“Borderlands are physically present wherever two or more cultures edge each other; where people of different races occupy the same territory, where under, lower, middle and upper classes touch, where the space between two individuals shrinks with intimacy.” Anzaldua

Letter to Parents / Guardians

June, 2014


Dear Parents / Guardians,

This semester, Mrs. Woods's and Mr. Racco's ENG 1DY Grade 9 Pace English classes will participate in a class blog. This is one of the academic extensions in our PACE course. The purpose of this activity is to promote cooperative learning in a virtual space, to meet, learn, understand and accept various cultures through different genres: the novel, the film, and the documentary. Students will reflect, respond, and critique each others' posts based on their understanding of the Jewish and German cultures and Holocaust literature and film.

The creative writing activities posted are culminating tasks that stem from the reading and discussion of the various genres. The students' responses will inform our understanding of the preconceptions of different cultures, and how these relate and affect our daily lives.

The aim is to create an awareness of various cultures in our daily lives and to create a borderland where various cultures come together to learn and accept one another.

Given the sensitive nature of this learning activity, please be aware of the following:


. the blog will not be published on a public listing; this prevents anyone who has not been personally given the site's URL from accessing the blog.


. since only my students will be given the web address for this blog, they are asked not to share it with anyone except their parents/guardians.


. Administrators will be given the URL and invited to participate.

    On the blog site, we have posted the "ground rules" - the parameters which will help to ensure a safe and enriched learning environment. Should there be a breach in these ground rules at any point, this activity will cease. Please feel free to visit our class blog at togethercrossingborders.blogspot.com.

    We encourage parents / guardians to enjoy our students' reflective responses on this blog. Should you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me at the school.

    Sincerely,
    Mr. Racco, Department Head of English Mrs. Woods, Teacher of English
    Father Bressani Catholic School, YCDSB

YCDSB Guidelines for Blogging

The following are the ground rules for classroom blogging:


1. Academic language only please! Students are assessed and /or evaluated and therefore, the change in format does not translate into a change in expectations in terms of the kind of language, phrasing, etc, that is acceptable. This includes refraining from the use of text messaging language systems.

2. Inevitably debate will arise since students are expected to comment on their peers' postings. That said, personal attacks and offensive language and remarks will not be tolerated. If this happens at any point, the class blog will be shut down and serious consequences will follow.

3. Meet deadlines. Each posting comes with a date and time stamp.

4. If students refer to information from other websites in your postings, the expectation for citing your resources remains the same. At the end of your posting, always include the URL for any sites that are referred to in the posting, in addition to proper citation within the text, depending on the teacher's preference.

5. Students are asked not to share the blog's URL with their friends. The class blog is for students in
English 1DY-a and b classes only.

6. Parents will be made aware of the URL and a notice to parents in advance to using the blog in class will be sent.

7. Administration (along with the Department Head of English) will be made aware of the URL and be made aware that this software will be used in our course.

Friday, 6 June 2014

Post # 2: Respond to your Peers

Over the weekend, please sit back and read some of your peers' comments to Post # 1.  Your task is to reply to two of your peers' comments (one from Mr. Racco's class and the other from Mrs. Woods's class).

Steps: 

1.  Select the comment to which you wish to reply.
2.  Click REPLY (found at the end of the comment).
3.  Reply and publish/submit.
4.  Maximum response length:  100 words
5.  Suggestions:  Write post using Word Document, check for spelling/grammar, do a word count, cut and paste.
6.  Invite your parents/guardians to participate!
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