Higher folios

Just a reminder:

1 piece: this Thursday

2nd piece: next Thursday

(these can be in whichever order you like--Creative then Discursive... Discursive then Creative... up to you!)

Circus homework

S4: complete your persuasive talks on elephants in UK circuses so you can deliver them tomorrow. No excuses! You can do it!

Tap, tap, tap! Attention National 5s!

Hi everyone,

SQA have just produced a table which suggests some past papers (Standard Grade Credit and Int 2) which could be used to help support your study. You can find them HERE.

We will certainly be making good use of this in class in the weeks to come, but I know many of you are already preparing for the external exam (go you!) and I wanted to make sure you had this information as soon as possible. The papers are all recent, so you should be able to get them (with mark schemes, although use with some caution) on the SQA English subject website (SG here and Int 2 here).

Happy revising!

Higher Poetry: e.e. cummings

Here's the poem we looked at today. We will finish up with it on Monday, then continue with Fern Hill:

[in Just-]

BY E. E. CUMMINGS

in Just-

spring          when the world is mud-

luscious the little

lame balloonman

whistles          far          and wee

and eddieandbill come

running from marbles and

piracies and it's

spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer

old balloonman whistles

far          and             wee

and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it's

spring

and

         the

                  goat-footed

balloonMan          whistles

far

and

wee

Higher interpretations

Childhood is measured out by sounds and smells and sights, before the dark hour of reason grows. –John Betjeman


Today we worked in our groups, considering the topic of childhood through the lens of the above quotation. 

Our responses:

“As a child, everything is new and exciting, and sensory, but when you get older, things are more reason-based, and everything gets duller, realising you have to think about everything and do something with your life.” 
Thus spake the Pink Toothbrushes.

“When you’re younger, there’s no complex meanings behind anything, and you’re totally carefree. The ‘dark hour’ represents adulthood, and how you always have to think about things. Nothing is as simple anymore.” 
So sayeth those guys wot have no name (Orange Watch) J 

“As a child, you just take things as they are; you don’t analyse them. But when you get older, your innocent view of the world gets distorted, and you begin to realise the evil in the world.” 
More guys with no name… duuuuuuuuuude. (Blue Strawberry)

“Your childhood is limited, and there is no need for complex thoughts. Everything is simple, and it’s based on your sounds, smells and sights, however when you grow up, you realise that not everything is good, and your innocence is distorted by the darkness of reason.” 
The green footwear have spoken.

“The quote describes the wonder that children feel for the world through experiencing different senses, however, this innocence is replaced with a burden of responsibility and a new kind of reality. The reality experienced when they’re younger is perhaps more real than our adult rationalisations.” 
Violet Alphas… get that!

“When you’re a child, you observe everything and take everything in, and it’s all new and good, but when you grow up, you become quite one-track-minded, and only observe what you want to. The world’s all right, but the novelty wears off!” Cosy jumpers… not so cosy when the novelty wears off! Or in summer. 
–the Charcoal Knitwear Band

“Childhood is measured in experiences and sensations. Adulthood is a record of what happened, not the impact it holds emotionally. Adults are seen as dark and boring to a child.” 
100 Burned Books (not just the banned ones).

S1 Poetry Homework

Find and print/email/post a poem which deals with the theme of love. You may post below in the comments.

S2 Victoria Wood's Nice Cup of Tea

The second episode features in our lesson. This can be found here: Nice Cup of Tea

Enjoy!

Intermediate 1 Homework (due Monday)

You were asked yesterday to complete one paragraph of your essays about sympathy for today's lesson. Your task for Monday is to complete the second. Make sure you work with your 'burger plans' and your notes on theme/symbolism!

Please ensure also that you have completed the webquest and bring it with you Monday.

S1 Holiday Homework

Having viewed some wonderful presentations on the topic of slavery, we are now launching into the book Underground to Canada. Your homework for over the holidays is to finish reading the book. You have had some class time for this already, and you will have a little more next week--use it wisely! As you will know, you should be reading for at least 15 minutes every night. Why not make it Underground to Canada?

I hope you enjoy it!

Intermediate 1 Webquest

UPDATE: due to the power outages/weather issues, many of you were unable to complete the webquest. The deadline for completion is now Monday 9th December.

Night is concerned with Elie Wiesel's experience of the Holocaust. In class yesterday, we identified a major gap in the class's knowledge of one of the central features of the book: Judaism! Today we began rectifying that by starting a webquest.

Here is the link to the site Holocaust and Human Behaviour: What is Judaism?

You are to complete the webquest for Thursday's lesson.

Remember: Use your own words!

