January 17th. Here is the work for periods 3 and 4 today. In ‘Literacy Objectives’ Book 2, look at unit 13, page 123. In your notebooks, write down your responses to the pre-reading exercise. Read the article, ‘Little credit for online shops’. Use a dictionary to look up the meanings of any words you don’t understand. Answer the questions 1-4 on pages 124-125 under the heading ‘Exploring a comment text’. Try to finish for homework. Read if you have time.
17th January. We are now embarking on Part 4 of the IBDP Language and Literature course. We shall be studying two works in detail, a novel, ‘The Great Gatsby’, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and a selection of poetry from ‘Songs of Innocence and Experience’ by William Blake. This part of the course is internally assessed by a recorded individual oral commentary. Samples of the commentaries are externally moderated.
We are beginning this part of the course with ‘The Great Gatsby’. During today’s lesson, please carry out the pre-reading research, as instructed on the study guide, and then read and make notes on chapter 1. Try to finish for homework.
Here are your instructions for our lesson today periods 1 and 2.
1. You should have your first draft of your essay on ‘Lord of the Flies’ for peer editing. This is your first task. You should aim to complete this in the first 30 minutes.
2. War poetry – ‘The Horses’ by Edwin Muir, which is in your photocopy and which you have already looked at for homework. Make sure you understand all vocabulary. Analyse the content and effects of structure, any literary devices, tone, atmosphere etc. You may work with a partner or in a group of three or four.
3. If you finish the above, you may work on the final draft of your ‘Lord of the Flies’ essay, which is due the first lesson after the holiday, Tuesday, 10th January.
11th December. Sorry for the breakdown in communication! As you know, we have finished our study of ‘King Lear’. We have also listened to more sample IOCs and you have been pretty good in your assessment of them. You have also studied some examples of written commentaries. You are now preparing to deliver an analysis of an extract from ‘King Lear’ with a partner next lesson. After that, you will be working on individual analyses in the final run up to the IOCs on Tuesday, 17th January.
11th December. We have looked at what is available on the Internet now and compared this with what was available in 2005, with some astonishment! There has been much consideration of, and debate about, the influence of the growth of the Internet socially, culturally, ethically and on life in general for many different people and societies. Following a formal (more or less!) debate on whether the Internet is a blessing or a curse, we compared how The Beatles achieved fame and fortune compared with a current superstar.
Your task now is to design a website and a promo video for an aspiring star. you should be ready to present this on Friday, 13th January. I hope you are not superstitious!
11th December. We began out study of war poetry with a group discussion of ‘Icarus Allsorts’ by Roger McGough. As the group concluded, this is a poem about nuclear war, which draws on the conventions of black comedy for its effect. For next lesson, you are working on an analysis of ‘August 1945′, another poem about nuclear war, this time more specifically about Hiroshima. We are beginning with anti-war poetry, as you have concluded.
11th December. After much discussion and group roleplaying of characters, the students completed written scripts for a chat show that takes place twenty years after the events of the novel and features two or three of the main protagonists.
We then moved on to formal literary essay writing skills. We discussed a selection of questions/titles and came up with a choice they were interested in writing on. We have discussed the requirements of the questions and various essay plans. The due date for peer editing the first draft is Thursday, 15th December.
11th December. We began our study of the importance of structure and form in poetry with an analysis of the sonnet, ‘My Mistress’ Eyes are Nothing Like the Sun’ by Shakespeare, with a focus on how the content relates to the structure. We followed this up with an analysis of another sonnet by Shakespeare, ‘Shall I compare thee to a Summer’s Day’. By comparing the two sonnets, i.e. number of lines, rhyme scheme, rhythm and relation to content, we were able to formulate a ‘recipe’ for a Shakespearean sonnet. We then tested our knowledge by reassembling a ‘cut up’ version of a Shakespearean sonnet, ‘The Parting’ by Michael Drayton, based on our understanding of form and structure.
For next lesson, you must prepare an an analysis of the Petrarchan sonnet, ‘How do I Love Thee?’, by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Can you come up with a different recipe?
11th December. We have now completed our study of fairy tales. Our final assessment task was a comparative essay analysing two fairy tales. Points covered were archetypes and the influences of the cultural, historical and social backgrounds in which the fairy tales were created, as well as comparative essay writing skills.
11th December. We are continuing our unit on ‘The Lives of Others’ with the drama, ‘Two Weeks with the Queen’. We have completed our first task, a formal persuasive letter to the queen from Colin, the main protagonist, in an attempt to persuade her to put him in touch with her doctors to help his brother, Luke. During the coming week, we will continue to study the play and analyse characters, themes and dramatic effects.
