Three more recommendations from IV formers of books they have read recently for their TY Extended Essays:-
Michael Murphy has read Michael Morpurgo's Alone on a Wide Wide Sea:-
I really liked this book because it was so interesting to find out what was going to happen in Arthur's life. It was the first book I've ever wanted to actually make sure I get my prep done fast so I can have a little time just to read more of the book. The story is very good and also very sad; it really makes you feel like you know the characters as if they were your actual friends in life. I'd recommend this book to anyone as I'd know they'd enjoy it as well.
Ciaran Chisholm recommends Erich Maria Remarque's classic All Quiet on the Western Front:
Anyone at all interested in the First World War would love this novel. Remarque describes the perspective of a everyday German soldier in the trenches with very powerful and poignant imagery that keeps the reader gripped with every word.
And Oisin Large recommends Hermann Hesse's The Glass Bead Game:
It's about a man named Joseph Knecht who explains his life through the
book. His dream is to become the Magister Ludi (the master of the game)
of the glass bead game. The glass bead game helps people to understand
their own lives better. It makes fiction become reality and you realise
the truth of the world.
Earlier today INOTE, the Irish National Organisation for Teachers of English, held its annual conference in Kilkenny. Here are some tweets and resources from the day:
On Sunday 29th September we had the annual Transition Year House Speech competition in the Big Schoolroom. Now we have a very thorough review of the speeches and the evening by TY pupil Louvisa Karlsson-Smythe.
As she writes: All in all, the house speech competition was truly a wonderful night. From touching, heart-wrenching speeches to ones which made us cry with laughter, that night, we had it all. The wide variety of subjects chosen by the pupils gave an interesting mix to the whole evening, which I will do my best to review in the following lines.
Read Louvisa's full review here.
Clara Vogel has read John Boyne's The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas for her TY Extended Essay and writes:
This book is one of the most interesting books I have read about the Second World War. Lots of books about the Second World War are told from the view of a victim. But this book is from the view of an officer's child, which is very difficult to do.
The family has to leave Berlin for moving to the Aus chwitz concentration camp. The two siblings don't really know where they are and why they had to move away from their hometown Berlin. The older girl is very self confident and does not have a problem with having no friends there. She is always playing with her dolls. But the younger boy Bruno misses his friends very much. He is very desperate because no other kids live next to him.
One day he decided to explore his environment and finds a fence. He really wants to know what is behind the fence. Then one day a little boy of Bruno's age is sitting on the other side of the fence. They become friends and talk every day. Bruno is learns new things about the other side, where everybody is wearing the same 'pyjamas' and the same short haircut.
I really like the book because of the fact that it is based on a true story. It is very well written so you can't put it away.
For his Transition Year Extended Essay, Harvey McCone is reading Kazuo Ishiguro's haunting Never Let Me Go and writes:-
I like weird books. In a different kind of world or time. That is why I decided to read 'Never Let me Go'. It is a tale of three main characters: Kathy, Ruth and Tommy. The story is told by Kathy. She talks about her meories of their time growing up. They were raised in a picturesque boarding school in the countryside called Hailsham. However this school is different. The students never leave and they call their teachers guardians. They are taught that personal welfare is most imortant.
This is a story of young people growing up and discovering the devastating truth about the short lives ahead of them. It is about love, freindship and loss. I liked this book a lot. I developed strong feelings for the three characters, especially Kathy. If you enjoy books about young people and don't mind something a bit different, this should be the book for you.
Now for the first in our annual series of book recommendations by Transition Year pupils currently reading for their Extended Essays.
Margareta Laudien thinks that John Green's The Fault in our Stars is 'superb', and writes:
It is about the story of two teenagers, Augustus and Hazel, who get to know each other in a support group for people with cancer. But the incredible thing in the book is that Green is able to push the cancer into the background. You almost forget the disease while reading the book. Augustus and Hazel both concentrate on each other, on their life, and try to ignore their bodies - with success. They finally fly to Amsterdam together, where Hazel is hoping to meet her favourite author.
