Men of War

Men of War

'Hamlet' musings

Students can find the concept of a script being 'read' in many different ways a little daunting. One way of approaching this without spending valuable time comparing different productions in full is to compare key scenes or soliloquies. Such comparative clips are already available online and I have found that this keeps the focus tighter with attention on how different perspectives have been achieved while the script remains largely the same. The inherent richness of the play's language enables actors and directors to tease out alternative perspectives of character and situation.

By narrowing the field and the time spent on developing an informed response, students can often gain a greater scope of the interpretive potential that exists. This short clip from RSC version was still long enough for students to recognise the impact of tonal shifts, pausing, emotional delivery and so on on the meaning of what is said. It also helped them utilise metalanguage better by recognising the interplay of pathos, logos and ethos and the use of varied rhetorical devices.

How do you read this interpretation of the lines?

'Hamlet' workshop - 26th August

The 'Hamlet' workshop is not far away and the last touches are being put into the various resources that will be used throughout the day. The teaching approach to this Module is probably the most important factor in covering the content and skills development needed for students to access the upper bands. Oftentimes, too much time is spent on deconstructing the text itself or examining how many different ways it has been produced or criticised.

Student response skills are just as important, particularly in developing a personal interpretive 'voice'. Context, content and construction are typical ways into the text but the real discriminator will always be the ways in which students are able to evaluate the play's language. Fortunately, a great deal of material is available online for students to research in order to arrive at an informed perspective of the play's literary worth.

Here is a taste of 'Hamlet' for you to evaluate.

Visual Literacy

Love teaching this topic and digital media in general! The students pick it up so quickly and gain the confidence to deconstruct how iconography and basic techniques can shape our impressions. Working out how posters and advertisements work really helps develop analysis skills.
The students enjoyed the following RSPCA advertisement and the way it engages an emotional response.

Goodbye StannersCircle ning

Well it was good while it lasted but the new Ning costing structure makes it non-viable to maintain my HSC resource site. Since the end of July is the deadline, I suggest that you visit as many nings as you can to see if there is anything of value. A brilliant extension site created by P.Heggaty is available on Romanticism. My site is more varied but has far less on it.

http://www.romanticism.ning.com/

http://www.stannerscircle.ning.com/

Preparing for my upcoming 'Hamlet' and 'Crime Writing' workshops beginning in Week 6. We are expected to get through so much in these demanding courses and then there is the development of student writing skills. A huge array of material is out there but it needs to be sifted and refined to fit the syllabus criteria. Here are a couple of sites that might be of use with 'Hamlet'.

http://www.pathguy.com/hamlet.htm#revengeplays
https://hamletrg.wikispaces.com/ShakespeareanTragedy
http://hamletcommentary.weebly.com/

As the Trials close in, good luck to everyone trying to get through the last sections of the course before the marking sets in.

Barbara

New Software to share!
Have discovered a useful site mentioned by a friend. Had got sidetracked with other things but finally visited it today while looking for some useful images for 'Exploring Genre 'War'.

http://bighugelabs.com/

It is very easy to use and has a wide range of visualisation options that students would enjoy playing around with it.

While many visit this blog, I still have the same 6 members I started with nearly a year ago and as yet, almost no members on my HSC ning. Apparently they are going to begin charging to host nings in January and so it will die a natural death. If you teach HSC English, I have put up some resources for a few of the courses now running. Have a look and use any resources of use before it all folds in a few months time.

http://stannerscircle.ning.com/

Animoto is another software that could be useful although it costs money to get more than the free 30 second version I coddled together below.

Catch Up!

It has been a long time between posts. Have changed units for this term and finally got around to putting some new resources on my class wikispace. These include some useful glogsters for my War Poetry topic with Year 9. Collage snapshots help establish contextual understanding and highlight some of the focus concerns of the poets of the Great War. Year 10 is also drawing to a close with study focussed on the post nuclear attack play, 'Adam's Ark'. I have posted some clips relating to Chernobyl, the worst nuclear accident to date.

'Goodnight Mr. Tom' continues to be one of the most popular search tags for those who end up on my sites, testimony to the fact that the most enduring stories are those that deal with human endurance of one kind or another.
Try this site - http://www.nwlg.org/pages/resources/living_blitz/ - with eyewitness accounts on.
Design WW2 campaign posters and slogans. You could also use Glogster for this. Have a look at this site for lots of lesson ideas about using the campaign posters - http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/wwii-posters/