The Lottery

Here are the links to The Lottery on YouTube:

Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIm93Xuij7k
Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMhV3fwx5Sg

The same thing on Vimeo:

https://vimeo.com/65266252

N5 8 Mark Question

National 5 Holiday Revision

Hi everyone,

The next two weeks (and beyond) are crucial to your success. Don't let it slip now! It's important that you remember to have plenty of rest and to eat and sleep healthily, but it's also important that you revise. Little and often is probably best here. Remember that we have spent the past year working on a vast number of skills and a great deal of content. These all need to be revised, and trying to do it the night before the exam just won't give you the results you're looking for.

To that end:

1. Revise all of Duffy's poetry. You have the responsibility to present one of these to your group when you return, and of course you will have further help revising from me and the other members of your group. But you still need to know them all. Click HERE for a very useful PowerPoint which goes through all of the poems apart from Valentine. Below are the tasks (you are doing Task 1 now in preparation for Tasks 2 and 3 when you come back on the 20th. You can access the Prezi HERE):

2. Macbeth, Macbeth, Macbeth! Remember him? Gather your notes together, re-read the play. You can look at Shmoop for a little help, and you might consider watching one of the versions available on YouTube. Be careful with these, however, as they do not follow the plotlines exactly, and aren't a substitute for actually reading and knowing the play thoroughly.

3. The Lottery. Revise this by re-reading and reorganising your notes. You might also find it of use to work with the prose questions, taking time to plan responses. You will receive your essays back on the 20th. You already have some of the material, but you can Shmoop it too. There is also a version on YouTube (again, be careful with this, as any essay you write must be based on the text, not the film).

4. RUAE (Close Reading). Take some time to read the newspaper. Use your Nat4/5 textbook, which has that excellent section on Close Reading.

5. Finally, spend some time on BBC Bitesize. It's a fantastic resource--very clear--and has help for all aspects of the course and exam.

And that's about it!

I am so proud of how far you have all come this year, and I know you can achieve very well on the exam in May.

Have a lovely (and useful!) holiday, everyone. I will look forward to seeing you all back on the 20th, and hearing you present your poems to your groups. Work hard. It's worth it.

S4 National 5 Macbeth

Here is the link to Ian McKellen's exploration of Macbeth's 'Tomorrow' soliloquy. We will finish up with the imagery (and the play!) tomorrow with a view to writing on the whole play next week.

Ian McKellen Macbeth

N5 Macquestions

National 5 Macbeth questions... created by you!

Choose THREE and write short (3-4 paragraph) responses to each.

DUE Monday 29th September

National 5 1.3

Today we discussed our upcoming Macbeth trip a little further. We have provisionally booked 20 pupil tickets, and are sorting out travel arrangements.

We also looked at C2C Book Club, and you were encouraged to buy books. If you want to do this online, the web address is http://schools.scholastic.co.uk/dingwallacademy and we need orders to be placed by 22nd September.

We then moved on to the challenge:

Having written your paragraph on our first impressions of Macbeth in 1.2, use 1.3 to investigate and discuss how our perceptions of this character change as we progress through Act 1.

National 5 Macbeth... continued

Today we attempted to finish digging for our golden quotes. We wrote one paragraph on how Macbeth is characterised in 1.2.

Some of the quotations:

"For brave Macbeth — well he deserves that name — 
Disdaining Fortune, with his brandish'd steel, 
Which smoked with bloody execution,
Like valour's minion carved out his passage 
Till he faced the slave." I. ii. 16-20. 

And again, Ross speaks of him as 
"Bellona's bridegroom, lapp'd in proof." I. ii. 54. 

"As sparrows eagles, or the hare the lion." I.ii.35

"What he hath lost noble Macbeth hath won. I.ii.67


I also introduced you to www.shmoop.com/macbeth/, which is an excellent revision site, and for those of you who struggled with reading the play in its entirety, it may well be the lifeline you are looking for. Check it out!

National 5... in case you missed it...

Today we were working on Macbeth 1.2.

We watched: this summary and then worked with Table F's notes.

Our main aim was to look how Macbeth is characterised by Shakespeare in the opening scenes, with the understanding that this characterisation is in no way fixed. We began to 'dig for gold': finding and explaining quotations (at least 5) in the scene which tell us that Macbeth is at this point considered a great man.

Most groups were at one or two quotations, so we will finish this activity in the first period tomorrow before going on to 1.3, where we will similarly look at the portrayal of Macbeth, Banquo and the witches.

National 5 Macbeth

It has just come to my attention, thanks to Sophie's mum, that Macbeth is coming to Eden Court. It's a little different: an operatic version!

You can access the Eden Court page HERE

Let me know if you think you'd like to attend. It's an evening performance, and I'm happy to arrange it if we have a decent number of students wishing to go.