Once started, you don't really want to put the book down. Green wrote it with so much love and humour, that it is nearly impossible not to cry or laugh while reading it. It doesn't tell the story of two teenagers who have cancer. It tells the story of two teenagers who fall in love and live their life.
I recommend this book to everyone. Not only to teenager girls and boys. This is one of the most powerful books I've ever read and can be an inspiration for everyone!
Last week Sadhbh Sheeran travelled to London to read her poem 'Anniversary' at the HMC Conference, and here is her account of the experience -
Last
Tuesday, the 1st of October, accompanied by my ever-encouraging
mother, I headed for the HMC conference in London. I had been chosen by the poet
laureate, Carol Ann Duffy (pictured), as one of four runners-up in the HMC’s sixth form
poetry competition and I was to read my poem at an evening of music and poetry
in London. On arriving at the Hilton hotel on Edgeware Road, where the
conference was being held, I was met by the Warden and James Priory, organiser
of the event. After meeting the winner and other runners-up we had a short
rehearsal. The evening was opened and
closed with a number of pieces of music from different schools. The music
varied from jazz to opera. I was particularly taken by a choir from King's
School Canterbury who had put a modern twist on some classic songs. When it
came to the poetry section of the night we were each presented with a
certificate by the Poet Laureate and in turn read our winning entries. She read
a few of her poems including the very amusing ‘The Laughter of Stafford Girls' High’.
I still
cannot quite believe that Carol Ann Duffy has not only read my poems but that I
was able to read one to her. I had a lovely evening in London, albeit a
somewhat unexpected addition to my week. I particularly enjoyed hearing Carol
Ann read her own work; it had an entirely different
impression on me when read by its author. Meeting her and other young poets has
encouraged me to continue writing. It was altogehter together a thoroughly inspiring
experience.
Anniversary
by Sadhbh Sheeran
I want to say I threw you a party,
Played your songs and told your stories,
But I didn’t.
I wore pyjamas down to breakfast.
I want to say I put on your jacket,
The one you gave me,
But I didn’t.
I did visit you, for the first time all year.
A muddy oblong without a stone.
I chose a card for you. I’d painted it,
Brimming with colours.
I didn’t know what to write so mummy did it.
Maybe you could read it,
I couldn’t.
I did bring you flowers, boring out of season
Flowers; white, cold, nameless things and
Yellow roses.
I placed them close to your head.
Maybe you could smell them.
I couldn’t.
Somebody had put a rock where your heart should be,
Flat and round and white against the mud.
Maybe you could feel it.
I could,
It hurt.
I wanted to tell you that Spring will come
But I didn’t,
Because I know that you know that,
Can taste it in the earth and rain.
For then the mud shall turn to flowers,
And you shall show the world you came!
The iPad is making plenty of waves in education, and certainly for teachers, for whom its portability and handiness for display is just right. So here are some recommended apps for English teachers (and pupils). And plenty will suit teachers of other subjects too, of course. Many are free, few cost much.
Join in the comments section if you'd like to recommend others...
Notes:
- Notability: top class app for taking notes (including audio) and using for class demonstration and annotation of texts.
- Simplenote: excellent simple note app which syncs with apps for other operating systems (the Mac app has just been released - needs Mountain Lion). Searchable, with tags.
- Notesy: another simple and elegant note-taking app (backup through Dropbox).
- Paper: beautiful drawing app for displaying your own notes to class (in-app purchases for more tools).
- WorkFlowy : excellent versatile outlining tool, with perfect syncing on other devices - our review here.
Admin:
- SugarSync: similar to Dropbox, but in some areas even better - bring all your notes and English documents to class with you.
- Numbers: there are lots of grading and specialist teaching apps out there, but this standard Apple spreadsheet app does the job well. So ditch the paper markbook and make sure you backup via iCloud.
- Quickoffice: now free from Google, with Google Drive integration. Allows you to work easily on Microsoft Office files
- Attendance: well designed and easy to use app for taking attendance records - our quick review here.
