Good afternoon!
Homework this week involves you reading the following article:
www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2011/feb/05/top-gear-offensive-steve-coogan
'Top Gear' is a popular UK show about cars and motoring (you can undoubtedly find clips aplenty on YouTube if you're curious). Its three presenters are popular and well known for their irreverent/offensive sense of humour.
Recently they caused a stir by coming out with some statements which were interpreted as racist.
Steve Coogan (the guy who wrote the article linked to above) is a popular comic actor in the UK; he's been in a few Hollywood movies too, but he's best known for his ability to create and perform very distinctive comic characters such as Alan Partridge and Paul Calf. He also does stand up comedy. He's also a fan of 'Top Gear', and he's been on the show several times.
Please read the article, and think about it. (You may need to look up the meaning of some of the words.) There are links provided in the article to other sites (such as the BBC's apology).
Now answer the following questions USING FULL SENTENCES THAT MAKE SENSE EVEN IF THE READER DOESN'T HAVE THIS LIST OF QUESTIONS TO REFER BACK TO:
1) What did Jeremy Clarkson and his co-presenters say that offended people?
2) Why does Steve Coogan think Clarkson and his friends would be much less likely to mock Kosher food or Islamic fundamentalists?
3) Why does Steve Coogan feel that the BBC's response, which refers to long-standing British attitudes towards the French and Germans, was dishonest and missed the point?
4) Explain the meanings of the following words and phrases:
- flatulent
- feckless
- half-wit
- bestows
- eclectic
- maverick
- overzealous
- mealy-mouthed
- prosperous
5) In your opinion, were the remarks made by Jeremy Clarkson and his friends racist or not? Please explain why you think this, and substantiate your opinion. (Think about the kind of persuasive language that we have been using in Debate Club).
Oh! Incidentally, I forgot to mention this morning, but our Debate Club Topic for next week is to discuss the pros and cons of young people using Facebook.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Monday, January 17, 2011
Homework 17th January 2010
Good afternoon, my lovelies! Nice work on Act I, Scene I this morning!
This term we're going to be keeping regular records of what you read at home, both fiction and non-fiction. This doesn't have to be limited to (fiction & nonfiction) books - magazine articles (either hard copies or online) and newspaper articles are also acceptable.
If you're interested in writing reviews of other texts, such as fanfiction, or even song lyrics, then come and see me about it. I'll probably say yes, so long as it's something substantial which has got your attention engaged, and which you can use as the focus of critical thinking.
From this point on, one of your two weekly homework tasks should be writing a critical review of a text that you've read at home.
This term we're going to be keeping regular records of what you read at home, both fiction and non-fiction. This doesn't have to be limited to (fiction & nonfiction) books - magazine articles (either hard copies or online) and newspaper articles are also acceptable.
If you're interested in writing reviews of other texts, such as fanfiction, or even song lyrics, then come and see me about it. I'll probably say yes, so long as it's something substantial which has got your attention engaged, and which you can use as the focus of critical thinking.
From this point on, one of your two weekly homework tasks should be writing a critical review of a text that you've read at home.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
HOMEWORK!
Great job with today's work on Act I, Scene I, ladies and gentlemen! I was really delighted to see things starting to come together, and there were some great ideas for how we can improve that scene.
As a reminder, your homework, which is due in on Monday, is to write up your own version of what we did in class. We've only worked on the first half of Act I, Scene I so far, and that's fine - please take it from the policemen's entrance through to Perth's entrance. As I said in class, I'm expecting you to set this out in playscript style, which means beginning with some stage directions to explain where the characters are supposed to be and what sort of things are on the stage, as well as descriptions of the characters themselves. (Playscripts, unlike novels and poetry, are working documents and we want to give the actors as much helpful information as possible to help them with their performances.)
