Term Two Exam Musings

The Second Exam for the first semester is around the corner, so here are a few helps for all of you.  First, the Literature exam is on November 29^th, which is this coming Tuesday. Your announcement said either Tuesday or Wednesday, because the Department of Foreign Languages could not confirm the exact date for me before I printed out the announcement. However, I did find out that Tuesday is your day, so from now until then we should focus only on the exam and not on improving homework scores or the classroom grade.

Recall that the exam makes up half of your overall grade, and the classroom grade makes up the other half. Out of the classroom grade, homework is worth 40%, quizzes are worth 40%, and participation is worth 20%. The exam grade is divided into two parts. The multiple choice exam is worth 50% and the writing exam is worth 50%. The multiple choice test has 50 questions this time, with 25 questions on vocab, 15 on grammar, and 10 on reading. The writing test has 3 parts. The first has 5 pictures from Quizlet vocabulary, and you need to write 5 sentences using 2 or 3 vocabulary words from the stories. The second part is a short answer question based on one of your readings, and you should respond with 3 sentences. The third part is a longer opinion essay for which you write 160 words comparing two of your reading selections and use one of the literary terms.

I suggest you make use of the links near your student blogs. There is the list of topics on the exam, which has the exact vocabulary words on the exam. A student asked me about the Quizlet 1 and Quizlet 2 vocab lists that I put there for some of the readings. The Quizlet 2 list was only to help you read the story, and not for testing! Those will not be on the test! Also, Ender’s Game will not be on the writing test this time except that it IS tested for vocabulary. That means the first part where there are five sentences will include Ender’s vocabulary. The multiple choice test will include Ender’s vocabulary too, both within the 25 vocab questions and as one of the reading selections. The reading excerpt for Ender’s Game tests literary terms related to that passage. Don’t forget to study the Reading Challenge readings you had in your grammar book as they will be tested too for your multiple choice reading section. Otherwise, both the stories and poetry will be tested in the reading section.

OK, a comment about your classroom grade. I will be putting in a participation and effort score this weekend. I think your class has been splendid when it comes to the effort you have put in, so congratulations! The other thing is improving your notebook grade, writing, or blogs. I think right now just focus on exams. But I will be using the blog 3 rubric today to check up on everyone’s blogs, and if something needs correcting, there should be time for you to fix it after exams and before I need to enter in grades with the school. Let’s not leave a lot of things like this, however, or expect that it can be done, because officially once exams start that is the end of the classroom stuff, and the day after exams the next term begins. After exams, there is more I want to say to you about future readings, but let’s not talk about it right now. Enjoy your preparations and the rest of the weekend!

A surprising result

Recently I heard Donald Duck was elected President of the United States, but that was not the only surprising result I found out about recently...

Dr. Strange, a comic book figure, was made into a pretty good movie, or so I thought. I was expecting another disappointing superhero movie, but this was a visually stunning and interesting movie to me. Perhaps "Donald" will be surprisingly good hero as well, and much better than I expect. It was the first time I got an election wrong since 1984, but now that I have been out of the USA since 1993 perhaps I have to ask about how people feel back there.

And thank you for answering some questions I asked you in a recent survey. They helped me to think of some questions I want to ask for this blog assignment. I have given you some sample answers.

Please write between 2 sentences and one paragraph for each question from A to E, and then leave one comment on another student's blog before the second exam.

A Write about a recent movie you have seen that you enjoyed, and why you liked it. For example, I saw Dr. Strange with Benedict Cumberbatch, and thought he did a great job showing the change of attitude of a doctor and scientist to someone who is disabled and learning to overcome his limitations. However, I know some people were disappointed that there were not more Chinese people cast as actors in the movie, but since I had no background with the comics, I had no feeling about this. I will be interested to read the comics in the future because I saw the movie, and am considering seeing it in 3D.

B Write about a learning goal you have for yourself over the next year. For me, I would like to improve my own reading speed and comprehension in English. So I have some books to help me and a friend who is better at reading who can help me. One web site he recommended is called Spreeder, and that helps you read faster.

C What effect do you think playing sports has on learning? How much do you think the mind and body work together? The Western idea is that the mind and body work together, so if you have a strong body it can really help your mind perform better. In sports like chess or martial arts you can see mind and body working together, I believe, but what is your opinion?

D What effect do you think playing a musical instrument has on learning a foreign language? What are some things you have noticed about good language learners? My personal opinion is that learning to play a musical instrument is not only fun, but has a positive influence on both language learning and math. It also can develop patience and persistence, not to mention creativity. Playing piano was one of the best things I did when I was younger, and I really want to get back into it again when I find a little more time every day. I have noticed that about half of our class members are musicians, so don’t you agree? Oh, another thing is that people who already know a second language have an easier time learning a third. So if you already know Mandarin and Taiwanese, for example, learning English is a bit easier than if you only had known one language before. Do you agree?

