Red Space Rocket

Bill Bryson’s Australia by verseguru

This week in year nine history I read a quotation from Bill Bryson’s book Down Under which is called In a Sunburnt Country outside Australia.

While I like this book a lot his favourite book of mine is his first which is called The Lost Continent. It was which was published in 1989. Although it has been years since I read this book I highly recommend it. It is a very funny and easy to read account of his travels back through the small town he remembers going through on holidays as a child. Not only have many years passed but in between he lived in the UK for many years and so he saw America though his childhood American eyes and British eyes as well.

You can read a bit more about him and his books here.

The Art of Saying Hello… 1 & 2 by Thomas Rockstar

A quick hello to the staff and students at my new school.

With any luck at all I might have something either substantial or sensible to say soon.

In Dreams by Pensiero

I have just finished Melina Marcetta’s Saving Francesca, a book for Year 10 English, and I enjoyed much more than I thought I would.

I’ll talk more about the book later but for now I just wanted to mention some valuable links both about the book and the author.

The Teacher’s Guide – covers the story, the style of writing and the themes.

A Reflection on Saving Francesca by Judith Ridge

Sydney Morning Herald interview with Melina Marchetta.

The Age interview with Melina Marchetta.

HSC English is tough and smarter, not dumb and dumber – opinion piece by Melina Marchetta.

Literature Map – Melina Marchetta – what do her readers also like to read?

Wikipedia – Melina Marchetta

science by S. Lo

Another podcast I have just subscribed to is 60 Second Science from the Scientific American Magazine.

They have another weekly podcast which I like which goes for half an hour. It’s a good show but there are times when people talking science for thirty minutes is more than I can take.

The 60 second show, as you might imagine, only goes for a minute so I like it for a quick hit of interesting information about science and the world.

INTERJECTIONS close-up. by spinooti

I added links to a couple of podcasts yesterday. One of them was Grammar Girl which I thought might be interesting to listen to since I am teaching English this year.

Each episode seems to go for about five minutes and answers common questions about grammar.

I did think it might be the sort of thing that might be really boring but so far I have found them entertaining and interesting. Perhaps this is scary but I also learn things.

Dover Western Heights by www.doverpast.co.uk

I found out the other day that I will start at Western Heights College in Geelong next week most likely teaching English and SOSE.

I don’t know exactly which classes levels and subjects I have yet but I have heard good things about the interesting things they do at this school. In particular they run a transition program for years seven and eight called the Pod Program that seem like it would be both really useful for students and a bit of fun.

Melbourne Zoo 068a by craigster_jd

I am a big fan of the zoo. There is something quite different about seeing animals in person which I like.

Another thing I like is that the Melbourne Zoo provides fact sheets about heaps of animals from Asian Elephants to Zebras.

Our Teachers by PhylG

When I look around I see plenty of blogs written by teachers about their teaching. I see plenty of teachers and others writing about educational theory. And I even see a few that function as a newsletter for interested parents.

But I don’t see many like this that are for a teacher to share information with students. Heaps of people are obviously doing this but I’m struggling a bit to find them.

Mainly I’d like to see what other people are doing well so I can do that too.

Anyhow if anyone knows of some good teacher blogs for students I’d love you to leave a comment with a link.