- Edmodo: Facebook-like app for connecting with classes, accepting essay submissions, storing class documents and more, all within a safe private environment. And you can connect with other teachers around the world too.
- Good Reader: possibly the best app for reading and annotating PDFs. Well worth the modest cost.
- Phoster: creates attractive posters for noticeboards easily.
Classroom:
- ShowMe: excellent demonstration app - check out our own video/audio annotations of texts such as The Great Gatsby, Pride and Prejudice, Hamlet and Macbeth here.
- MarkUp: from the people behind ShowMe comes this simple and very handy marking app. Take in pupils' work via email, mark it, send it back.
- Haiku Deck: classy and dramatic presentations.
- TED: there's a wealth of material on TED for classroom discussion, such as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's 'The Danger of a Single Story'.
- Story Cubes: great app for prompting ideas about story-telling and narrative structure. See our review here.
The Usual Suspects
Everyone recommends these, and everyone's right
- Dropbox : still the best way to save and share your files across all devices. Our own Department 'filing cabinet' now exists in Dropbox, with a shared folder of administrative documents and teaching materials.
- Google Drive : the best medium for collaboration between pupils and between staff. And more besides.
- Evernote : some swear by it, some don't really get going. At its best, a great place to store notes, pictures, projects and more.
- Skype : connections with educators and classes all over the world - see Skype Education.
- Twitter: essential Personal Learning Network, with resources and support from all over the world. See #engchat for English teaching matters. We recommend Tweetbot for using Twitter.
Reading
- Instapaper: English teachers and pupils are (should be) 'text maniacs'. Instapaper is a terrific service that saves long articles from the web, strips out the 'gunge' and allows you to sit back and read them on your iPad at the end of the day. Pocket does the same job.
- Kindle: the original and the best. Plenty of annotation and note-taking opportunities, and you don't need a Kindle for reading.
- Zite: excellently designed aggregator for browsing items of interest.
Literature
- The Waste Land: more 'expensive' than most apps, but worth it - a stunning teaching and learning resource on Eliot's complex poem.
- The Sonnets: all Shakespeare's sonnets beautifully presented in text, audio and video, with plenty of notes. See our review here.
- Cambridge Shakespeare: excellent resource for Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Othello, Twelfth Night.
(see a related and sometimes overlapping series on iOS apps here).
Many congratulations to Sadhbh Sheeran, winner of the Peter Dix Memorial Prize for Poetry for the last two years, who has achieved further
success, being chosen by the British Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy as
one of four runners-up in the Headmasters' Conference international
poetry competition. The other VI formers involved are from Fettes
College; Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, Blackburn; St Edward's, Oxford;
and Surbiton High School.
Sadhbh will travel to London next week to recite her poetry in front of
Carol Ann Duffy and the conference in an evening of music and poetry on
Tuesday 1st October. More on this here next week.
These 'pen portraits' were written by Ms Smith's Fifth Form pupils in response to John Montague's poem 'Like Dolmens Round my Childhood', in which he revives a handful of the figures he grew up with in Tyrone in the 1930s and 40s.
Some fascinating figures emerged from the pupils' memories; here's a small selection of their work, written in the style of Montague's own poem.
'Gaffer' by Charlotte Cooper
Gaffer, mind of a ten year old, crippled body of a ninety-four-year-old.
Gleaming white teeth sparkle behind a distorted glass filled with water,
Always a gappy smile shining while telling us World War Two stories.
Never would you see him, unless accompanied by his Jack Russell, Kanga -
also crippled.
At every birthday party he would say to the children, 'sing for your cider',
And only when they would he pop the bottle.
Generously he would hand out jelly snakes from the brown paper bag
Much like the one he ordered his ashes to be buried in -
for the sake of the environment.
'Kia in Kenya' by Wolfe Purcell
Kia Makawezi was always frightening.
The leopard fur bracelets around his ankles never a happy sight.
The bells hanging from his dirty, matted hair warned of his arrival.