E Would you be willing to use an audio book plus a PDF file to read any of the following books next semester?

To Kill a Mockingbird

Lord of the Flies

Lord of the Rings

   It would be easier if we did not have to order the physical books, or could buy them ourselves in Taiwan at a book shop if we wanted them, or print out key pages if we needed them. We could probably have just one or two copies and it would be enough along with the classroom computer where there would be a PDF and a recording. Some classes do more reading or listening independently, or just read key pages instead of the whole book together. I would like to consider it. Or we could possibly read different books, meaning two or three people would read the same book and not the whole class one book. Do you have any opinions?

Exam day is almost here...

Dear 803 Students,

We have spent some time preparing for the upcoming Exam on Thursday, October 14^th. I would like to post some reminders and test-taking advice for you now. I hope you will agree that this exam is an important learning experience. Remember, just like being nervous before a baseball game, a little bit of nervousness before a test is a good thing!

First, the exam notice you got last week explains what is covered. In brief, we had four short stories, part of a novel, and materials in class. The test has both a multiple choice part and a writing section to be finished in 80 minutes together, and these two parts will be averaged. Here are the details:

From your Holt McDougal Grade 8 Literature textbook, here are the stories:

1 The Ransom of Red Chief by O. Henry p. 52-61 – will test reading (“conflict and resolution”)

2 The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe p. 82-87 – will test reading (“suspense”)

3 Rules of the Game by Amy Tan p. 230-242 – will test vocab, themes, & reading (“point of view”)

4 Hallucination by Isaac Asimov p. 344-365 – will test vocab & themes; no reading questions on Exam, but the textbook “setting” questions may help you with the writing exam.

Also, there were two handouts you need to review. One was The 5 Elements of Western Literature. That is the source of most of your grammar questions. We agreed to test number (singular & plural nouns), recognizing active & passive voice, and gender (masculine or male, and feminine or female). Here are some examples we discussed:

For nouns, CACTUS is an example of a word that is singular. Strange plant, strange word! It comes from Latin. So if you want to make it plural, you should say CACTI. In some areas today, it has become acceptable to also say CACTUSES. But some of us don’t like that one. It should be “cacti” if you ask me.

Another important one from Latin is ALUMNUS. If you are a guy, when you graduate, that is what they call you. If you are a lady, then it is ALUMNA. Yes, we use these in English! If it is a group, with both men and women, then ALUMNI is the right word, and that is the one we usually hear. However, if the group of graduates is made up of only females, then the proper word is ALUMNAE, and it is pronounced ALUMNAE.

OK, active-passive – to recognize passive, you need a BE verb plus the “PP” or past participle. IS BROKEN.  ARE FINISHED. My mug IS BROKEN. We ARE FINISHED talking about the passive voice now.

Gender, well, you know prince, princess, waiter and waitress, and which one is male, which one is female. Also remember that there used to be the words steward and stewardess, but now we just say “flight attendant” for either a male or female person doing that job now. It changed because people thought it would be fair (or better) to say it that way.

Now, about Ender’s Game – please remember that we agreed to test only Units 1 to 9, and NOT to use chapter 10 as it says on the announcement. You will see Ender’s Game vocab from chapters 6 and 9 only on the multiple choice part. And you will have one or two essays about it on the writing test. Be ready for two – we spent more time on this than anything else! Use the handout I gave you that summarizes each chapter and discusses the themes, or use online sources if you need to do so. Please NEVER rely on the movie as a shortcut to understanding the book, because there are too many differences.

I want to discuss the bottom of the Exam announcement:

Writing test will include: WRITING QUESTIONS ARE ON THE MULTIPLE CHOICE SECTION!

Research Writing Workshop Evaluating Sources p. 1071-1072   THERE IS A MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTION ON THIS

Writing Process Workshop p. 21  THERE IS A MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTION ON THIS

Questions about how to make a blog, gadgets, leaving comments, or responding to opinions on blogs. THERE IS A MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTION ON THIS

How to write an informative paper: avoid personal opinions, summarize, how to make a Works Cited area. MAYBE...PROBABLY NOTHING ON WORKS CITED

Format for emailing written homework.  NO, FORGET IT

How to write a Character Sheet Trait.  NO, FORGET IT

Also remember that format where there is a sentence, and you have to say if the underlined word in the sentence is used correctly or not:

____ 1 We discussed themes, or where the story happens, about Ender’s Game in class today.

            A  Used correctly     B Not used correctly

The answer here would be B, not used correctly, because “theme” means the underlying message, or big idea, that the author is trying to tell us about life. The sentence says “where a story happens” and that is the definition of “setting.” But we did briefly discuss it in class today. Now look at this format – what if you need to see if the word is used correctly, AND the sentence (or statement) is accurate?

