FINAL EXAMS

The last 11 weeks have passed by so quickly! Good luck to all of you this week as you do your final exams!

520R- a follow-up to today's class

Remember in class today I mentioned the National Geographic DNA Project? Here is a link to more information on it which you might find interesting!
https://www3.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/journey.html

I am also including a link to a really interesting documentary series related to the work of scientists on trying to save lost tribes.
http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/natureofthings/2008/theadventurers/

An Article on Blogging

I recently read an article on blogging that you may find interesting (and also challenging, in a good way of course!).

Here is the start of the article, which is called "Why I Blog":

For centuries, writers have experimented with forms that evoke the imperfection of thought, the inconstancy of human affairs, and the chastening passage of time. But as blogging evolves as a literary form, it is generating a new and quintessentially postmodern idiom that’s enabling writers to express themselves in ways that have never been seen or understood before. Its truths are provisional, and its ethos collective and messy. Yet the interaction it enables between writer and reader is unprecedented, visceral, and sometimes brutal. And make no mistake: it heralds a golden era for journalism.
by Andrew Sullivan


The full text of the article can be found here: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200811/andrew-sullivan-why-i-blog

Yuk Yuk

A friend sent me these funny answers that young students gave to some math questions. I hope you enjoy them too! (click on each one to see it clearly)

420W- Journal #4

Hi everyone:

I hope that you are enjoying the weekend! I just wanted to let you know that I have posted coments on all the #4 journals that you have done - thank you for these posts; I enjoyed reading them. (There are still 3 journals which haven't been posted yet...)

Enjoy the rest of the weekend!

520R - Journals

Hello everyone!

I hope that you are having a restful weekend after a busy week with work, work and more work! I just wanted to let you know that I have left comments on all the journals posted to date. There are still 4 journals (#4) which have not been posted yet...... you know who you are!

Enjoy the rest of your weekend, and I hope that it doesn't rain tomorrow!

(I took this picture of the double rainbow last week in my neighbourhood )

Catching Up

It has been too long since I last posted - the last few weeks seem to have passed very quickly, and we are now almost near the end of the session, which is hard to believe. The final exams will be in just a couple of weeks, and we have a lot to do before then! I know that many of you are feeling tired and overworked, but you are making progress and this can be seen in your work in class, in your homework, and in the work that you do on class - well done!

Here are a few reminders:

420W- for week 10 (November 24th - 28th)

• please comment on at least one other person's blog
• Journal number 4 was due last week - some of you have not posted yet - 5 of you, in fact. Please remember that you are receiving a mark for your journals.
• Draft 2 of the compare/contrast essay is due on Wednesday
• This week we will be doing a cause/effect essay

520R- for week 10 (November 24th - 28th)

• please comment on at least one other person's blog
• Journal number 4 was due last week - some of you have not posted yet!
• We will be working on Unit 5 this week
• Reading Project - keep working on this - the next part (draft) is due the week after next

That's it for now. Your blogs are looking really good> I am enjoying reading them, and I hope that you are too! Keep up the good work!

Listen to the Radio!

CBC radio hosts a program called the Studio One Book Club, in which authors are invited to chat about their books and to take questions from a studio audience. this coming weekend there is a show with an author you might be intersted in - here's some more information:

Jeffrey Alford-Part One Oct. 25 & Part Two Nov. 1
Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid's stunning new book Beyond the Great Wall is a rich mosaic of recipes, photos and stories celebrating the most ethnically diverse, geographically varied and intriguing regions of China. Travellers and cooks alike will devour their stories and recipes from Tibet, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Yunnan and more. Tune into CBC Radio's North by Northwest between 8 and 9 a.m. on Saturdays, October 25 and November 1 to hear Jeffrey Alford's Book Club (690 on the AM dial in Metro Vancouver). This Book Club will also be archived on this site following the broadcasts.

