Homework!

This week we've been looking at SYMBOLISM .

We talked about the symbolism in the front cover art for the famous book 'Twilight' and thought about the kinds of symbols we see around us every day that work like a code - symbols that we associate with religions, or with ideas, or with products or companies.

When they want to communicate ideas in their work, poets often use symbols as a way to make the reader think of lots of other things.

In 'Valentine', Carol Ann Duffy chooses not to use the cliched, familiar symbols of love (roses, hearts, flowers etc) and instead makes her own symbol of love: the onion. It's surprising and funny at first, but she shows us how this makes sense and has real truth to it as well. She makes us think about onions in a new way, finding unexpected beauty in them, as well as showing us the less pretty parts of love.

So for your homework this week, we're going to think about symbols. I'd like you to think hard about who you are, your strengths and weaknesses and dreams and values, and decide what would be a really good symbol to represent YOU.

Please prepare this on a piece of paper (you can print it or make it by hand) with a picture and an explanation of why this is a good symbol for you. You should have at least 3 good reasons why this image could signify you.

(DON'T come with a picture of something you like and say "I like dogs so my symbol is a dog." It's not just something that you like. It's something that can REPRESENT you.)

Oh! The places you'll go!

Splendid work today in Drama, ladies and gentlemen!

By a huge majority, the poem & performance you liked the most was Tao's team with "Oh, The Places You'll Go". Therefore that is the poem we'll take as the basis for our assembly. You can listen to the whole poem here, and see the pictures too:



Start thinking about how we can make this into a performance, my lovelies! I was VERY impressed by your creativity this morning and I feel confident that we're going to come up with something fabulous.

Back at school!

Hey guys!

It's lovely being back at school again - I have a feeling that we'll end up having to close again, because there's still a massive volume of water creeping into Bangkok like the world's slowest disaster movie, but it's good to know now that most of us can access Edmodo and the blog from home. If and when we end up having to close again, you'll know what to do! :D


I know some people are having problems finding a poem to learn by heart; you DO need to show it to me first, because there are a lot of badly-written poems out there on the internet, and although I don't at all mind if your poem is one written by an amateur writer nobody has heard of instead of a famous professional poet, I do want to be sure that it's well done.

If you are stuck & cannot find a poem, here are some poets you could Google:

Spike Milligan - funny & silly

Michael Rosen - funny & silly

Shel Silverstein - funny

Ken Nesbitt - funny

Dr Seuss - funny & silly

Roald Dahl - funny and silly

These first few all write poetry aimed specifically at kids; it isn't usually very deep & thought-provoking, but it's fun! The next lot write poetry that you have to think about a bit more:

Carol Ann Duffy - serious; uses symbolism & makes you think; sometimes funny

Wilfred Owen - serious (World War II poet - he was a soldier on the front lines, writing the truth about the war); generally pretty heart-breaking

Ted Hughes - often writes about animals & wildlife; usually serious; makes you think;

William Carlos Williams - doesn't use obvious sound patterns of rhyme/rhythm - instead his poems tend to be vivid snapshots


WHAT MAKES A GOOD POEM?

We've talked about what makes a poem different from prose: you guys know that poems are a mixture of music and meaning, and that the pattern of sounds in the air is very important. You know that the way a poem is written down on the page usually tells us something about those sounds in the air. You know that a poem can be full of symbols and make you think about lots of things outside the poem. But what's the difference between a good poem and a bad poem? Is it just a matter of personal taste?

No.

Personal taste determines whether you LIKE something. But that's not the same as being able to make a sensible and reasoned assessment about whether or not something is well made. (I quite often like things even though I know that, objectively, they're not very good - for example, I like really terrible B-movies about giant sharks eating people. I also sometimes don't like things even though I can see they are done to a very high standard, like operas and football matches.)

A good poem (or any kind of art, really) should be able to move you. It should make you feel something - even if it only makes you grin because the words are fun to say and hear.

