Silent Cacophony
Welcome to the mind of Chase March. This blog is the place to find musings, book reviews, skatepark tours, teaching-related articles and resources, and information about DJing. Please use the navigation page to focus in on topics that interest you.
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How Music Can Inspire and Increase Ambition in the Classroom
The power of music can inspire anyone to do great things, or easily draw emotions to create despair. Music can alter the frame of mind in nearly any individual regardless of how they may feel at that particular time. It is the reason that Hollywood includes sound tracks into movies and television. It is a…
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Chasing Content – April 2012
It’s the first of the month. Time to flip through the archives and uncover all of the great gems that were posted here last year at this time. Read all of the posts from last April . . . or just these sparkly ones. Why Would Anyone Buy a Book? If I had to buy…
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The Sweathearts of the Galaxy Need Your Help
Tallest Silver and Kit Quinn are the Sweathearts of the Galaxy. If you’ve followed me on the blog or on Tumblr, you already know that I am a big fan of their cosplay. I especially love Tallest Silver as Power Girl. They are trying to finance a web series and they need your help. Watch…
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James Bond in Space and A Super-Hero Family
Here are the latest graphic novels that I have read this year. Star Wars: Agent of the Empire – Iron Eclipse James Bond in space, that’s basically what this story is, but it goes a little deeper than that. Jahan Cross is the secret agent in this series and he works for the Empire. He…
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Writing Rap Songs With Students
This is the fourth lesson in my unit on Rap Music. In this lesson, I set the parameters of the rap songwriting assignment, I share a few examples of rap songs, and then I put the students into groups and have them start writing. You can download the Smartboard file of this lesson for free…
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Little Women and Me – My New Favourite Book
I was at the library and this book called to me. It was sitting on the top of a bookcase, proudly on display. It seemed to be saying, “Hey, Chase! This is just the book you want to read.” Who am I to argue with a book? I really loved the story of Little Women…
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Still Collecting Daredevil Toys
Daredevil is my favourite superhero and I’ve managed to build up a pretty nice collection of merchandise. Here are my latest additions to the collection. It’s hard to see the newest piece here. It is small and my camera doesn’t have a macro focus. This toy is called a Bonkazonk and it is quite similar…
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The Power of Perseverance
Here is some motivation for your day. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. And then, if you still don’t succeed, change up your strategy. We can learn a lot from our fine feathered friends and this very determined eagle. Watch and enjoy! I originally found this video on Larry Felazzo’s blog. If…
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Making Rap Beats with Students
This is the third lesson in my unit on rap music. Today, we are looking at creating a drum beat using a simple and free drum machine that can be easily downloaded. There are several of these programs that you can use. I used Hammerhead simply because it was already installed on our school computers.…
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London was a Buzz with Skaters
The World Figure Skating Championships were held in London, Ontario, Canada this past week. The whole city was abuzz with energy. The downtown core was certainly the place to be, even if you didn’t have tickets. Every night, there was a special light show projected right onto the side of the Budweiser Gardens. The show…