These are the character names, for those of you who are unsure:
THE CAPULETS:
Sampson & Gregory
Tybalt
Lord & Lady Capulet
THE MONTAGUES:
Abram & Balthasar
Benvolio
Lord & Lady Montague
THE PRINCE
As a reminder, your homework, which is due in on Monday, is to write up your own version of what we did in class. We've only worked on the first half of Act I, Scene I so far, and that's fine - please take it from the policemen's entrance through to Perth's entrance. As I said in class, I'm expecting you to set this out in playscript style, which means beginning with some stage directions to explain where the characters are supposed to be and what sort of things are on the stage, as well as descriptions of the characters themselves. (Playscripts, unlike novels and poetry, are working documents and we want to give the actors as much helpful information as possible to help them with their performances.)
These are the character names, for those of you who are unsure:
THE CAPULETS:
Sampson & Gregory
Tybalt
Lord & Lady Capulet
THE MONTAGUES:
Abram & Balthasar
Benvolio
Lord & Lady Montague
THE PRINCE
Monday, January 10, 2011
What light from yonder window breaks?
Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen!
This term we're going to be looking at 'Romeo and Juliet', one of the most famous pieces of writing in the English Language. We'll be doing a lot of drama work - both improv and scripted - as well as writing our own playscripts, and my hope is that by the end of this term everyone will have a very solid understanding of how playscripts in general function, that we'll all have honed our acting and directing skills, and that you'll have a bit more of a clue as to why William Shakespeare remains the most famous writer in the history of the English language.
(Hint: basically, it's because he's awesome. Not EASY, mind you, and not always awesome*, but when he's good, he blows everyone else out of the water.)
Now, obviously back when Wm Shakespeare was writing and acting, people didn't have TV or cinema (let alone the internet, or flushing toilets, or ipods, or mobile phones). This means that the theatre was very popular, and it wasn't seen as a High So kind of entertainment. (Rich people and royalty might get playwrights and troops of actors to come and give them private performances, which was as close as anyone got to having a huge flat screen TV with massive speakers in their living room.)
Theatres weren't super classy places, that's what I'm trying to convey. They were generally open to the weather, with the sunlight providing the lighting, and burning torches being lit as the evening grew darker. Poor people could stand in front of the stage watching; wealthier people sat on benches, and might have their own cushions. Very wealthy people sat in special balcony sections. When it rained, the poor people got rained on. The audiences were VERY rude. Granted, they didn't have mobile phones, but they'd just stand around talking loudly to their friends while the actors were valiantly trying to do their bit on the stage. They ate and drank whilst they watched the show, and if they didn't like it, they threw things at you and shouted insults.
All Shakespeare's plays - even the most profound and serious and tragic ones - are packed with jokes (often very rude ones) to keep the audience paying attention and in a good mood. He understood the human heart and soul -the best and worst of us, the stupid, petty, weak things and the moments of grace - and he was able to pin it down in words that have lasted for hundreds of years.
But he also liked a good fart gag as much as the next person (assuming that the next person is a nine year old boy who likes fart gags), so it's not all art and beauty and high ideals.
A few years ago, the playwright Tom Stoppard (who is A REALLY REALLY FABULOUS WRITER, by the way) wrote the script for a Hollywood movie about the life of Shakespeare. It's not true. It's not even pretending to be true - in fact, it's basically what Perth would call fanfiction. Really really good fanfic, packed with jokes that will appeal to Shakespeare fans, but also very understandable for ordinary movie-goers who aren't Shakespeare fans. The plot is a sort of mixture of true details of Shakespeare's life, and the plot of his excellent comedy 'Twelfth Night', and a bit of 'Romeo and Juliet' mixed in too.
Since, alas, I rather fear you good people are too young to watch the whole film right now (it's got some saucy bits that are probably not really appropriate for Year 8/9, unfortunately), I'm just going to point you at the trailer. What's cool about the trailer is that it gives you a pretty good idea of what Elizabethan London looked like, as well as the inside of theatres back then.
