Day 3: English B (11)

Lesson 1

What is English B?
Core 3 topics

• Communication and media (Year 1)
• Social relationships (Year 1)
• Global issues (Year 2)

Options 2 selected topics (Year 1: 1 Year 2: 1)

• Cultural diversity
• Customs and traditions
• Health
• Leisure
• Science and technology

How is it assessed?
Individual oral (20%) Autumn 2016 Based on options
Interactive oral (10 %) Spring 2016 Based on core
Written assignment (20%) February 2017 Based on one of the readings
Paper 1 (Reading comprehension 26%) May 2017 Based on core
Paper 2 (Writing 25%) May 2017 Section A Based on options Section B based on core

Reading in English B.
2 works of literature:
Semester 1: Markus Zusak: I am the Messenger
Novel discussion lessons: Tuesdays
Semester 2: Ray Bradbury: Fahrenheit 451

Ongoing assessment

• Students get a monthly written task based on the topic being covered in a variety of genres, which will be assessed according to the assessment criteria for Paper 2 Section A
• Students will get a monthly reading exam (in class) based on a variety of text types and assessed according to the assessment criteria for Paper 1
• Students will prepare at least 3 written reasoned arguments (Paper 2 Section B) to be assessed according to the assessment criteria for this paper.
• Three times a year students are given a predicted grade 1-7 based on the summary of their written work and 20 class contribution.

Topic 1: Communication and media

In this first lesson we will brainstorm the topic and students will have to submit 1 minimum 300-word article, blog post related to the topic.

Day 3: English B (12)

Lesson 1-2
- Progress report on Written Assignment (20%)

Written assignment HL: Students are required to adhere to a word limit of 500–600 words, plus a 150-word rationale. Students who fail to write the minimum number of words or who exceed the maximum will be deducted 1 mark from criterion A: language. If the word limit is exceeded, the assessment will be based on the first 600 words and the rationale. 

The orals
- Progress report on Individual Orals (20%)  1-5 November 2 students / afternoon (13:30-14:30)
Based on options:

• Leisure (May 2015)
• Science and technology (October 2015)

- Progress report on Interactive Orals (10%) - one more to do (November 24)
Based on Core: 

• Communication and media (September - October 2014)
• Global Issues (November 2015)
• Social Relationships (September 2015)

Day 3: TOK (11)

Lesson 1-2
There is nothing better than having another chance at doing something better than before. I am very excited to start teaching TOK again and looking at it with the experience of the previous year.
We will spend more time focusing on real tasks and less on just talking - not that there is anything wrong with talking - we have forgotten the art of conversation.

In this first lesson we will try to see how much we are influenced by the way we perceive the world.
In the first few weeks we are going to have a critical look at ways of knowing and discuss how they help and hinder us in understanding the world around us.

• reason
• sense perception
• emotion
• faith
• intuition
• imagination
• memory
• language

We will start with students' own knowledge and they will try to come up with a series of things that they know - we will organise these according to the different areas of knowledge and look for ways of proving/disproving their knowledge by presenting the sources and the evidence of their knowledge claims.

Task: Think of something you used to think to be true.

By the end of the lesson students will hopefully understand what the subject is about why we are studying it and what it's role is in the IB curriculum.

Here are few posts about things we used to believe
Smashinglist
Thoughtcatalog
Businessinsider

Day 2: History in English (12)

Lessons 1-2
Yeyyyy, I am history teacher - a dream come true? Definitely.

It's perhaps the biggest challenge of the year - one that I was very enthusiastic to accept. I will have 3 periods a week talking history and helping students prepare for the 3 papers and the Historical Investigation. It's a lot to get my head round and I have been working on it ever since I found out about this opportunity.

The first couple of weeks will be a look at the students' preparation for their Historical Investigation (due in January-February - just like everything else in IB). This is a major challenge for the students whose attitude to history is less than favorable. They need to find a historical event, come up with a knowledge question and write a 2000-word essay, using extensive bibliography and research.

This paper will be written in German but I will be able to help the students to work on their research and ask them challenging questions to nudge them in the right direction.

Source: TOK Guide

The main body of work in the next few weeks is a revision of the two topics they covered last year: Peace making and peace keeping - International relations during the period between the two wolrd wars, and the causes and consequence of wars.
The four (!) new topics to be covered this year:
Topic 2
- The Cold War
Topic 3
- French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars
- German and Italian unification
- Imperial Russia and the rise of the Soviet Union

In today's lesson we are going to talk a little bit about wars and history in general as well as discuss the plans for the Historical Investigations.

I am excited and scared at the same time but it's a wonderful feeling to start doing something new.

Day 2: TOK (12)

Lessons 1 - 2

Although I met the group briefly socially yesterday, today will be our first day together. I planned a lot for the summer and did very little and I sort of expect the same from them.

We will start with a short activity based on current news items - and see what kind of knowledge questions and TOK concepts we can draw from them. The refugee crisis is such a massive issue at the moment that I think it will be important and interesting to discuss from the perspective of 4 Areas of Knowledge: history, ethics, arts, religious belief systems (although we  don't have RBS as part of our TOK curriculum)

We'll try to do this by applying the Ways of Knowing and the Knowledge framework.

• Emotion
• Faith
• Imagination
• Intuition
• Language
• Memory
• Reason
• Sense perception

At the end of the session we'll have individual discussions about the students' plans for their TOK presentations.

Welcome to 2015-2016

A momentous year has just began and I would like to keep as thorough a record of it as possible to allow for reflection, planning and learning as well as a repository of materials and resources I have used.
This year I am teaching
IB Diploma:
English B Grade 11 and 12
Theory Of Knowledge Grade 11& 12
History Grade 12
I am also the Extended Essay and CAS coordinator
General English
I also managed to keep 4 periods of English in Grade 9, where the coursebook (Cornelsen English G 21) story-line is based in Australia, which will give us a lot of opportunities to discover this amazing country and its people.

There are also plans for an AG (extracurricular activity), which will focus on journalism and we would hopefully develop a student newsletter/magazine and the Yearbook. - We'll see how much interest we can garner.
 
I got my timetable yesterday. I have long accepted that there is no such thing as an ideal timetable but I think I can live with this one, very tough hump day and Thursday but on the whole it's not too bad at all.

I will try to keep the long-short lesson plans coming and post a short reflection about them at the end of the day. Ambitious, I know but it will keep me organised and focused - I hope.