Recap Wednesday - AARRRGGGHHH!

No updates yet this week, but that's ok, we know you're worried about the big progression test this Thursday. Actually, we need to talk about recaps, so it works out well for us. I think we're all working too hard and trying to retell what happened in the class in general instead of thinking about how we felt in the class and how we thought about it or what we thought was useful. We're probably doing a lot of possibly not-so-valuable work to avoid doing some actually-could-be-quite-valuable work. So, for one night only, please find my recap of today's class as it was for me as a teacher - not a list what we did, but instead how I felt and thought about it. 

Today I was quite excited about the class because we were talking about 2 of my favourite subjects - stories and sci-fi! We started by finding out that nobody but me had ever heard of Ray Bradbury, which was surprising. I thought he might be better known than that, but I guess not. Anyway, I told you guys about him and set you off reading about The Illustrated Man. You seemed to enjoy it, which was good, but I was disappointed that I had the wrong audio on my PC and wasted a bit of time trying to find the right one. I don't think you noticed too much, but I wasn't happy with myself. 

Then I got you to do what's known in the business as a running dictation, where you were trying to recreate the story from the wall on the page. That was good from my point of view as everyone was involved and looked like they were having fun - and we also found out what pronunciation problems we might have (watch out for this weekend when I'll be putting up a post about how/where to practice this online). Then I went for a coffee, Americano, 4 sugars - yes, that's what's in the cup. The good news is that tomorrow's coffee is free, because I've saved up enough points. 

After the break we set you to creating your own stories based on the illustrated man's tattoos. I showed you a little trick about story structure and told you about Kurt Vonnegut, another of my favourite authors. The ideas you came up with for your stories would have made him proud and I'm very excited to see the finished products on Monday. I was really impressed with how well you planned out your work, and I think you'll notice a big difference in how easy it is to write in English once you have a good, solid plan. 

Anyway, tomorrow is your big test. We start at 9 sharp. Writing ends at 9:40 - perhaps it might be an idea to make a plan before you start answering the question. (: