Everyone loves a good book! We are excited to jump into a new book written by a Canadian author, Vikki Vansickle, called " The Winnowing."

This novel is a science fiction story about a girl named Marivic Stone who lives in Darby, New Mexico. Years earlier there was an infertility crisis which almost wiped out human kind. Thankfully a group of doctors discovered a cure by injecting people with "SuperGen". A side effect of these injections comes during puberty when children start experiencing ACES. When this happens, children must undergo The WInnowing procedure at a special medical facility. Although not all is as it seems once Marivic and her friend Saren arrive at the facility...

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Students were excited to share their Historical Fiction stories with each other. Students all chose very different periods of time to set their stories in. One story took place during WW1, one took place on Christopher Columbus's ship, one in Ancient Mongolia, one during WW2, and one during the Hundred Years' War.

We finished reading our mentor text! Students enjoyed the storyline of " Bud, Not Buddy," and learned alot about how an author can weave history seamlessly into a story. 

Using the novel, as well as a variety of short stories, students have choosen a time period to research and will be drafting their own historical fiction short story. 

To kick off our first unit on Historical Fiction, we brainstormed things that define our current year, including slang words, common activities, technology, clothing and important events.  We will be categorizing these words and using them to create a template to help guide our research when writing individual short stories.  ​

Students prepared for CSI work by using their 5 senses to record their observations of 3 different locations in the school. They used their sense of sight, smell, hearing and touch to write in detail, what they observed. Where they observant enough? Will they be able to use their notes to answer my secret questions about each location?

Students have been busy reading the dystopian novel, " City of Embers." To celebrate finishing the novel, students chose to watch the movie adaptation from 2009. They were very surprised with some of the twists added to the movie, and were disappointed that some of their favourite moments from the novel were left out of the movie. 

To start off our unit on debate writing, we worked as teams to see which side could argue better than the other. Quite early on, teams decided that rules and expectations needed to be put in place in order to effectively argue for their side. Students came to the conclusion that to effectively debate, listening is as important as speaking!

Based on the Roald Dahl inspiration journal, students brainstormed ways they could find inspiration for their own personal writing including memories, other stories, current news, history, art, and nature. Students enjoyed creating a collage in which they will continue to gather ideas for their future writings.