We'll be talking about this idea of having a trailer to get the audience interested when we start studying 'Romeo and Juliet', because even though they didn't have YouTube or cinemas or anything like that, they still often included something like a trailer at the start of a play, so people knew what was going to happen in the show.
(*Ask me about 'Titus Andronicus' some time. It's kind of Shakespeare having a Tarantino moment, with as much violence, brutality and over-the-top soap opera craziness as he could possibly cram into the script. The comedies are generally good - and sometimes lovely - but they're mostly pretty frivolous and disposable. It's the tragedies that made him immortal - 'Hamlet', 'Macbeth', 'Lear', 'Antony and Cleopatra', 'Othello', 'Romeo and Juliet' and the rest. And it's not just the stories. It's the way he TELLS the stories.)
This term we're going to be looking at 'Romeo and Juliet', one of the most famous pieces of writing in the English Language. We'll be doing a lot of drama work - both improv and scripted - as well as writing our own playscripts, and my hope is that by the end of this term everyone will have a very solid understanding of how playscripts in general function, that we'll all have honed our acting and directing skills, and that you'll have a bit more of a clue as to why William Shakespeare remains the most famous writer in the history of the English language.
(Hint: basically, it's because he's awesome. Not EASY, mind you, and not always awesome*, but when he's good, he blows everyone else out of the water.)
Now, obviously back when Wm Shakespeare was writing and acting, people didn't have TV or cinema (let alone the internet, or flushing toilets, or ipods, or mobile phones). This means that the theatre was very popular, and it wasn't seen as a High So kind of entertainment. (Rich people and royalty might get playwrights and troops of actors to come and give them private performances, which was as close as anyone got to having a huge flat screen TV with massive speakers in their living room.)
Theatres weren't super classy places, that's what I'm trying to convey. They were generally open to the weather, with the sunlight providing the lighting, and burning torches being lit as the evening grew darker. Poor people could stand in front of the stage watching; wealthier people sat on benches, and might have their own cushions. Very wealthy people sat in special balcony sections. When it rained, the poor people got rained on. The audiences were VERY rude. Granted, they didn't have mobile phones, but they'd just stand around talking loudly to their friends while the actors were valiantly trying to do their bit on the stage. They ate and drank whilst they watched the show, and if they didn't like it, they threw things at you and shouted insults.
All Shakespeare's plays - even the most profound and serious and tragic ones - are packed with jokes (often very rude ones) to keep the audience paying attention and in a good mood. He understood the human heart and soul -the best and worst of us, the stupid, petty, weak things and the moments of grace - and he was able to pin it down in words that have lasted for hundreds of years.
But he also liked a good fart gag as much as the next person (assuming that the next person is a nine year old boy who likes fart gags), so it's not all art and beauty and high ideals.
A few years ago, the playwright Tom Stoppard (who is A REALLY REALLY FABULOUS WRITER, by the way) wrote the script for a Hollywood movie about the life of Shakespeare. It's not true. It's not even pretending to be true - in fact, it's basically what Perth would call fanfiction. Really really good fanfic, packed with jokes that will appeal to Shakespeare fans, but also very understandable for ordinary movie-goers who aren't Shakespeare fans. The plot is a sort of mixture of true details of Shakespeare's life, and the plot of his excellent comedy 'Twelfth Night', and a bit of 'Romeo and Juliet' mixed in too.
Since, alas, I rather fear you good people are too young to watch the whole film right now (it's got some saucy bits that are probably not really appropriate for Year 8/9, unfortunately), I'm just going to point you at the trailer. What's cool about the trailer is that it gives you a pretty good idea of what Elizabethan London looked like, as well as the inside of theatres back then.
We'll be talking about this idea of having a trailer to get the audience interested when we start studying 'Romeo and Juliet', because even though they didn't have YouTube or cinemas or anything like that, they still often included something like a trailer at the start of a play, so people knew what was going to happen in the show.