A good poem might show you something ordinary and everyday, but make you feel like you've really noticed it for the same time. Or it might show you something wildly new and unfamiliar, but make it feel relevant and meaningful and understandable.

It might communicate a story, or an image, or even just nonsense words that make enjoyable sound patterns and evoke images and ideas in your mind.

A good poem should be funny or beautiful or true. It might be a combination of these things, but it must be at least one of them.

What's more, a good piece of art (poem, music, painting, photograph, drama, whatever) should have nothing in it that's wasted. Nothing extra, or weak, or pointless, or flabby. Every bit of it should be carefully chosen, and purposeful.

So a GOOD poem is carefully built out of the very best words, and it does precisely what the poet wants it to do. That might mean it's musical, or silly, or heart-breaking, or clever, or that it puts bright and vivid pictures into your mind. There are all kinds of ways that a poem can be wonderful. A poem's job is to make a connection between the poet's mind and your mind, and to communicate something. It's like a message in a bottle that the poet tosses out onto the oceans of time, not knowing who will pick it up and read it.

A poem should be built just as carefully as a car designer would design a car - every bit of the poem should be there for a purpose, every word chosen because it fits beautifully and effectively with every other bit. There are lots of different kinds of car, just like there are lots of different kinds of poem. If a car designer is building a Formula 1 racing car, they will not build it the same way that they would build an off-road vehicle designed for mountains and deserts, or the way they would build a large family car for driving around the city. If a poet is building a funny poem for children, they won't build it the same way that they would build a poem about the meaning of death, or a poem intended to seduce somebody they fancy, or a poem intended to creep people out as they sit around a campfire.

Whatever kind of poem it is, it should be built out of the very best words for the purpose. It shouldn't be clumsily or lazily built. It shouldn't be trite or cliched. It shouldn't be dull.

Distance Learning: Day 8

Good afternoon, my lovelies!
As I type, we're still awaiting confirmation from the Ministry of Education as to whether we will be permitted to open on Monday 7th. I do hope that all of you are safe and dry, wherever you are; school remains untouched by the floods at present and I hope it will remain so.

Okay, today's mission may take you a while: you're going to learn a poem by heart. You can choose any of these poems and you need to memorise it so that when I call on you to stand up in class, you will be able to recite the poem from memory.

I think this will take quite a few days of practice, so I'm giving you until the end of next week to be perfect.

That means you need to start practicing NOW and keep practicing every day until you can do it without looking at the words. It would be A REALLY REALLY BAD IDEA to leave it until the last minute, so I feel confident that none of you will do that.

http://web.cs.dal.ca/~johnston/poetry/timothy.html

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/dis-poetry/

http://www.bartleby.com/145/ww260.html

http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/18.html

http://www.online-literature.com/shelley_percy/672/

http://www.poetryconnection.net/poets/Ted_Hughes/4244

These are my suggestions. If you have a different poem that you personally would like to learn by heart, then I'm open to ideas; write to me & give me a link to the poem and I'll tell you whether or not it will count.

Guys, don't worry if you don't understand all the meanings of all the words in the poem you choose. For this activity I'm just asking you to memorise the poem first off - like learning a song or a piece of music. Just worry about remembering all the words. We'll focus on comprehension exercises later, once you've got your poem memorised.

Distance Learning: Day 7

Good morning ladies and gentlemen!

Today we're going to focus on reading comprehension as well as understanding the structure of the poem. (I mean we're going to talk about what the poem MEANS, as well as the way it's built from a pattern of sounds.)


FUNERAL BLUES

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East, my West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

by WH Auden

Now answer these questions using the P.E.E. skills we used when writing about short stories. (That means you need to use quotations as proof every time, remember.)

1) What is this poem about?

2) How does the narrator feel? How do you know they feel that way?

3) Why does the narrator want to give the dog a juicy bone?

4) Why does the narrator want to put crepe bows on the necks of public doves? And why do they want traffic policemen to wear black gloves?

5) Every 4-line stanza has the same rhyme scheme (or rhyme pattern). What is this pattern?

6) How did this poem make you feel?