____ 2 We discuss themes, or where the story happens, and Ender’s Game every day in class.

A Used correctly and True sentence  
B Used correctly and False sentence  
C Not used correctly and True sentence  
D Not used correctly and  False sentence

                                                             

Now we would have to say the answer is D, because not only is the word used incorrectly, but the sentence is also inaccurate. We do not discuss Ender’s Game themes EVERY day. OK? So I know there are about 4 questions like this on the multiple choice test. So they are testing vocab and another subject, perhaps reading or writing.

Finally, I want to let you know how many questions there are. For the multiple choice test, there are 40 questions. You have 25 questions on vocabulary, 10 grammar questions, and 5 reading questions. The percentages for that test are – vocab = 58%, grammar = 28%, and reading = 14%. Then there is the writing test. I will just say 8 questions there, as we discussed. The first 5 are pictures for which you need to use 2 or 3 words to write a sentence. The second question type, called questions 6 to 7 (but really 1 question) is a short answer question about one of the short stories (either Rules of the Game or Hallucination), and the longer essay of 140 words is a comparison of something in two stories. It will either be the two short stories just mentioned or one of those and the novel. The writing test is averaged with the multiple choice exam. Good luck!

As for advice, the best brief pieces of test-taking advice I can give you are these:

1 Get enough sleep one and two nights before the Exam

2 Eat breakfast that day, and have a snack before the test. Avoid bread or sugar, but make it a fruit like guava that is absorbed slowly into your blood, or maybe something with meat or protein.

3 Use a watch to pace yourself. If you are spending too much time on a question leave it. Come back.

4 Do hard or long parts first, then go back for short and easy parts. For the writing test, I recommend doing the long one first and then the short one. But you must use a watch to check the time!

5 Some students will answer questions on their test paper in groups, and then fill in the circles on their multiple choice paper answer sheet in groups. Maybe you can do sections or 8 to 10 questions at a time. When you fill in the circles, do that carefully! I highly recommend stopping to do that when you get to a hard question you do not know how to answer. Then stop and fill in several circles and let your brain just do the circles while it “thinks” about that in a relaxed way. When you come back to the hard question, maybe you will suddenly know the answer!

More on Ender Wiggin and the holiday...

Hello 803 Strategists,

OK, so we keep hearing about Ender, Ender, the genius Ender. He also has a name. His real name is...(drum roll)...Andrew Wiggin. His family calls him "Ender," so that is his nickname. It is a very cool nickname to have if you are going to battle school. Ender will END you if you play against him. Or if you try to bully him, apparently...

One of the themes we find in the story is about bullying and how a young person deals with this strange form of aggression. It seems like young Ender, who is 6 when the story begins, is too smart for his own good, and attracts unwanted attention from his not-so-smart and oh-so-big classmates. And they have very big friends. Those friends could be smarter, too.

Anyway, as it turns out, Ender has experience dealing with problems like this because his older brother, Peter, likes to play games with him at home. Games that are not really fun. Peter gets to be the soldier, and Ender gets to be the insect that gets crushed, and smushed, and stepped on, and anything that Peter likes. Sometimes it is good to have sister Valentine around to break things up so Peter does not get too excited about his games.

Ender, or Andrew, does know how to make good relationships, and he has a great one with his sister Valentine, for example. He does start to make friends at battle school. Alai becomes a friend and so do others. He also figures out a way to stop the bullies from bothering him. I am not sure it is a way we would recommend - fighting back - HARD - and doing it in a smart way, but in the book this seems to work.


In real life, or at school, if someone bullies you, I recommend you report it right away to your teacher or your parent, and do not fight back or hurt someone. I think we need to mention that now. The book is a story, but in real life you must avoid getting hurt.


