We’ll get started at 11.
Today’s agenda:
1.
Fourth week
2.
Literary Terms -
tomorrow
3.
“Dead Man’s Path”
4.
HW Find a copy of Animal Farm to read. We will
begin
the novel next week.
Tomorrow – Literary Terms
Monday – paragraph about “I
Confess” and “Dead Men’s Path”
Choices:
1.
Buy a copy
2.
library
3.
text online – Project
Gutenberg
4.
pdf
5.
borrow one from
me
Tomorrow – using quoted material
Time flies!
The weeks fly by.
This is near
the end of the 4th week.
Almost
halfway through the course.
Next five
weeks – continue as we’ve been going
question?
short stories, short novel Animal Farm Gweorge Orwell
begin Animal
Farm next week
Quizzes and
tests every week right to the end of the course.
We will begin
essay writing soon.
Second last
day – final work for marks, essay based on whatever topic we are covering at
that time
* Almost
halfway point – realities setting in
quizzes,
tests – How are they going? Have they been successful?
Are you on
track to pass?
If you want
to know what your average, email me and I will email it back to you.
You can judge
if you are satisfied with your progress.
I usually ask
myself: What can I do to help myself in this course?
Focusing on
basic principles that we have been learning:
1.
sentence
types- simple, compound, complex
2.
writing
process- organized, well-structured paragraphs
3.
reading
strategies – keeping up on the reading, making notes
One trend
that I often see among students – midcourse slump
-first few
weeks – lots of effort, feeling good, interesting work, working hard
- middle
weeks – slump, losing energy for the course, slacking off, waining interest WE
WANT TO AVOID THIS – WE HAVE TO KEEP UP THE EFFORT, HARD WORK
-final weeks
– rush to the finish, sprint to the finish, playing catchup, making up for lack
of effort in the middle weeks
Students - “Can
I rewrite three tests? What can I do to bring my mark up to 80% It’s 45% right
now. I don’t understand about sentences.”
** Don’t dump this on the
teacher. Carry it yourself. I’m willing to help you, but I cannot solve your
problems.
The time to
do the work that you need to do is now!
This is the
time to put you head down, hit the books, put your shoulder to the grindstone.
IDIOMS - put
you head down, hit the books (study), put your shoulder to the grindstone –
work hard at your school work or other work
This is the
way we cheat we ourselves most- “I will start tomorrow.”
I will start
my healthy diet tomorrow. Today I will eat six bowls of ice cream.
I will go to
the gym tomorrow. Today I will sit on the coach and watch Youtube videos.
Tomorrow
never comes; there is always an excuse.
We have five
weeks left. Grab the bull by the horns! Make those five weeks transformative for
you.
Change!!
Grab the bull
by the horns! Take control of your own situation! Take the steps you need to
take in order to accomplish the goals you have set out for yourself.
Do it now for
yourself!
Some people like
to retake the class a couple times. Don’t quit this time. Finish the race.
crosscountry
running – 20k, 30k races
from a
classmate “Learning English is like marathon.”
No pain. No gain.
Make a good
steady, consistent effort, and you will get better.
national badminton
tournament- high hope to win the championship
MY LECTURE NOTES
ON “Dead Men’s Path”
· Big questions
Does a teacher from away have to respect the
culture of the students, even if the teacher isn’t part of that culture?
· Michael Obi
-
outsider
-
a little bit selfish
-
doesn’t seem to care much about the villager’s traditions, beliefs
“eradicate
just such beliefs”
-young,
energetic, enthusiastic, capable, outspoken, motivated, confident, yet
unrealistic and inexperienced.
-also
selfish, glib, close-minded, arrogant, lacks communication skills, lacks
diplomacy, inflexible.
-“Dead
men do not require footpaths.”
- thinks
that his “modern methods” are better than the old ways
-expects his students to adopt these ways, even though their
religion and village life reflect a different way of life.
-He is cause of his own problems
-believes in “many wonderful ideas,” but has not had a lot
of experience with people to guide him
-Obi has “modern” ideas; the villagers have old-fashioned
traditional ideas
school – metaphor for
colonialism
Chinua Achebe – African,
Nigeria
· Nancy
-young
and modern
-is a bit innocent because she thinks her husband, as a
headmaster, knows best how to do things
-is a bit of a follower, of fashion and of what’s in magazines.
“imitating the woman's magazine she read.”
- vain,
unrealistic, uncritical
“become
completely infected” by Obi’s new ideas
“queen
of the school”
-the
school is the “ruins of his work.”
Enthusiasm is evidently the most important factor in many successes.
But, “misguided zeal” can make things much worse.
“The whole idea is just
fantastic” – fantasy, illusion(n), illusory(a)– not true, imagination
· Taps into the idea of Colonialism
Colony
–
· Talk about Canada’s history of not respecting
First Nations cultures
Residential
schools
Taking
“the Indian out of the Indian”
· Achebe writing about Colonialism
· Ss look for good words and short phrases that
can be used as quoted material for paragraph next class
Ultimately
this is a story about power. How does a person who is in a position of power
use that power?
contrast “I Confess” and “Dead Men’s Path”
Mr. Wei –
position of power, willingly gives up/risks some of that power
Mr. Obi – position
of power, refuses to compromise, discuss
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