Red Space Rocket

This week, we will devote most of our time to watching The Help again. This time, you will have two pieces of paper with you, one each for each of your creative writing tasks. Rather than just enjoy this film, we are watching it as research so that you can collect information to put into your pieces.

We will be sharing this viewing with Mrs Tyzack’s class, so things might be a little crowded.

You will be finishing off your creative tasks next week, and starting work on your oral presentations. If you have time, I’ll be discussing with you an approach to make an effective presentation.

Black and white warbler (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This week you’ll have time to finish off your two creative responses to The Help. Mrs Veal and I will both we around to help you as needed. Also, I suspect that some of you need to finish off your essays about An Arrangement in Black and White, but that is something that we’ll follow up with your individually.

We were talking today about how we can do research just by asking ourself questions about what you already know.

Here are the things that we already knew about the structure of a personal letter.

Written in paragraphs

Addressed to a person: dear X,

Contains personal details and feelings

Can use casual language

Is signed off at the end

Date

Address of the person it is to, and sometimes the person it is from.

Uses first-person words

Uses second-person words

Can contain questions

Once you establish what you already know, you can focus your research on finding out other things.

Thursday (Photo credit: bob8son)

We have a fair bit on this week, Year 10s.

Firstly, on Monday. We’ll finished watching the film so that you can collect information for your creative responses.

On Thursday morning, I won’t be there because I will be on a camp, and Ms Veal will be away, also. However, you have plenty of work to do.

Here are the things you need to do on Thursday morning.

1. Edit your success criteria electronically for your first task.
2. Use the computers to create research questions for your creative pieces. Enter the questions and  answers into the Word document in that folder you just copied.
3. If you have time, complete the draft of your first creative response.

Ms Veal and I will be back on Friday, and we’ll be checking on this first drafts to make sure that you characters are making progress on this.

1839 essay by James Chalmers (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

You will have one-hundred minutes on the computers today. You’ll need to work quickly, because we have a lot to get through.

1. Retrieve your essay from my resources folder on the W drive.
2. Read my feedback and complete your essay
3. Save your finished essay to your own directory
4. Copy your finished essay into my dropbox on the W drive.
5. Complete this form, so I have a record of what you are looking at.
6. Copy the folder called “Help Response” from W:\Resources\OMEAM\Year 10 English\The Help and into your own drive.
7. Edit your success criteria electronically for your first task.
8. Use the computers to find information for the research questions you wrote on Monday. Enter the answers into the Word document in that folder you just copied.
9. If you have time, start the draft of your first creative response.

"TUESDAY" production sign (Photo credit: Vaguely Artistic)

Since we have only limited access to the computers and internet, we will do some of our preparation for our assignments in the regular classroom today, before you hit the computers on Tuesday.

So, after our regular vocabulary builder and writing, you will get into groups to work out the success criteria and research questions for your creative responses to The Help. I’ll bring paper templates for you to use, and you can quickly type these up on Tuesday.

Let’s do our vocabulary builder and 15-minute writing on the computers today.

I have prepared some document templates for you to use in for your responses to The Help.

You can find them on the W drive.
W:\Resources\OMEAM\Year 10 English\The Help

Copy the whole folder into your own school drive, and then change the file names so that it says your actual name, rather than “My name”.

The first thing we will do today is set up our success criteria and our research goals.

Help Shellified LP 01 (Photo credit: Pineapples101)

Our main work this week will be responding to the film text The Help.

Some of you still have to complete your essay in response to An Arrangement in Black and White. Once that is complete and given to me, you will start work on your choice of creative responses to this film.

If you can’t make it to class, or have perhaps lost the paper copy, here are you choices for The Help Responses.

I am reading your essays, Year 10s, and a few of you struggles with the introduction and conclusion on Tuesday. Here are their basic structures.

Introduction

• Opening quotation from the text that relates to the topic.
• Restate the question, showing your answer.
• Introduce the text, with name of the author and name of the story.
• Define the key terms. In this case, the key term is “racist”.
• Mention your three main points. These are the points from your topic sentence

Conclusion

• Restate the question, showing your answer.
• Mention your three main points. These are the points from your topic sentence
• Coda – leave the reader with a couple of sentences of your thoughts about the issue discussed.

You can read more here.

While I am away, Year 10 students, I need you to complete the essay in response to the story An Arrangement in Black and White.

Most of you should have comprehensive notes and quotations in your books to work from. This task needs to be finished by lunchtime this Tuesday and put into my dropbox on the W drive.

