Still Life With Grade 9

Grade 9 English students have been reading the book Spies, and this week they had a special assignment. They created tableaux, which are “freeze frames” of particular moments in the novel that are meaningful and powerful. To do the project, students...

Can emojis be considered language?

While looking at the topic “The History and Evolution of Language” in 11th grade English A, we began discussing the use of emojis as a substitute for written language, citing the emoji version of Alice in Wonderland as a starting point for our debate....

The IOCs are behind us!

Last week our 12th grade English A students completed their first formal assessment for the IB, the Individual Oral Commentary. Although it was stressful to prepare for the IOC, the relief afterwards of being able to cross one thing off their lists made it worth it....

Who is the spy?

Grade 9 English is peering into the book Spies, the IGCSE text that is our current focus in class. Part of our investigation into the novel includes the practice of collecting evidence and jotting down our interpretations and thoughts. To do this, our books have...

Great Speeches from Grade 11!

Grade 11 English B students showed off their speaking skills this week by delivering a speech that they wrote in connection with our topic of Advertising. Ranging from a TV exective, who tried to convince us to watch more TV, to a former ad executive, who was warning...

Target Audience in Grade 11

In grade 11 this week, we focused in on Target Audience, looking at how we can best identify the “TA” in advertisements. There was no better place to start than by looking at the incredibly creative Old Spice “man your man could smell like”...