7) What was the most powerful or moving line for you when you were reading it?

Distance Learning: Day 6

Good morning!

I'm delighted to see that most of us seem to be getting on top of rhyming now - bravo! Good job! :D

Let's turn our attention to alliteration today.

As you know, alliteration is kind of the opposite of rhyme; rhyme is where the END of the words sounds the same, but alliteration is where the BEGINNING of the words sounds the same.

Here's a little warm up activity to help practice alliteration!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/starship/english/games/space_spins/small_no_sound/standard.shtml

TODAY'S LESSON
Learning Objective: Identifying and using alliteration.

PART 1:
Here's part of a poem I wrote a few months ago, which uses regular patterns of rhyme and rhythm and lots of alliteration.

Please identify all the alliteration and also any rhymes you find - I've done the first two verses for you as an example.

(DO NOT BE FOOLED JUST BECAUSE YOU SEE THE SAME LETTERS! SAY IT OUT LOUD AND CHECK THAT IT'S THE SAME SOUND TOO! Remember your phonics lessons - sometimes a letter sounds different depending on what it's next to - for example, c doesn't sound the same as ch, these are different sounds, just like t and th are different sounds.)

AN ALLITERATIVE ANIMAL ALPHABET

Alliteration quite astounded all the creatures of the world

And a realm of new linguistic possibilities unfurled:

Alligators aptly snapped up the acrostic form with ease <--- "apt" & "snapped" rhyme too!

And amazed their awe-struck visitors, ad-libbing A-to-Zs;

Burly bears became beguiled by the beauty of their ballads

And gladly swapped their diet of raw meat for one of salads;

And captive cobras concentrated on their compositions

Distracted by their muses into docile dispositions;

A dainty dingo dreamed of writing syncopated doggerel
Convinced that gorgeous poetry would move her love to snog her well;

While elephants penned epics in the style of Virgil’s Iliad

And no one had the heart to tell them that their rhymes were really bad;

If you're curious, you can find the whole poem here:

http://www.hitrecord.org/records/402057

And you can listen to it being performed here:

http://www.hitrecord.org/records/403229

*******************************************************************

PART 2:

Once you have finished that, can you make up five new tongue-twisters of your own? I'm sure you remember that a tongue-twister is a sentence that's packed full of alliteration, like these:

"The sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick."
"Betty bought a bit of butter but the butter was too bitter so she bought a better butter to make the bitter butter better."
"She sells seashells by the seashore."

(CHALLENGE: You might like to use more than one kind of alliteration in your tongue-twister, to really tie people's tongues in knots! It can be especially tricky to pronounce a tongue-twister that has similar sounds in it, like lots of Ss and also lots of Shs, or lots of Fs and Vs together, or lots of Ps and Bs together, or lots of Ts and Ds together.)

Finally, here's a game to help you practice the skills of rhyme, rhythm and alliteration:

http://www.earobics.com/gamegoo/games/wiznpigs/wiznpigs.html

Distance Learning: Day 5

Okay gang, I'm a bit worried about your understanding of rhyme. I mean, looking at the work that's been handed in so far it's clear that some people DO have it, but some of you definitely don't. So before I jump ahead to today's lesson, here's a little recap:

Words rhyme when the WHOLE END OF THE WORDS sound exactly the same. Not just when they have the same sound in the middle, and not just when the end of the word is spelled the same. It has to be the same sound.

Most rhymes with post, ghost, roast and toast, but not with lost or frost.

Most, post, ghost and toast all have a long "O" sound in the middle, like in hole.

Lost and frost both have a short "o" sound in the middle, like in hot.

It doesn't matter that the spelling pattern is the same - you have to make sure that the SOUND is exactly the same at the end of the word.

Remember, poetry is about patterns of SOUNDS IN THE AIR rather than patterns of spelling.

If the end of the word sounds NEARLY the same, that isn't rhyming. Rhyming means the ends of the words sound EXACTLY THE SAME.

