Well, good thing there is so much inspiration around here!

Our blogs are just over two month old. Many students have written more than a dozen posts during that time (as well as two pages). Although they are creative writers with a wide range of interests and experiences, some students are feeling a bit stuck for a new topic about which to write.

Never fear, Division 4 is here!

The fresh ideas you need are right in our classroom. Please read the following, prepared to “piggyback” on some creative bloggers. How can you take these ideas, stretch them, twist them, and make them your own?

• Food: share recipes, describe desserts, list favourite meals or odd drinks
• Love & friendship: write poems, poems and more poems, sing praises
• Sports and athletes: compare players, describe the sport and its skills
• Careers: dream your future job
• Reflection: write about writing, write about reading
• Travel: share memoirs of vacations to Mexico or Hawaii, or of  an adventure (in a series of posts!)
• Images: tell a story in pictures
• Heart-thumping fun: describe high jumping and bumpy rides
• Real life: share how to deal with problems
• Literary Review: find a gem, say why you like it
• Favourites: celebrate your family or your favourite band, or your favourite game
• The book you’ll write one day… animal  fantasy or adventure

You have a lot to say, and we, your loyal fans, love to hear from you!

Image: IMG_0385 by jakebodkin

As we Huzzahnians have discussed (and expert researchers have told us), vision trumps all other senses. We attach meaning and recall better if there is an image connected to a message. Is this why advertising is so successful?

We are going to get busy with images this week: finding the right ones for the messages in our posts, and as important, giving credit where credit is due. This means finding images we have been given permission to use and giving attribution to the artist or photographer.

We’ll do this in class and write a “how to” page so you can do the same thing from home. We will use a few sites such as Flickr and tools to learn the technical details.

And we will respond to Miss Wyatt’s challenge to add images: choose one of the following activities:

1. A place to start:

Go to one of your previous posts and add an image to make the post have eyeball appeal. Give credit! Then write a new short post with a link to the improved one inviting us to notice the difference.

(From Miss W:)

2. Visit one of the image sites

…and choose a great image. Write a post about that image and remember to include the attribution. This means you have told readers where you got the image from.  Look at the URL for the image – this does not mean Google search images but the original site where the image was put on the web.

3. Choose five images

…which, put together, tell a story without any writing from you. Remember to choose a great title for this post. Remember also to give attribution for the images. ”

Looking forward to SEEING the results!

Image: (227/365) Look by Sarah G

Blogs let us write about events and topics about which we are passionate. Reading the thoughts and hearing about the experiences of people who share your interests is rewarding, inspiring, and fun. If you have an interest in any of these topics, you may want to connect with these bloggers:

Want to learn about a holiday celebration? Read Priya’s post. Like reading about special pets? Savannah’s post is worth reading and commenting on. Want to be transported back to the summer? Travel back with Easton here.

And there’s more!

• Animals: Sierra, Rosa, Tyler, Katie, and Jaiden
• Sailing: Josh
• Cheerleading: Solana and Payton
• Books: Eric
• Hockey: Riley, Ben, Easton, and Danny
• Gaming: John
• History: Greyson
• Lego: Matteo

Our blogs are barely 2 weeks old, and already there is so much to read! I didn’t mention every student blog, but there is a treasure trove here. Huzzahnians, now that you now how to link, why not put in a link to something you’ve read on a blog, either from our class or from somewhere else in the blogosphere in your next post?

Friends and visitors, drop by and join in the conversation!

Image: Ready for take off by vyxle

Who is this writer? What are his interests? What is her personality like? Do we have anything in common?

Your “About” page might just be the first place a reader goes to find out.

Your blog is a reflection of your personality.

Miss Wyatt’s post gives some directions and examples of ways to write your “About” page. We have already reviewed the advice to be “internet savy” by making wise decisions about our writing and blog content.

Take a look at these about pages from last year: Daniel C, Nicholas, Catie, and Rebecca. Notice how they tell you just enough about their personality without saying WHO they are.

This post will be a PAGE on your blog.

Your “About” page shows your voice: who and what you feel strongly about, your sense of humour, your passion and compassion–what drives you.

Look at the draft of your “About” page. What one word most captures who you are?

Image: Questions by oberazzi,  Creative Commons license.

Last year a student in Division 16 looked up the meaning of random for us: it means lacking a plan or depending on chance. But in blogging it’s not wise to rely on chance to keep your identity safe. Take a look at my random facts below. In combination, they tell a lot about my life, but those facts don’t identify who I am, precisely where I live, when and where I do activities, or give that information about my friends or family.

So here are my 7 Random Facts:

1. I am the eldest daughter of an eldest daughter of an eldest daughter (and my only daughter is also the eldest!)
2. I love to make quilts.
3. I have sailed around the world in a tall ship.
4. I didn’t have any pets as a child, but now we have two Golden Retrievers named Luke and Solo.
5. My favourite place in the world is Fernando de Noronha, an island off Brazil.
6. I repeated Grade One, and didn’t learn to read until Grade Three.
7. I can say “Your baby is beautiful!” in Swahili.

Your task:

Look at the random facts of these students  Sophie, Daniel W., and Haley. They have used a numbered list to organize their posts.

Write your own Seven Random Facts. As you write your own, think about covering a broad range of facts that your close friends and family would know about, but that don’t give away too much about you.You are writing a quality post, so proofread and get a second pair of eyes to review your work.

