English Class (Open to students)

[Ω-Admin-Cara-Ω]

Richard Stone stood that the front of the English room. He was very pleased with the presidential speeches, everyone had done all the work required and those that had been selected to give their speeches had spoken very passionately about their topics.

He was moving back to a favourite topic of his, books. They had done a report on an author, this time he wanted them to do a book report. Unlike the one on authors - where he had asked them to research and English author - with this topic, the students were going to be given a free rein on what book they wanted to do a report on, as long as it was a chapter book - which meant no comics or graphic (comic) novels - which seemed to be the latest trend these days.

He had a blue whiteboard marker in his hand and was busily writing on the board:

What you need:

[/li][li]A Book
[/li][li]Sticky note flags
[/li][li]Paper & pen as you read

A book report should contain the basic elements, it's true. But a good book report will address a specific question or point of view and back up this topic with specific examples, in the form of symbols and themes. These steps will help you identify and incorporate those important elements.

[/b] Your objective is the point of view you want to convey, the point you want to argue, or the question you plan to answer. Sometimes your teacher will offer a question for you to answer in your paper, which makes this step easy. If you have to come up with your own theme, you may have to wait and develop the objective while reading and reflecting on the book.

[2]Keep supplies on hand when you read. This is very important. Keep sticky-note flags, pen, and paper nearby as you read. Don't try to take "mental notes." It just doesn't work.

[3]Read the book. As you read, keep an eye out for emotional flags. These can be anything from a symbol to an entire scene--anything that evokes emotion. These will indicate some important theme or point. For instance, a spot of blood on the floor, a quick glance, a nervous habit, an impulsive action--these are worth noting.

[4]Use your sticky flags to mark pages. When you run into any of the emotion flags, mark the page by placing the sticky note at the beginning of the relevant line. Mark everything that piques your interest, even if you don't understand their relevance.

[5]Note possible themes or patterns. As you read and record emotional flags or signs, you will begin to see a point or a pattern. On a note pad, write down possible themes or issues. If your assignment is to answer a question, you will record how symbols address that question.

[6]Label your sticky flags. If you see a symbol reapeated several times, you should indicate this somehow on the sticky flags, for easy reference later. For instance, if blood shows up in several scenes, write a "b" on the relevant flags for blood. This may become your major book theme, so you'll want to navigate between the relevant pages easily.

[7]Develop a rough outline. By the time you finish reading the book you will have recorded several possible themes or approaches to your objective. Review your notes and try to determine which view or claim you can back up with good examples (symbols). You may need to play with a few sample outlines to pick the best approach.

[8]Develop paragraph ideas. Each paragraph should have a topic sentence and a sentence that transitions to the next paragraph. Try writing these first, then filling out the paragraphs with your examples (symbols). Don't forget to include the basics for every book report in your first paragraph or two.

[9]Review, re-arrange, repeat. At first, your paragraphs are going to look like ugly ducklings. They will be clunky, awkward, and unattractive in their early stages. Read them over, re-arrange and replace sentences that don't quite fit. Then review and repeat until the paragraphs flow.
Re-visit your introductory paragraph. The introductory paragraph will make the critical first impression for your paper. It should be great. Be sure it is well-written, interesting, and it contains a strong thesis sentence.[/ul]
Tips:
The objective. Sometimes it is possible to have a clear objective (question or theme) in mind before you start. Sometimes, it is not. If you have to come up with your own theme, don't stress about a clear objective in the beginning. It will come later.

Recording emotional flags: Emotional flags are merely points in the book that bring about emotion. Sometimes, the smaller the better. For example, for an assignment for The Red Badge of Courage, the students were asked to address whether they believe Henry, the main character, is a hero. In this book, Henry sees lots of blood (emotional symbol) and death (emotional symbol) and this causes him to run away from battle at first (emotional response). He is ashamed (emotion).

Book report basics. In your first paragraph or two, you should include the book setting, time period, characters, and your thesis statement (objective).

Re-visiting the introductory paragraph: The introductory paragraph should be the last paragraph you complete. It should be mistake-free and interesting. It should also contain a clear thesis. Don't write a thesis early on in the process and forget about it. Your point of view or argument may change completely as you re-arrange your paragraph sentences. Always check your thesis sentence last.

N/B: The genre of the book is up to you. I have no problem of you using a book written by the author you used in the author assignment.[/blockquote][/color] He recapped the pen as he stepped back to read over what was written and nodded. It was easily readable and should be understood by all.