So "Mean" rhymes with "Seen" (even though the spelling pattern is different - you remember your phonics lessons! There are lots of different ways to spell the same vowel sounds in English) but it doesn't rhyme with "Team", because "m" and "n" sound different.

Try saying them out loud. Listen to the sounds.

If you're not sure what a word sounds like, don't just guess - try looking the word up on Dictionary.com, where you can click on an icon and listen to the word being pronounced by a native English speaker.

TODAY'S LESSON

Learning Objective: To successfully compose rhyming couplets, using rhyme and rhythm

We're going to try another rhyming exercise today because I want everyone to be confident with this and right now it looks like we aren't all there yet.

RHYMING COUPLETS.

A rhyming couplet just means two lines that come right after each other, where the words at the ends of both lines rhyme with each other. You can have a rhyming couplet on its own, as a teeny tiny poem, or you can use lots of rhyming couplets together to make a longer poem.

Here's the beginning of Roald Dahl's poem "Little Red Riding Hood", where you can see some rhyming couplets in action:

Little Red Riding Hood

As soon as Wolf began to feel
That he would like a decent meal,
He went and knocked on Grandma's door.
When Grandma opened it, she saw
The sharp white teeth, the horrid grin,
And Wolfie said, ``May I come in?''
Poor Grandmamma was terrified,
"He's going to eat me up!'' she cried.
And she was absolutely right.
He ate her up in one big bite.

If I was going to talk about the structure of this poem (I mean the way that it is built), I would say that it has a simple rhyme scheme of rhyming couplets. ("Feel" rhymes with "meal", "door" rhymes with "saw", "grin" rhymes with "in", "terrified" rhymes with "she cried", "right" rhymes with "bite".) I would also mention that it has a regular rhythm - if you try clapping it, and you'll see there are the same number of beats on every line.

So, today's task is pretty simple - I want you to make rhyming couplets. They're like teeny tiny little 2-line poems.

I want you to be sure that they make grammatical sense (even if they're a bit crazy) and that they rhyme and that both lines have the same rhythm.

Here are four different examples that I've done for you:


My brother has a great big nose
He also has enormous toes.

(if you clap you'll see there are 8 beats in each line)

Michael Jackson sang a song
But he got the words all wrong.

(this time I've used 7 beats in each line)


I like apples, I like pears,
I like playing games with bears.

(again, 7 beats in each line for this tiny poem)



The secret to making a perfect pancake
Is adding 3 eggs that you stole from a snake.

(this time I put 11 beats in each line!)


It doesn't matter how many beats you put in your first line - you just have to make sure that the second half matches the first half, with the same rhythm and a rhyming word at the end.

I hope these examples have helped you understand how to do it!

YOUR MISSION TODAY IS TO WRITE ME TEN DIFFERENT RHYMING COUPLETS.

Distance Learning: Day 4

Happy Hallowe'en, my lovelies!

I'm a wee bit worried that not everyone is working on these assignments; I do understand that it's tempting to think "Whoopee! Holiday!" but the thing is that we'll still be assessing your progress the same as usual, and those people who aren't doing the work now are going to fall behind.

:/

However, a massive HURRAH for those people who are doing the work! Good for you!

I get the impression that we're maybe not all super confident with rhyme and rhythm and alliteration and all these sound patterns that happen in poetry, so today we're going to do some nice simple exercises to build up your confidence with rhymes:

RHYMING WORDS ACTIVITY

LEARNING OBJECTIVE: TO LISTEN CAREFULLY TO THE SOUNDS OF WORDS AND HEAR THE RHYMES.

Some of these words rhyme with other words, but some of them don't. Put the rhyming words together into sets. (There might be more than 2 in a set of rhyming words! There will also be some words that don't have any rhyming words to go with them - they will have to go into their own sets of one word per set.)

