Holidays - A Welcome Respite

Our classrooms and resources may look different  to the one shown here but the workload however, seems even more onerous despite class sizes having dropped.
I cannot remember my early teaching days being as frenetic in pace as now experienced by teachers.  Marking and programming was thorough but less regimented and there was more teacher autonomy and scope for creativity with fewer deadlines enabling real engagement with texts, language and heaven forbid, even grammar. The schools of today seem driven by an Assessment heavy curriculum with teaching towards exams like NAPLAN and HSC dictating things rather than teaching for learning. For all the push in this direction, it is ironic that statisticians tell us that Australia's international educational status has dropped; certainly not due to any reduction in how hard teachers are working.

Holidays allow a time to rest but also for catching up for unfinished teaching chores and preparation for a new HSC cohort and no doubt a new round of changes imposed from above to this, that and the other.New Scheme teachers seem unnecessarily overloaded with time consuming paperwork along with the eternal round of marking, programming and reworking assessment tasks. Perennial arguments regarding single or mixed sex classes, graded versus ungraded, set rather than flexible texts raise are voiced with little attention paid to the anecdotal experience or wishes of teachers themselves. Whatever form the New Curriculum actually takes, it can only be hoped that it will usher in productive change that will benefit students and teachers alike rather than the bureaucrats.

The Holidays beckon and every teacher in the state and across the country will breathe a collective sigh of thanks once that Friday night arrives.

"The best teacher is the one who suggests rather than dogmatizes, and inspires his listener with the wish to teach himself." Edward Bulwer-Lytton

'Satire' published

'Satire' is finally available on the shelves and I think that most schools will have received details in the pre-holidays mail-out from Phoenix Education. It has taken me longer than anticipated but I am really pleased with the range of classic and more contemporary texts that I have included. There were many others that I would have included but that would have taken two volumes instead of one.  Satire used to be a very popular and successful and productive unit of work in high schools in earlier years but it works well as a Preliminary AOS in preparing analytical response skills and conceptual links across varied texts. Now that it is finished I can begin working on the next project before the new HSC text list is distributed about this time next year and the preparation begins for the first new cohort beginning in Term 4, 2014.

Teachers are obviously concerned about the percentage of new and familiar texts but also the conceptual framing for each of the modules as well. It takes so long to read, research and develop resources that the lead in year is frantic, especially with so many experienced teachers reaching retirement age. When combined with speculation about the changes ushered in with the introduction of National Curriculum and what it will generate in terms of teacher workload, the next year or so will be busy. I am looking forward to the upcoming holidays and along with all teachers, the absence for a short time of bells, staff meetings, assessment tasks and marking deadlines. Perhaps teachers need a great satirist to point out the follies of political educationalists who often fail to make goals achievable or at times even appropriate. To quote Edwin Percy Whipple:

"As men neither fear nor respect what has been made contemptible, all honor to him who makes oppression laughable as well as detestable.—Armies cannot protect it then; and walls that have remained impenetrable to cannon have fallen before a roar of laughter or a hiss of contempt." 

Spring Rejuvenation

A momentary pondering of how quickly the transition occurs from winter to spring, almost as if a switch has been pulled and everything suddenly shifts pace. The video clip is a timely reminder for dealing with the frenzied pace of a term that is a particularly arduous one.Spring and the accompanying holidays it brings offers a temporary respite from marking and lesson and resource preparation. As the term draws to an end 

NSW teachers should be able to access details regarding 7-10 curriculum content  and give some thought to the degree of change it offers. Concerned by the current heavy workloads and after nearly four decades of teaching I am convinced that despite the cyclical call for change in content and methodology, the basic recipe for success in the classroom remains stable. Sound teaching strategies remain valid whatever the altered trappings that might surround them.  

The workload itself remains the biggest hurdle, enhanced by current news reports of teaching standards once again becoming a political focus on how to lift educational standards. We can only hope that sound common sense prevails and that teachers will not be expected to take up an Orwellian  Boxer, 'I will work harder' stance. Educational outcomes are governed by many things besides those areas that teachers can directly control. As a close friend advises, the trick is to somehow find balance.  

The holidays and the garden beckon.

Good luck for those teachers with HSC students.

Barbara

'Billy Elliot'

This wonderful film works very well for the 'Into the World' elective but choosing an appropriate related text can be problematic. The trick is to remain conceptually focused and remember that this is  'Texts and Society' Module elective. While the syllabus does not dictate that a different text type needs to be chosen, social texts offer a wide range of rich options for showing transitions and different pathways into the world. Filmic features and techniques need to be well known but students need to do far more than offer a simple commentary and a list of camera shots and angles used to communicate the director's vision.

Narrative Codes are the ways in which the story is put together and how the sequence structure propels the film narrative forward.

Symbolic and codes are signs embedded within the text itself which have strong associative or connotative meanings. Symbolic codes include objects, set design, body language, lighting, dialogue, sound effects, music, choice of language.

Representational codes refer to the thinking behind the film creates a representation of reality and creates meaning. Weir’s auteur director style is included in terms of filmic vision.

Technical codes relate to the professional craftsmanship, and techniques of construction. Technical codes include framing, composition or mis en scene, shot and angle type, lighting, special effects, editing, camera movement, fades and cuts and words on the screen.

Audio codes refer to the way in which sound, both diagetic and non-diagetic, adds another dimension to the film through dialogue, music and sound effects. 

