Jasper Jones & symbols

Task one: please look at the collages slides.  Make sure you have asked two really thoughtful questions.  Nothing like "why is your name in the corner?"!!!!!!!!!!!!! [if you were away on Wednesday, then please make a collage (google drawing) showing images linked to Jasper Jones.  Then add it to the slideshow that has been shared with you (check your email)].

Task two: answer a question left for your slide really thoughtfully.  Include detailed examples and explanations, and show as much understanding of the text itself as possible.  Wherever possible, make links to the wider world, and how Jasper Jones represents other forgotten, ostracised and neglected teenagers in the world, how his code of honour functions for him, the place he finds sanctuary in, the gap between his world and those of Charlie and Eliza.

If you finish this and you have done a fantastic job, help someone else with their answers, or spend some time re-reading Jasper Jones.

Thursday 26 September 2019

Kia ora English Literature students
Ummmmm.... I am still too sick to come to school today.  I looked on Hapara to see how you got on yesterday and there is no work there from anyone.  I made two resources that are the same as on yesterday's blog post and shared them straight into your ENL212 folders.  The idea is that you could write straight onto the one called "Greta Thunberg Unfamiliar texts practice."

So... today:
1. Can you finish the Greta Thunberg work from yesterday please.  If you could type it in, that would be great, so I could see how you are getting on when I plan tomorrow's lesson.
2. When you finish that, please can you either re-read Jasper Jones or spend some time revising language techniques (this resource is useful) or learning key quotes from Jasper Jones.

Unfamiliar text practice - Greta Thunberg speech to UN

ENL212 students - you have a printed copy of the speech transcript, plus you have a write-on copy of the questions in your ENL212 folders on google drive.

Greta Thunberg speech analysis - unfamiliar text practice

Your big question is: analyse how Thunberg develops a sense of urgency about climate action.

To prepare to answer this question, plan out answers to the following questions:

1. What is Thunberg’s key message to her audience?
2. What language choices does Thunberg make at the opening of her speech which shows her sense of power and links her to young people throughout the world?
3. Find examples of the following language features/techniques and for each one, explain what it emphasises or develops: parallel structure, alliteration, second person narrative, statistics, rhetorical question, threat, emotional appeal.
4. How does Thunberg finish her speech to maximise the sense of power of young people in the climate action challenge?

Once you have notes on the four questions above, you will be ready to write 3-4 paragraphs answering the main question: analyse how Thunberg develops a sense of urgency about climate action.

Climate activist Greta Thunberg, 16, addressed the U.N.'s Climate Action Summit in New York City on Monday. Here's the full transcript of Thunberg's speech, beginning with her response to a question about the message she has for world leaders.

My message is that we'll be watching you. This is all wrong. I shouldn't be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet you all come to us young people for hope. How dare you!

You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet I'm one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!

For more than 30 years, the science has been crystal clear. How dare you continue to look away and come here saying that you're doing enough, when the politics and solutions needed are still nowhere in sight. You say you hear us and that you understand the urgency. But no matter how sad and angry I am, I do not want to believe that. Because if you really understood the situation and still kept on failing to act, then you would be evil. And that I refuse to believe.

The popular idea of cutting our emissions in half in 10 years only gives us a 50% chance of staying below 1.5 degrees [Celsius], and the risk of setting off irreversible chain reactions beyond human control. Fifty percent may be acceptable to you. But those numbers do not include tipping points, most feedback loops, additional warming hidden by toxic air pollution or the aspects of equity and climate justice. They also rely on my generation sucking hundreds of billions of tons of your CO2 out of the air with technologies that barely exist.

So a 50% risk is simply not acceptable to us — we who have to live with the consequences.

To have a 67% chance of staying below a 1.5 degrees global temperature rise – the best odds given by the [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] – the world had 420 gigatons of CO2 left to emit back on Jan. 1st, 2018. Today that figure is already down to less than 350 gigatons.

How dare you pretend that this can be solved with just 'business as usual' and some technical solutions? With today's emissions levels, that remaining CO2 budget will be entirely gone within less than 8 1/2 years. There will not be any solutions or plans presented in line with these figures here today, because these numbers are too uncomfortable. And you are still not mature enough to tell it like it is.

You are failing us. But the young people are starting to understand your betrayal. The eyes of all future generations are upon you. And if you choose to fail us, I say: We will never forgive you. We will not let you get away with this. Right here, right now is where we draw the line. The world is waking up. And change is coming, whether you like it or not.

