Dear Eminem....

Today's class was focused on the business letter, and how to write one properly.  I handed out an outline of the features of business letters, with a sample letter on it, labeled with all the features.  We reviewed this sample together, noting all the parts.

We then brainstormed ideas for a letter to Eminem, about his song, "Love the Way You Lie."  We wrote a model letter together, incorporating all of the features listed in the sample.  These model letters can be used when you write your letter to your musical artist next week.

Love the Way You Lie

I returned self-image projects yesterday.  If you have not yet completed these assignments, please see me.

In anticipation of the final project in our music unit, we have begun to work on close analysis of lyrics.  We began our class with a connecting activity, where students read lines from a song and put their thoughts about these lines on post-it notes.  After moving to all five stations, students were asked to make a prediction about what the song might be about.

Then, we listened to the lyrics of the song, and filled out a "Four Quadrants" page... noting our emotions, sensory words, pictures and/or powerful words and phrases.  I then handed out a copy of the lyrics, we listened again, and we filled out further thinking on the Four Quadrants page.  After students had an opportunity to talk to a partner about the song and their thoughts on it, students began to make notes on the lyrics page, showing their analysis of the words.

We will continue with this analysis next class.

Sentences Quiz and Empire State of Mind Paragraph

We began today's class with the quiz on run-on sentences and sentence combining.  If you were away today, see me to complete the quiz on Thursday afternoon.

We then worked through the final verse in "Empire State of Mind" and students begin summarizing what they understand of the song, indicating these thoughts in a paragraph outline.  We will complete this outlines next class.

Term One Conclusion

With Term One drawing to an end, students were given today's class to catch up on any missed work.  The assignments that all students are responsible for having completed are as follows:

• Reality TV Article Summary
• "Intervention" Questions
• Self-Image Project Part One
• Self-Image Project Part Two
• Sentences Quiz (this will be completed next week)

You will only need to come in on Tutorial Days if these assignments are not completed.  

Sentences Review and Song Analysis

We spent last class identifying the metaphors and allusions in the chorus and second verse of "Empire State of Mind".  We will finish our analysis of this song next class.

Students then completed a review assignment of sentence combining and correcting run-on sentences, so I can ensure we are comfortable with these exercises before I quiz you on them.  I will return these tomorrow and we will book a time for the quiz to occur.

Empire State of Mind

Today, we learned about metaphor and allusion, both about how to identify these elements in a piece, and to appreciate what they can do to enrich meaning.  We used Jay-Z's song "Empire State of Mind" as a practice piece for identifying and explaining metaphor and allusion.  Together, we worked through the first verse, making notes on all the allusions he uses.

We spent the last bit of class working through the rest of the run-on sentences practice package.  If you were away, or you have lost your package, you can find a link to one at the side.

Redemption Song

We have spent the past two classes analyzing Bob Marley's "Redemption Song."  We spent last class considering the lyrics, and trying to figure out what the message of the song is.  This class, we created a paragraph outline which summarized the theme of the song and used lines and phrases as support for this theme.

We then spent time working on run-on sentences, learning the different ways that these sentence errors can be fixed.