Week 4 Stuff

Monday Discussed the Interview writing assignment and how to improve it. Please see general comments posted below. Updates to http://www.saltysally.bigbig.com/. I hope to begin The Immigrant Chronicles poems this week. We will study the poems in the following order. Please read all the information in The Learning Curve: Chapter 5 Poetry: Peter Skryznecki handout and compete activities listed. This may take us some time. I don't expect you to do them all at once, but you can certainly begin. Crossing the Red Sea Acts 7-8a-d Migrant Hostel Act 10 Immigrants at Central Station Acts 2-4, Act 11 A drive in the country Act 12-13 Leaving Home No activity Post Card Act 15 Feliks Skrzynecki Act 6 a-(b) General Activities (p92)(d only) We will also be completing the What is being said and How is it being said sections of the Personal Response handout for each poem. Tuesday Catch up day. I catch up with you and you catch up on some English work. Wednesday Meet in J3 to use computers. A chance to finish up work done so far and to post and reply to posts online. This didn't work extremely well yet, but please trust me, there will be benefits for those of you who articulate your ideas on online the discussion groups and consider others' responses. Please visit http://groups.google.com/group/y12advancedenglish to contribute to conversations on the stimulus texts I have handed out in class. Please either summarise your learning journal responses to at least two of the texts or comment on specific things you think relevant to our studies in this unit. Please read others' comments and post a savvy response. Thursday Intro to The Immigrant Chronicles by Peter Skrzynecki. For Monday, read Crossing the Red Sea and Migrant Hostel and complete Acts 7-8a-d and Act 10 from The Learning Curve: Chapter 5 Poetry: Peter Skryznecki .

Interview Writing Assignment Comments

General comments
Most of you have presented very compelling accounts of immigrant journeys, which I think will help you understand The Immigrant Chronicles.

This activity suggests to me that you need to improve your understanding of text types.

An interview is part of the discussion text type. Here is an overview of the discussion text type:

Purpose of Discussion Text type:
· to present information about more than one side of an issue - the for and against aspects, or perspectives, of an issue,
· to form opinions and give reasons for them
· to make informed decisions about an issue and make recommendations based on evidence
· Debate, interview, newspapers articles, essay

Structure of discussion text type
· opening statement presenting the issue
· Arguments for and supporting evidence
· Arguments against and supporting evidence
· concluding recommendation, summary and conclusion
· (alternatively, argument/counter argument a point at a time)

To improve your interview:
1. Develop a better introduction.
A. Introduce guest and background/context
B. Introduce some of the issues to be explored.

2 Explore ideas in the responses of the interviewee.
A. Comment on responses.
B. Ask follow up questions.

3. Link to Bos journey.

4. Have a conclusion where you summarise insights and sign off.

Follow up activity for learning journal
A) What have you learned about the immigrant experience from your interview?
B) Analyse this person’s experience in terms of the BoS description of physical journeys.