Thank you.

 

Speech: task & preparation

Simon Sinek has a powerful argument for getting to the heart of why as a way of connecting our message to our audience.

Here is the speech task, which I have also smartshared into your ENL212 folders.

Revision work for Friday 23 August 2019: Unfamiliar texts & Jasper Jones

Jasper Jones

Task A
Here is a summary of the events in Jasper Jones (email me if for some reason this link doesn't work).  To build your familiarity with the key events, read this summary and then make a timeline to show the events in a simple visual graphic.

Task B
The destruction of Mr Lu's garden
Charlie spends a lot of time thinking and reading about the world, and trying to make sense of it.  But it is the practical action of the destruction of Mr Lu's garden which forces the people in Corrigan to make a decision about whether they want thugs to rule their town.

1. Describe the destruction of Mr Lu's garden and the attempted attack on Mr Lu himself in your own words.  You could do a brief summary, or write it as a newspaper report where you have collected statements from eye witness accounts, including Charlie, Mr Bucktin, the young thugs and the other neighbours.
2. What is Craig Silvey wanting us to understand about the young men who attacked Mr Lu?
3. Mr Lu's flower garden is a symbol of the man himself - quiet, very carefully tended, respectful of others, containing exotic beauty from another place that isn't Corrigan.  The garden is something that all passers by can enjoy, and gardening is something that many other Corrigan residents also enjoy.  When the garden is destroyed, something beautiful is destroyed that was bringing only pleasure to the world. This outrageous incident, and the physical violence towards Mr Lu, prompts people to bring plants around over the next few days to show sympathy.  See page 220:                     
4. On page 213 (copy with the forest on the front), Mr Bucktin describes Mick Thompson, the young man who attacked An Lu, as a coward and a fool.  "he's a man who's trapped in his own gutter." - can you explain this phrase in your own words?  Who else is "trapped in their own gutter" in the novel?  What strength is needed to get out of our own gutter, and how does Silvey show that this is possible in the novel?

Unfamiliar text

• Today we will carry on our work on the 2018 paper.  I have some resources to give you some new information to think about language techniques, but they are protected and stubbornly resistant to going on google drive.  So I have emailed the pdf to the class.  The information on metaphor is not all utterly needed at level two (you don't have to spend ages discussing tenor and vehicle in your 2.3 ansers), but it does give you a deeper insight into how metaphors work, and the idea of a weak or strong metaphor is useful. 

• I have also sent an email with a resource on symbolism.

• There are exemplars of answers on the NCEA English site.  

The miners' hall scene: language features, distress & ignorance

"From inside the hall, I heard a single scream, a crockery crash, the gasp of a crowd, then a sustained barrage of sobbing and screeching.  It was loud and unintelligible.  Heads turned."

Task #1: Annotate this quote, indicating what we hear, what we see, language features, contrast and effects.

Task #2: Analyse how Silvey uses language features to deepen our understanding of distress and ignorance in Corrigan with particular reference to the Miners' Hall meeting scene.

Vietnam war: local pressures in Corrigan

Part One
(page 7) Jeffrey's parents are Vietnamese, so he's ruthlessly bullied and belted about. ...But he takes it all astonishingly well, which has always eased my guilt, given that I'm never brave enough to intervene."

alliteration:
bullied/belted
sycophancy/spite
peach/pits

consonance:
wipe/slap

Do now: What does the quote above suggest about Charlie's reaction to racism at the time when we first meet him?  How does Silvey use language features to develop our understanding of Charlie?

Part Two:
(pp132 & 134)
Scene at the Miners Hall

Part Three:
(pp118-120)
"Some of my family got killed."

"It happened yesterday.  It was my ma's brother and his wife.  My aunt and uncle.  They won't tell me much more than that.  It happened in the village that she grew up in.  I don't know.  I think it was a bomb."

Jeffrey looks momentarily startled.  "Well, because there are bombs, Chuck.  It's a war.  It's pretty dangerous."

Charlie: "But they should be able to do something."

"I see him out the back door.  I know I should say something appropriate and comforting, but I can't think of what.  Words fail me.  Like they always fail me when I need them.  I just crimp my lips and look hopeless."

Jeffrey explains that his cousins are still alive but orphaned, and his parents want to bring them over to Australia but that is difficult.  Charlie says, "Really?  But why? They're orphans! They should be able to come here straightaway!"

"He scuttles off, his shoulders rounded slightly in a way I've not seen before."

