Lesson Two - The Skating Party

Introduction

Lesson Two - The Skating Party
Duration - 3 blocks (3 x 80 min + homework)

"What you don't know can hurt you, especially what you don't know about yourself." -  Uncle Nathan, in "The Skating Party"

Merna Summers was raised on a farm in northeastern Alberta. She worked as a reporter and freelance writer before turning to fiction. She has written three collections of short stories: The Skating Party (1974), Calling Home (1982), and North of the Battle (1988). Her clear and insightful writing delves into the everyday lives of ordinary people in small farming communities, and unearths the obsessions and deceptions that lie beneath the calm surface of their existence. The stories in The Skating Party, set in the fictional but highly realistic Willow Bunch, describe the old- fashioned views which govern the lives of its inhabitants and the grittier, more human qualities like passion and deceit that the small-town morality serves to mask. Summers brings her stories and characters to life with humour, tenderness, and irony.

Resources

Short Story
"The Skating Party" - by Merna Summers

NOTES
personal response to text

RUBRIC
personal response to text

VIDEO

Lesson

Before you read, consider:

• What is a "fateful choice"?
• Can you think of any books you have read or movie you have seen in which the plot hinges on such a choice?

• Read the short story, "The Skating Party", by Merna Summers.

Assignment 1

Respond to the questions posted in the U3L2 Forum: Skating Party

Respond to the questions in as much detail as possible in order to earn full marks.

The forum is worth 50 marks.

Your first post - that is, your answers to the questions posed - are worth 35 of those 50 marks. 
Compose your answers in a document and then copy and paste them into the forum.
If you compose in the forum window, and it is open for too long, it may time out before you click "submit" and all of your work will be lost!!

The remaining 15 marks are earned by your comments on your classmates' posts. 
You must comment on at least three of your classmates' posts.
Writing "I agree, good post" will earn you no marks, as that engenders no discussion.

The forums in this course replace the discussions that would be held in a traditional classroom.
Be sure that your comments add to a discussion.

Assignment 2

ASSIGNMENT TWO (40 marks)

Open a new Word document. Label it E101U3L2surname 
In this document, write the good copy of your personal response to text as outlined below.
Submit this assignment using the Dropbox  for U3L2 Skating Party personal response

• "What idea(s) does Merna Summers develop regarding the significance of an individual's choices?"
• Review your NOTES on "writing a personal response to texts" before you begin.
• Keep in mind that you may adopt a persona! (Uncle Nathan, the narrator, Delia, etc.)

In your writing you should

• select a prose form that is appropriate to the ideas you wish to express and that will enable you to effectively communicate to the reader (short essay, rant, conversation, newspaper article, editorial, interior monologue, short story, personal observation, etc.)
• discuss ideas and impressions that are meaningful to you
• respond from a personal, critical and/or creative perspective
• consider how you can create a strong unifying effect

Your assignment will be marked using the "personal response to texts" RUBRIC.

Conclusion

Not every choice a person has to make is a fateful one - but such choices often catch people unprepared . . .