Using modern software to help
make Shakespeare more accessible to a J.C. audience.
Earlier this month I set my J.C. English class the challenge of recreating a scene from Julius Caesar on Go Animate. The pupils were encouraged to interpret and change the setting and/or appearance but to stay loyal to the text from the play. So in no particular order here are the three winning entries. Well done to Sarah, Ross and Mike.
The Winning Team: (From L to R) Ms Kelly, Ciara, Jeffrey, Chloe, Grainne and Ms Murphy.
Congratulations
to the Newbridge College Concern Debating team and their mentors, Ms Catherine
Kelly and Ms Deirdre Murphy, who won the Concern National Finals on
Thursday 16th May in City North Hotel, Meath. Grainne Carr,
Chloe O’ Reilly, Ciara Maher and Jeffrey Hovenden Keane battled against an
outstanding proposition from Ardscoil Mhuire, Corbally, Co. Limerick. The
two teams debated the very topical issue ‘The International Community must now
take military action to topple the regime in Syria’. The Newbridge College
team, opposing the motion, displayed a vast knowledge of the topic in both
their speeches and rebuttal to emerge victorious on the night.
The Concern Debating trophy that the team took away on the night
One hundred and
twenty schools and over five hundred students took part in the competition this
year and the College team has won eight debates in a row to claim their prize.
As well as the trophy, the prize for the winning team is a trip to Ethiopia to
explore Concern’s projects first hand.
The Concern
Debates aim to promote a deeper awareness and understanding of global issues.
It provides students with a public forum, to develop skills in research,
presentation, debate and encourage students and teachers to become lifelong
advocates on issues relating to poverty, justice and human rights.
Is this what you imagined the characters looked like?
Let me put my cards on the table straight away Leaving Cert. class of 2013: DON'T WATCH IT! This is not a film review ( I haven't even seen it yet!). It opens in Irish cinemas this weekend. I advised my sixth year class today not to watch. Not because I hate Leonardo DiCaprio, which I don't. Not because I can only hear Carey Mulligan's English accent every time she tries to feign an American one. And not because Tobey Maguire is generally annoying in movies, no comment. I asked them not to watch it as it's not on the Leaving Cert. course this year. The Great Gatsby by F.Scott Fitzgerald is. Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby is not.
Pupils using details from the movie in a Leaving Cert. essay is the ultimate fear for a teacher. I'm not going to patronise the vast vast majority of Leaving Cert. pupils. They just wouldn't do that. I've already heard Luhrmann discuss in interviews why he didn't have a Gatsby funeral scene. There was a cartoon expulsion of coffee from my mouth when I heard there was no funeral scene initially.
No funeral!? Owl Eyes, Nick and Gatsby's dad will
be even more heart broken!
So I listened to the rest of the interview and although I didn't agree with the director's choice I certainly understood it. The idea that an under prepared pupil might go see the movie and then criticise Fitzgerald in an essay for not giving Gatsby a good send off (those that have read the novel know he doesn't really get a decent one anyway) is an idea that would genuinely give me sleepless nights.
Although that is the worst case scenario, this is not the reason pupils should not go see the movie. The reason you shouldn't see the movie is that these are Luhrmann's interpretations of the characters, not yours. I read the novel in college and in my mind's eye Gatsby is not Leonardo DiCaprio. Daisy is not Carey Mulligan and Tom Buchanan is certainly not Joel Edgerton. You've invested time and effort to learn about these characters. They should feel like people you know. Why? Well because if you know the characters (KNOW the characters as I bark to my pupils) it will give your Leaving Cert essay a vitality and honesty of effort that will make it rise above the rest. Yes question key words, PCLM and language range are all important but passion is quite often the x-factor between your essay being good and it being great. Seeing a movie adaptation of a literary work can irretrievably damage your love of a certain character.
So if you genuinely feel like you can seperate the movie and the novel just weeks before the Leaving Cert., go for it. I'm sure the movie is great. I just strongly feel you are denying yourself of a possible strength your essay could and should have: your imagination. Until the exams are over you can console yourself with the fantastic soundtrack that accompanies the movie. I've taken, for me, the stand out song from the album Florence + The Machine's emotive Over the Love and created some revision questions to accompany it. Scant consolation I know but trust me, it'll be worth it!
