Thanksgiving, as a holiday, has a bad reputation in many ways. There are those who point out that it celebrates the colonization of the First Peoples … and they’re not wrong in saying that. As such, I think it’s important that we acknowledge that the origins of the holiday come from a place that we’re … Continue reading Living with Gratitude
Category: conversations
Similarities, Differences, Conflict and Remembrance Day (Blogging Challenge: Week Five)
In the last few years months, the news has featured stories on the divisiveness of humanity. In recent days, I’ve heard about the alt-right “It’s okay to be white” posters posted during Halloween, the cultural appropriation inherent in the border wall costumes of a group of Idaho teachers and US President Trump’s consideration of narrowly … Continue reading Similarities, Differences, Conflict and Remembrance Day (Blogging Challenge: Week Five)
Be Grateful to Be Happy
There’s a lot of talk in our class about depression, about sorrow, about zombie apocalypses … you get the picture. So I thought perhaps it would be good for us to consider something more on the positive end of the spectrum this week. Years ago, I kept a gratitude journal. It was my New Year’s … Continue reading Be Grateful to Be Happy
Human beings were born to grow
Some years ago, I decided to go back to university to get a Master of Arts in English Literature. I knew the work was going to be difficult – especially since I was teaching full time even as I was going to school full time at night. But this was something I really wanted to … Continue reading Human beings were born to grow
Frustrations From My Seat at the Cinema
As weird as it may sound, I love movies with endings that slap its viewers across the face. I don’t know if I can describe it, but I love the moments after the credits roll and you sit back in your chair in the midst of a WTF moment. I enjoy having to research the … Continue reading Frustrations From My Seat at the Cinema
Girl Rising
When we think about going to school, doing homework and writing tests, these ideas can often times be met with deep sighs and eye rolls. Some of us may even try to fake an illness or skip school just to get out of having to be present in a place we seem to dread so … Continue reading Girl Rising
Writing Community versus Writing Class
One of my favourite educational bloggers, George Couros, blogged today, “It is easy to say “go do this’, but much more powerful when we are able to say, ‘Let’s do this together.’” His post was about leadership (primarily in a school administrative sense), but the comment also expresses what I want with our Writing 12 … Continue reading Writing Community versus Writing Class
Calling all readers!
The BC Teachers’ Federation is compiling a list of the best books for BC students – with an elementary category and a secondary category. I know that a good book (whatever genre, fiction or nonfiction, graphic or print, poetry and picture) can make a bad day turn good … or at least take me away … Continue reading Calling all readers!
Equal or Opposite: Good writing versus school writing
We’ve been talking a lot about what makes good writing in Writing 12, examining mentor texts and analysing the impact our feelings about a book have on whether we classify it as good or not. This examination of writing is not exclusive to our class, however – writers and writing instructors all over have wrestled … Continue reading Equal or Opposite: Good writing versus school writing