He walked over to his desk and removed two boxes from his briefcase. One box contained packets of post-it notes, the second contained packets of sticky flags which the students were welcome to help themselves to. He then walked back to the board and waited for the students to start arriving.

[Ω-Admin-Cara-Ω]

Cara walked into the English class. Today she was wearing a light grey four-button vest pant suit with a white shirt, on her feet were a pair of black Jimmy Choo ballet flats. The whole outfit said that she was ready for action, more ready to walk into a law office than a classroom.

She sat down in her normal seat and took out everything she would need for the class, religiously setting her desk up so that everything she would need was on hand. Pencil case in the top left corner, English folder in the centre of the table, already open to the next empty page. Red, blue and black pens lined precisely at the centre top of the table with a lead pencil beside them. In the top right corner was the case for the glasses that she now wore as she read the board.

She copied down everything that was written on the board, even though she knew that Mr Stone would give the entire class a hand-out with all of this information on it. She frowned slightly once she read through what she had written down, and even though she was alone in the room, she lifted a hand and waited until Mr Stone nodded at her before speaking up. "Excuse my ignorance, Sir. Is there any particular genre you would like us to report on?"

~~~~~~

Richard smiled at the girl. "Good question." He said with a nod as he turned back to the board. "You are free to pick which ever book you choose to do." He carefully wrote this on the board. He turned back to look at the girl. "For my sake, can you dumb your report down a little?" He laughed at the raised eyebrows. "You use a lot of words in your report that I have to look up. Try writing as though you are a teenager." He gave her a nod and fell silent as another student entered the room. He had just said things to her that he would never say in front of anyone else.

[lottii]

Callum was running a little late getting ready, having underestimated the time he had for a shower after doing two team trials. Glancing at the clock as he quickly got dressed in his usual attire - black jeans and tee, he decided if he rushed he would arrive on time. Finding the first pair of Converses in the bottom of his wardrobe, he put them on in a hurry - tucking the laces inside rather than trying to tie them up at speed. He knew from experience this would just cause him to get in a muddle and waste time. The last thing in his room to do was grab the bag off the back of the door.

Jogging out of his room, he glanced a clock in the recreation room, and slowed to a walk. Heading over to the school classrooms, he thought he knew where the English room was. Or at least, he knew it was one of two rooms, but he couldn't remember which. He went to the wrong room first, finding it empty and looking as though it had been that way for a while, he decided to head to the other room.

Poking his head round the door, he decided this was the right room, seeing the English teacher and a girl he recalled was named Cara-Jean already there. Opening the door a small way, he slipped through the gap and nodded at the teacher, saying a brief introduction, "Hello Sir, I'm Callum", before sitting down a few desks away from Cara-Jean. He didn't want to sit so far away that it seemed like he was avoiding her, but he didn't know her well enough to sit close to her. Oh the awkwardness of situations like this!

Pulling a notebook from his bag, which contained work from almost all his subjects- he was not the most organized person in lessons, and setting it on the desk, he also retrieved the black biro which was floating loose in the murky depths of the bag. He started reading the information on the board whilst waiting for more students to arrive. Hopefully someone he recognized.

[Onzyy]

Darren walked to class, taking his time. He knew that he wasn't late and that didn't bother him in the slightest. He shook out the mop of damp blonde hair. It hung in his slightly, and he quietly brushed it away. He was wearing jeans and a polo shirt. On his feet he wore Converse trainers. He was also carrying a black back pack. In it contained the various subject folders that he required for the day. English was first on his list. The back pack also had a tattered copy of Terry Pratchet's Mort, as well as the audio version of the book.

Darren was a Synesthete. Each letter of a word was a different colour. Another thing that happened was that he could "see" music. It was odd, and often he didn't realise that it happened until someone was shaking him totally freaked out by it. The teen was used to it, but he didn't like it at times. It was like having an annoying dog following you around and couldn't get rid of it. That was way he preferred listening to audio tapes, and not reading by itself.

Darren entered the class and seated himself in his usual seat. He took out his English file, note paper and a pen. He read over the multi-coloured words on the board, and made notes as he went. A book report would be very interesting, but honestly, he had enough trouble in school without major reading. He knew he would be doing something like Mort, and he wondered if Mr.Stone would allow him to listen to the book rather than read it. He knew that if he didn't ask, then he would never know.