Music Video Revision Questions
Q.1 Florence + The Machine make many literary referecnes to the novel in the song's lyrics. Choose two that you think are particularly effective in capturing the emotions of the novel. (10 Marks)
Q.2 'Now there's green light in my eyes'. The song's story is told from the perspective of Daisy. Would Daisy have made a better narrator than Nick? (10 Marks)
Q.3 'Cause you're a hard soul to save, with an ocean in the way' What do you think Florence + The Machine (speaking from Daisy's perspective) mean by this? (10 Marks)
Q.4 The song is called 'Over the Love'. 'The Great Gatsby is just a typical love story' Do you agree or disagree with this question? (10 Marks)
This is a publication I found on Scribd that I thought clearly outlined many useful sites and ideas for Web 2.0 tools in the classroom. The piece clearly outlines how to use the web tools discussed and also highlights some of the educational benefits of using the tools. I hope people might find it as useful as I did.
This week I'll be using Go Animate to set revision questions for my Junior Cert. English class. This year we studied Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare. Go Animate is a great online website that allows you to make animated videos from scratch or simply use templates (I've created examples of both below). The website also allows you to use automated voice actors so the shyer pupils don't have to give their voice to the characters. Of course, the more confident pupils can! Posted below are five videos depicting key moments and quotes from each Act.
(For pupils: The dialogue has been edited for the purposes of saving time. The videos are just a cue. Be sure to use your copy of the play for exact references/quotes.)
Q. 1) Why was this an important moment in Act 1? What did it tell us about Caesar's personality?
(10 Marks)
Over the course of this year I have been creating a series of Show Me videos on the film Children of Men directed by Alfonso Cuaron. I have been using the film as a text for the Higher Level Leaving Certificate Exam 2013. We compared the film in class through the comparative modes of THEME and CULTURAL CONTEXT (the third comparative mode of Literary Genre is briefly discussed in different videos). Our theme was Persistence and the other texts we used were The Road by Cormac McCarthy and Macbeth by William Shakespeare.
Didn't do those modes or theme? Don't panic.I tried to create the videos in such a way that they would be helpful to pupils no matter what comparative modes you used or theme you had in your class. Each video discusses roughly 13 minutes of the film at a time. A major reason for creating the videos was that, I found, pupils experienced difficulty in recollecting key (no pun intended!) images and quotes from the film compared to their written texts. As such, each video looks at the key visual images from that section of the film along with the key quotations from the characters.
Listed below are links to each individual video. I hope it might be a helpful resource to teachers in future years and make life a little easier for our stressed pupils in the middle of the revision season 2013!
1.Video 1 and 2 - Link to the introductory
video and the first 13 minute analysis video. It might make the long revision
process ahead a little easier! (Note: Spelling should read Foogies in video 1)
2.Video 3 - This video looks at some major
themes from this section of the movie and the cultural context presented within
the film. The end of the video also contains the major quotes from this section
of the movie.
3.Video 4- In this section: Julian dies, Kee
is pregnant and dogs love Theo...there's lots to talk about!
4.Video 5 - - Luke's rise to power. The development of Kee and Theo's friendship. Where are the Azores!? Patrick gets kicked from a car...again!
5.Video 6-Jasper makes the ultimate sacrifice.Theo
finds a reason to go on.No schools in the future: a good thing? Does the Human
Project exist at all !?
6.Video 7 - Sid thinks Sid has a great plan but gets
'blocked' by Theo. Does baby Dylan completely change the cultural context of
her world? Bex Hill: Refugee or concentration camp? Miriam's ultimate
sacrifice: for the cause or for friendship? Or both? (Also hear what a complete
mental block sounds like at about 1:45 into the video!)
7.Video 8 - People are essentially good. Theo
shows what courage looks like. Luke has his Dunsinane moment. Soldiers love
babies but love fighting more. Why does the movie end at sea? The Tomorrow.
8. Coming Soon - Concluding video with summary and teaching/revision tips.
