Week 3 Stuff

Monday--Talked about this blog. Began an analysis of The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost. Looked at form, structure, language use, word choice and context. Seems to be about choice.

Tuesday--continued The Road Not Taken. A comment on the human condition.
We will be working on the Stimulus texts in class in the following order:

Wednesday: Left for Dead; Pact with the Devil
Thursday: Another Country; The Road Less Traveled; The Knife (if time)
Please be prepared with written responses

Wednesday--finished The Road Not Taken. Did a comparative analysis of photos from Left for Dead & Pact with the Devil.

Looked at form and structure of Left for Dead, considering the possibility of emulating the structure in students' writing. Looked at Hall's notions of journey and the link between inner journey and outer journey: Journey is essential to life, to understanding oneself and one's place in the cosmos. Life is a journey, but journey is also life.

Students sent an email to Mr Sahlstrom and were meant to respond to the writing response question on the blog, but the computers were WAY slow.

Thursday--Research Resources for HSC English in the library with Mrs Smith. I will put links to online resources on the Salty Sally website.

Students used library computers to post comments to the writing response question on journeys. Students are encouraged to respond to each other's comments.

Students also asked to post a summary of their learning journal entries for at least two stimulus texts. You might also focus on commenting on a single quote or point in detail.

Your understanding of the journey metaphor--required response

What is your understanding of "Physical Journeys" as described in the Board of Studies syllabus? How does the physical journey metaphor guide your thinking?

Please post your own personal response to this question in a comment. Please read others' posts and comment.

Journeys Stimulus Texts

Journeys Stimulus Texts Texts handed out in class. You are meant to respond to each of these texts in your learning journal and be expected to comment on your responses both in class and on this blog. The road not taken - Robert Frost The road less traveled - Kate Farrelly - Travel article Left for dead- Greg Bearup - Feature article on Lincoln Hall The knife - Judah Waten - short story Another Country - Frank Robson - Feature article on Sudanese Refugees Pact with the Devil - Tim Bouquet - Feature article on Iranian activist Responses in your learning journals should consider: · Your personal response to the text · How your own personal experiences affect and influence the meaning of the text · How the text links to the BoS descriptions of journeys; What the text says about journey; what aspect of journey is illuminated by this text · The type of journey evident in the text · The purpose, audience and context · How the text conveys meaning about the journey or journeys · The language features and structures of the text and effect on meaning · How the text develops your understanding of journeys · Similarities and differences among texts · How the medium of production affects your response Note that you do not have to specifically answer each of these questions in order to write an effective learning journal entry. Journal entries should be at least 250-500 words long.

Term 4 Writing Assignments

Task 1 Due Week 3 Imagine that you have been asked by an ABC news program to interview an individual, real or imagined, about a journey in that person’s life. Write the script for that interview focusing that individual’s experience. If possible, base your interview on the experiences of someone you know who has migrated to Australia. Task 2 Due Week 6 Write a letter to the publisher of a new anthology aimed at young adults titled Journeys, convincing them that your prescribed text (at least two poems from The Immigrant Chronicles), one text from the stimulus texts I have provided in class, (ie Left for Dead; Pact with the Devil; Another Country; The Road Less Traveled; or The Knife) and two of your own supplementary texts should be included in their collection. These supplementary texts should probably be ones you are considering using for your assessment task. Write about 700-800 words.

Week Two Stuff

We worked on activities from The Learning Curve, chapter one: Introduction to journeys and revised basic concepts of meaning, and how that is affected by form, context, audience, features, structure and register.

Students were meant to complete activities 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, & 8.

We spent a bit of time analysing in detail Lao-tzu's proverb, "A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step." We looked at the effect of word choice, the composer's purpose and what this quote said about journeys, and how the conception of the journey implied in this quote might be different or similar to other notions about journeys.

We looked closely at the Board of Studies description of Physical Journeys. Students were asked to reflect on this and write their own understanding of physical journeys in their learning journal.

Stimulus texts were also handed out and students asked to read and write responses to these along the lines laid out on page 5 of The learning curve.

We began analysing "The Road Not Taken".

Week One Stuff

Introduction to the HSC
We looked at the Board of Studies syllabus documents for HSC Advanced English to get an idea of what Advanced English expects from your life.

We looked at the syllabus descriptions for the Area of Study and the modules and talked about how you are expected to know these descriptions as these provide the focus for your studies of the texts in each unit. In your assessments and examinations, you are meant to demonstrate your understanding of the set texts and texts of your own choosing in terms of these focuses.

The first assessment task was handed out and explained. Students were also given two major writing assignments to prepare them for their assessments. In addition, students are meant to keep learning journals.

As we began our journey into the Area of Study, we looked at how humans use concepts/metaphors to help to organise, understand and explain human experience. Metaphors guide our thinking and affect our understanding.

As an example of this, we looked at an extract from The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom By Jonathan Haidt to see how different metaphors of the human mind lead us to different conclusions.

Students reflected on metaphors in their learning journals. Why do we use metaphors to think? How can metaphors affect the way we think? How is a concept/metaphor like a constellation?