More 'Goodnight Mr. Tom' resources

I am having trouble with the new blogger format at present and so have loaded up the Sliderocket multi-media presentation for GMT on my wikispace-clunky compared to a website but at least you can view it from there until the current blogger problems are remedied. 


www.stannersenglishmatters.wikispaces.com 

What I like about Sliderocket is that it is a user friendly way to embed video and audio into ppt without having to fiddle with all the codes and so on. It is costly to some of the freeware that is available but it provides a large online repository of presentations in case of computer meltdown.
There is simply so much that is available to teach this text. Hope you find this presentation useful and while on the wikispace site, check out some of the primary evidence resources also available.
Will hopefully get some of the glitches fixed up with this blogsite-please bear with me. 


Today's English web tools and sites


Poetica: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/poetica/default.htm Poetry Podcasts from the ABC.


Coloribus: Advertising Archive: http://www.coloribus.com/adsarchive/?from_tracker Get the creative buzz with Coloribus - the world's biggest ad archive. More Than 2,000,000 Print and Outdoor Ads, TV and Viral Commercials and Global Winners Showcase.

Electronic Books and Online Reading: http://eduscapes.com/tap/topic93.htm#1 Explore online reading including interactive stories, articles, and books. Involve readers in writing stories including adding to stories, writing new endings, creating illustrations, and facilitating discussions.

To Autumn

This short clip captures the visual and auditory richness of the Ode by Keats that makes us reflect on nature's bounty. Each time I teach or prepare resources for the English Romantic poets, especially Keats, I am encouraged to contemplate the power of nature to restore and rejuvenate the spirit. 
Being busy in the garden in preparation for the onset of winter, autumn is by far my favourite season - without the extremes of high summer or deep winter. There are many texts that extol the virtues of the seasons but this poem has retained its ability to make the reader envisage the scene and imagine themselves within it.
For those who might be preparing work on Keats, there are some excellent websites, podcasts and wikispaces available including the following:


http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/cs6/keats.html

And by far, the best site I have found for studying Keats -

http://www.keatsian.co.uk/revision_notes_autumn.htm

Hope you enjoy perusing what is available. If you find something really wonderful, send an email and we can share it with everyone. 

Anzac Day Break

Took a day out yesterday to reflect on what is really important in life. Anzac Day signals a real sense of community for Australians and New Zealanders here and around the world. War is not celebrated but commemorated, and while nationalism is politicised, so too are the virtues that remain universal such as resilience, fortitude and honour. More and more visitors go to Gallipoli and Kokoda each year, demonstrating a need for connection to the past in a time of growing secularism and social uncertainty. While many point out that Anzac Day has been actively promoted by recent governments as a way of enhancing patriotism, it cannot be ignored that such a day has a positive unifying impact. It is also a fine way to acknowledge the work and contributions made by older citizens and to remind children and adolescents that the best things in life should need literally and metaphorically, to be fought for by others. School celebrations help emphasise what makes it an important day to remember.

War texts often feature in both junior and senior curriculum but they typically are those that hold moral messages about the personal and social costs involved. Poetry by Owen, Sassoon and Dawe are familiar but there are contemporary poets that address recurring themes of sacrifice, courage and suffering within a modern war context.

http://www.warpoetry.co.uk/2011warpoetry.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturenews/8455677/Modern-war-poetry-British-soldiers-explore-Afghanistan-and-Iraq-wars-in-verse.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/jul/25/war-poetry-carol-ann-duffy

Mark Twain had scathing words for war and his famous 'War Prayer' is a powerfully condemnatory attack of what can result. It is a brilliant text to do with senior students in relation to examining how he uses language.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJsZCpp8hR4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsoJ-WJZGXM

Man is the only animal that deals in that atrocity of atrocities, War. He is the only one that gathers his brethren about him and goes forth in cold blood and calm pulse to exterminate his kind. He is the only animal that for sordid wages will march out and help to slaughter strangers of his own species who have done him no harm and with whom he has no quarrel . . . And in the intervals between campaigns he washes the blood off his hands and works for "the universal brotherhood of man" - with his mouth.
Mark Twain

V for Vendetta Resources

Love this film and students respond to it well as a dystopic text. It also works extremely well as a companion text to '1984'. I have added some resources on my other site which has more options for loading material.
www.stannersenglishresources.weebly.com

Great sites and web tools

Stumbled across this image while working on 'Northanger Abbey' and thought it would be useful for todays blog about some excellent Austen sites as well as some more useful classroom web tools. Austen is so addictive - reading, image surfing and film adaptations. There are so many blogs dedicated to the fashions of the era as well and and after yet another viewing of 'Sense and Sensibility' I think I agree with the sentiments expressed in the image. Men certainly do look better in cravats.

http://old-fashionedcharm.blogspot.com.au/2011/02/shakespeare-week.html   

http://janeaustensworld.wordpress.com/links/

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/index.html 

(for watching shows online)      

Some other ICT tools  useful for the classroom include the following:

One Word. So Little Time.: http://oneword.com/index.html

Interesting site! Useful for writing exercises. "simple. you'll see one word at the top of the following page. you have sixty seconds to write about it. as soon as you click 'go' the page will load with the cursor in place. don't think. just write."
Telescopic Text: http://telescopictext.com/

Very clever website that is useful when teaching about good creative writing and expression.

http://english.byu.edu/novelinks/Index%20of%20strategies.htm

Great site with a mass of novel reading strategies and literary units.

