Based on our discussion of previous exam questions today, we identified the following concepts that we think are probably key to understanding Maestro.
We will start reading the text in class this week.
The Mark of a Master (Photo credit: Robert Burdock)
Now that we’ve met and understand where we are going, it’s time to get into the course itself and our learning.
Our first objecting is our Reading and Responding outcomes, and we’ll be looking at these essay topics about Maestro to identify the major themes and issues in this text. These questions have been harvested from previous exams and study resources.
Our red-book writing topics will focus on these issues and themes, and help you write clearly about this ideas. This week, they will be
I read and give you feedback about each red-book piece. You will identify personal learning goals from this feedback and focus on that until you have mastered it. I will, of course, help.
We will also be reading the novel Maestro in class. For this of you who have read this book already – and I hope that is most of the class – this is an opportunity for you to identify incidents and quotations that relate to our major themes, the themes we identify by looking at the essay topics.
(Photo credit: TheAlieness GiselaGiardino²³)”]![110 Borges [warholized]](http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2597/3855234397_ba8cc1f571_m.jpg "110 Borges [warholized]")
Our class this Monday will be our first together, and we’ll go through the fairly basic stuff about what is in this course, and what we should expect from each other this year.
Our first objecting is our Reading and Responding outcomes, and we’ll be looking at these essay topics about Maestro to identify the major themes and issues in this text. These questions have been harvested from previous exams and study resources.
Our red-book writing topics will focus on these issues and themes, and help you write clearly about this ideas. This week, they will be
I read and give you feedback about each red-book piece. You will identify personal learning goals from this feedback and focus on that until you have mastered it. I will, of course, help.
We will also be reading the novel Maestro in class. For this of you who have read this book already – and I hope that is most of the class – this is an opportunity for you to identify incidents and quotations that relate to our major themes, the themes we identify by looking at the essay topics.
Image via Wikipedia
I have two Year 10 English classes. If you are wondering which one you are in, this class here – English D – is the one that works in Q12, although we started of in that very bright, airless room, Q11.
This week, we have a number of learning goals in common
On Tuesday, you will choose a learning goals for yourself, from the issues I will have marked in your red book. These goals on the issues in the first piece, which you will write on Monday. Once you’ve mastered each new skill, you will choose another one or two.
On Monday and Tuesday, we will complete a vocabulary builder exercise. As I am getting you to choose the words, I will post the sentences here as we create them.
We will also be doing our red-book writing on Monday and Tuesday. Both pieces will be designed to persuade and we’ll be concentrating on using paragraphs to enhance meaning. I post more about the paragraphs when we get there.
So, here are the two red-book topics.
We will also learning to identify and create the four sentence types. We’ll start with the simple sentence, and move onto the complex sentence.
The simple, valid sentence
The complex sentence
You will create a short story that uses only simple and complex sentences, alternating. This sounds like a very formal exercise, but it is a good way to become mindful of how we use particular sentence types.
Thursday (Photo credit: bob8son)
I have two Year 10 English classes. If you are wondering which one you are in, this class here – English G – is the one that works in Q02.
This week, we have a number of learning goals in common
In addition, you will choose a learning goals for yourself, from the issues I have marked in your red book. These goals are based on your first piece. Once you’ve mastered each new skills, you will choose another one or two.
On Monday and Thursday, we will complete a vocabulary builder exercise. As I am getting you to choose the words, I will post the sentences here as we create them.
We will also be doing our red-book writing on Monday and Thursday. Both pieces will be stories designed to persuade and we’ll be concentrating on using paragraphs to enhance meaning. I post more about the paragraphs when we get there.
So, here are the two red-book topics.
We will also learning to identify and create the four sentence types. We’ll start with the simple sentence, and move onto the complex sentence.
The simple, valid sentence
The complex sentence
You will create a short story that uses only simple and complex sentences, alternating. This sounds like a very formal exercise, but it is a good way to become mindful of how we use particular sentence types.
Image via Wikipedia
Goals
Write persuasively
Expand vocabulary
Vocabulary Builder Sentence
The courtesan was liable for the degraded customer
You guys came up with the underlined words, so we did end up with a slightly odd sentence. Your completed sentences, with new words in place of these underlined words, were accurate but sometimes a bit clunky. We’ll work on flow and these will improve.
Persuasive Writing
Then, you wrote for 12 minutes in response to a topic: Students should be allowed to choose their teachers.
Most of you included some really sensible idea and examples. I have identified some areas that each of you can improve on, and we’ll get to that work next week.