He raised his hand and waited for Mr. Stone. He didn't know how he would word his question so that it didn't sound stupid. Sir. Um, I have a question. I was wondering if instead of reading the book, I could listen to it. Darren bit his lip, as the words escaped his lips, coated with a British accent. He felt stupid for asking, and he knew that it must've been a stupid request.

[Ω-Admin-Cara-Ω]

Richard smiled a greeting when a the second student entered the room. He remained by the board, as he felt that this was the best place to be to greet the entering students rather than sitting behind his desk looking completely bored.

"How can I help you, Darren?" He said when the male student said his name. He listened to the rest of what the teen had to say and the man pretended to consider all options before he gave Darren a smile. "Sure you can Darren, but I'd still like you to give me the publication date and thing like that from the written version of the book." If it had been any other student he would have told them to get a life, but all of the school faculty knew about Darren.

[sepia]

The next to turn up was Jessica, rucksack safely settled over her shoulders as she walked into the classroom, a definite bounce in her step. Not only did she really enjoy English, but she'd managed to fit in a very good early morning ride before classes had begun, and so was still on a high from the blast around the cross country course she and Acorn had taken - though they hadn't jumped anything, both members of the partnership had enjoyed the freedom of cantering across the grass before most other people were around. Now neatly attired in a muted yellow blouse and dark blue trousers, with a thin black jumper slung across her arm due to the fact that the days were beginning to chill off a little, she made her way across the classroom to sit in a seat by Cara, beginning to read what was on the board at the same time.

"Hello, sir," she said as she did so, giving Mr. Stone a chirpy smile as she pulled her chair out, gracing Cara with one that was equally cheerful, augmenting the expression with a "Hi Cara!". Swinging her rucksack to the ground, she retrieved the relevant stuff for the lesson out of it - pencil case, stocked almost to bursting with every item of stationary she could ever conceive being useful, and her English notebook - and flipped to the end of her previous noted before looking up again and beginning to properly take in what was written on the board.

That... looked awfully complicated for a book report, but that was the joys of secondary school, she supposed. Now, the only question was: what book? She'd done Tolkien for her author's report, so she couldn't do anything by him for this, she decided, so what...

[Ω-Admin-Cara-Ω]

Richard watched as Jessica walked in and over to the seat that she had claimed as hers, right next to Cara - he thought that the two girls were good for each other with their completely opposite personalities. "Hello Jessica." He returned the greeting as she sat down at the table and took her things out. "Before you get too worried about copying everything down, I have a hand-out for everyone once class starts." He said.

Walking over to his desk, he perched on the corner of it as he watched the three students already here get started, already planning on the book they planned to do. "I have no problem with you doing a book by the author you used for that assignment. Although the author does get mentioned in this assignment, the main body of the work is on the book itself." He straightened up again and walked back over to the white board and added this to the information already there. "Is there anything you'd like to ask before the room gets full?"

[sepia]

Julian managed to enter on the tail-end of that statement, and paused just inside the door with an amused expression, his usual good humour deciding to take what he'd heard as a joke, and run with it. No-one could ever say that Julian was someone worried by the propriety of acting casually around teachers and people he didn't know, after all. "Is that my cue to go back out again so as to not make the room full?" he asked, grinning as he hovered in the door. In his red t-shirt and light brow trousers, he was certainly a brightly cheerful figure in the room, probably able to increase the mood of any company simply by sheer goodnatured exuberance.

This hovering caused a slight problem as Ethan appeared behind Julian, sidling inside past him and gifting Julian with a slightly confused glance, clearly wondering why someone was standing only a stride or two inside the room. Seeing no particular reason for the younger boy's position, he paused for only a moment beside him as he threw a cautionary look around the room, before offering Mr. Stone a greeting. "Ah, hello - Ethan Kim, I haven't yet had an English class." Oh, the joys of being new to a school.

Deciding to not join Julian in hanging around in the entrance, Ethan advanced further into the room, navy blue shirt and black trousers giving him a decidedly serious look as he took a seat in the general vicinity of everyone else, sitting down closest to Callum. At least he'd exchanged words with the other boy - even if that had been out on a cross country course rather than in a classroom - so he was someone mildly familiar. As, actually, were Cara and Jess, both of whom he recognised from the Natural Horsemanship class, but who seemed to have a friendship between them already.

[Ω-Admin-Cara-Ω]