The way he glowered made even the jolliest people silent and miserable.
It was like this because he was 'the man before death':
The man who performed last rites.
He was Kia Makawezi, the witch-doctor.
'Last Time' by Gemma Bewley
A distant cousin yet a familiar face,
Warm and caring, an artist.
Old furniture, sometimes scary and hulking,
A tiger-skin rug sprawled across the floor,
Ornaments watching from every corner of the room.
Last time I saw her, in a home before Christmas.
Last time I felt her presence, in the church soon after.
'Kerry' by Stephanie Woods
Kerry lived in an isolated house,
Where fields were endless and horses played.
A lonely old farm girl whistling Irish tunes,
A stench of sweat from a hard day's labour,
Telling old folk tales by the fire,
Until it was time to leave.
Two short films with lots of possibilities for class discussion around the areas of story-telling, narrative structure, denouement, messages, manipulation, corporate image and more.
The first commercial is from Thailand (with English sub-titles) from TrueMoveH, a mobile phone company. The Buddhist idea of 'karma' is to the fore.
The second comes Guinness, with the cheesy tagline "Dedication. Loyalty. Friendship. The choices we make reveal the true nature of our character."
A new series fishing a few interesting English links out of our recent Twitter stream, expanding on them and throwing in a few comments...
All teachers and students of poetry should be interested in the Emily Dickinson Archive, which "will make high-resolution images of manuscripts of Dickinson’s poetry and letters available in open access, along with transcriptions and annotations from historical and scholarly editions." You can sign up to get an email alert when the Archive opens this autumn.
The Great Language Game [audio] is fun: the first few languages are easy enough, but then things get harder, especially when the choices multiply.
For any teacher of English in Ireland, the main issue at the moment is the impending change to the Junior Cycle. Evelyn O'Connor of LeavingCert.net has a meaty and characteristically passionate response here. As she suggests, get a cup of coffee ready for the long but worthwhile read.
The biggest and saddest recent event in literature was Seamus Heaney's premature passing from us: our own response is here, followed by a Storify of reactions from around the world.
One of the most inventive and interesting users of Twitter is the novelist Teju Cole. He recently tweeted a series of modern 'received ideas' ("ARTISAN. A carpenter, in Brooklyn.") and wrote about them in the New Yorker here. Enjoy.
Finally, there are some excellent poetry posters for self-printing from the Scottish Poetry Library here - lots for classroom display.
Congratulations to our candidates who today achieved excellent results in many subjects. In English, 83% sat the exam at Higher Level (nationally, 73% do), with the remainder sitting Ordinary Level (no-one took Foundation Level).
At Higher Level, of all our candidates:-
11.4% achieved A
20.0% B
34.3% C
20.0% D.
Transition Year pupils are now choosing books for their major Extended Essays (to be handed in on Monday 18th November). We'll be posting here as usual recommendations once their reading is well underway, and the best essays themselves in December/January.
Click here for the TY course 2013-14.
Click here for the advice/suggestions sheet on selecting books.
Here we go again, for our 8th year of blogging as a Department...
Coming up this term, lots of news and resources for English (including the completion of the ShowMe analyses of Pride and Prejudice), pupils' work, book recommendations and much more. And, as always, there will be posts and ideas coming out of nowhere. This is also a significant term for all English teachers in Ireland because the first training takes place for the new Junior Cycle course - see Evelyn O'Connor's lengthy response here to the new specifications.
Also, as always, our Twitter feed will be abuzz with all things English.
'Seamus
Heaney is trending on Twitter'. Not a sentence anyone could have
predicted, but yesterday morning, Twitter suddenly lit up with sadness
and shock from Ireland and around the world, and today the world feels
like a diminished place.