Until then, have a good weekend.
Image via Wikipedia
Well, Year 11s, here we are at the end of our time together. I hope that you’ve enjoyed the journey. I am confident that most of you have come a long way with your skills this year, and it has been an absolute please for me to work with you characters, and most of you are real characters.
I’ll have your exams marked by Wednesday, so you can see me on Thursday or Friday if you want to know about your marks.
Image via Wikipedia
Well, Year 11s, I’ve been saying for a while now that we were running out of time and, here he have it, we are actually out of time.
On Monday, while I am away being a student myself, you will complete the language-analysis task in the 100 minutes before recess. You can bring a dictionary, but otherwise this task is closed book. You will have three texts to analyse for persuasive language. Remember, you are not being asked to say who is right or wrong about the issue. You are being asked to explain how the writers used words and images to convince you of their contention.
On Thursday, we should have 100 minutes or do some lightning revision before the English exam, but there is an assembly planned so we might have half that time. Although we’ll have very little time, I’ll try to remind of some of the key things are Macbeth, Generals Die in Bed, and the context texts: Scission, Little Miss Sunshine, and Montana 1948.
Then, on Friday, you will have the English exam first thing in the morning. You will have three hours to write three essays: a text response (about Macbeth or Generals), a context response about family, and a language analysis essay in response to one article. I expect that you’ll find this exam a hard slog but, if you stay on track and keep going, you’ll do just fine.
Any questions?
Year 12s,
I will be in Q10 tomorrow for our regularly scheduled class, but I won’t be there until 9.30. Feel free to come and and share your practice essays with me.
Image by csullens via Flickr
In the recipe in the almanac, I recommend that you open with a global statement about the topic, in this case identity and belonging.
Bree asked if I could give some examples, so here goes.
Topic: The most noble course can be to do what your community expects.
In Monty Python’s iconic film The Life of Brian, the title character instructs his many followers that they must all be individuals. As a crowd, they chant back in unison, “Yes, we’re all individuals!” This scene is openly mocking the tension in the twentieth century where we act and identify ourselves as individuals, while at the same time we avidly consume the same products and believe the same things. Literature of the last fifty or sixty years is rich with examples of both sides of this debate. On one side we have the outcasts and rebels of Westerns and war movies who decide to abandon their lawless ways for the good of the community. On the other hand we have counter-culture rebels, with and without causes, who implore us to shake off the restrictions of community life in order to be who we really are, to be an genuine individual. Navigating a noble course between these competing ideas can be tricky at the best of times.
And here’s another.
Topic: We are only truly ourselves in our place of birth.
In the classic story The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy is transported to a distant and magical land where she is transformed from being a victim of circumstances into being a plucky heroine complete with a band of loyal companions. Despite all that she learns and achieves in Oz, her famous line of yearning is simple, “There’s no place like home.” For all that we can travel the globe and reinvent ourselves, there are parts of our identity and sense of ourselves that will always be tied back to the place, and the community, that we were born into. From our earliest days, we learn about the geography and customs of our birthplace. And these characteristics play a crucial part in forming our identities, in making us the people that we are, no matter how far away we travel.
Now, neither of these are perfect, but they should give you an idea of how you can start with a statement that lays out the basics of your understanding of identity and belonging in relation to the prompt.
Identity and Belonging: The most noble course can be to do what your community expects.
Cosi: Cosi is a harmless fantasy that allows us to feel good about those who struggle with mental illness.
Maestro: “Maestro is only a story about talented men who struggle to adapt.” Do you agree?
Language Analysis: how does the writer used language to persuade in this article?
As always, you can send me your work.
Image via Wikipedia
On Monday morning, we will building up a map of family relationships from Montana 1948 and Little Miss Sunshine. We’ll then flesh the map out with examples, written in whole and fluent sentences, just like the ones that you will be writing in your essays on Thursday.
On Thursdays, you guessed it, you’ll have 100 minutes, all closed-book, to write a context essay about family.
On Friday, we’ll jump back into language analysis, our final topic for the year. All things goes well, we’ll watch some of the polemic An Inconvenient Truth, and we’ll spot and explain the many techniques used to persuade in this film.
Identity and Belonging: We are only truly ourselves in our place of birth.
Cosi: The real heroes of the play Cosi are the inmates in the asylum.
Maestro: How is music used to construct meaning in Maestro?
Language analysis: How does the writer use language to persuade the reader?
Article
As always, you can send me your work, and I will send you feedback.