Another tool that I found on an American homeschooling site is how to have any written text transformed into audio. For a MP3 clip I think you have to pay but it is great for rhetoric exercises as it offers English and American accents as well as male and female so that you could compare how something is read and what the impact is on meaning. Hope you find these gems useful.

http://www.naturalreaders.com/bbcshow.html

Goodnight Mr Tom movie trailer

If you go to my other blogsite on my weebly page, I have posted a movie trailer for this novel that a teacher or student has uploaded to YouTube. It is a good exercise to set for any close study of text and it is quite amazing what digital skills actually have for this sort of thing. Moviemaker or Photostory3 are easy to use or you can get more upmarket and use something like Sliderocket.
www.stannersenglishresources.weebly.com (blog page)

More English webtools:

video annotation
http://blipsnips.com/

wall poster creator from any size image
http://www.blockposters.com/

Cool timer – downloadable stop watch
http://fur.ly/197z

Had better get back to school and workshop preparation for Term II and while I like doing the resources but it still takes a long time.

Barbara

'Goodnight Mr. Tom' Link to my other blogsite

Blogger is too cumbersome to upload richer texts and so I prefer to use my weebly website for things such as powerpoints and document files.
I have uploaded a PDF version of a powerpoint that gives an historical overview of the novel's context.

www.stannersenglishresources.weebly.com

Hope teachers using 'Goodnight Mr. Tom' find it useful.
Barbara

Goodnight Mr Tom and Blogsite Nomination

Many have requested a reposting of some of the resources that I made available back in 2010 on my wikispace. I will load these up for a short time, over the next few blogs.

I have also been nominated for a blogsite competition outlined below.

"The Fascination Awards are an annual collection of the web’s most inspirational and thought-provoking blogs and are nominated by our editorial team and voted on by our readers.We know that all blogs are not created equal, so we want to recognize websites that go above and beyond, providing truly engaging content for their visitors. Bloggers can nominate their favourites". \

Goodnight Mr Tom

This novel remains a universal favourite, used in both Primary and Secondary Schools. Many resources are available but they tend to be suitable for Primary school age students. There is much less available for teenage students and yet it works very well for that age group as well.

I have used it for a conceptual unit entitled 'Changing Worlds' where the focus is on how individuals adapt and cope when the world they were familiar with undergoes massive transformation. The text enables the study of real events that can inform understanding of the complexity of human relationships. The characterisation and themes are accessible and validated by the wealth of historical resources that are available to bring that period to life.

Brilliant documentaries and archival footage and images exist along with eye-witness accounts. Study can involve webquests, podcasts, visual literacy and the evaluation of other non-fiction, primary evidence texts.

Contextual Significance Webquest:

www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/

www.1940.co.uk

www.stannersenglishresources.weebly.com

\

Barbara

More on Typography

Typography courses look complicated and so I have cheated and just googled what typography clips are already available online for subjects such as poetry in general or set poets. Students have also posted famous speeches from films such as 'V for Vendetta' or '2001 Space Odyssy' or 'Blade Runner' or rhetoricians like Winston Churchill or King. It really helps students to focus on the words, phraseology and intonation involved and for this reason is particularly useful with poetry.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJ0RjBthqhY&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IW0x7n6-eCw&feature=related

It is an easy way to spend hours looking for video clips but sometimes you can come up with some gems such as this one which works well for the HSC 'distinctive voice' module elective as a trigger for establishing the focus for examining the power of voice within text.

http://vimeo.com/3829682

Hope you enjoy these and start hunting for your own. You could also make it a class project, put students in groups to look for suitable clips for poetry, drama, famous speeches or whatever. You can then have discussion as to which ones are the best and why. A fun way to explore language and how it shapes meaning and audience response.

New term already in view

The best part of the holidays in many ways - more relaxed but beginning to think about what is in store. Each year, I swear that I am going to focus on working more effectively rather than harder - revamping rather than starting from scratch. Easier said than done but teacher forums are a great place to get ideas and share resources.

