in the trenches, including a glimpse of the conditions and hardships they endured, medical issues, and slang that they used.

Today we will finish up All Quiet on the Western Front, as soon as we are done with the Defining Moments presentations.  I will be looking for volunteers to go first (there might be something "in it" for you).

I am away again (sigh) for a the Final Four Basketball Tournament in Owen Sound.  Hopefully, this will be one of the last days that I will be away from class for the rest of the semester.

Although it is a bit out of order, we are going to start exploring the horrors of World War I from the perspective of the men who fought in it.

Students are to watch "All Quiet on the Western Front" and answer the questions on the attached worksheet.

Today we will work on the WWI lesson that we barely started yesterday.  Students who do not want to carry a notebook to class are encouraged to look at Web 2.0 technologies, such as Evernote, to keep track of their learning materials.

The extra time you received in class yesterday to work on your Defining Moments Project is the last that you will have during class time.  You have had 2.5 periods to work on this in school, and will need to finish it up for homework.  If you do not like using PowerPoint, or do not have access to it at home, one solution that we looked at was using a free Prezi account.

The presentations will take place during Friday's class.