“As students view a film, we want them to pay special attention to those areas of the film

we consider important and to draw conclusions from their experience with the film.  Only

then does a passive viewer become active; for by thinking about the film’s content, the student is interacting with the film.” Resch and Schnicker

'Satire' almost at the printers

More information is available from the publisher's website listed below but I am pleased to find that it is nearly ready for the shelves. Time to begin the next one.

www.phoenixeduc.com

Hope you find it useful.
Barbara

The Ten Basics of Extended Responses

Have been very busy with books and workshops of late and so it has been over a month or more since my last blog. I have been working on a number of different texts and topics but have loaded some Wilfred Owen material on my other blog if you want to go and have a look on the blog page at this other site:
www.stannersenglishresources.weebly.com
With most teachers and students gearing up for the HSC Trial exams, I thought it would be timely to throw up a quick reminder for students about what any extended response requires:

The Ten Basics of Extended Responses

1. Always spend a few minutes analysing the question and brainstorming the content, sequence and writing down key quotes. Planning helps consolidate your response and gives the organisational structure required. This is also a good time to drop all your quotes for all the modules as it means you don't need to remember them and it kick-starts your getting started. 

2. Use these jotted ideas to formulate a thesis outline and response line of argument.

3. Explicitly address the question, using language of the question within your thesis framework. 

4. Topic sentences should always answer the question and state what your paragraph will say. These should be concise, preferably nominalised and thesis linked.

5. Never write a paragraph without using, at least two to three appropriately chosen quotes/techniques/language or style devices as textual evidence to support thesis argument being developed.

6. Discuss techniques evident within quotes and the effect or impact of such techniques on the audience.

7. Demonstrate how techniques convey argument points. Example: By comparing war to hell, Owen counters the propagandist lies of the war mongers who posited the idea that it epitomised courage and duty.

8. Remain aware that the question must drive your thesis response and selected textual reference. The thesis is the framework within which the analysis is developed.

9. Always give a conclusion to bring your response to a close. Even a very short conclusion is better than no conclusion at all.

10. Pay attention to the clock. Spending too long on one response at the cost of others will not maximise your marks.

'tis the witching hour of night' - Hamlet

Have not posted for a long time as I have been busy giving teacher training workshops on various HSC topics. The next one prior to the long awaited holidays will be 'Hamlet' and I thought I would drop a few ideas for all fellow teachers who love teaching it. It is one of those magical texts that proves accessible to a broad audience base with most students able to take something from it that makes it memorable for them. At times however, in the rush of getting through the course in the little time available, teachers can take too much of a compartmentalised approach. 


The following view put forward by James Hirsch highlights the dangers,  'The point of teaching the play is not to give students the final word about the play but to get them hooked on it so they will keep returning to it and exploring new features of it for the rest of their lives.'
Surely it is the very enigmatic complexity of the text that has given it such longevity. No one interpretation can hope to define it. Many dramatic qualities, dramatic devices and specific genre elements can be found but as many teachers would attest, students often fall into the trap of listing or superficially referencing such components without really engaging with the text in any depth. 


While I am in quote mode, I think Helen Vendler voices one of the key reasons for it having gained such iconic status. She argues, 'Only "Hamlet," of Shakespeare’s greatest plays, is ruled by a single lyric consciousness. The Macbeths are two; Hal and Falstaff are two; Antony and Cleopatra are two; Desdemona, Othello and Iago are a triad; and "Lear" is full of doubles and triads. Hamlet has no sibling, wife or lieutenant jointly pursuing revenge with him: his reflective loneliness and his lyric status elicit his soliloquies. Hamlet is always at the centre: all the other figures in the play are there to provoke, to repudiate, to interrupt his brilliant cascades of language.' Surely it must be an appreciation for the language of the play that needs to be developed in our classes, but I would argue that trudging through the text, line by line is not the best way to do this. 
Any google search for ways to teach 'Hamlet' will no doubt pull up some excellent alternatives to a student reading of the text aloud in class. 


To get them in: try playing a section with them only listening to it, or showing a short video clip of a scene with the sound off and having the students try to get an idea of what is going on. When in the critical study mode, show clips from a variety of performance and interpretive styles and draw on both film and stage productions where possible. I would not show a full version of any one production but copies can be made available for students to borrow from the library or find on You Tube to view in their own time to supplement class study.Any one performance reflects a particular interpretive vision whereas we want students to form an informed personalised response of the many ways Shakespeare draws his audience in into the world of Elsinore. It retains contemporary impact due to its psychological depth and while it has many of the genre conventions of tragedy and revenge tragedy, it represents far more than any simple list of stylistic features. 


To finish before I bore you, if students can gain some real appreciation for the language of the play than the critical study of text unit has been successfully taught. Shakespearean soliloquies are not ‘voice-overs’ nor private, secret musings but rather one-sided conversations between protagonist and audience. They give the audience access to information, emotions, perceptions in ways not otherwise possible. They are particularly important in the play however for soliloquies become Hamlet’s natural medium as he becomes increasingly introverted, and forced to retreat into himself. Whether he is perceived as feigning madness or actually slipping into that state, his soliloquies provide insight into his increasingly disturbed and alienated view of the world. Dramatic contrast is evident between his public statements, which are often short, jarring or ambiguous, and the anguished outpouring of his soliloquies. If as teachers we can somehow communicate how powerful the play's language is, then we have something to be proud of or as stated in the play itself, 'Thou art proved most royal'.            


Adieu


workshop details - www.tta.edu.au