Thursday, December 27, 2007

December 16 to January 7


Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!


For those of you new to my blogsite, it is intended to work alongside my website at:http://kbenoy.googlepages.com/



e-mail me at http://kbenoy@nvsd44.bc.ca/



Things that are static -- not requiring regular change -- will be posted on the website. This blogsite will have the changing material -- lesson plans and links to particular assignments. I will try to ensure that all assignments are made available on the Internet in this way. If something is underlined on the blog, it means that you can click on it to see a copy of the particular item -- this could be a pdf document, powerpoint, music or a video.Use this blog to see what is coming up each week. I will usually post it on Saturdays for the following week. If you are away, you can check up on what you are missing. There really is no reason for you not to know what is happening. If you do not have an Internet connection, you certainly know someone who does.


If you can't read the PowerPoint material on your computer, download PowerPoint Viewer from Microsoft. It is free.


Sutherland has a license to access Discovery Channel's United Streaming video collection. Students may download or stream videos from the collection by going to http://www.unitedstreaming.com/ . Use the passcode posted in the classroom to register. If you have lost it, see me, or e-mail me, for this information. Students are licensed to include this content within their own creations.


Social Studies 11

Read my Tips for Writing the Social Studies 11 Provincial Exam.

Over Christmas it is important to begin preparation for your Provincial Final Exam. Go to the Ministry website and look at the exam table of specifications, familiarize yourself with key exam terms, access past exams and answer keys, and look at the essay scoring criteria to see how your essays will be marked.


Your Geography textbook is also available online at http://www.design4effect.com/soc11/ . Though we will use some material from the other text, most will be from this e-text. Be aware that this text is now a few years old and many hyperlinks are broken. Rewriting is a massive job that I have not had time to take on yet.


There is a major research assignment currently underway, the Family History - Immigration Assignment (With additional options for International and First Nations students.) The due date for this work is not until right after the Christmas holidays, to allow plenty of time for research and discussion with family members.)


Comparative Civilizations 12


With only three weeks remaining, we will not have another unit test. The remaining material will be tested on the final exam.


The final examination in this course will be held on the last two days of class, instead of during exam week. This test is worth 15% of your course mark. Only the first part of the test is closed book. You may refer to your notebooks in answering all other material.


Final Exam, Day 1: Slide Identification (closed book). Expect 50 items. You are to identify the work, the artist and the period (100 marks - since not all items have all three parts, we will give bonus marks for any third part identified). The remaining part of day 1 is an essay question - choose 1 from among 4 options (24 marks - 6 for composition and 18 for content -- marked according to the provincial examinations English & History rubrics).


Final Exam, Day 2: 15 matching items (1 mark each), 10 identifying styles from written descriptions (10 marks), 80 multiple choice (80 marks), and two from 5 long answer questions (20 marks - 10 each).


The final examination is, therefore, out of 249 marks -- but this is scaled to 15% of your final course mark.


History 12


This unit is global in scope -- far more than previous units. I will tend to focus on one region or issue at a time, which will mean that we will jump around more in time order. We did a bit of this in the last unit, but expect far more from now on. It is, therefore, essential that you find a way to make sure that you get the chronology right. I strongly suggest that you create a time line, with years on one axis and a series of columns, labelled Europe, Asia, North America, and South America on the other axis. Put major events on this timeline in the appropriate location and time. This will help you see events graphically -- recognizing how they might influence other events, elsewhere in the world, in the Cold War era.



The good news is that there will be no more unit tests. I do not wish to lose further blocks to testing -- though there will be an in-class essay in early January. Topic 5 & 6 material will, however, be strongly present on the Provincial Final Exam. Link here to Topic 5 & 6 questions. Link here to the plan for Topics 5 & 6.


You must begin to prepare for the final examination, which is worth 40% of your over-all mark. Go to the Ministry of Education's History 12 website and access the following material: The exam table of specifications, the description of key verbs used on the exam, a description of the scoring criteria used in marking the exam, and, of course, familiarize yourself with the look of the exam itself -- the response booklet, sample and released examinations and answer keys. The best way to prepare for this exam is to actually write a previous exam.



Expect to hand in questions to the end of #62 -- even if we do not quite reach this in our lectures -- at the end of the first week back after the holidays.