Where we are at the beginning of Y11

Hello
The holidays have meant I'm out of the blogging habit. Now is a good time to look at where we and to concentrate on what is a significant year.
A reminder then of some of the course specifics.
GCSE Language
You have 3/4 Controlled Assessments completed for this and they are worth 40% of you overall grade. You have completed Of Mice and Men, Spoken Language (texting) and one of two creative writings. The other creative writing you are doing with Mrs Parish.
AQA have now removed the Speaking and Listening Elements, which means the exam is worth 60% of the overall grade.
There is one exam for this and it is 2h15mins long. This will also be your mock exam in Novemeber.
GCSE Literature
You have completed 25% with you Macbeth and Frankenstein essay. You will have two exams for this; one on LOTF and OMAM and one on Poetry.

So, in lessons we have been looking at the dark wonder that is Lord of the Flies. We have looked at the development of the characters, some themes and structure.
This is what you should have at the beginning of next week.
Checklist:

• Character profiles of Piggy, Ralph and Simon.
• A short essay on how Golding shows the power struggles in LOTF.
• A tension graph looking at how Golding uses structure to effect the reader. I am expecting you to use some of the stuff we used for incremental repetition in this. I am expecting this to take you a long time. If you find this is totally consuming, you can just include the incremental repetition. We'll then use this to make a glorious display on Tuesday (exciting!).

When we've looked at structure, we have a themes carousel.You'll do a Jack profile over your work experience. Then the last weeks of term will be a exam including a mock LOTF exam. 

As ever, let me know if you have any problems. 

Ms
(You only have a 3.5 day week this week. Lucky you.

Themes. These often overlap.

Betrayal 

Survival

Bullying

Justice and Injustice

Violence and Death

Leadership

The Problem of Evil in Man

The need for civilisation/The Basic needs of society 

Innocence and the loss of it

Fear of the unknown

Blindness and Sight

Use and Abuse of Power

The Loss of Identity

• 
  

Towards the end of Spoken Language

Hello Y10 (homework at the bottom)

After reading your paragraphs, I think that what we’re missing is thorough analysis of debate. We may want to think about structuring this in a different way. We could have a paragraph about how you use and adapt language, then some analysis of spoken language data and then analysis of debates around multi-modal communication. You don’t have to do it this way, but it would ensure you cover all the AOs. Remember, this is only an 800-1000 word essay.

Here are the articles from the lesson:

Article 1 - texting. 

Article 2 - attention span

The best analysis came from those that used the thinking squares really well. Use them to analyse debate and how you use and adapt language. These would be good for planning too.  Three thinking squares could be a really good plan!

Success Criteria for your essay

Skilled is 

• Confident explanation and analysis of how they and others use and adapt spoken language for specific purposes (this also comes out in your analysis)
• confident analysis and reflection on features found in some spoken language data
• confident analysis of some issues arising from public attitudes to spoken language varieties.

Excellent is...

• Sophisticated, perceptive analysis and evaluation of aspects of how they and others use and adapt spoken language for specific purposes
• Impressive’ sustained and sophisticated interpretations of key features found in spoken language data
• Sophisticated analysis and evaluation of key issues arising from public attitudes to spoken language varieties

 Homework: write out a draft essay for peer assessment on Monday. You’ll fill out the cover sheet in this lesson; CA starts in the subsequent lesson (Wed).

Research Accommodation Theory. This is good for how people use and adapt language. What are the main points?

Here is the thinking square we used in Friday's lesson:

Thinking square debate from Cherwelllearning

As ever, let me know if you need anything.
Ms 

The plan so far...

Dear all
As we've been interrupted even more (!), I thought it would be wise to share the plan as well as today's lesson.
Do what you are told on the final slide.
Make sure you see me for your feedback at the end of assembly; if you miss this, I can get it to you in Friday's lesson.
On Friday, I will set you you some cover for your lesson without me - ensure you use this time judiciously.
On Monday 8th of July, you'll plan and peer assess your work. I'll also be there to answer any questions etc.
Thursday 11th July you'll sit your CA and you will complete it on Monday 15th.
If you've not finished it here,  it'd be less complicated if you come after school so you can get it out the way. I have other plans for our final Monday lesson. I also think that you should easily complete this in two hours though and will not need to come after school: it's an 800-1000 word essay.
Please share any good articles in the comments box.
Best wishes,
Ms

8 your own response for blog from Cherwelllearning

This week so far...

Hi
Right - today and yesterday we looked at debates and have evaluated some sample essays. Here then, we found that there are a couple of things that students have missed: some analysis of data and links to debates around spoken language. The report on Controlled Assessment (AQA) also said that student missed the latter point here: debates. Reassuringly, they also said that students are more successful in this task if they use their own data. This knowledge should help you evaluate your own responses as you go. We also found that, actually, this is quite a simple task - I think the class were reassured looking at these essays. Leave a comment if you disagree!

Lessons 6 and 7 for blog from Cherwelllearning

Homework

Hi guys

Your homework this weekend is to write a transcript of a verbal conversation. It will take a while to write up just a couple of minutes.

Here is a guide. You could also add in some further non-verbal features if you can too. If you do this, do one layer of purely verbal exchange and add a second layer of non-verbal in a different colour.
You must have a transcript of verbal dialogue and you could go further by including the non-verbal.

Let me know if you have any problems.
Ms

The guide is in your booklet, but is also here:

Pauses

(3)

These are indicated by brackets. Long pauses can suggest different things e.g. anger, frustration, or stumped for something to say. The numbers in the brackets indicate how long the pause is. A short pause is indicated by (.)

