Thursday, April 12, 2012

IB conversion scale for paper 1&2:

5-8=2
9-10=3
11-13=4
14-16=5
17-19=6
20-25=7

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Friday, March 9, 2012

Cultural appropriation, colonialism, skepticism, Johnny Depp...this article addresses it all:

http://nativeappropriation.blogspot.com

Friday, March 2, 2012

Sample exam paper

http://www.ibo.org/diploma/curriculum/examples/samplepapers/documents/gp1_englisha1hl2.pdf

Due Tuesday: 10 lines of your novel spoken word. This means your poem will be incomplete (ie.not containing all references to all texts that you plan to use) but you will rehearse and perform your ten lines, ready for Tuesday with all pauses and intonations that you plan to use.

You are using the essay framework as the basis for your poem. You must reference at least two texts.

Monday, February 27, 2012

After you watch bloodlines, read the following poem and then watch the video and you'll see how spoken word is different than just poetry. 

Penny for your thoughts by gemineye

Can I have a penny, for your thoughts?
As a matter of fact how about three
One penny for you
One penny for me
And one penny for our minds engaged
Not so sexually
Getting intimately closer
As we approach the climactic altitude
Of nude mental sensational conversation
cuz I'm trying to get to know everything about you
from the neck UP
So these are not your typical sexual poetical prose
I'm trying to close the door of an all too familiar freaky foreplay game
With which most people have chosen to approach you
While they're trying to get deeply embedded in the fine fibers of your bed sheets
I'm trying to find and define the fibers with which your mind speaks
I want to engage you by putting a two carat solitaire diamond on your mind
and marrying your every thought
I want to lick every inch of every crevice so I can get an oral fix from each orifice
and taste your passionate imagination
I'd rather be naked and exposed holding you as we're lying
And your crying while confiding and describing the tough times you had in life
And how you don't know if you can keep a relationship
Long enough to be somebody's wife
I want to feel the heartbeat of all your inner rhythms as they lead me towards your
warm wet waterfalls of feminine thoughts
And I'll swim within 'em from back strokes to breast strokes
I'm penetrating every entrance to your mind
Taking my time to find out everything about you
Did I ever tell you about how you fell asleep in my presence?
And your mere essence kept me up for hours
As I coward with this feel of a sexually unadulterated mental connection
And as you laid by my side I pushed my blinds aside
And took the time in the moonlight of that night
To county seventy-two eyelashes on the upper eyelid of your right eye
Because as you sleep
As you sleep they remain open slightly
And while we probably move too quickly into some sexual stuff
I've always cared more about the explicitly illicitness
that came from between your lips meaning your voice
so now I'm standing here ready to trade in all the sexual acts that we perform
for the chance to reform the very foundation and basis of our relationship
and I reiterate my opening statement
And I offer you another penny for your thoughts


Sent from my iPad 
Bloodlines by Gemineye

One night, God came to me in a dream
With a scheme that seemed to be out of this world
He approached me and opened his robe
And showed me a hypodermic needle in the shape of a pen
And my first reaction was to step back fast
But then God grabbed me and said
"Slow down my child,
I've got a job for you to do"
And with a burst of light God grabbed my arm
And said "I mean you no harm"
And he pushed the pen in
And it filled my arteries and God charted me
To write some new shit, some true shit, something just for you shit
And when I was done with part one
God said "write some part two shit"
He injected me with Billy's Blues and a muse of Langston Hughes
And God said "you've acquired some of the tools in the school you've been attending
But now it's time to stop pretending"
And he started sending into my bloodstream
The poetic feats of John Keats
And the published greats of W.B. Yeats
And just when I thought God was through
He started slipping me hits of Maya Angelou
And God asked "do you know what I've handed you?"
And my response was "No" and God said "let me show"
And he continued to fill my veins the same way he had been
Giving me a fix of Emily Dickenson and my bloodstream seemed to scream
As God gave me the liquidated literary genius of W.E.B.
And I got lost between doses of Robert Frost
And my eyes got blurry in a flurry
And I was no longer seeing 'em but I could feel Emerson, Tennyson, and Stevenson
And God said "you won't get far without Paul Lawrence Dunbar
And you can't start spittin 'til I've given you Whitman"
And God kept filling me and it felt like he was killing me
And I closed my arm tight and God snapped it back open
And screamed "you're not yet ready to write"
He said "tonight has just begun
Everything's alright my son
You see I need you
I use poetry to teach people
The world I created has been overrun by ignorant thinking
And I need poets to take the world back and break the curse
Now unbend your arm so I can give you William Wordsworth"
And again the pen was shoved in my veins and God grabbed the reigns
And as if I was a mule
He said "I use you as my tool and plow the field with you
Fulfilling empty minds' needs while planting knowledge seeds
No longer will there be a flourishing time for malnourishing minds
I want you to make intelligence a law cuz ignorance is a crime
Now I need you to go and reap what you sow
While captivating minds like Edgar Allen Poe
I gave you the wings so now fly like the raven
This world needs saving
Feel free to fight off your fears
Cuz they'll disappear within this injection
Of my tears which contains the remains of great things gone
And new things to come beyond the next dawn
You're the next in a bloodline of greats
You are a poet
You command the attention of large groups
You ready the troops for revolution
You write words that can commend or condemn
Turn boys into men
Make other poets push pens
And you must be about something more than slam scores based on ten
Because you are a poet
Think about all the great things poets have accomplished
And when the writing gets rough
Hold on to your pen
And don't drop this
Always take time in your mind to reflect back on the fact
That you're the next to step forth
From a poetic bloodline"


