ELA10 - Focused Literary Study (2 credit), CSS, Seipp

Here is a quick overview of the assignments for this unit.  However, be sure you read over the specific assignment instructions that follow for each one.  Review the marking rubrics for the assignments before you start.

ASSIGNMENT 1: Digital Citizenship

Your task is to develop a presentation for a 2nd grade class.  It will be very important for you to consider your audience when you are preparing your slides.  Watch for any bias in your information.  Make it easy to understand and follow.  Use visuals.  Do research on digital citizenship and maintain a working bibliography as you did in previous lessons.  This website on 9 themes in digital citizenship would be a good place to start. You should be helping these young technology users maintain a positive online "reputation management plan".

ASSIGNMENT 2:  Community Service

Goals:  Clarify the main/central idea of a passage; analyze a passage to identify relationships; support important ideas with examples and respond to a question.  In a coherent, well written 200 word persuasive paragraph, respond to the following question.  Do you agree or disagree with the statement ..."Public service is transformative."  Make sure your opinion is clear in the topic sentence.  Practice persuasive writing as it is explained on the next page.  Watch the videos.

ASSIGNMENT 3:  "I Lost My Talk"

Your task is to discuss the impact of first-person point of view in Rita Joe's poem "I Lost my Talk" in a coherent, well-written 200 word paragraph.

Consider:  What effect does a first-person point of view create?  What is Rita Joe's message?  Why has she chosen the first person?  What is the impact of this point of view?  You might consider doing some background research on residential schools and Canadian Aboriginal writers who have communicated their thoughts on disempowerment.

ASSIGNMENT 4:  Public Service Announcement

Demonstrate your personal and social responsibility by developing a public service announcement to raise awareness, change public attitudes and behavior towards a social issue that is important to you.   It is also a good opportunity to further develop your expository and persuasive writing skills.

ASSIGNMENT 5:  Editing FORUM

Go through the 3 Grammar Resources listed under Course Resources.  These sites are from an online Grammar textbook called The Bare Essentials.  There are examples, practice exercises, and practice tests.

Do the practice tests in Unit 1 (WORDS) and Unit 4 (PUNCTUATION).  If you are not achieving 100% on these tests, review the lesson in the EXAMPLES and the do some practice EXERCISES to review.

In this forum, comment on which of the tests you found easiest.  Which one was most difficult?  Was there a concept in these practice tests that was unfamiliar to you?  How might you begin to apply these learning lessons into your own writing?  Can you see where you might use some of these conventions of language?  Provide a discussion of your results and their applications into your creative writing.

ASSIGNMENT 6:  PROJECT:  Persuasive Podcast

Develop a longer piece of writing  (essay, speech, debate about 800 words) that weighs the pros and cons of one of the provided prompts.  Your response should reflect your sense of social responsibility:   contributing to community and caring for the environment; solving problems in peaceful ways; valuing diversity;  building relationships.  You must cite at least 4 sources:  2 for each side of the argument.  Your goal is to synthesize the information from the sources into your persuasive argument. 

And then create your very own podcast of your opinion.  Don't overthink the technology part of this assignment.  If you're having difficulties, ask your teacher right away.