(*Ask me about 'Titus Andronicus' some time. It's kind of Shakespeare having a Tarantino moment, with as much violence, brutality and over-the-top soap opera craziness as he could possibly cram into the script. The comedies are generally good - and sometimes lovely - but they're mostly pretty frivolous and disposable. It's the tragedies that made him immortal - 'Hamlet', 'Macbeth', 'Lear', 'Antony and Cleopatra', 'Othello', 'Romeo and Juliet' and the rest. And it's not just the stories. It's the way he TELLS the stories.)
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Homework for tomorrow
YOUR HOMEWORK IS TO WRITE A BOOK REPORT ON WHATEVER YOU'RE CURRENTLY READING.
(I TRUST AND ASSUME THAT YOU ARE CONTINUING TO USE THE LIBRARY ON A WEEKLY BASIS, AND ARE READING EVERY NIGHT.)
I'm presently wolfing my way through Terry Pratchett's excellent book I Shall Wear Midnight (Pratchett is hands down one of my all-time favourite writers) and I also just finished reading Derek Landy's fourth Skullduggery Pleasant book, Skullduggery Pleasant: Dark Days. I'm going to tell you a little bit about the Skullduggery Pleasant book just here (although another time I really must tell you why I think Pratchett is one of the very greatest living writers working in English).
A little background on the ideas behind the books: the stories are set in Ireland, and they are about a dark, strange and magical world which exists alongside our own. The main characters are Skullduggery Pleasant (a powerful wizard detective who came back from the dead and is now an animated skeleton) and his partner, trainee wizard Valkyrie Cain.
Landy continues to impress me with his storytelling skills: his books are funny and accessible, but he's also great at writing action and at building up tension and creepiness. What's more, his characters grow and change as they get older - Valkyrie Cain is gradually turning from a kid into a young adult as the books progress, and although she's getting better at fighting and at using magic, she's also getting in deeper and darker trouble. I've been gnawing my fingernails to the quick throughout the past couple of books wondering what creepy thing is going to happen with her reflection - Landy's been leaving little hints that there's something weird going on that we don't know about, but it's still not come to a head.
This book starts off with Skullduggery trapped in a hellish dimension where he's being tortured by The Faceless Ones (at the end of the last book he managed to trap them and save our world, but unfortunately he got trapped along with them). Valkyrie has been working frantically for months trying to figure out a way to set him free, and in the process she's been working with the necromancers, learning about a newer, darker kind of magic. She's also been hanging out with the teleporter, Fletcher, and with some of the other characters we know from the earlier books. They all want to get Skullduggery back. Unfortunately the magical law enforcement agency known as The Sanctuary is pretty glad to be rid of Skullduggery, and they're trying to make sure he never comes back.
Things I really liked about this book: I love Valkyrie Cain. Well, I love Skullduggery too, and most of all I love Skullduggery-and-Valkyrie together as a team, but let's spend a moment on why I love Valkyrie. First: she's sensible. Well, okay, maybe not SUPER sensible; I suppose that if she were very sensible, she probably wouldn't have jumped into the magical world with both feet in the first place, let alone decided to start learning necromancy or messing around fighting against all manner of ancient evil, or provoking various assassins and known criminals into acts of violence. So - perhaps not sensible, as such. But she's very practical. Valkyrie rolls up her sleeves and gets the job done, whatever it takes; she's brave, she's resourceful, she's undaunted, and she's very difficult to impress. She doesn't waste time sitting around feeling sorry for herself, or waiting for somebody else to save her. I like that.
Skullduggery is a marvellous character. He's reckless, seriously dangerous, clever, powerful, and pretty unflappable. He's not always honest or nice, but he's generally right and generally righteous, and you really REALLY don't want to have him as your enemy. He's got a warped sense of humour (which Valkyrie shares) and he's remarkably good at bluffing, and at acts of serious mayhem. He's a very good detective.
I love the relationship between Skullduggery and Valkyrie. It's the kind of relationship that I could just eat up with a spoon: not a romance, but an intense, supportive, wisecracking, BFF, buddy-buddy kind of vibe, where they spend almost every waking minute together, get one another's jokes, know one another's habits and always ALWAYS have one another's backs. They're partners, and although they are both pretty impressive alone, they work best together.