Jasper Jones: Language features & theme

Today we are going to explore language features & themes, using a 2018 exam question as our starting point:

Analyse how language features were used to deepen your understanding of a theme.

First step is to decide on which themes we want to focus on.

Here is a good summary of the element of fear running through the novel.  This summary is useful in lots of ways for exploring both the crippling effect of fear on Charlie Bucktin and also the journey he takes to realise that he can be brave and that he can control his fears.  However, I think that describing a theme in one word is inadequate for our analysis purposes.

We want to describe Charlie's relationship with fear in a phrase or sentence before we can dig into how it is developed and the role of language features in deepening our understanding.

Another concept which is part of Charlie's journey around fear is the bildungsroman, or coming of age story.

Jasper Jones: character & setting

Exam question from 2018: Analyse how one or more characters increased your understanding of the setting.

1. Where and when was this novel set?
2. What current events shaped this time?
3. How were Aboriginal people treated at this time?

Exploring characters in relation to the setting.

1. Bush around the town - who has the most knowledge of this area?  What do you think this is?
2. Mining town, overwhelmingly white.  What do we learn about the attitudes of some young men when they attack Mr Lu's garden?
3. What do we learn about the impact of the Vietnam War from Mrs Lun, in the miners' hall scene and when they find out about missing relatives?

Jasper Jones characters & key conflicts: newsprint & playdoh

We started Term Three with a focus on the characters within each family in the novel Jasper Jones.  Each group took a different family:
The Lus
The Bucktins
The Jones'
The Wisharts

We rolled out some newsprint, lay on the ground and took tracings around bodies.  Each body tracing was a different character, and each group added in quotes within the body and paraphrased and summarised information around the outside of the body.  The results were great, but don't translate well to photographs.

Then we went further down the tactile learning path and had a playdoh day, identifying key scenes of conflict in the novel, and recreating them.  

1. Something is happening outside of Jeffreys house. My brick sinks and I gasp. I see four men destroying An Lu’s garden, Headlit ny their own use. It doesn't seem real through this glass. =0They pull at his flowers, hus small shrubs, uprooting everything throwing the heavier stuff at the house. I’m afraid: more so when the veranda light comes on and An Lu steps outside. 

2. “It’s not like  we don’t know who y’are, James Trent! You’re a bloody disgrace! I know your mother! You should all be ashamed of yerselves!”

3. Don’t it now? You big sack of shit. Listen to yerself. Jesus He’s a red! Fucking! Rat!”

4. “Charlie, get him [Jeffrey] inside.”

5. “Mrs Lu is screaming. She's holding Jeffrey back; he is slapping at her grip, but she's got him firm.”

6. “It’s not his fault you pissed away your job, you worthless bastard. It's got nuthin to do with him.”

Jasper Jones

Jasper Jones: chapter one

Read chapter one and then discuss the following questions in your groups:

1. How do we know that the narrator is a geek/nerd/uncool?
2. How does the writer develop the sense of intense hot weather?
3. What are our impressions of Jasper, and how does the author create these impressions in our mind?
4. What does Silvey do at the end of chapter one to emphasise the differences between Jasper and Charlie?
5. What has happened in the hero cycle so far by the end of chapter one?

Types of non-fiction

Learning objective: to explore the features of non-fiction texts
Success criteria:
1. Brainstorm types of non-fiction
2. Describe the different places they are found, or uses for a type of non-fiction.
3. Find an example of a type of non-fiction which you think is engaging and successful in achieving its purpose.  Insert the link and explain what makes this text effective.  Pull it apart and think about multiple examples of what makes it work.

Photo prompts for creative writing

I've taken these from the Guardian 20 photographs of the week, 11 May 2019.

Creative writing: The Lottery

Kia ora ENL212 students.  If you have a writing project which you are enjoying, then please carry on with it.  Otherwise, the work for today is below. 

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson
Have a read of this short story (linked above).  After you have read the story, you can go to the questions.  I have smart-shared the questions to your English folder - please go to your ENL212 folder where you will find a document called "Lottery: discussion_questions_on_shirley_jackson" which you can write your answers straight onto.

Now your task is to try creating your own version of Jackson's The Lottery.  You will need:

• a small town setting
• a ritual which people usually enjoy and even feel excited about
• a dark twist at the end which reveals something unkind or unpleasant about human nature 
• be specific about the time and place, and use your descriptive writing skills to bring this alive

If you don't have a particular event or place in mind, then try developing your story based on Christmas in the Park at Dixon Park in Greymouth.