OK, now that I have said that clearly, I want to go on to a couple of other things. We do have an active reading schedule for Ender's Game, and here is what is coming up:

Week 3 (9/12-9/14) Ender’s Game Unit 7 – Salamander p. 66-96
Week 4 (9/19-9/23) Ender’s Game Unit 8 – Rat p. 97-119
Week 5 (9/26-9/30) Ender’s Game Unit 9 – Locke and Demosthenes p. 120-153
Week 6 (10/3-10/7) Ender’s Game Unit 10 – Dragon p. 154-172
Week 7 (10/17-10/21) Exam Week - no reading scheduled (Mon. 10/10 off)
Week 8 (10/17-10/21) Ender’s Game Unit 11 – Veni Vidi Vici p. 173-199


Here are the textbook readings scheduled for the final exam in Week 7, which is everything we did - the first one was during summer school so will not have many questions:

The Ransom of Red Chief by O. Henry p. 52-61
The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe p. 82-87
Rules of the Game by Amy Tan p. 230-242
The Drummer Boy of Shiloh by Ray Bradbury p. 328-335 CANCELLED
Civil War Journal by Louisa May Alcott p. 339-342   CANCELLED
Hallucination by Isaac Asimov p. 344-365
The Monkey’s Paw by W.W. Jacobs p. 372-384

OK, now I want to let you know that you will need to leave a comment on another student's blog in our 803 class. So sign in to your blogger account first. Then go look at another person's blog post. And then were it says "no comments" or "1 comment" depending on what has been written so far under that post, click on it, and then if you are signed in blogger will allow you to leave a comment there. Say something positive and thoughtful, perhaps 1 to 3 sentences.

Another thing is that I would like you to respond to some questions I post below. Update your post or make another post on your blog to answer these questions below.

1) Compare what you have seen or read in the Ender's Game book to whatever you have seen in the movie. Can you say a few differences in a scene or in the whole thing? What are some things the movie can do that the book cannot easily do? Or what are some things the book does better, in your opinion?

You will probably update this question later, after you have read more of the book and seen more of the movie, so consider this to be part 1 of your answer.

2) Oh - all right. I want to ask you a harder question, so let's get to it. There are number of THEMES in Ender's Game that keep coming up. So we may as well get you thinking about them now. Again, you can post about this here and come back later and update it, but first, there are online lists of the themes, like at Spark Notes and Shmoop, but I like the second one at Shmoop better. Notice the hyperlink I put there the second time I wrote "Shmoop" - can teach you how to do it in the computer lab Tuesday. Anyway, let's pay attention to two of those themes:

A) Manipulation - Why do adults always seem to lie to Ender in the story? Do you think adults always do this in real life? Is lying to people, especially younger people, a helpful thing?

B) Competition - What is the purpose of organizing the young people into "armies" and having them fight each other in groups at battle school? Do you think competition against classmates is helpful?


3) And a fun question about the upcoming holiday:

Favorite food for Mid-Autumn Festival:

1) sweet moon cakes

2) moon cakes with an egg inside

3) sun cakes or other other sweet things

4) zong zi (sticky rice wrapped in bamboo)

5) Big Mac

6) bar-be-qued chicken

7) bar-be-qued corn 

8) hot dogs

9) I'm on a diet so don't ask me!


Enjoy your Mid-Autumn Festival!

Welcome to our class and blogging!

Dear Students,

We have started classes this past month and have been waiting to start blogging. Today we will learn to make a blog and I hope you find it easy and enjoyable!

You need only a gmail address to get started with blogger, and we got the approval of your parents. So first, a few reminders. Please do not put photos of yourself or your classmates on here unless that picture is approved by the school and your teacher, me, first. Also, only use your first name in English, not your family name. We will be using English only for this, and all of your posts should be in English - so it is a good idea to use a gmail account that is set to English. Also, we want you to be careful about your "digital footprint" meaning what you say online here can follow you in the future. That means no bad language and be kind to your classmates. All right, with those things in mind, let's get started!

OK, so first, you log in to your gmail account. Then you search for blogger and while logged in to gmail, open up blogger. Then follow instructions to start your blog while I am there - the instructions are easy and should be in English if your account is set to English. But what you will do first is choose a "template" or style of blog, and it will ask you if you want to make or edit your blogger profile. You do not have to say yes immediately - first continue on to the blog to see what it looks like. If you already have a profile picture of yourself, I would take that off and ask me about it.

The "back" of the blog, that only you can see, is called the "layout," so look at that. Your goal will be to add 3 unique gadgets - a gadget is an item such as a photo or link. You must also link to the class blog, so link to the class blog plus 3 other gadgets. Then you email me the URL to your own blog. You must also have one post on your blog about something you read in our class that you liked. This post must be a paragraph long. So to summarize:

1 You create the blog and email me the link.
2 You make a post about something you read in our class that you like
3 You link to our class blog using our class blog's URL and the "link list" gadget
4 You need to choose three other gadgets, like a photo or something else

On your worksheet I have asked you to write down something about your personal interest. This can help you think of things to write about or gadgets. You will also be doing an informative research paper soon and posting it here on your blog, so that is coming up next.

You can make your blog look beautiful and get more points. You have this week and next to finish this assignment. Good luck and enjoy!

Mr. Catlin