'Coriolanus' on Wordle

No 4. in our Shakespeare Wordles series : Coriolanus.

Wordles are created by Jonathan Feinberg's online tool here; the more times the word appears in the text, the larger the word. In our Shakespeare Wordles, the entire text, including the name indicators of the characters before they speak, is included. Thus you can see how relatively dominant a character is in each play, as well as spot recurring ideas and themes. Our Wordles use different numbers of 'maximum words'. Click on the image for a closer view.

Library Quiz Team

V formers interested in joining the annual Library Quiz team to compete at Alexandra College this time next week should see Mr McConville. He promises 'fun and frolics'. And that the celebrity quizmaster will be Father Dougal (well, okay, Ardal O'Hanlon).

Irish Independent article

SCC English features today in an article in the Irish Independent by Kim Bielenberg, 'How to teach English to the Facebook generation'; click here to read it online. The paper version includes photographs of the Library and the Cloisters.

For visitors who've arrived here from the Independent, you can read more about our Department here and here, see more about our Transition Year here, their Extended Essays here, and the Library here and here.

Podcast 15 : 'The Wild Swans at Coole'

Our fifteenth podcast is the first of this academic year, and is also the first in a series of podcasts on individual poems on the Higher Level Leaving Certificate course. This one is on W.B. Yeats's poem 'The Wild Swans at Coole', and sets the poem in its literary and historical background.

The second volume of Roy Foster's biography, which is quoted in the podcast, is The Arch-Poet. The Yeats exhibition at the National Library of Ireland, is open now, and the website is here (you can see the manuscript of 'Wild Swans' online by searching). Coole Park's website is here.

Listen to the podcast via the player below:-

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You can also listen to our podcasts via 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).

'Hamlet' on Wordle

No 3. in our Shakespeare Wordles series : Hamlet.

Wordles are created by Jonathan Feinberg's online tool here; the more times the word appears in the text, the larger the word. In our Shakespeare Wordles, the entire text, including the name indicators of the characters before they speak, is included. Thus you can see how relatively dominant a character is in each play, as well as spot recurring ideas and themes. Our Wordles use different numbers of 'maximum words'. Click on the image for a closer view.

Blue Rose Theatre Company

Today is our annual Bullying Awareness Day, and this morning the whole school (in two separate groups) will see a performance in the BSR of Stand and Speak, 'a two-man play about bullying' featuring Joe McGrath (pictured) and Thomas Farrelly of the Blue Rose Theatre Company.

In the words of their website, this is :-

A progressive play dealing with the complicated issue of bulling. Presented in a horseshoe shape, Stand and Speak takes the students away from the ‘usual dramatic presentation’ and brings them into the action directly - forcing students to watch the natural reactions of everyone in the room ... through the raw and realistic action and dialogue students are encouraged to participate, in a natural way. Throughout this show their participation will both enhance and contribute in displaying/revealing the many levels of bullying: verbal, physical, visual, mental, etc.

TY Book Recommendations 7

Antonia Behr has been reading My Boyd, My Enemy, by Claire Beeken :- This is the autobiography of a girl suffering from being abused by her grandfather at the age of 10. She lives with this trauma every day, not telling anyone as she doesn't want to split the family. She takes out all her frustrations on herself. During the course of the book she tells us how she starts to harm herself and stop eating. This becomes more and more of a serious problem. She locks herself inside this, blocking out everyone who wants to help her.

I admired this book because as a reader I got to know Claire's feelings from the beginning. It had a big impression on me, because I started to think about the background of her story. We never imagine that our environment could have such an effect on our lives, feelings and thoughts. It made me think about myself, my family and friends; no-one should hate themselves as much as Claire does.

I have a lot of respect for her, because after a painful time she finds a way out of her crisis and starts to help other people. I recommend this book because when you read someone else's story, you think about how it compares to the lives we all live.

'A Midsummer Night's Dream' on Wordle

No 2. in our Shakespeare Wordles series : A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Wordles are created by Jonathan Feinberg's online tool here; the more times the word appears in the text, the larger the word. In our Shakespeare Wordles, the entire text, including the name indicators of the characters before they speak, is included. Thus you can see how relatively dominant a character is in each play, as well as spot recurring ideas and themes. Our Wordles use different numbers of 'maximum words'. Click on the image for a closer view.

'Romeo and Juliet' on Wordle

Above, a Wordle of the whole text of Romeo and Juliet, the first of the entire works of Shakespeare that we'll be showing over the next month or so - when complete, there will be a full slideshow, to compare the plays, as well as a commentary.

Wordles are created by Jonathan Feinberg's online tool here; the more times the word appears in the text, the larger the word. In our Shakespeare Wordles, the entire text, including the name indicators of the characters before they speak, is included. Thus you can see how relatively dominant a character is in each play, as well as spot recurring ideas and themes. Our Wordles use different numbers of 'maximum words'. Click on the image for a closer view.

TY Book Recommendations 6

Eochy O'Conor is reading Generation Kill, by Evan Wright (now a HBO series, just started on Channel 4):- I really like this book because it's so vivid and the author really makes you think that you are there. He also describes each of the characters and their personalities so well, and almost makes it sound like he has known them all his life. The way that he writes it and the fact that it's a true story, makes you want to turn the page every time you finish one.

The book is about a journalist who travels into Iraq with Bravo Company from the Marines, who were one of the first companies into the country. The author writes about every place and everything that he does with the Marines.

I would recommend this book to anyone who likes a book full of action and suspense, and someone who likes true stories.

Calling Bell Ringers

Mr Jameson is planning another issue of Second Bell later this month (the previous one is below, by Issuu - click and click again for larger views). Essays to him at secondbell 'at' gmail.com.

