Category Archives: 2017 AS

2017 AS, Academic Skills

AS2: WEEK 14, January 12th, 2018

Homework

Finish writing your final probject. Print it out and bring it to class next week. Also, please email it to me.

See here for tutorial videos: http://sheffnersweb.net/blogs/classblogs/dwc/?p=3485

Click here to download a sample essay: Sample_Essay_template

Today’s class

  • Class questionnaire
  • Please give me your comments about the following
    • ITHOTR (In the Heart of the Rockies” story
    • Mini-lectures (note-taking and dictation)
    • Presentations
    • 1-to-1 conferencing
    • Movie list
    • Reading list
  • 1-to-1 conferencing about final projects
2017 AS, Academic Skills

AS2: WEEK 13, January 5th, 2018

Homework

Email me your writing if you want me to check it. Continue with your final project.

Today’s class

  1. Free writing – your winter vacation
  2. Sentence combining.
    1. Read through your free writing  and find sentences that can be combined.
  3. Claims and evidence. Every claim needs evidence. What evidence could you provide to support your claims in your free writing?
  4. How to use MSWord’s Reference function for citations and making a bibliography
  5. Document formatting for academic writing:
    1. Use an English font – either Century or Times New Roman, size 12.
    2. Choose double-spacing (see videos below)
    3. Watch the video below to review how to create references and a bibliography using MSWord
2017 AS, 2017 WS, Academic Skills, Writing Strategies

Happy New Year

Happy New Year . Best wishes for a peaceful and prosperous year.

“There is never a stop to the sunrise. Sunrise happens all day long. Somewhere on this earth the sun is rising. Somewhere on this earth the sun is setting. That was just where YOU were. It never stops. It keeps happening all day long. And what is your night, somewhere is daylight.”

2017 AS, Academic Skills

AS2: WEEK 12, DECEMBER 22nd, 2017

Homework

Work on your final project. Bring your work to the next class on Friday January  5th.

Today’s class

  1. How did the Pilgrims in the Plymouth Colony communicate with the Native Americans?
    1. Listen to the mini-lecture and take notes, then write a paragraph summarising your notes.
  2. How do we know what happened in the Plymouth Colony?
    1. Listen to the mini-lecture and take notes, then write a paragraph summarising your notes.

 

2017 AS, Academic Skills

AS2: WEEK 11, DECEMBER 15TH, 2017

Homework

  • Continue with your independent study.
  • Bring what you have done to class next week (Dec. 22nd).

Today’s class

  1. Dictation
    1. About the Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts
  2. List what you think the Pilgrims brought with them to America.
  3. Some of the things they actually brought:
    1. a sundial, candle snuffers, a drum, a trumpet, a complete history of Turkey, a Bible in Turkish.
    2. One man (William Mullins) brought 126 pairs of shoes and 13 pairs of boots.
    3. They brought no cow, horse or fishing line.
    4. Among the professions were two tailors, a printer, several merchants, a silk worker, a shopkeeper and a hatter. No farmers.
    5. Six died in the first two weeks, eight in December, 17 more in February, 13 in March.
    6. By April, when the Mayflower went back to England, there were just 54 people left, half of them children.
  4. Two questions:
    1. How do we know what happened to the colonists?
    2. How did the colonists communicate with the native Americans?
2017 AS, Academic Skills, announcement

AS2: WEEK 9, DECEMBER 1st, 2017

Announcement

No class next week (Dec. 8th). Makeup on Saturday, Dec. 9th, 3rd period (13:15-14:45)

Homework

Continue your independent study.

Today’s class

  • Remaining presentations
  • Choosing the best presentation
  • Key cultural points about American/Western thinking
    • The first European visitors and settlers
      • Why they came
      • Where they settled
    • “Who will let you build these buildings?
      • “Who will stop me?”
    • “How will you force (your customers) to accept your ideas?”
      • “I won’t force anyone. And I will not be forced.”
2017 AS, Academic Skills

AS2: week 7, November 10th

Homework

  • Prepare your presentation for Nov. 24th.
  • Presentations can  be made with a poster or with PowerPoint.
  • Each student should present, even if you are doing a group presentation.
  • Each student’s presentation should be 3-5 minutes long.
  • The topic MUST be some topic of USA history.
    • I understand some students would like to research about present-day America – you will have a chance to do that, but not for this presentation.
  • Read chapter 5 of ITHOTR.
    • Request: to help me make suitable reading for you, I ask you to underline or mark on your copy of chapter 5  words and expressions that you need to use a dictionary for, and then show me your copy of the chapter next time. Thanks in advance.

Today’s class

  • Mini-lecture about the first Americans, the first Europeans and why so many Americans feel strongly about the right to have guns.
    • I mentioned the movie “The Seven Samurai”. This is a Japanese class. If you have not seen it, you’re missing something!
    • Here is a commercial for gun control. If you were the woman in this video, would you prefer to have a gun, or just wait for the police?