Remember to say them out loud - sometimes words in English might have the same groups of letters in them but still SOUND different, and with poetry it's the sounds that count!

moon witch wolf vampire spooky

ghost toast haunt scream bat spoon

most dream lost cloud mean switch

breeze fleas cat golf soon post loud

crowd cow now go crow shoe glue

pumpkin cheese that true bones

walk moans frosting broomstick

castle shiver snow talk trees

free pork fireworks quiver team

I suggest that you write them out in groups, like this:

1) bat, cat, that

2) moon, spoon, soon

3)

* * * * * * *

In the spooky spirit of Hallowe'en, and just for fun, here's a recording of me reading a narrative poem I wrote a few months ago, with illustrations by a friend. It's a little bit like 'Little Red Riding Hood'...and a little bit not.

http://hitrecord.org/records/393817

Here's a link to what it looks like written down:

http://hitrecord.org/records/380616

And here's a different version of my poem being performed by a gentleman I know, with sound effects:

http://hitrecord.org/records/538625

(No, you don't have to do any writing activities based around it! Not today, anyway. But I thought you might enjoy the poem, and it's kind of spooky, so I thought I'd share it with you.)

Distance Learning: Day 3

Good evening, lovely people!

I do apologise for the delay in today's blog entry - I was unable to access the internet during the day because I was moving apartment. However, luckily we've got the whole weekend to fit in this piece of work, so not to worry!

Today's Learning Objective is HEARING and USING rhyme and rhythm - we've been looking at features of poems like rhyme, rhythm and alliteration over the past couple of days, so I hope you're feeling ready to get stuck in to doing some writing of your own!

We're going to use one of Michael Rosen's poems, and make our own versions. Here it is:

DOWN BEHIND THE DUSTBIN

Down behind the dustbin
I met a dog called Ted.
‘Leave me alone,’ he says,
‘I’m just going to bed.’

Down behind the dustbin
I met a dog called Roger.
‘Do you own this bin?’ I said.
‘No. I’m only a lodger.’

Down behind the dustbin
I met a dog called Sue.
‘What are you doing here?’ I said.
‘I’ve got nothing else to do.’

by Michael Rosen



You may remember this is one of the poems we watched being performed a couple of days ago. You'll notice that when he performs it in public, he doesn't stick precisely to these words - he makes it into a game and makes something new each time, just making sure he sticks to the same pattern but improvising with new names for fun.


This is the version he performs in the video:

DOWN BEHIND THE DUSTBIN

Down behind the dustbin
I met a dog called Jim
He didn't know me
And I didn't know him.

Down behind the dustbin
I met a dog called Sid
He could smell a bone inside
But he couldn't lift the lid

Down behind the dustbin
I met that dog called Sid
He said he didn't know me
But I was pretty sure he did

Down behind the dustbin
I met a dog called Barry
He tried to lift the bin
But it was too heavy to carry.

Down behind the dustbin
I met a dog called Jack
"Where are you goin?", I said.
"Nowhere, I'm just coming back."

Down behind the dustbin
I met a dog called Nichola
She looked a bit like an onion
So I thought that I would pickle her.

Down behind the dustbin
I met a dog called Felicity
It's a bit dark down here
'Cause they cut off my electricity




Okay, now what you're going to do is make your own version. I hope you can see the pattern of the poem? Every verse goes:

a Down behind the dustbin
b I met a dog called____________
c .........................................................
d ..................................._________

Line b and Line d both have to rhyme. That means that whatever name you put at the end of line B, you have to think up a rhyming word to fit right at the end of Line D.

I'm going to start you off with a couple of the verses, but then you'll need to start using your own imagination.

Please type it up into some kind of word document and hand it in via Edmodo by Monday. Thank you kindly!

DOWN BEHIND THE DUSTBIN

Down behind the dustbin
I met a dog called Mary
I screamed when I caught sight of her
Because she was so............

Down behind the dustbin
I met a dog called Tao
I said "Will you be here later?"
He said "No, I'm just here.........."

Down behind the dustbin
I met a dog called Mark
I thought that I might stroke him
But then he began to ...........

Down behind the dustbin
I met a dog called Pete
I said "Do you like vegetables?
He said "No, I like............"