Creating fabulous storylines

Do now: make a list of 25 possible stories or situations at a beach which could make a great story.  You can work in groups if you wish to get to 25.

You are looking to combine a predictable element with a surprising element.
e.g. Two dogs meet on the beach and start fighting.  This brings a snobby old man and a local boy who had been in trouble together.

e.g. Three girls heading out to surf.  Visiting photographer snaps them and publishes the photo, but doesn't know the girls were on the run from Gloriavale.

writing wall - 250 words only

Welcome to Term Two - connections results

Thank you everyone for your hard work in Term One.  I've marked your connections assessments, and you can see those grades on the work itself in your ENL212 folder.  Please take time at the beginning of the lesson to read my feedback.

For students who have been offered a resubmission (i.e. students who are very close to the grade boundary), the resubmissions will take place in class on Thursday 2 May.  You are welcome to think carefully about your work over the next 24 hours, but no changes to your document before tomorrow's lesson please.

For students who have not been offered a resubmission, please talk to me if you have questions about your grade.  Otherwise, please add your name and the date to the section at the bottom to accept your grade.

I will publish all the grades Friday morning, once I have marked the resubmissions.

Unfamiliar texts: Chch terrorist attack

We are going to look at this text today, and consider the techniques used to contextualise our role in the world and how we responded, as a country, to a brutal and unprecedented attack.

Refer to the text: Inside world of terrorism, looking out.
Analyse how the writer reveals his opinions about the change in New Zealand caused by the 15 March Terrorist attack, and the response of New Zealanders.  

Think about the ideas communicated in the text, how they are communicated and what effect they have on the audience.

In your answer, you should include examples of techniques used in their text, and explain their effects.

Version for annotation here.

sources

At the end of your report, you need to list your sources.  This includes all the texts that you discuss in your report, plus any secondary sources you have read.  Secondary sources are articles or books which discuss the texts you are writing about, or the ideas or events linked to your texts.  Below are details for the texts we have studied in class:

Makeriti, Tina, "Frau Amsel's Cupboard, Sport 42, 2014.  https://sportmagazine.co.nz/past-issues/sport-42-contributors/frau-amsels-cupboard

O'Brien, Tim, "The Things They Carried," in O'Brien, Tim, The Things They Carried, London, 1991, Flamingo, pp 3-21

Assignment checkpoint and deadline

Here is our finalised assignment for the connections assessment. 

This table can help you organise your ideas.

This week the expectation was that everyone had read their fourth text by Wednesday 13 March.  In class this week we have been working on thinking about the connections between our texts and taking notes.  We want to finish this week with our notes ready for writing our draft connections reports.

I want to be able to give feedback on your drafts to ensure you know how to get the highest possible grade.  I am moving the deadline for both the draft and the final assignment so that no one is penalised by me being absent for part of week nine.

The report draft is due Thursday 28 March, by the end of period 2.  The more of your draft which is written, the better feedback I can give.  If you are ready for feedback on a complete draft earlier than this, please let me know.  I know some of you will want to get this assignment finished before the new due date so you can then turn your attention to assignments and tests in other classes.

The final report is now due Friday 5 April, 11.59pm.  If you think you have grounds for an extension, please ask me for an extension request form BEFORE the due date.

* * * * * * * * * *

Last week we learned to form connections statements, and explored ways in which our statements could be broken down into four parts for discussion.  Each part might connect two texts - you don't have to connect all four texts across every sub-part of your connections statement.  Below are some of the screen grabs from our work last week:

Work for Wednesday 6 March 2019

Today, you have two choices.
1. You can keep reading the novel or short story or poem(s) that you have chosen yourself to extend your knowledge of war literature OR
2. If you forgot to bring your book, or would like to try another poem from WWI, then have a look at Wilfred Owen's Anthem for Doomed Youth.

Owen also wrote Dulce et Decorum Est, which we watched earlier in the term:

There is a lot of analysis of these hugely powerful and famous poems available online to give you some more ideas to think about in relation to the poems, and to war literature, and perhaps to other texts on war that you have read or are reading.

This discussion focuses on the sound techniques used in Anthem for Doomed Youth, and offers a specialist perspective on the use of rhyme and rhythm in poetry (why not learnt to pepper your conversations with phrases like iambic pentameter?)  On the same poem, this shmoop summary may be of interest.