What
accounts for such a reaction? Of course Seamus Heaney was read more
widely than any other contemporary poet, and his work has become a
staple of examination boards (a dismal fate he accepted with
characteristic grace and good humour), but the genuine and universal
outpouring of appreciation needs more explanation. Some of us were lucky
enough to have met him (myself first over 35 years ago as a 15-year old
fan, when he treated me as he did everyone, whatever their status -
with attention, charm and graciousness), and everyone who did attested
to his warmth. He was extraordinarily generous with his time (and
somehow managed to balance this with a prolific writing career) and was
always humble, kind, twinkle-eyed. It is very rare to meet someone about
whom no-one has a bad word to say (even, yesterday, in the frequently
virulent and hyperbolic online world).
Many English teachers have expressed how Heaney meant so much more to them than being 'merely' an author they taught (see John Tomsett and Evelyn O'Connor,
for instance), and whose poems made particularly personal connections,
and those of us who have been teaching 'a while' have grown up with him
as pupil, student and teacher. He became part of our intellectual DNA,
in my case for decades.
In
an interview with Robert McCrum, Heaney said about Ted Hughes that he
"always felt safer for Ted's friendship somehow. He was foundational to
me ... he transmitted a desire to be more yourself to yourself." Now
that Heaney is gone, the words might refer to him too. So many people
are reacting almost as if a parent had died, and this is right: Heaney has
been there for so long, was so steady, so committed to his craft, so
unwavering in what he did through the lunatic years of the Troubles and
the Celtic Tiger, that we can all feel a little abandoned for a while. Belinda McKeon's emotional piece in the Paris Review captures this feeling well. And Fintan O'Toole writes today on the front page of the Irish Times: He
turned our disgrace into grace, our petty hatreds into epic generosity,
our dull clichés into questioning eloquence, the leaden metal of brutal
inevitability into the gold of pure possibility. That is quite a loss.
Heaney's last poem in his last collection, Human Chain, was written for his granddaughter. The beautiful "A Kite for AibhÃn" (which you can hear him reading here, near the end of a Guardian podcast) sees him back at at the beginning, at Anahorish on a hill, 'Air from another life and time and place'. They watch the kite as it 'hovers, tugs, veers, dives askew, / Lifts itself, goes with the wind until / It rises to loud cheers from us below' and then the string breaks and 'separate, elate - / The kite takes off, itself alone, a windfall.' It's as if he planned that as a final image; the strings have finally broken and as we now cheer his career he is 'separate, elate', himself alone.
A Kite for AibhÃn
A Kite for AibhÃn
A Kite for AibhÃn
What
he leaves behind is of course is what's photographed on this desk at the
top of this post (and thankfully there are happy years ahead of rereading and
rediscovery), and after yesterday's shock fades what will also be left
is a sense of deep gratitude for this man's work and his life.
JMG
Below, a Storify of many of yesterday's reactions, including plenty of excellent links to material for teaching.
Congratulations
to our recent leaving VI form, who have gained our best-ever average of 465 points per candidate in their Leaving
Certificate results. See a full analysis here.
83% of our candidates sat the English exam at Higher Level (compared to 65% nationally).
- 12.2% of all our candidates achieved an A at Higher Level (nationally, 6.3% of all candidates achieved this).
- 9.8% achieved a B (nationally, 17.6% of all candidates).
- 41.5% achieved a C (nationally, 25.6% of all candidates).
First, I'll tell about the robbery our parents committed. Then about the murders, which happened later. The robbery is the more important part, since it served to set my and my sister's lives on the courses they eventually followed. Nothing would make sense with that being told first.
Thus starts Richard Ford's capacious novel Canada. It is about many things, but at the heart of the story is a single act, committed by the central character Dell's parents when he and his twin sister Berner were teenagers. The novel explores how this act defines and warps their lives for ever (the final, very short, section sees the twins movingly though briefly reunited after a lifetime).
This is a very American novel about the possibilities of second chances and reinvention (Ford is as sceptical as Fitzgerald in Gatsby). Its title points the way to a central idea - that there might be somewhere else we can escape to. But what Dell finds across the border is no comfort. Ironically, eventually he becomes Canadian and spends his life there, and it is from this perspective that he gives his calm, wise and powerful narrative.