Overlapping speech

Word [word

           [word

Two people talking at once can be difficult to transcribe. Here’s an example:

Person 1: I saw Attack the Block last night it was [totally a – mazing

Person 2:                                                                       [yeah. I love films like that.

Cut off speech

Wor-

A dash shows that a word has been cut off midway

Unclear Speech

(words) a guess at what might have been said if it is unclear

()            Unclear talk, where it is impossible to work out what is said.

Loud Voice

Word            to indicate that a word or phrase is loud, you can underline it.

Word            to indicate that something is even louder, like a shout, you can put in bold.

Speed of talk

>word word< Arrows pointing inward show faster speech

<word word> Arrows pointing outward show slower speech

Spoken Language this week

Hello all
This week's lessons are in the PPT below. Homework is on the final slide.
The documents are:
David Crystal
John Humphrys
Clearly, Humphrys' argument could be seen as outdated, but this is actually a perfect point for your argument. Technology changes multi-modal communication. The QWERTY keyboard on smartphones ensures that it is actually more difficult to write in 'text speak'. However, the fact that it did exist has changed the way we communicate. We still do use many of the features of that JH's argues against. Have you ever written tbh, lol or btw? Have you ever used an emoticon to show to someone that your point is friendly, you feel awkward etc? As much as many of you are resistant to the idea that you may use this, as you put it, 'chav' language (I have many objections about the word Chav, which I will happily to talk to you about), I should imagine that almost all of you use some sort of features to replicate poken language in your digital communication...
This is such a fun unit!
Ms :)

Some final points on our texts

Hi Y10

Right, a few things in this post then.  Some general advice, comparative points, a little bit on tragedy and an example.

The most common errors:

Be specific about the emotion (love and hate are both emotions).

Err. Hello? Mary Shelley... Shakespeare. If you write about the characters, you write as if they are real and this limits your analysis. MS and S names should be littered throughout your essay.

Upgrade your topic sentences.

Focus on the quotation. (Groan!) Pick and word out and analyse it.  (10% of your GCSE is this alone.)

Link your context to the quotation precisely.

Don’t say very. It’s the ‘nice’ of analysis.

Romantics. Romanticism. Capital letter please (otherwise, you’re talking more red roses and candlight!)

Sweeping statements. Much better to say: I could be seen. This suggests. This connotes.

If one more person writes constantly, I might just give it all up...

Comparative elements

•       Pathetic Fallacy

•       Settings

•       The Gothic

•       Voices – Soliloquy and Narrative voice

•       Imagery

•       Tragic structure

•       Recurring Motifs

•       Religious beliefs/Christianity/ Biblical language/Paradise Lost

•       Hallucinations

•       Character physical reactions and manifestations of fear

•       Supernatural

•       Consequences of actions

•       ‘Vaulting ambition’

•       Rhetoric ( Rhetorical questions, balanced phrases that becomes fragmented)

•       Natural world/ order

•       Babies, innocence , new born, corrupted by man

Tragedy

A tragedy is a drama or literary work in which the main character is brought to ruin or suffers extreme sorrow, especially as a consequence of a tragic flaw, moral weakness, or inability to cope with unfavourable circumstances (from dictionary.com). You can see how we can apply this to our texts.

A classic tragedy (Aristotle’s Poetics) has a number of common features.

Firstly, you have a hero. Their status is established as high (been better to see higher status fall from Ancient Greece to Closer magazine...) Don’t get confused with hero – it doesn’t mean good. This character has hubris; essentially, they are arrogant. They also have a fatal flaw that leads to their downfall; this is called hamartia. They realise this flaw has caused great suffering, anagnorisis, but it’s too late as death is inevitable. Often this is the turning point, peripetia, that leads the play to its tragic denouement, but not always so. Through this, pity and fear are provoked in the audience until we come to the catharsis where we are purified by the play that we have seen. We leave better people!

There are some other points, like the three unities and a cart to wheel dead bodies off, but this is the basic structure. A (usually noble) hero is arrogant and has some flaw that makes them do something awful. This causes their downfall and they realise this too late and die probably with other people.

You should be able to see how you can relate this to the texts. Is Frankenstein a tragic novel? It’s a good point of comparison, but very much an extension and not something you need to worry about.

Example paragraph.

Shakespeare uses classical references to show the intensity of Macbeth’s remorse and this illustrates his desire to be King as damaging from the start. As soon as Macbeth has murdered Duncan, Shakespeare shows his language is regretful: ‘Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood Clean from my hand?’ The immediacy of Macbeth’s guilt and regret is made apparent with a direct link to the metaphor of having blood on your hands. This metaphor is repeated throughout the play as Lady Macbeth sees an immovable ‘spot’ on her hand and, when Macbeth’s downfall  is imminent later in the play, McDuff says that ‘[Macbeth’s] secret murders [are]sticking on his hands’. Here, Shakespeare shows the tragic outcome as inevitable because Macbeth will not be able to wash his hands clean and he seems to know that this will end in his own death. Furthermore, the classical reference to ‘Neptune’ conveys a sense of prayer to the language and the rhetorical question accentuates the intensity of his fear.  It also gives a hyperbolic exclamation of Macbeth’s remorse as the water will literally be able to wash his hands. As Neptune is the God of the sea, known to the Jacobean audience, not the Christian god the audience would have also viewed this with suspicion as it was an intensely religious time; Shakespeare uses this reference to show how Macbeth has also gone against the Christian god by going against the Divine Right of Kings and this places him alongside the evil witches. His appeal to ‘Neptune’ shows how far ‘Brave Macbeth’ has fallen; Shakespeare shows how this outrageous sin will ‘stick’ as such a blasphemous act can only result in a gruesome demise and the character dramatically shows confusion and horror at this prospect.

As ever, let me know if you need anything.

Ms