Down behind the dustbin
I met a dog called.................
.................................................
.................................................

Down behind the dustbin
I met a dog called...................
................................................
................................................

Down behind the dustbin
I met a dog called...................
................................................
................................................


by................................ <-----------write your name here!

Good luck, my budding poets! I can't wait to see what you come up with!

Distance Learning: Day 2

Morning my lovelies! If you haven't received the email I sent out asking you to get your bottoms over to Edmodo.com and join up, please do so asap!

Yesterday I posted an assignment for the first time - you had to explain several vocabulary words that we'll be using in our Poetry topic, and identify rhymes and alliteration in a short poem. Then you had to come over here, read yesterday's blog, listen to the poems, decide which one you liked best and explain to me why, and do the same for the one you liked the least.

Today's assignment is:

1) choose one of those poems from yesterday (it can be the one you like best, but it doesn't have to be)

2) type it up in a word document of some kind.

3) read it out loud to yourself.

4) do that again, listening carefully for sound patterns. (You might want to click on the Youtube links again, to listen to other people reading them out loud.)

5) Underneath where you've typed the poem, tell me about all the SOUND PATTERNS you can find in the poem. So it might have rhymes, it might have alliteration, it might have repetition etc. It might also have a regular rhythm - try clapping along in time to the words to see if it does.

6) Hand in the assignment.

Here are links to written down versions of some of the poems:

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/on-the-ning-nang-nong/

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/dis-poetry/

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-highwayman/

http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/29.html

Distance Learning: Day 1

We’re going to be looking at POETRY this half-term.

What is a poem?

Poems are music made of words.

Poems can be short.

Poems can be long.

Poems can be silly.

Poems can be jokes.

Poems can be prayers.

Poems can be love letters.

Poems can be puzzles.

Poems can be patterns.

Poems can be stories.

Poems can be snapshots.

Poems can be patterns.

Poems can be comforting, like a warm old blanket to snuggle into.

Poems can make you laugh out loud.

Poems can break your heart.

Poems can bore you to tears.

Poems can disgust you.

Poems can be word games.

Poems pin somebody's thoughts to the page.

Poems can change the way you see the world.

Basically, there are all sorts of poems. I even made a poem out of my answer, up above, using a simple structure of repetition! Some poems rhyme, some of them don’t. Some of them are serious, some of them aren’t. Some of them are complicated, some of them are simple.

Just about the only thing they have in common is that poems need to be spoken out loud.

I'm not kidding. That's what they're for - they're sounds in the air, just like music. Don't just read them in your head, read them out loud and listen to the patterns of sound. (When I read a new poem, I don't really switch my brain on and start worrying about what it means the first time I read it. I just listen to the sounds, like it's a piece of music, and enjoy any pictures that the poem puts in my head. It's only later on that I start playing with it like it's a puzzle, and trying to figure out what it all means.)

Poems are a mixture of music and meaning. The way they are written out on the page is important because it usually helps you understand the sound patterns in the poem. (There are nearly always patterns of sound - sometimes they're really obvious and structured, sometimes they're a bit more freeform.)

In English, these sound patterns are usually made of things like rhyme, rhythm, alliteration, assonance and repetition.

Here are some poems being read aloud - sometimes by the poets themselves, sometimes by other people. (Don't worry about what the poems mean right now. For now, just listen to them like they're music and try to catch the patterns of sound.)

Spike Milligan performing 'On The Ning Nang Nong':

Val Bloom performing 'Pindar Cakes'

Benjamin Zephanaiah performing 'Dis Poetry'

Michael Rosen performing 'Down Behind The Dustbin'

Alfred Noyes' poem 'The Highwayman', performed by an unknown reader:



Matthew Macfayden performs William Shakespeare's Sonnet 29:

Homework Essay!

We're spending two weeks on retelling Neil Gaiman's horror story 'Babycakes' through a collection of different media - basically we're making lots of non-fiction-style documents that act like clues to retell our fictional story (like in the story we read called 'Before I Wake'.)