Billy Stewart - Billy's Blues
Langston Hughes
John Keats
W.B. Yeats
Maya Angelou
Emily Dickenson
W.E.B
Robert Frost
Emerson
Tennyson
Stevenson
Paul Lawrence Dunbar
Whitman
William Wordsworth
Edgar Allen Poe - the raven

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

For our seminar discussion next class, please listen to the following podcasts on WNYC Radiolab:

http://www.radiolab.org/series/podcasts/

Killer Empathy
and
The Bad Show

As we continue to read Sailor, think about what questions you can ask about empathy and intrinsic evil in Sailor. Are their people who are inherently evil in this world and if so, can we forgive them? Just like in Crime and Punishment, are we supposed to learn to forgive "evil" characters so that we can forgive ourselves? Be ready to respond if the koosh comes for you!

You can practice your responses on your blogs, if you like. It can be seen that practice makes perfect. Wink, wink.

Monday, February 13, 2012

GRADE 11 STUDY BLOGS (so far...)

Please review and comment:

Jamila -- jam-y-jam.blogspot.com
Janani -- teenagebookwormjn.blogspot.com
Sahil -- http://myfavouritestudent.blogspot.com/
Rohit -- http://missedink.blogspot.com/
Andy -- novels-and-stuff.blogspot.com
Asim -- spentink.blogspot.com.
Jasneet -- http://tinyurl.com/75tln4j
Hannah -- http://www.confessionsofanIBenglishstudent.blogspot.com
Lika -- http://insidious24.blogspot.com/
Auviya -- http://www.auviya-ancientdiary.blogspot.com/
Kemesha -- kemesha-kemeshaoconnor.blogspot.com
Nirmal -- http://www.nirmalbooks4english.blogspot.com/
Janet -- http://psychedelic-cats.blogspot.com/
Jo Yin -- http://pibbitsden.blogspot.com/
Sagikha -- http://sagikha-myblog.blogspot.com/
Thien -- http://songkoyeu.blogspot.com/

GRADE 11 STUDY BLOGS (so far...)

Please review and comment:

Sahil -- http://myfavouritestudent.blogspot.com/
Rohit -- http://missedink.blogspot.com/
Andy -- novels-and-stuff.blogspot.com
Asim -- spentink.blogspot.com.
Jasneet -- http://tinyurl.com/75tln4j
Hannah -- http://www.confessionsofanIBenglishstudent.blogspot.com
Lika -- http://insidious24.blogspot.com/
Auviya -- http://www.auviya-ancientdiary.blogspot.com/
Kemesha -- kemesha-kemeshaoconnor.blogspot.com
Nirmal -- http://www.nirmalbooks4english.blogspot.com/
Janet -- http://psychedelic-cats.blogspot.com/
Jo Yin -- http://pibbitsden.blogspot.com/
Sagikha -- http://sagikha-myblog.blogspot.com/
Thien -- http://songkoyeu.blogspot.com/

GRADE 11 STUDY BLOGS (so far...)

Please review and comment:

Sahil -- http://myfavouritestudent.blogspot.com/
Rohit -- http://missedink.blogspot.com/
Andy -- novels-and-stuff.blogspot.com
Asim -- spentink.blogspot.com.
Jasneet -- http://tinyurl.com/75tln4j
Hannah -- http://www.confessionsofanIBenglishstudent.blogspot.com
Lika -- http://insidious24.blogspot.com/
Auviya -- http://www.auviya-ancientdiary.blogspot.com/
Kemesha -- kemesha-kemeshaoconnor.blogspot.com
Nirmal -- http://www.nirmalbooks4english.blogspot.com/
Janet -- http://psychedelic-cats.blogspot.com/
Jo-Yin
-- http://pibbitsden.blogspot.com/
Sagikha -- http://sagikha-myblog.blogspot.com/
Thien -- http://songkoyeu.blogspot.com/

GRADE 11 STUDY BLOGS (so far...)

Please review and comment:

Sahil -- http://myfavouritestudent.blogspot.com/
Rohit -- http://missedink.blogspot.com/
Andy -- novels-and-stuff.blogspot.com
Asim -- spentink.blogspot.com.
Jasneet -- http://tinyurl.com/75tln4j
Hannah -- http://www.confessionsofanIBenglishstudent.blogspot.com
Lika -- http://insidious24.blogspot.com/
Auviya -- http://www.auviya-ancientdiary.blogspot.com/
Kemesha -- kemesha-kemeshaoconnor.blogspot.com
Nirmal -- http://www.nirmalbooks4english.blogspot.com/
Janet -- http://psychedelic-cats.blogspot.com/
Jo-Yin
-- http://pibbitsden.blogspot.com/
Sagikha -- http://sagikha-myblog.blogspot.com/
Thien -- http://songkoyeu.blogspot.com/

Friday, February 3, 2012

100 ossington st.

Take Jane bus to Bloor subway station. Take Bloor subway east. Get off at Ossington. Take bus on ossington south. Get off at lower Ossington theatre. Ask bus driver. Should take an hour from Weston. Be there at 7pm.