Intermediate 1 Night Homework

Complete up to end of chapter 4 in quotes sheet. Identify themes/symbols and give a brief comment about HOW the quote addresses these.

S2 Tea... moving on

Just a quick note to the S2 guys--TeaPigs wrote back saying they'd send us some samples to try out. They win first prize for quick response! What a result. Tetley have also been in touch to say they'd send something. So now we wait...

Do you have suggestions for companies we might approach? I have contacted:

- TeaPigs
- Tetley
- Edinburgh Tea and Coffee Company
- Clipper
- Twinings
- Whittard

We will of course (and you probably saw this coming) be writing thank you letters to any company which chooses to send us goodies (hey, it's an English class, remember? Besides, it's the gentlemanly thing to do.)

Excited!

And an update: Clipper said no, but The London Tea Company have said yes. The next fun thing will be finding out what each company has chosen to send us. It'll be like... Christmas!

Int 1 Key Words (Spelling!)

Here are the key words we came up with today. Make sure you can spell them all (or you'll look pretty silly on the exam).

massacre
Madame Shachter
frontier
ghetto
Transylvania
Czechoslovakia
Holocaust
Jerusalem
Zionist
Yossi
Tibi
barracks
concentration camp
Hasidic
Cabbala
synagogue
Aryans
Buchenwald
inhumanity
waiflike
executioners
Reizel
Maimonides
simultaneously
Zalman
Gleiwitz
spasmodically
Juliek
Antwerp
forest of Galicia
crematorium
crematory
Judaism
Elie Wiesel
Moche the beadle
Auschwitz
Birkenau
Jews
Yiddish
Sighet

ClassDojo

This week we have begun using ClassDojo to help improve focus and to promote excellent work and behaviours. We are focusing in the coming weeks not only on staying on task and participating, but also on the school values: Respect, Responsibility, Honesty and Determination.

You can track your own progress with a student account--you need a 'secret code' for this, which I am providing you. If you haven't received yours, please ask. You can also invite your parents/guardians to track your progress with you. You can either invite them by email or give them the parents' 'secret code' on your ClassDojo sheet.

If that's not exciting enough, you can also track yourself on your phone (or your parent/guardian can!). Just look up ClassDojo in the Play Store for Android, or the App Store for iPhone. Please note, however, that I have had one report so far that the iPhone app for students is not functioning. The parent one is, though.

Why have a student account? Well, once you are fully signed up, you can customise your monster. How cool is that? And more importantly, you can keep track of your own progress.

The website to login as a student is: http://www.classdojo.com/en-GB/

We'll trial this until the end of this term. As always, please do let me know what you think, either in person or here in the comments. Make sure you say your first name and what year you're in so I can give you a more specific response.

Enjoy!

S2 Tea Planning

The S2 boys have been working hard to help plan their learning journey for our next topic...

Szymon and Bartek also experimented with using the 'comments' feature to post some questions they had:

where did it come from?
history/how did it start ?
why pepole like tea than cofe?
when pepole drink it?
how is it made?
how does it grow?
how do you harvest?
were do you drink it (country)?
how could you use it?
is tea inportant to us?

S2 Tea Topic

Today, we had our first introduction to our next topic: Tea.

You were asked at the end of the mini-video I prepared: What would you like to know about tea?

Please feel free to comment with areas you are interested in below. For example, I thought it would be interesting to look at some of the following topics:

• the chemistry of tea
• tea in history
• different types of tea
• health
• tasting!

What else can you think of?

S2 Final Projects Due date

As agreed by the class, we will have tomorrow and one more Wednesday to work on the final projects for Underground to Canada.

It is expected that you will continue to work on this at home (yes, that's HOMEWORK).

Final due date is 27th November.

S2 Homework

By next Wednesday, you should have a set of notes and a rough plan of how you will complete your chosen task.

Int 1, 2 and Higher NAB REMINDER

Just a reminder to all S5/6 pupils sitting Int 1-Higher.

Your NAB dates are as follows:

11 November  Textual Analysis (12 November for offset)
25 November  Close Reading (26 November for offset)

S2 Underground to Canada

Final activity choices:

1. Write a review of Underground to Canada for people your age

2. Go back in time.
Visit http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/bhistory/underground_railroad/index.htm and follow in the footsteps of a slave... then complete the story at the end.

3. Research an aspect or type of slavery (historical or modern). Write an essay discussing this topic.

4. Pick your fave abolitionist! Research one of the following, and write a brief biography.
- Alexander Ross - Frederick Douglass
- Levi Coffin - Henry Ward Beecher
- Harriet Tubman - Sojourner Truth
- William Lloyd - Wendell Phillips

5. Your own choice--have an idea? Clear it with me first.