Better late than never!

Welcome 2010-2011 Cohort. The chances are that if you're looking at this you're well on your way to the grade you deserve for your efforts this year! If you're panicking right now; don't.

Practice makes perfect and should be attempting timed essays regularly as preparation for the real thing:

http://www.aqa.org.uk/qualifications/a-level/english-and-media/english-language-and-literature-a.php

Well done to those of you who managed to complete the recent assignment and particularly to Muhith, Jessica, Shaheena and Sumaya who even answered their own questions... legends!!

YOUR FIRST TASK IS TO MARK SHAHEENA AND SUMAYA'S SAMPLE RESPONSE AND POST YOUR THOUGHTS ON HOW IT COULD IMPROVE!

Catch up or be caught out!!

Firstly well done to those of you who regularly make our sessions (you know who you are!) on the one and only bard boy- I'm sure that your dedication will pay dividends come coursework D day...

To those less conscientious amoung you, being the generous teacher that I am, I have placed each of the PowerPoints that I have taught from on the common drive (ENGLISH/MrStanley/Year12/Blake) for your perusal.In the words of Mr. Knight "or, if you're already on a school computer, simply by clicking here."

The sessions on some of the poems were delivered by you guys; please can the groups responsible save their work on common too:

Simply Superb Short Story Summary Sheets

Here's a reminder to those who were in my lesson today and a notice for those who weren't:
HOMEWORK, due on Tuesday 13/07/10, is to complete Short Story Summary Sheets for the following stories:
Bainbridge - 'Clap Hands, Here Comes Charlie'
McEwan - 'Psychopolis'
Greene - 'The Invisible Japanese Gentlemen'
Mars-Jones - 'Structural Anthropology'
Thomas - 'The Burning Baby'

The sheet can be found on the school's common drive, at the following path:
O:/Students/ENGLISH/Mr Knight/Year 12/Modern British Short Stories
or, if you're already on a school computer, simply by clicking here.

Welcome Back Year 12...

... and here's your first homework (Mr. Stanley/ Mr. Roberts' class)!!

FIND DEFINITIONS OF THESE KEY POETIC TERMS:

Enjambment
Ceasura
Alliteration
Couplet
Assonance
Metre
Leitmotif
Symbolism
Personification
Onomatopoeia
Iambic
Tone
Quatrain
Sonnet
Pathetic Fallacy
Metaphor
Simile
Anthropomorphism

ADD ALL DEFINTIONS TO A NEW GLOSSARY AT THE BACK OF YOUR BOOKS

DUE: THURSDAY 24th JUNE

ELLA 4: William Blake

Blake was renowned as an artist as well as a poet, although he received little recognition for this during his lifetime (I know that feeling all too well!!). Below is his poem 'The Sick Rose' as it was first published.

What does Blake's use of presentational features add to our understanding of this highly symbolic poem?

Online Othello

Work for Mr Knight's set on 11th May, 2010.



Use this online text of Othello (and your incredible knowledge of the play) to find two episodes which relate to the themes of:

• reputation/honour
  
• honesty/deceit


• knowledge/ignorance


• love


• race

And complete the theme tracking sheets.

Once you've done that, choose a particular character in a particular scene where you think there is noteworthy representation of speech (particularly in terms of repetition), and copy and paste all of that character's lines from that scene into a blank Word document (taking care to cut out the other characters' lines and the capitalized names to show who is speaking). Now head on over to wordle.net and click "Create". Paste your character's lines into the box at the top of the screen and click "Go" in order to create a diagram of word frequency. The more times the word is used in the text, the bigger it will appear in the diagram.

Save your diagram in the public gallery, give it a title saying which character and scene it is and a brief comment explaining what it suggests about the character, then copy and paste the web address of your finished diagram into a comment on this blog.

Here's my example which is Brabantio in Act I, Scene ii.

When Politicians Aren't Prepared

Just as a little bit of contrast with those prepared speeches from the debate, here's an example of what happens when politicians are forced to stray from their prepared speech into murky spontaneous waters.

David Cameron found himself having to give an interview to Gay Times magazine after members of his party had appeared to back a homophobic law. See how he got on and what features of spontaneous speech you can spot which show he really isn't sure what he should be saying...