So far we have created the front page of a newspaper for the day that the animals all vanished. We've also created some emails to demonstrate how people react to this news - puzzled and panic-stricken, thinking maybe it's the end of the world.

Your homework this week is to create a Blog Post for a nonexistant blogger called Swifty. Swifty's blog post will be an essay entitled 'A Modest Proposal' which sets out the reasons why he thinks we should start using poor people's babies in place of animals, now that all the animals have vanished.

You need to pretend to be Swifty and write your blog post addressing the general public and telling them why your idea is awesome. You've all worked on PERSUASIVE WRITING before now - that's the kind of thing you need to do here.

If you aren't sure how to start, it might be a good idea to set it out this way:

PARAGRAPH 1: Introduction. Explain what your blog post will be about and persuade your readers to stick with you and read the whole thing.

PARAGRAPH 2: Talk about how much poverty there is in the world - poor people begging on the street with their babies, orphans stuck in orphanages etc. Explain how your great idea can help solve these problems.

PARAGRAPH 3: Talk about how much medical research needs test subjects, now that all the animals have vanished. Talk about the need to find a cure for cancer and for AIDS and other serious illnesses.

PARAGRAPH 4: Talk about how one body can be used for many purposes - not only meat, but also to make leather from the skin and perhaps other uses for bones and hair and things.

PARAGRAPH 5: Concluding paragraph. Recap your ideas and wrap it all up neatly.

I've written an example here:

http://unlockaflockofwords.blogspot.com/2011/10/modest-proposal.html

I've only done the opening paragraph and the first paragraph, though - this is just the beginning of an essay, not a whole finished essay.


(SURPRISING TRUE FACT: The real Jonathan Swift, author of 'Gulliver's Travels', wrote his own mega-sarcastic essay 'A Modest Proposal' in 1729, doing just what we're doing for homework. He wasn't SERIOUSLY suggesting that rich Englishmen should start eating poor Irish babies, though. He was basically trolling; he knew that the reason people were hungry and poor in Ireland was because they were being exploited by the rich people in England and in Ireland. He was trying to shock the rich people into thinking about their own selfish behaviour.)

If you're a VERY confident reader, you could check out Jonathan Swift's original essay 'A Modest Proposal' which you can find here: http://art-bin.com/art/omodest.html (It was written around 300 years ago, so it's not as tricky as Shakespeare but it's pretty hard to read.)

Neil Gaiman's short story isn't satyrical (this means mega-sarcastic), but just like Swift, he's trying to shock his readers and make them think about the real world they live in. With 'Babycakes', Gaiman is making his readers think about man's inhumanity to man - about the scary ways that we break the world up into 'us' and 'them', and accept terrible things being done to people we've decided are 'them' rather than 'us'. When we discussed this in class, you guys picked out the point about World War II and the Nazis' treatment of the Jews - it probably won't surprise you to know that Neil Gaiman's family were Jewish, so the thought of people being categorised unhuman and processed like animals and products will have been particularly meaningful for him, because that must have happened to people in his family.

http://ljconstantine.com/babycakes/

Homework: Book Report

This week's homework is to write a review of a book that you have read recently. If you don't still have the book lying around to check details, you can always refer back to Amazon.com to help you with spellings of names or who the author is and so forth.

I'm expecting a full page of work. I'm also expecting it to have been PROOF READ - that means you check it carefully and fix all your spelling mistakes and punctuation errors before you hand it in.

If you'd like some help in knowing what a book report should look like, here are some examples I've done in the past:

http://sweetlikecrabapples.blogspot.com/2010/09/writing-book-report.html

http://sweetlikecrabapples.blogspot.com/2010/12/homework-for-tomorrow.html

You need to include:

THE TITLE
THE AUTHOR
THE ILLUSTRATOR
WHO THE MAIN CHARACTER IS
OTHER IMPORTANT CHARACTERS
WHERE THE STORY IS SET
SUMMARY OF WHAT HAPPENS IN THE PLOT
COMMENTS ON WHAT YOU LIKED ABOUT IT (Did you identify with the main character/was it an exciting plot/was the writing style funny or exciting?)