The two webtools for English teachers today are:

Flocabulary: Educational Hip Hop: http://www.flocabulary.com/macbeth.html

A rap video telling the story of Macbeth. While I am not into rap, the students could like it.

Shakespearean Insults: http://www.petelevin.com/shakespeare.htm

Afun way to introduce Shakespeare.

Visual Literacy Teaching Unit: http://wwwfp.education.tas.gov.au/english/vislit.htm
Visual Literacy Unit for Years 7 & 8.

While I teach plays other than 'Macbeth', there are also many excellent app downloads available that summarise the plot and highlight aspects of characterisation, language and so on. I found the last time that I taught it, that the students themselves found ones that I had missed and since they are so cheap, didn't mind downloading their own to help them understand the play.

Image manipulation apps are also out there in abundance so visual literacy can be exciting for students because they can compose really professional looking picture books and so on.

At the moment I am still working on 'Satire' which seems to be taking years to get finished. It is such a broad field but classic satire is so different to contemporary styles because the heavy moral message is less evident. Condemnation aplenty but little real suggestion of how social flaws and vices can be remedied or reformed. Visual satire and satiric poetry remain readily accessible. Texts like 'The Loved Ones' however would not work easily with many students now as the context and language would take a lot of time. Shepard Fairey has some wonderful posters that students enjoy discussing.

Am also working on upcoming TTA workshops for Term II which include, Advanced Module B Speeches, 'Witness', Wilfred Owen, 'Hamlet' and Extension 1 Science Fiction.

Hope you enjoy the rest of your holidays.

Using Web tools in the classroom

Teachers offer lots of advice about the many web tools that are available for classroom use. The enormous range, especially with graphics, are particularly useful for English teachers. Most of us are familiar with wordles and the many aps that can be used to really get the students interested in visual literacy. It also tends to raise the standard of the finished product.
I have become fascinated with what can be done with typography which brings the visual manipulation of text to dizzying heights. It can be especially effective with poetry as the following clip shows.

I will endeavour to post some excellent Websites for English teachers each blog. Most of us do 'Macbeth' at some stage as well as visual literacy with Stage 4. The following sites have some good ideas.

* Virtual Macbeth: http://virtualmacbeth.wikispaces.com/
Foul whisperings, strange matters - a Second Life treatment of Macbeth.
*Film Site: http://www.filmsite.org/filmterms1.html
Cinematic terms: a film-maker's glossary. In order to be knowledgeable about
film-making, the vocabulary of film studies and the techniques of cinema, some
of the most basic and common terms must be defined. Illustrations are provided
with many of the terms, to help describe them more fully.
* Visual Literacy in the Classroom: http://www.zardec.net.au/keith/visual.htm Students today live in a multimedia world. Everyone can benefit by developing their abilities to create, use and evaluate visual resources.
*Shakescenes: http://www.princeton.edu/~danson/Lit131/Scenes.htm Video clips of scenes from Shakespearean plays.
*Wired 14.11: Very Short Stories: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.11/sixwords.html A collection of stories using only six words.

Will get back to learning how to better use web tools. Even Coles shopping bumpf has barcodes now that enable you to watch online cooking classes via your phone. Where will we be in ten years?

School Based Workshops and Online Resources

It has been a while since I have posted anything and thought it was about time that I updated what I am up to.

At the TTA workshops that I have been giving for the past few years, schools have often asked for site based workshops that would cater specifically to the HSC texts that they are studying. This has proved really successful with not only 'Belonging' workshops for students but half day sessions with teachers and students for Extension English courses or Advanced Modules. Regional areas have been particularly keen to take up this option, as it is difficult to get to the University and other workshops that are more readily available to city students.

Professional Development workshops can be costly in time and money for schools. Until more online courses become available, school based workshops can be a more cost effective alternative. Since they can also cater to students or teachers, depending on the numbers involved, costs can be minimised as travel and casual hire costs can also be saved. Workshop booklets and workshop resources are designed to for students in preparation for the HSC exams.

To make this option easier for teachers to access, I have set up an online site for teachers to express interest in organising school based workshops that suit their particular needs. I have also started making some junior and senior resources available for purchase. This site is still being constructed but it will be interesting to see if it will help address what teachers are looking for with the implementation of the National Curriculum. I have included hotlinks to TTA to see the range of courses available and to Phoenix Education for those who seem to be having trouble getting copies of books such as 'Exploring Genre - Murder Most Foul'.

If you are interested, take a look at:

www.stannersenglishresources.weebly.com

I would welcome any feedback or suggestions. It is still very much in an infancy stage so don't expect too many bells and whistles.

If there is sufficient interest, I might even resurrect the English Ning I set up a couple of years ago as a place for teachers to share resources and ideas.

Hope you are all enjoying the Easter holidays and not too exhausted with Year 12 or junior marking.

Barbara