http://www.cbc.ca/bc/bookclub/

Reminder- Journal#2 Due Week Five

A friendly reminder that your second journal is due at the start of next week - Monday October 20th. Also, you may want to do your comment for the following week early, since everyone's post should be up by the start of next week...
Please remember to edit and proofread carefully before posting. Quality is more important than quantity, and your journal is good practice to use what we have been looking at in class, especially the writing class. Think about the basic parts of a paragraph - topic sentence, controlling idea, suporting sentences, concluding sentence, and transition, and also the five elements elements of good writing- purpose, audience, clarity, unity and cohesion.
Have a good weekend, and see you soon,
Eilidh

Monday mornings explained

If I ever seem a bit grumpy at the very beginning of class, it may be because this is what often happens at 3:33 every morning:




If you would like a topic for a process paragraph, you could try writing about this!

Vocabulary

One of my favourite sites for news is the BBC. Today, in the magazine section, there is an amusing list of some readers' favourite words. Many of these are obscure and not commonly used, but I thought you might like to explore some of them:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7659954.stm

520R-The Creative Brain

As I was preparing for this chapter, I thought of some books and other things that I have found to be creative, so I thought that I would share just a few of them with you.
Here are some books:
Roger von Oech: A Whack on the Side of the Head/ A Kick in the Seat of the Pants

Julia Cameron: The Artist's Way

Ian Falconer: Olivia/ Olivia Saves the Circus/ Olivia Forms a Band (These are children's books, but you shouldn't dismiss them because of that. They are beautifully illustrated, and show a really creative way to write a whole book using just one colour. The heroine, Olivia, is a determined, imaginative and independent little pig who lives with her family in New York. Aren't you intrigued?)

Nick Bantock: The Griffin and Sabine series (These are just gorgeous books written by a local writer/artist utilising collage while telling a story. You can check out Nick Bantock's website here: http://www.nickbantock.com/)

Art Linkletter & Charles M. Schulz: Kids Say the Darndest Things (A really cute book full of the unintentionally funny things that kids say!)

Edward de Bono: How to be More Interesting (We can all learn something from this practical book of exercises to help you learn how to think!)

Finally, here is a video clip of a famous lecture given by a professor at Carnegie-Mellon university named Randy Pausch. It is 76 minutes long, but it is worth viewing as it contains some great ideas on how to attain your childhood dreams.

A link for 520R

You might find this interesting - it is related to the first unit in your textbook on the creative force of laughter: http://www.laughteryoga.org/

Week Three Updates for 520R and 420W

So far, this blog experiment has been very successful, so thank you to everyone for setting up your blogs and starting them so enthusiastically. I have added a drop-down menu on the right with links to your classmates' blogs, so you can find all of them easily. Pease note that I am still waiting for a small number of people to send me their blog URLs - you know who you are!

I have also added a link to some American short stories - I would have liked an international mix of writers, but I couldn't find one, so this one will do. If you would like to read some classic American short stories you can find the link at the bottom right of this blog.

This week in the lab we will be working on summarizing and paraphrasing for the 520 class, and document formatting in the 420 writing class. Hopefully you will also have some time to check out each other's blogs as well. See you soon!

520R and 420W REMINDER!

Hello all, and congratulations at having made it through your first full week of the session. This is a friendly reminder that you need to send me the URL of your blog - before Monday October 6th. Your first journal entry is due then, which you must post to your blog. Remember that your blog entries are worth marks!
Please choose any topic from the list which I distributed this week.
Good luck, and happy writing!

Who Says Grammar Can't be Fun?

Stephen Fry, one of the cleverest men there is, explains subject/verb agreement to some poor soul on his show. Now I looked this up and my little Oxford dictionary said it can be either plural or singular, but I know who would lose an argument between me and Mr. Fry.

Read Carefully...

Welcome!

Hello and welcome to 520R and 420W students in the Fall 2008 IEP session at the ELI. Here you will find a miscellany of items, including the topics for your reading and writing journals for this session. Please check back here regularly as you work through the course. Once you have set up your own blog you can post your journal entries there, as well as any other interesting musings you may have...