BCTELA

FNESC has invited English teachers to respond to the new draft curriculum for English 10 and 11 First Peoples which is now available on the Ministry of Education website for feedback. Response Forms in WORD and PDF formats are also available. These documents can be found at: http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/irp/drafts/

The deadline for written response is March 26, 2010.

What are you teaching?

Remember the BCTELA Novel Title Collection Project?  When we shared the titles of the texts we were teaching and expanded our sense of what we might teach?  Well, it has been reborn... as a wiki!

Come check it out.  It's new, which means everyone's help is valuable as we work to add and share the texts and ideas that we teach: http://bctela.pbworks.com/

Registration for the Lillooet Regional Conference is now open. 

Please click HERE to register.

Please visit www.bctela.ca/conference/spring2010 for more detail about the conference.

BCTELA would like to congratulate Susan Telfer, an English teacher in Gibsons, on the publication of her first book of poetry.  It is published by Hagios Press.  Finding the time to write while teaching is an impressive accomplishment and it will surely inspire both students and colleagues. Way to go Susan!

The list of student pieces selected for publication in the most recent Student Writing Journal are now posted under the Resources tab.  The individual pices themselves will follow shortly.

Congratulations to all our student writers!

Please see the most recent issue of English Practice (also under the Resources tab) for the entry form for this year's competition.

Check out this contest for your students:

"The Mathieu Da Costa Challenge (MDC) is an annual writing and artwork contest open to youth between the ages of 9 and 18. The Challenge encourages young Canadians to embark on their own personal voyage of discovery by learning about the contributions that Canadians of different backgrounds have made in building our country."

We have started a wiki for BC English Language Arts teachers.  It's kind of a digital incarnation of the novel title collection project we used to do. The difference this time is that a wiki updates immediately and is easily accessable to everyone.  If you've never used a wiki, come have a look.  We'd love to have participation from all over the province.

First, we're collecting Canadian texts that you teach.  Next may be comics and graphic novels....

The BCTELA AGM will be held at the Delta Hotel and Conference Centre in Burnaby (the site of our conference) on Friday, October 23rd at 3:45 pm.  Information as to the specific room will be available from an executive member at the hotel on Friday.

At the AGM, executive members will report out on this years activities and there will be elections/allotments of next year's portfolios.  We welcome any interested members to attend.

Our conference is mere days away!  We look forward to seeing everyone on Friday (or Thursday, or Saturday).  Online registration is now closed.   If you have not yet registered, we welcome you to come early on your day of choice and register on-site as a walk-in.  There are spots left in the Thursday and Saturday institutes and in some sessions on Friday.  We'll see you there!

Here are two examples of the passion and drive that our students can embody:

The first is a poetic inspiration for the future.

The second is a perfect example of what students can do when inspired by authentic inquiry.