The Final Say

                  The Final Say: Yay or Nay                        

Now you’ve now finished your novel (hopefully), or at least read half, and complete several journal entries on the themes and characters. Most of the texts you read are controversial in some regard (either due to its incorporation of profanity, excessive violence, child prostitution, substance abuse/addiction, televised sacrifice, etc). As a result, these texts are not often studied in schools – for fear of being offensive/encouraging certain behaviours. 

For your final journal I’d like you to present a brief argument (in a paragraph) about whether your text should be fully incorporated into the Grade 10 English curriculum or not. Ensure that you support your answer and explain why it should be incorporated or not.

Character Exploration Journal

                Character Exploration Journal           

Please select ONE from the choices below and respond in a  journal entry 1-2 paragraphs. If you fall short (in terms of expected length), you may respond to two prompts.

1. Characters are one of the most important elements in any story as we view the story from their perspective. Describe, in detail, the main character (protagonist) of your story. Try to include gender, age, ethnicity, physical appearance, personality, relationship switch other characters, etc.

2. Would you like to live the life of the main character in your book?  Explain how they live (where/when/how/conflicts he/she face/etc) and your reasoning as to whether or not you’d want to try a day in their life.

3. Select an important situation or conflict that protagonist of your novel was faced with. If you were the main character, how would you have handled the situation?  Be sure to briefly describe the situation before telling how you would handle it and why you might have made different decisions than the protagonist.

Sentence Starter Journal

                                     Sentence Starter Response                                          

By this point, you’re well into or finished your novels. In this response, state your feelings, thoughts, reactions, and questions about situations, ideas, actions, characters, settings, symbols, plots, themes, and any other elements in your text. You can't be wrong in your responses, so take risks and be honest. Complete a MIN. OF 10 of the following “sentence starters” as you see fit (but strictly based on the text you’re reading). You may discuss The Hunger Games OR you independent novel.

I began to think

I love the way

I can't believe

I wonder why

I noticed

I think

I observed

I wonder

If I were

I'm not sure

I felt sad when

I like the way the author

I wish that

This made me think of

I was surprised

It seems like

I'm not sure

This story teaches

Self-Reflective Journal Entry

Self-Reflective Journal

Over the course of the quad you were asked to read two texts. One was a novel of your choice or a recommendation made to you, the other was a whole-class text, The Hunger Games.

Many of you jumped at the opportunity to read a book of your own choosing, however were resistant to read a text as a class. What caused this reaction?  Was it the freedom to choose the content and style of a text of your own? Or was it the restrictive nature of reading the same novel as your classmates within a set time constraint?

Please take a moment to reflect on your actions, reactions and/or inactions in both of these cases.

1. Were you successful in completing your independent novel? Why/why not?
2. Were you successful in reading the assigned chapters of The Hunger Games independently? Why/why not?
3. What differences did you notice between the two texts?
4. Did you enjoy one text more than the other? Explain.
5. What changes did you notice in your own reading behaviour when reading each text?

Welcome!

Welcome ENG2P/D students to 

Your English blog!

Over the course of the next three days, part of the media, oral, reading and written evaluation for your novel study will be based on your participation and completion of a series of blog entries.

By the end of this unit, you will have completed each of the following:

1) A Self-Reflective Journal 

2) Sentence  Starter Journal

3) Character Exploration Journal

4) The Final Say Journal

Pay close attention to the posts for further instructions.

Happy Blogging! :)