This profile of Wilfred Owen and discussion of his poems may be useful.  One connection between Tim O'Brien's work and Wilfred Owen's work that is worth considering carefully is the role of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Read.  Think.  Write down your thoughts, and feel welcome to email me questions, or tag me in a comment on your work.  Your role is to think about war and literature in lots of ways, and consider how each text approaches this topic and what we learn from each text - about the characters, about war, about ourselves.

War in literature: analysis and resources

A big thinking day today:

1. Making connections across Sassoon poems
2. Exploring ideas about war in literature - wider reading
3. Gathering a range of texts for our individual text choices for the assignment

Starting with a range of word prompts, we will each write about how one or more of these words was significant, or explored in Sassoon's poetry.

Then we will swap work to share ideas with someone in a different group, as assigned on the side whiteboard.

Next: some wide reading and recommendations on war in literature

• This discussion about women in war literature has some great recommendations, and a link to this opinion piece on the under-representation of women in war in our literature.
• A list of the 30 best war novels.
• Another list of the greatest war novels
• Comfort women in literature
• 
  

Exploring Siegfried Sassoon's war poetry

Thursday provocation

Learning objective: to analyse ideas, structures and language in "The things they carried."
Success criteria:
1. I can identify key quotes which are relevant to the provocation
2. I can analyse the text to show my understanding of Lieutenant Cross.
3. I can draw on wider knowledge of human nature and the Vietnam War to analyse the text.

Provocation:

Lieutenant Cross' actions at the end of the short story show that he is an uncaring leader.

Do you agree or disagree with the statement above?  Find quotes to develop and support your position.  Then write create convincing and perceptive paragraphs to respond to this statement.

Look at the last section of the short story first for evidence, then across the whole short story.  Then consider how your wider knowledge of human nature (perhaps particularly of the role of guilt and trauma) and of the Vietnam war can contribute to your written response.

Wednesday: focus on the Vietnam war

Yesterday my laptop wasn't working, and so this recap comes from photos.  We worked on building our knowledge up about the Vietnam War.

Big themes: linking Frau Amsel's Cupboard to other texts and to the wider world

Learning objective: to analyse big ideas relating to "Frau Amsel's Cupboard" perceptively.
Success criteria:

1. I can develop an argument agreeing or disagreeing with the three statements below.  
2. As part of a group, I can create a diagram demonstrating our argument in response to one of the statements.
3. Our diagram includes reference to the short story "Frau Amsel's Cupboard," to other texts and to the wider world.

Three provocative statements: 

Sexual purity is more important than feeding children.

A powerful person has the right to manipulate others for personal gain.

All is fair in love and war.

Our class responses, thinking about one of the above statements in relation to the short story "Frau Amsel's Cupboard," to other texts and to the wider world.

Group one: a slideshow in response to the first statement.

Group two: a diagram in response to the second statement

Group three: a slideshow in response to the first statement.

Group four: a slideshow in response to the first statement

Group five: a document responding to the first statement.

Group six: a slideshow responding to the second statement, and an argument diagram.

Group seven: a diagram responding to the second statement.

Frau Anselm's Cupboard

Period 3 today we are reading "Frau Anselm's Cupboard."

1. In three sentences, describe what happens in this short story.
2. What did Frau Anselm's husband do, and with what consequences?
3. What does the officer arrange with Frau Anselm, and why?
4. "She thought of the space in her cupboard that should be occupied by food."  What does this thought prompt Frau Anselm to do?
5. What very ordinary thing does the officer ask for that opens a window into her personal world?
6. Why does the officer take her to view his collection of bowls?
7. What do you think the message in the story about the ancestress is?
8. Why do you think Frau Anselm lets the children play with her treasures at the end of the story?

Connections: images of war

Yesterday we spent our first lesson together sharing texts we had read or watched that related to the following themes/ideas:
1. Texts which make us think about a familiar topic in new ways
2. Texts which explore a topic from different perspectives
3. Texts which explore healing a broken heart
4. Texts which explore justice and prejudice

As each group presented aspects of their discussion, I was looking to learn more about your reading interests and history, and to see if any common topics or themes emerged.  Out of the presentation, I decided that we would explore aspects of war.  This is a topic with huge and wide ranging potential.

Before we start our first short story, I want us to think about the different possible perspectives on war and experiences of war.  Each of us will find 4-8 images of war to represent the perspectives we think could exist, and make a drawing to show this, which we will save as a jpeg and then upload to our padlet on this blog: