TY Book Recommendations 4

For her Transition Year Extended Essay Rachel Rogers has read Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles, and writes:-

This book is a tragedy. I found that it that grabbed my attention and was hard to put down once I started to read it. At the beginning I found it hard to get into and enjoy, but after the first chapter I adapted to the English and understood the story line. The main character, Tess, I found was such a good character and you always find yourself on her side. The story line I found was unpredictable. So when the twists and turns happen in the book it is so exciting and sad. I would recommend this book to someone who wants a challenge with their English and wants a new experience in reading. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would read it again.

And Dina al Hamdan has read Christy Brown's autobiography My Left Foot. She comments:-

It it interesting because it gives you hope. You'll feel that you can do anything you want in life and achieve your goals in different ways. It is a great book, and worth reading. The author is realistic and he describes the places and scenes really well: that's why I liked it. I'm not into reading books at all, because I didn't get use to it in my old school. I find it difficult, but that book made me turn one page after another without feeling or noticing which page I had reached. Then I got impressed: did I actually read all these pages?

Patterns of Poetry 9: rhyme

The 9th short talk on elements of poetry is on rhyme, and looks at how Thomas Kinsella uses it in his poem 'Mirror in February'.

Get our Audioboos as podcasts on iTunes here. Our Audioboo page is here. The first 8 talks are available as a single podcast here. Listen to today's talk via the player below.

First 8 Patterns of Poetry talks

Our 24th podcast puts together in one handy track the first eight Patterns of Poetry talks, originally published via Audioboo. The eight talks are all under 5 minutes each and are, in order: (1) Introduction, (2) Titles, (3) Alliteration, (4) Personification, (5) Symbols, (6) Onomatopoeia, (7) Cliché, (8) Simile. Note that there is a brief gap between each talk.

There is a full list of the series here. Listen to the podcast via the player below:

       

   
   
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You can also listen to this podcast via the player on each post, or the 'widget' on the sidebar to the right, or by visiting our podcast page here (if you have iTunes on your computer you can also subscribe by clicking here, and so download our episodes to your MP3 player, or by searching for 'SCC English' in the iTunes Store).

TY Book Recommendations 3

Jasmine Blenkins O'Callaghan is reading Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner for her Transition Year Extended Essay, and writes:

The Kite Runner captivates the reader within the first few pages. I found this book to be captivating because of the vividness of the characters and the realistic way of life. The feelings are very strong in this book, especially guilt: it worms its way into the reader's stomach as if it were you who committed that act of shame. It is well written and brings you into a world of its own. I would recommend it to anyone fifteen and above. It is truly a fascinating read.

And Constantin Voelter has started on J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye:

First, when the librarian gave me this book, I wasn’t sure whether I should read it: the cover was really boring. But after a while this book caught my attention, because it tells about a boy who’s my age and is living in a boarding school as well, so I could really identify with Holden. He describes in the first chapters how he says goodbye to a teacher and his school and which he has to leave now because he failed four of his five subjects. The book is written in quite an interesting way and I think I will have much fun reading it.

Patterns of Poetry 8: simile

Talk 8 in the Patterns of Poetry series is on simile, and looks at how Sylvia Plath uses it in her poem 'Morning Song'.

Get our Audioboos as podcasts on iTunes here. Our Audioboo page is here. Listen to today's talk via the player below.

TY Book Recommendations 2

For his Transition Year Extended Essay, Hamish Law has been reading Half of a Yellow Sun, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and writes:-


This is a thrilling yet haunting novel which exposes Biafra's passionate struggle to establish an independent republic in Nigeria. What makes this novel so compelling is that it is so easy to connect with as it is told through the eyes of an African "houseboy" called Ugwu. I thoroughly recommend this book to anyone as it is a real eye-opener to the prejudice and apartheid that existed and still exists in parts of Africa. It also captures the chilling violence that occurred at this time - yet I had never heard about this horrifying war. Therefore the book represents a memoir to the valiant but unsuccessful Biafrans who fought this war and the lives lost.

And Sam Harley has started Anne Holm's I am David:-

I started reading my book yesterday and I am already 50 pages through it. I just sat down for an hour and started to read the book. I really couldn't stop. From the start it gets the reader engaged, as a boy called David escapes from a prison camp. From what I have read the exitement has not stopped as he is on his adventure. There is always the thought of him getting caught so you want to keep reading because it makes you want to know what is going to happen next. I thoroughly recommend this book to all people around my age (15-16).

The Patterns of Poetry 7: Cliché

The 7th talk in the Patterns of Poetry series looks at cliché, examining how Shakespeare in sonnet 130 and Carol Ann Duffy in 'Valentine' subvert such language.

Get our Audioboos as podcasts on iTunes here. Our Audioboo page is here. Listen to today's talk via the player below.

TY Book Recommendations 1

Over the next couple of weeks, Transition Year pupils will be recommending the books they are reading for the Extended Essay project.  First, Annika Franz writes about Dream Chaser by Joan O'Neill.

I read this book, which is mainly about a 15-year-old girl, Eleanor, who emigrates to America together with her 13-year-old sister Alice after the tragic death of her father, who has always denied the reality of this event. Eleanor sees a big chance; it is her dream to go to America. But as she arrives there she notices that nothing is as she had hoped and expected it to be in the house of her uncle and aunt where she and her sister live. One night she decides to make a run out of it to realize her own dream.

In my opinion this book is easy to read without too many complicated words or phrases. On top of that I think it is a very interesting and thrilling topic, to see how a girl my age manages this big and exciting adventure. It isn´t easy for her, not at all, but in the end she finds her place and has learned a lot about other people and herself.  I enjoyed reading this book and would recommend it to anyone who is interested in the topic emigration, leaving home ...

The Patterns of Poetry listing

This page will be updated each time there is a new Patterns of Poetry talk. It gives the date, links to the original post, and indicates which poems were discussed.

Get our Audioboos as podcasts on iTunes here. Our Audioboo page is here.

1: Introduction. 28 September 2010.
2: Titles. 28 September 2010. 'The Fish' by Elizabeth Bishop, and 'Out, Out' by Robert Frost.
3: Alliteration. 30 September 2010. 'The Windhover' by Gerard Manley Hopkins.
4: Personification. 1 October 2010. 'Shancoduff' by Patrick Kavanagh.
5: Symbols. 4 October 2010. 'The Stare's Nest by my Window' by W.B. Yeats.
6. Onomatopoeia. 6 October 2010. 'A Constable Calls' and 'Sunlight' by Seamus Heaney.
7. Cliché. 8 October 2010. Sonnet 130 by Shakespeare, and 'Valentine' by Carol Ann Duffy.
8. Simile. 9 October 2010. 'Morning Song' by Sylvia Plath.
9. Rhyme. 12 October 2010. 'Mirror in February' by Thomas Kinsella.
10. Repetition. 15 October 2010. 'The Fish' by Elizabeth Bishop and 'Moonshine' by Richard Murphy.
11. The Sonnet. 18 October 2010. 'Epic' by Patrick Kavanagh.
12. Punctuation. 20 October 2010. 'I felt a Funeral in my Brain' by Emily Dickinson and 'Strawberries' by Edwin Morgan.
13. Foreshadowing. 3 November 2010. 'To Autumn' by John Keats.
14. Metaphor. 22 November 2010. 'The Forge' by Seamus Heaney.
15. Hyperbole. 16 December 2010. 'A Christmas Childhood' by Patrick Kavanagh.

National Poetry Day

To mark this day in Ireland and the UK, here is our 66th Poem of the Week. 'Animals' by Miller Williams comes from the excellent American Poetry 180 site (a poem a day for the school year), and might prompt your own thoughts about pets, about loss, about how things change... A good prompt for writing.

Patterns of Poetry 6: onomatopoeia

This is podcast 6 in the Patterns of Poetry series of short discussions of poetic techniques, and looks at onomatopoeia, examining Seamus Heaney's poem 'A Constable Calls', as well as 'Sunlight'.

Get our Audioboos as podcasts on iTunes here. Our Audioboo page is here. Listen to today's talk via the player below.

 

Transition House Speech review

Just over a week ago we had another very successful House Speech competition. Now here is a detailed review by Transition Year pupil Eleanor Dolphin. As she says, the speakers did very well in an unnerving and challenging task.

CREEP 21

Number 21 in the series: Campaign for the Removal of English Errors in Public.

It's been a while since we had anything from the press, but here is one via an anonymous source, as they say in the business, from last Friday's Evening Herald. The article is : 'How the drug zombies have swamped even Grafton Street' (brilliant - drugs! zombies! swamping!).

Half-way down there's a curious image (click on the picture above for a closer look):- As I walked up Grafton Street, a strung-out young man lunged at me with his cup and asked for change. For me, they were junkies, no big deal. I play a daily game of dodge the drug addict on Talbot Street. But I'm sure for the more gentile elements of society, and especially our much needed tourists, this is a shock.

Odd to get a Jewish angle on swamping drug zombies.

Patterns of Poetry 5: symbols

The fifth in the Patterns of Poetry series deals with the use of symbols, and uses 'The Stare's Nest by my Window', the sixth in the sequence 'Meditations in Time of Civil War' by W.B.Yeats. A longer podcast on his poem 'The Wild Swans at Coole' can be heard here.

Get our Audioboos as podcasts on iTunes here. Our Audioboo page is here. Listen to today's talk via the player below.

Patterns of Poetry 4: personification

The fourth in the Patterns of Poetry series is on personification. This one examines Patrick Kavanagh's 1934 poem 'Shancoduff'.

Get our Audioboos as podcasts on iTunes here. Our Audioboo page is here. Listen to today's talk via the player below.
 

Patterns of Poetry 3: alliteration

The third in the Patterns of Poetry series of brief talks is on the technique of alliteration, and uses 'The Windhover' by Gerard Manley Hopkins to illustrate how powerfully it can be used.  Here's an article on Simon Armitage's translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

Get our Audioboos as podcasts on iTunes here. Our Audioboo page is here. Listen to today's talk via the player below.

TY Book Recommendations

IV form: fill in the form below (or go directly to it here; the link will be top right of this blog for a while). Many of these will be posted on the blog in the coming weeks.

The Patterns of Poetry

Today we start a 'major new series', as they say, of podcasts on poetry. These snappy talks (under five minutes, courtesy of Audioboo) will focus on individual elements of poetry, starting with titles (no 2, below), and including topics such as tone, metaphor, alliteration, the sonnet and lots more. Over the next few months these will build up into a library of ideas of ways to look at poetry. Get our Audioboos as podcasts on iTunes here. Our Audioboo page is here. Listen to the first talk, an introduction to the plan, below:-


The second in the series is the first that actually looks at poems, considering the importance of titles in poetry, and uses Elizabeth Bishop's 'The Fish' and Robert Frost's 'Out, Out' during the 4-minute talk.