Landy's world is packed with interesting and entertaining characters, both friends and enemies of Skullduggery Pleasant. It's also packed with wizards and monsters and vampires and zombies and general weirdness, and people do sometimes get hurt or killed, and friends are sometimes enemies, and enemies sometimes friends. It's never dull.
(I should probably admit that there IS a minor romanticish subplot in this book and in the previous one; Valkyrie is becoming a young woman, and she's awesome, and although she's mostly very busy kicking zombies in the head and twisting shadows into blades and trying to save the day, she DOES have hormones, and isn't completely oblivious to the fact that one of her companions is a cute young guy with too much hair product. So there's a bit of a frisson of romantic tension in the background, but if that's not your cup of tea you can ignore it most of the time and focus on the wizard assassins, the evil spirits, the argumentative zombies and the reassembled bombs instead...)
(I TRUST AND ASSUME THAT YOU ARE CONTINUING TO USE THE LIBRARY ON A WEEKLY BASIS, AND ARE READING EVERY NIGHT.)
I'm presently wolfing my way through Terry Pratchett's excellent book I Shall Wear Midnight (Pratchett is hands down one of my all-time favourite writers) and I also just finished reading Derek Landy's fourth Skullduggery Pleasant book, Skullduggery Pleasant: Dark Days. I'm going to tell you a little bit about the Skullduggery Pleasant book just here (although another time I really must tell you why I think Pratchett is one of the very greatest living writers working in English).
A little background on the ideas behind the books: the stories are set in Ireland, and they are about a dark, strange and magical world which exists alongside our own. The main characters are Skullduggery Pleasant (a powerful wizard detective who came back from the dead and is now an animated skeleton) and his partner, trainee wizard Valkyrie Cain.
Landy continues to impress me with his storytelling skills: his books are funny and accessible, but he's also great at writing action and at building up tension and creepiness. What's more, his characters grow and change as they get older - Valkyrie Cain is gradually turning from a kid into a young adult as the books progress, and although she's getting better at fighting and at using magic, she's also getting in deeper and darker trouble. I've been gnawing my fingernails to the quick throughout the past couple of books wondering what creepy thing is going to happen with her reflection - Landy's been leaving little hints that there's something weird going on that we don't know about, but it's still not come to a head.
This book starts off with Skullduggery trapped in a hellish dimension where he's being tortured by The Faceless Ones (at the end of the last book he managed to trap them and save our world, but unfortunately he got trapped along with them). Valkyrie has been working frantically for months trying to figure out a way to set him free, and in the process she's been working with the necromancers, learning about a newer, darker kind of magic. She's also been hanging out with the teleporter, Fletcher, and with some of the other characters we know from the earlier books. They all want to get Skullduggery back. Unfortunately the magical law enforcement agency known as The Sanctuary is pretty glad to be rid of Skullduggery, and they're trying to make sure he never comes back.
Things I really liked about this book: I love Valkyrie Cain. Well, I love Skullduggery too, and most of all I love Skullduggery-and-Valkyrie together as a team, but let's spend a moment on why I love Valkyrie. First: she's sensible. Well, okay, maybe not SUPER sensible; I suppose that if she were very sensible, she probably wouldn't have jumped into the magical world with both feet in the first place, let alone decided to start learning necromancy or messing around fighting against all manner of ancient evil, or provoking various assassins and known criminals into acts of violence. So - perhaps not sensible, as such. But she's very practical. Valkyrie rolls up her sleeves and gets the job done, whatever it takes; she's brave, she's resourceful, she's undaunted, and she's very difficult to impress. She doesn't waste time sitting around feeling sorry for herself, or waiting for somebody else to save her. I like that.