Finally…

After you have written and posted yours, visit and comment on the 7 Random Facts of other Division 4 bloggers: notice surprises and connections–I bet you’ll find other bloggers whose random facts are similar to your own!

Image: Seven about to happen three different ways by fd  Creative Commons license

You’ll notice student blogs are popping up in our blogroll to the right. These are exciting times for Division 4! In the next week, students will give their blogs a name and a tagline, add a Clustrmap, and write their first posts. Some may even start their own blogrolls.

Right now all the blogs have the same theme, but this will change. Once students have grown some serious feathers, they will be ready to fly! (Yes, I know chickens can’t fly–but bloggers can!)

Come back soon to see how we have grown.

“All rise, Judge Smith presiding!”

Have you ever thought about what it’s like to be in a Canadian court? Well, today we (Catie and Rebecca) will tell you all about it so that you’ll be ready for a real case someday! We have just recently been working on a unit in Social Studies about justice. We have been focusing mainly on court. In this post, we are going to share with you what we have learned.

Court Members and Their Jobs

Everybody in the court has an important role to serve justice to the citizens and their community. We are going to define and explain what their jobs are.

1. Judge-The Judge is one of the most important people in the court. He/she makes the decision if the accused is innocent or guilty, and listens carefully to the people in order to make the fair decision.
2. Court Clerk-The Court clerk prepares the court’s schedule, and reads the charges of the accused. The court clerk also asks everybody in the case to swear on their religion to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
3. Crown Counsel/Attorney-The Crown counsel/Attorney is the lawyer for their province or territory. They represent society, and ask the witnesses questions and to tell the Judge the truth about what happened.
4. Investigating Officer-The investigating officer investigates the crime, and collects evidence. He/she also helps the Crown prosecutor.
5. Accused-The accused is the one who has been charged with committing a crime. He/she has the right (in most places) to remain silent and let their lawyer (the Defence counsel) speaks for them.
6. Court Reporter-The Court reporter records everything that is said in the court room during trial. He/she sits close to the witnesses to hear exactly what they say.
7. Defence Counsel/Attorney-He/she is the lawyer who works for the accused. He/she makes sure that the Judge hears the accused person’s side of the case, so the Judge can make a fair decision.
8. Court Officer-The Court officer/sheriff is responsible for keeping everybody in the courtroom safe during trial. Another thing that he/she does, is bring in accused at the right time.

Important Things in the Courtroom

Now that you have learned about the important people in court, we will teach you the important things, in the courtroom to make the trial run smoothly.

1. Closed Circuit Television-This item is used to show evidence for the accused (under 18 if it makes it easier for them to explain).
2. Coat Of Arms-Used as a very important symbol.
3. Canadian Flag-The flag is another symbol used to represent Canada. In other countries, people use their flags for the same reason.
4. Prisoner’s Box-This is used to hold accused if they happen to be in custody (jail) at the time. This is where the Court Officer would bring in the accused.

   All of these things and people, help make the courtroom FAIR. The Judge listens carefully to everybody, the Jury are unbiased and have no connection whatsoever to the Accused or the Witnesses, the Crown Counsel/Attorney defends the law while the Defence Counsel defends the Accused. Each one of these jobs and people are very important in making the procedures fair.

  We really have learned so much about court and justice in Canada, and it’s only been a few days! We really hope that you have learned as much as we have about this important topic. We couldn’t have learned all of this without this website. Thank you so much for reading this post, and we hope that you will visit Huzzah again soon! Until next time… this has been Catie, and Rebecca on Court and Justice. See you soon!

Photo Credits

Courtroom One Gavel by lambdachialpha
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License

Can you believe you’ve been blogging for 6 months? Wow! Give yourself a pat on the back. Maintaining your blog, reading, commenting, and writing take effort. You have evidence of your growth and success right in front of you. How does it feel? What have you noticed?

In a comment on this post, please share what you see as you successes in the last six months, and maybe some of the challenges, too. What has changed about you as a result of blogging? We’d also like to hear about your plans…what are you going to do to improve as a blogger? What advice do you have to others to stick with it when the going gets tough?

I can tell that you are proud of your blogging, as you should be. Congratulations on all you have achieved!

Image: Make a Wish by Theresa Thompson

• 8 excuses for not doing your homework by Catie
• 10 ways to annoy someone by Kris
• Top 5 ways to get in trouble by Daniel C
• 10 excuses for being late by Sophie
• and then there’s My Mom’s Bad Day by Julian

I don’t think I should turn my back on them! On the up side there is some practical advice. Just visit Devan to read his 10 easy tips to… well, just read it.

Miss Wyatt, Mr Bogush, Mrs. Kulikowski, several other teachers and I are working collaboratively to keep the conversations started in 2008 going through 2009. Remember your suggestions for a new blog title and theme? Well, take a look at http://studentfriends.edublogs.org/ Bringing Us Together. I especially like the tag: International student writers: friends since 2008. If you read the second post you’ll see that part of the inspiration came from a comment left by Max.

Each class will take responsibility for the blog for a two week period (or a fortnight). I’ve already written the first post, but I’d like you as students to step forward with other blogging challenges and ideas. I’d also like you to look at the About page and see what you would like to add or change I think it needs a few links, don’t you?

Image: Fireworks ! by Eric Bégin