October 26th - October 29 

This week in Literacy, students will be taking their knowledge of how to use a variety of techniques to create mood  to complete two pieces of artwork that each communicate a particular mood.  In Social Studies, students will be completing a research assignment that answers the question 'What was Japan like before the Edo period began?". They have been assigned a particular category to research for the week, and then will be sharing the information they located with their peers.  Please see D2L for both of these assignments - the requirements, deadlines, and marking schemes are all posted on D2L for the week for further information. 

October 19 - October 15 

In Literacy, students are continuing their learning around the literary concepts of 'mood' and 'tone'.  They will be analyzing a variety of short texts (videos, images, and short pieces of narrative writing) to identify and understand how authors use different techniques to create mood ( the feelings and vibes the audience gets when interacting with a text) and tone (the creator's perception of the subject matter).  This work involves the following learner outcomes: 

“I can identify and discuss how a variety of techniques in texts work together to create mood and tone”

“I can experiment with different techniques in my own texts to create mood and tone”

In Social Studies, we are beginning our exploration of ancient Japan, beginning with the "Edo" isolation era. Through this work, students will be exploring three framing questions: How does geography and time okay a role in shaping a society's worldview?  How do models of governance and decision making reflect a society's worldview?  How does a society's worldview shape individual citizenship and identity? 

October 13- October 15 

This week in Literacy, we are working on the following learner outcomes: "I can identify and discuss how word choice and order, and figurative language work together to create mood and tone".  Students will be introduced to the literary devices of mood and tone and how authors create these in their texts. 

In Social Studies, students are learning how to use the seven categories of worldview and find evidence of these categories in societies so that the society's worldview statements can be determined (generalized sentences about what the society believes about how humankind should behave in the world). Students are analyzing the society found in the story 'The Lottery' to do this work.  

October 5 - October 8 

This week in Humanities, students will be continuing their exploration of the concept of 'worldview' as we take at look at some of the factors that influence or create worldviews in societies and individuals.  We will also be doing a review of distinguishing main idea from the topic, being able to summarize text, and identifying and interpreting figurative language and different literary devices to prepare students for the coming weeks of literature study.  

September 21 - September 24 

This week in Social Studies, students will continue to be exposed to current events and what is happening in the world through watching the daily 10 minute update on the CNN 10 website. We will be continuing to develop their understandings of 'worldview'  through taking a survey that will reveal their individual opinions about how societies with differing worldviews should and should not interact with each other. 

In Literacy, students will be reading an article about a society that has remained very isolated from other societies in the 21rst century. Through this article reading, students will begin to explore several reading comprehension strategies that help them make meaning of complex text: this week it will be the strategy of 'annotating' text, and skimming and scanning for information that will be modelled and taught.  Students will also be completing a comprehension assignment that teachers will be using as a pre-assessment to determine individual student comprehension (pre-assessment meaning that the student's results are not used as marks for the report card, but rather as information for the teacher about what the student is able to do and what they need to be taught how to do in order to move their learning forward). 

September 14th -18th

This week in Social Studies, students will be introduced to the guiding questions for our learning this year: What is worldview? How is worldview formed, maintained, or changed?  Why is worldview important? How does it impact the lives of individuals, groups, and societies?   Students will learn several important definitions, and be introduced to the concept of worldview and seven main elements that compose it. 

This week in Literacy, students will begin working with a non-fiction article in order to practice several reading comprehension strategies, such as annotating text (thinking as they read and making that thinking visible), predicting using clues in the text, understanding cause and effect, and sequencing ideas.  This text will also tie in with our larger idea of worldview in social studies. 

September 8th - 11th

Welcome back Grade 8 students. We’re so excited to get things underway in Humanities. The over arching theme this year in humanities is “Worldview.” As the weeks go on, we will begin to break down “What does Worldview mean?”

This week, we will begin with “My Mask/My Message.” The purpose of this assignment is to get students thinking about how their COVID mask can be a visual representation of who the student is and reflect their values, beliefs, passions, and interests. This will get the students thinking about how the world is viewed through their “lens.” They will begin by writing down their hobbies, values and beliefs. As the week progresses, they will take these messages and artistically represent them on a paper mask.

We will also begin a read-aloud story called “The Lottery.” The students will begin taking notes in their scribbler notebooks and looking for foreshadowing clues in the story. As the year goes on, students will have to familiarize themselves with these scribbler notebooks, as  the majority of their notes will be taken in this book.

The focus will be on setting, characters, mood/tone and clues. The goal is to have students predict what will happen in the story, based on the title “The Lottery,” and then jot down clues which lead to the climax ending. Once the story is complete, we will revisit the students’ notes and see if their predictions were right/wrong and whether or not they were able to use the clues to predict the outcome.