Skullduggery is a marvellous character. He's reckless, seriously dangerous, clever, powerful, and pretty unflappable. He's not always honest or nice, but he's generally right and generally righteous, and you really REALLY don't want to have him as your enemy. He's got a warped sense of humour (which Valkyrie shares) and he's remarkably good at bluffing, and at acts of serious mayhem. He's a very good detective.
I love the relationship between Skullduggery and Valkyrie. It's the kind of relationship that I could just eat up with a spoon: not a romance, but an intense, supportive, wisecracking, BFF, buddy-buddy kind of vibe, where they spend almost every waking minute together, get one another's jokes, know one another's habits and always ALWAYS have one another's backs. They're partners, and although they are both pretty impressive alone, they work best together.
Landy's world is packed with interesting and entertaining characters, both friends and enemies of Skullduggery Pleasant. It's also packed with wizards and monsters and vampires and zombies and general weirdness, and people do sometimes get hurt or killed, and friends are sometimes enemies, and enemies sometimes friends. It's never dull.
(I should probably admit that there IS a minor romanticish subplot in this book and in the previous one; Valkyrie is becoming a young woman, and she's awesome, and although she's mostly very busy kicking zombies in the head and twisting shadows into blades and trying to save the day, she DOES have hormones, and isn't completely oblivious to the fact that one of her companions is a cute young guy with too much hair product. So there's a bit of a frisson of romantic tension in the background, but if that's not your cup of tea you can ignore it most of the time and focus on the wizard assassins, the evil spirits, the argumentative zombies and the reassembled bombs instead...)
Monday, November 29, 2010
Homework: Reading comprehension
Read this article, and answer the questions IN FULL SENTENCES. (Not all the answers are directly spoon-fed to you by the text, but there are clues in the text which will enable you to answer all the questions if you think carefully.) Remember to use quotations from the text to demonstrate how you know the answers: P.E.E.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/oct/16/experience-shark-attack-paralympian?intcmp=239
1) What country was Achmat in when he lost his leg?
2) How old is Achmat now, and how old was he when he was attacked by the shark?
3) What was Achmat doing when he was attacked?
4) Describe the shark which attacked Achmat.
5) How did Achmat get free?
6) How did he feel after he had been rescued, and when he realised he had lost his leg?
7) What success has he achieved since his attack?
8) Who inspired him to set his sights high and not to lose hope?
9) Based on his name and that of his brother, what religion do you think Achmat is likely to belong to?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/oct/16/experience-shark-attack-paralympian?intcmp=239
1) What country was Achmat in when he lost his leg?
2) How old is Achmat now, and how old was he when he was attacked by the shark?
3) What was Achmat doing when he was attacked?
4) Describe the shark which attacked Achmat.
5) How did Achmat get free?
6) How did he feel after he had been rescued, and when he realised he had lost his leg?
7) What success has he achieved since his attack?
8) Who inspired him to set his sights high and not to lose hope?
9) Based on his name and that of his brother, what religion do you think Achmat is likely to belong to?
Monday, November 22, 2010
Homework for Monday 22nd November 2010
Please find out the following information for Wednesday:
'Animal Farm' is a fable consciously based on the Russian Revolution. Can you find out about the following list of people and institutions and identify which characters are supposed to represent them AND WHY:
Tsar Nicholas II (The Emperor of Russia)
Karl Marx
The Church
Trotsky
Stalin
The uneducated, unskilled working class (or "proletariat")
'Pravda', the offical Russian Propaganda newspaper after the revolution
The members of the Communist Party
The KGB and/or Stalin's personal bodyguards.
'Animal Farm' is a fable consciously based on the Russian Revolution. Can you find out about the following list of people and institutions and identify which characters are supposed to represent them AND WHY:
Tsar Nicholas II (The Emperor of Russia)
Karl Marx
The Church
Trotsky
Stalin
The uneducated, unskilled working class (or "proletariat")
'Pravda', the offical Russian Propaganda newspaper after the revolution
The members of the Communist Party
The KGB and/or Stalin's personal bodyguards.
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