Richard rolled his eyes at Julian's entrance and shook his head at the student as another boy walked past him and introduced himself. "Welcome to my class, Ethan, I am Mr Stone." Richard said with a warm smile. "I promise that it isn't always such a three-ring circus. Find a seat, make yourself comfortable and have a read at what is on the board. You have joined us as we start a new topic so you aren't at the disadvantage of playing catch-up." He cast a glance toward Julian and held back from rolling his eyes again. "You can also find your seat, unless you need a bathroom pass?"

His eyes swept the room and took the students as a whole. "Don't worry about having to copy down everything on the board, I have handouts for everyone that has everything you need to know on it, as well as a couple of websites that you may want to have a look at should you find yourself struggling to write a report - if you do use a website, please credit it in your reference." He knew he'd just repeated himself about the handouts to those that had been here the first time he mentioned it. So not to repeat himself again, he took the papers out of his briefcase and walked around the room, placing the handouts on each desk, whether they were occupied or not, before walking back to the front of the room. "Any questions?" He looked around with his eyebrows arched. "I swear, I have eaten so I will not bite. Remember, there is no such thing as a silly question, just silly answers."

[lottii]

Callum had summarized the information from the board briefly into his notebook, so was pleased to hear the teacher saying that there would be handouts containing important information. Callum knew he wasn't the brightest of students, and this sometimes held him back because he didn't make enough effort, and was too shy to speak up in class most of the time. Scanning over the papers he had been given, he noticed that Ethan was sat near to him, and gave the boy a hesitant smile. When Callum got enough nerve to speak, his voice often ran away with him and he was unsure what the other boy thought of him.

His thoughts slipped back to Jemma and Spartan, the girl who was quickly becoming his friend and her somewhat troubled horse. Pulling his mind back into the classroom he listened as the teacher queried if anyone had a question. The only thing Callum wondered was when the report would be due in, and after a few moments, spoke up and asked as such. "Sir, when is the report due in?"

ooc: its short :/

[Onzyy]

Darren smiled as Mr. Stone said yes. He wasn't rude enough to pluck out the earphones just there, but rather doodled on his page. He groaned silently, knowing that he should have known that there would be hand outs. He didn't need a highlighter as all the letters were a different color, and it made no sense to highlight it. It was actually pretty funny if one's sense of humor turned in that direction.

Many people misunderstood him for what he was, and just thought him crazy, but one person didn't. That was Loralie, and she was one of his only friends.

There were students still arriving, and many looked unfamiliar to him. That wasn't a big surprise, as he hardly knew anyone.

====================

Jemma half sprinted to the class. She hit the brakes before she ran into the door. She had been spending time in the barn, and hadn't realised that she was going to be late. There were a few students seated already, but she composed herself, and entered. Sorry I'm late sir. Jemma McLaughlin, she said. She saw Callum there and took a seat next to him. At least she wasn't going in not knowing on.

She read the board, and then the handout on her desk. She smiled knowing which author she was going to do and that was Raymond Khoury and his book "The Last Templar" . Realising that she hadn't greeted Callum, she threw him a smile, and mouthed a hello.

[Ω-Admin-Cara-Ω]

Richard opened his mouth to answer Callum's question when a girl hurried into the classroom. "I am so glad you could join us Jemma." He said with out a hint of humor in his voice. "Please don't make a habit of being late. If it happens again... let's just hope it doesn't happen again." He watched as she slipped into a seat, ignoring the smile and silent greeting she sent the student who's question he still needed to answer.

Picking up the pen again, he scrawled across the top of the board: Due November 26 before turning back to the students. "I want the report on my desk by the end of the day, which gives you time to get it to me if you forget to bring it to class, on Friday the twenty-sixth of November. This will give you a month and a half to write it." He looked around the room. "You will not be asked to stand in front of the class and tell us all about it, the report is between you, the book and me."

[Ω-Admin-Cara-Ω]

OOC: Oops, I was so busy getting into the "Mr Stone" character that I forgot all about wee Cara. And after I commented today about other people overlooking her. Yeah, I know, I know. Pot...Kettle and all that.

Cara looked up as Jessica sat down in the seat next to her with a greeting. "Hi." She returned the greeting softly, without nearly as much enthusiasm. She chewed on her lower lip as she read through what she had copied into her book, more for something to do than the real need to read it again. She let out a sigh, as she guessed that Mr Stone would want the report done on a fictional book. She continued to chew on her lower lip but stopped as soon as she tasted blood.

She glanced at Jessica, who was looking a little worried. "Is there something wrong?" She asked softly as Mr Stone turned to greet other students that were entering the room.

She looked back down at her page again as she placed the pen down, picked up the pencil and began to doodle in the margins of her page. She would need to make a visit to the library as soon as she got a chance.