TY Book Recommendations 5

Zuleika O'Malley has read Adeline Yen Mah's Chinese Cinderella, and writes:- This book is a true story about the struggles of a young girl growing up in China. It is very sad. It is not very long, although it does not need to be any longer. As you read the book, you do not want to stop, as you learn all about Adeline and how she matures, learning all about those around her.

Tom Crampton is reading George Orwell's Animal Farm :- I am finding this book very interesting. The animals on this farm can talk, and some can read. They get fed up with their owner and decide to rebel. The book is really about communism. In it they are all supposed to be equal and have the same rights, but this gradually changes. As in communism, there is also a dictator.

'The Spider'

Our 56th Poem of the Week is 'The Spider' by Kathleen Jamie. This is one of a series on the Guardian's site which are part of their 10:10 Climate Change Special (thanks to Helen Conway for pointing us to this). There are also poems there by Andrew Motion, Carol Rumens and Carol Ann Duffy, the Poet Laureate. You can hear Jamie read several poems on the Poetry Archive site here.

The Guardian have their own Poem of the Week feature: the latest is John Donne's 'The Sun Rising', 'one of the most joyous love poems ever written', according to Carol Rumens.

The Acharnians, Senior Play

This year's Senior Play (on November 13th and 14th) is The Acharnians, by Aristophanes, directed by Mr Swift. An early comedy, The Acharnians is also an anti-war drama (appropriate for the week of Remembrance Day, November 11th). We'll have plenty on the production in coming weeks. Meanwhile, below is the cast list.




Dikaiopolis: Poppy Vernon
Euripides: Michael McBurney
Euripides’s Slave: Olivia Plunket
Lamachos: Robbie Hollis
Lamachos’s Slave: Seth Smith
Herald: Emma Moore
Ambassador: Millie Murphy
Amphitheos: Gina Mirow
Theorus: Robin Fitzpatrick
Nikarkos: Miriam Poulton
Megarian: Patrick Tice
Boeotian: Opeline Kellett
Ismenias: Sebastian Stephenson
Xanthias: Zara Lahme
Pseudartabas: Rob Nolan

Chorus of Acharnians
Dikastes: Jasper Pickersgill
Polypragmon: Max Kavanagh
Lakreteides: Josh Buckingham

King Lear's Map

Food for thought for our Leaving Cert candidates who are currently revising King Lear as their single text for next summer's exam:-

Jonathan Bate's fine book Soul of the Age: the life, mind and world of William Shakespeare, recently out in paperback, has an early section ('Give me the map there', pp 26-29, in the chapter 'The Discovery of England') which, although it doesn't mention King Lear, is interesting. He refers to the famous portrait of Elizabeth I by Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger (the 'Ditchley Portrait' - now in the National Portrait Gallery in London - details and copy here).

Bate discusses the importance of maps as 'instruments of power', and analyses the map on which Elizabeth is standing - Christopher Saxton's map of England from his famous atlas of 1579. See the image itself on the Glasgow University Library site here.

As Bate writes: It was the first ever accurate map of the whole country. It was one of the keys to the Elizabethans' discovery of their own land. To have in their hands a picture of every corner of England ... this was the dream of the men of power who set Saxton to work on his monumental surveying expedition ... Thanks to Saxton, the Elizabethans were the first England people to have a clear sense of the physical shape of their own nation. And that gave them a new sense of belonging.

All the more shocking then, for a monarch embodying the unity of the kingdom of Britain, to divide his kingdom, and start a process that results in that kingdom fragmenting into civil war, just as Lear's own heart breaks into 'a hundred thousand flaws' in his madness and grief.

Simon Mawer profile

Back in August 2007, we recommended Simon Mawer's novel The Fall, commenting that his 'novels don't seem to have made the general breakthrough they deserve.' Now Mawer is on this year's Man Booker shortlist, for his novel The Glass Room, and yesterday's Guardian carried a lengthy profile of the author (and biology teacher).

TY Book Recommendations 4

Today we go on a weekend Exodus, returning on Tuesday. IV formers should be doing lots of reading over the weekend for their Extended Essays. Here are two more recommendations-

Rebecca Stewart has read Cassandra Clare's City of Bones :- This book caught my eye, not only due to the interesting cover but because of the blurb. This describes how the book brings together one of my favourite cities - New York - and fairytales, with creatures such as werewolves and vampires. It is about a girl who gets caught up in a world she doesn't even believe in, and definitely know that she belonged in. It also deals with forbidden love. In my eyes it has everything you could wish for in a book. I definitely wasn't let down by it. It kept me wanting to read on. I would recommend this novel to anyone who likes a bit of fantasy.

Tom Gibbs is reading Stephen Ambrose's Band of Brothers:- I think this book is very good; it is a non-fiction account of World War II. It is about the 101st Airborne Division and it follows them from their initial training to the Battle of the Bulge. The book is good, I think, because there is always some action, and you always want to know what happens next. It gives you a deeper insight into what life was really like on the Western Front.

William Trevor on 'Arts Tonight'

The most recent podcast from RTE Radio 1's 'Arts Tonight' is an interesting and detailed discussion about William Trevor, and can be heard via podcast or by listening again via the RTE site here. Trevor himself is heard from the Reading the Future series.

Vincent Woods talks abour Trevor's work with his biographer Dolores McKenna and Eibhear Walshe of UCC, including his most recent novel, Love and Summer, which we recommended here. St Columba's is also mentioned (he attended here as a pupil from 1944 to 1946 under his real name, Trevor Cox), and The Story of Lucy Gault is discussed (our VI form are studying it for the Leaving Certificate).