There are some resources that might be useful to you.

Guide to writing an expository essay – Part C

W:\Resources\OMEAM\English Students Almanac

Copy of the story, An Arrangement in Black and White

W:\Resources\OMEAM\Year 10 English\10D Arrangement in Black and White Essays

Three of you are not ready to do this essay: Steph, Luke and Kieko.

I would like you complete these questions in full, valid sentences. Please put your answers in a Word document and put in my dropbox at the end of the sessions.

1. What are the name of the characters in this story? Include those characters who are mentioned also.

2. Find three examples of the woman using unpleasant language about coloured people, either specific people or in general.

3. Find three examples of the woman saying positive things about coloured people, either specific people or in general.

4.  Look closely at what the host says in this story. Do you think he or she agrees with the woman about coloured people? Support your answer with examples and explanation.

5.  Does Walter Williams behave well or badly in this story. Support your answer with examples and explanation.

Remember, all your answers should be in complete sentences, and your work should be copied across to my dropbox by lunchtime tomorrow.

Last week, we learned about how to correctly punctuate speech. I have marked the work in your red books, and most of you still have some room to improve on this topic.

You can review this material first if you like.

Direct speech is when you report the exact words someone said.
“Great,” said Spot.

Indirect speech is when you just report the meaning.
Spot said that he was pleased.

When the reported words are followed by the speech verb, a full stop at the end becomes a comma.
“Great,” said Spot.
“Great.” said Spot. [wrong]
This is only for full-stops. An exclamation mark, a question mark, an ellipsis or a dash are all unchanged.

Then, please complete this test. It should take you around half an hour.

Here is what we did today.

Goals
Expand vocabulary
Respond to a complex text
Write an expository essay
Vocab Builder
The uncouth umpire took umbrage at the unkempt spectator.

Uncouth
Clumsy
Awkward
Boorish
Unmannerly
Idiotic
Crass
Bore (dull), boar (pig), boor (uncouth)

Umbrage
Taken offence
Touchy
Sensitive
Reactionary
Twitchy

Unkempt
Untidy
Neglected
Careless
Scruffy

Completely agree
The woman in the story sees all blacks as the same, showing us that she is being racist
She is racist because she is negative about black people behind their backs
The woman in the story thinks that black people are inferior so she is being racist

Mostly agree
The woman in the story sees all blacks as the same, showing us that she is being racist
She is nice to Walter Williams in person, so she is not completely racist
The woman in the story thinks that black people are inferior so she is being racist

Completely agree
The woman in the story sees all blacks as the same, showing us that she is being racist
She is racist because she is negative about black people behind their backs
The woman in the story thinks that black people are inferior so she is being racist

Mostly agree
The woman in the story sees all blacks as the same, showing us that she is being racist
She is nice to Walter Williams in person, so she is not completely racist
The woman in the story thinks that black people are inferior so she is being racist

Hello, Year 10 students.

First of all, after my three weeks away from our classes at the end of last term, it is nice to be back to working with you. I am sorry to have missed most of the trials based on Runner, but I have read your essays and, for the most part, they are very good.
Now we are moving on to fresh material. This week, we started on a story called An Arrangement in Black and White, which was written by the American write Dorothy Parker in the 1920, a time when America was deeply divided by race.
Here is a summary of what happened, from the website of the New Yorker, where this story was published in 1927.

Woman asks host to present her to Walter Williams, negro singer saying, “I don’t see why on earth it isn’t perfectly all right to meet colored people. I haven’t any feeling at all about it”. She has a colored laundress whom she thinks of as a friend. She would like Walter Williams to come to her house to sing, but she couldn’t ask him because of Burton- but she wouldn’t have any feeling in the matter. Wants to know if she should shake hands with him. Then she is introduced She is very condescending in her remarks, but tells him How well he does, she’s enjoyed his singing so much, where does he get his songs, etc

As you know, we have read this story twice, and are now going through it looking for examples of three ideas that relate to racism. We came up with three things that make behaviour racist.

• The first is treating people badly.
• The second is regarding people as being inferior.
• And the third is believing that every one of the same race is the same in all respect, or stereotyping by race.

Once we have evidence that relates to these three ideas, we will plan and write an essay that answers the following question: Is the woman in An Arrangement in Black and White being racist in this story?

Once we have finished this response, which should be late in the week, we will start work on our film text, a 2010 film called The Help.