Welcome To Year Seven!

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to Miss Nichola's blog. Here you will find useful information, random ramblings about matters literary, reminders of homework, links to things I think might be useful, and assorted other bits and bobs.

This week we have been concentrating on the short story 'The Chaser' and we have also been revising how to use the apostrophe. You can find out all about the apostrophe (and how it is like Batman) here:

http://sweetlikecrabapples.blogspot.com/2010/09/punctuation-how-apostrophe-is-like.html

Meanwhile, here is a reminder of this week's homework for anyone who has managed to drop it/fed it to the dog/otherwise misplaced it:

THE APOSTROPHE

As we discussed in class this week, the apostrophe has TWO jobs, both of which are basically ways of making it quicker and easier to say something by making it shorter:

1) It shows when something belongs to something or someone else;

2) It shows where some missing letters used to be when two words have been smashed together.

e.g. The house of Rose -> Rose’s house The homework of Tao -> Tao’s homework

The dog belonging to the girls -> the girls’ dog

she + is -> she’s where + is -> where’s they + have -> they’ve

It DOES NOT decorate words just because they happen to have a letter S on the end, or because they happen to be a plural. Honestly. Please don’t do that.

Read these sentences and figure out how you can use apostrophes to make them shorter.

1) She will bring the cookies to the party of John.

2) That is the book of Miss Ali.

3) I used apostrophes properly in the homework of Miss Nichola.

4) I have always liked mango and sticky rice; it is my favourite dessert.

5) Where is my hat?

6) Where is the hat of my brother?

7) We have been walking for hours and hours now!

8) Why do not you help me carry this shopping?

9) I will not help you because it is yours!

10) You will be in trouble with Mum if I tell her you have been mean!

11) I did not understand how to use this horrible punctuation mark.

12) I am starting to understand how it works now!

13) The cat of Miss Nichola has eaten all the tuna!

14) He went to the school of the girls by accident and he is quite embarrassed now.

15) I am trying very hard to get the hang of how to use the apostrophe.

Now make up five more sentences of your own, using the apostrophe correctly.

Use of rhetoric; language as a weapon

This week we are making a study of the various techniques used in persuasive writing/public speaking - ie RHETORIC.

http://nutsandbolts.washcoll.edu/rhetoric.html

The above website is a valuable resource to help with your study of some of the key techniques that have been employed by powerful writers and public speakers for thousands of years in order to make their words resonate with their audience and sway their audience over to their point of view.

We're starting out by making a particular study of the speech made by US President Barak Obama on the evening of May 1st 2011, and examining the ways in which he uses language to make a very precise impact upon his audience with a view to (1) winning the hearts and minds of the voting public; (2) trying to avoid inflaming anti-Muslim sentiments; (3) persuading the rest of the world that the USA had a moral right and responsibility to carry out the assassination of Osama Bin Laden.

It's been a big weekend for President Obama; on Friday he made very different (but equally precise, calculated and powerful) use of language to undermine Donald Trump, the multimillionaire who has appointed himself responsible for hounding the President regarding the validity of his American citizenship, with claims that Obama was not really born in the United States. In his short, pithy speech, the president very effectively made Mr Trump look like a petty, ineffectual and slightly crazy person, whilst presenting himself as being calm, collected and wholly confident in his position of authority. It was a terrific example of language being used as both a weapon and a shield, and it was presented at a time when Obama was very well aware that he was a few days away from breaking the news of the discovery (and hopeful capture or assassination of) Osama Bin Laden.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hdKTaUA1sk&feature=related

The language and level of formality in THIS speech contrasts starkly with that of the Bin Laden speech - this reflects the context in which it was delivered, and the audience to whom it was addressed, but it's also a very canny piece of politics.

Obama is using humour as a weapon very effectively at the White House Correspondants' Dinner; in the speech about Osama Bin Laden, however, his language is much more measured and dignified.