Harri - tractor advertisements work

Your mission today is to watch three different tractor advertisements:
1. Kubota tractors

2. John Deere

3. Massey Ferguson

Which one was most interesting?
Can you tell me why it was interesting?

Friday creation time

Your mission, those of you who have finished the Look Up work, is to work in groups to create a poster campaign for the message in Look Up for our school.  You can take photographs, decide on slogans and layout and then share your work on your blog.

Look Up

Learning objective: to show understanding of the short film Look Up

‘Look Up’ - rethinking social media

1. Before we watch the short film ‘Look Up’, think about and answer the questions below.  I would like you to work in groups of 2-3 for this activity.  Make a copy of this document and share with your team members.  Team members need to make sure they add the shared document to their ENA111 folder.

What do you think social media is?
List the types of social media you know of.
List the types of social media you use each week.
How does social media make your life better?
Describe a problem you (or someone else you know) have had with or because of social media. How did you (or the other person) deal with the problem?

‘Look Up’ - A spoken word film for an online generation.

‘Look Up’ Is a lesson taught to us through a love story, in a world where we continue to find ways to make it easier for us to connect with one another, but always results in us spending more time alone. Written, Performed & Directed by Gary Turk.

Questions about the overall message and ideas in the film:

In your own words, explain what the film is about.
What is the message which the narrator (Gary Turk, who also wrote the script) is trying to get across to us?
Who do you think this film is aimed at?
What makes this film powerful?

Questions about some visual techniques in the film

COLOUR

Throughout the film, Gary Turk  is speaking on his own, against a dark, plain background. Why? What does the emphasise?

CINEMATOGRAPHY

What is the name of this shot?

Whose perspective do we see the screen from?

What is showing on the screen?

Why do you think the director chose this for the screen?

What does this emphasise?

A                                                     B                                                   C

What is the director’s purpose in showing us a series of shots of a children’s playground?

What types of shots are used in the frames above?

Choose ONE of the shots above and explain why the director has framed it in that way. (What is he emphasising?

In the shot above, many people move quickly past Gary Turk, using a method where most of the frame is speeded up while he is kept still. What does this technique emphasise?

ORAL TECHNIQUES

The main oral technique used in this film is monologue. Does this make the film personal (close to us) or impersonal (distant from us)? Explain your answer.

The film opens with the line “I have 422 friends and yet I am lonely.” What form of social media does this use of  the word ‘friends’ refer to? Why do you think he is lonely when he has so many friends?

What language technique makes this film like a poem? Give an example to support your answer.

Short story focus: short skirt

First up, we are setting our blogs up.  You will have an email which gives you access to do this, and we will spend some time on the purpose of blogging and how to use labels to organise posts for different subjects.  We will use our blogs quite often in English this year, starting with our learning activities for this week (20-24 March).

This week we will focus on the short story by New Zealander Norman Bilbrough called "Short Skirt."  We will work from paper copies of this short story, which comes from Bilbrough's short story collection, Dog Breath.  We will start with our thoughts on the title of the story, and then read the story itself.

After you have answered the questions, you can choose how to present your information.  Each of the different options allows you to get reading skills credits AND spoken interactions credits/speech credits/writing credits.  You can:

1. Make a (solo) presentation on screencastify which reviews the story, and responds to the questions set out below.  This review by Katytastic is a model of what your presentation could look like:

2. Collaborate in pairs to make a recording where you both discuss the story, covering the material from the set questions.  You want to make sure that you both talk about ideas and events in the story, so that you can both get credits for your learning.  [An example of a recorded discussion will be available soon].

3. Write a review of the short story.  You will need an introduction, three main body paragraphs and a conclusion.  You will need to turn your answers to the set questions, plus any other ideas you have on the story, into paragraphs for the review.  [An example of what your review could look like will be available soon].

Questions on the short story "Short Skirt" by Norman Bilbrough:

1. Some words in English give clues, or make suggestions, about topics.  e.g. "He was a greasy character" suggests that the man was not very trustworthy.  We can make this inference because something which is greasy is not nice to touch or easy to hold on to.  The suggestion of the word "greasy" is unpleasant.  "Greasy" also relates to a slang word in English called "greaser" which is when someone is especially nice to someone else to get what they want in a situation.  We don't really admire this, and usually use this term in a negative way.  The flash word for these clues or suggestions is connotation.  What is the connotation, or suggestions, of the title in this story?  i.e. what do you think of when you hear the term 'short skirt'?  
2. Sometimes our ideas about a word or phrase relate to our prejudices.  What kind of prejudices might people have about the term "short skirt"?
3. Now read page 23.   Where does Haley work, and what is she doing with her first pay?  What stops her from smiling?
4. Read pages 24-5.  What went wrong with Haley's plans for the evening?  
5. Read pages 26-7. Describe Tony's role in the family.  Give two examples to support your idea(s).  
6. Read pages 28-29.  Who is the bad guy in this story and what clues are there to suggest he is the bad guy?
7. Read pages 30-31.  What had Haley preferred to think about rather than experience?  What word does the author use to show that Ethan is unhappy and unexciting?
8. Read pages 32-33.  What is Haley doing when Jerry rings?  Why do you think they author chose this job for Haley to be doing when the phone rang?
9. Read pages 34-35.  What does Haley take with her to meet Jerry that links to the beginning of the story?  Write down the simile used to show how Haley is feeling about Jerry.
10. Read pages 36-37.  What evidence is there that Haley is more keen than Jerry?
11. Read pages 38-39.  What changes do we see in Haley's thoughts about Jerry as she waits and waits for him?  Give a quote to support your answer.  Why do you think Haley changed her mind?  How do you think she might feel when she gets home?

Literacy conversations

Today we are having our first go at using Screencastify to record our spoken interactions.  In groups of three, set up your screencastify recording and discuss  the following questions:

What does literacy mean?  Try and give examples for in school, in the workplace and out of school/work.

Why do you think you have to get literacy credits for NCEA Level One?

Using the information you found yesterday, describe your options for getting ten literacy credits this year.

Big question: how does Level One NCEA literacy work?

Today we are keeping it as real as possible.  Many of you had already seen the Katie Makkai poem before, and so we won't be doing any further class work on her performance poem.

Our skills today focus on finding information to help us with our big question: how does Level One NCEA literacy work?  Here are the steps we will follow:

1. In your English folder, make a google doc called "NCEA Level One Literacy"
2. Write down our big question as the heading and then google the question.
3. Take a screen shot of the first page of the answers.
4. Choose the most official looking one - one with a government link in the URL and click on that link.
5. Now read through what you find and write down two facts you learnt that help answer your question and two new questions you have, based on what you have read. 

Pretty by Katie Makkai

Learning objective: to develop our ideas on the power of the word pretty, and what it means to different people.

Success criteria: 

1. We can describe our own thoughts and experiences relating to the word "pretty."

2. We can discuss the ideas in Katie Makkai's spoken word poem.

3. We can show our understanding of the poem "pretty" in our responses to the set questions, using specific supporting details.

Step one: discuss, in pairs or in your table groups, what you think "pretty" means and what expectations there are about being 'pretty' in our culture.

Step two: silent writing.  Ten minutes to write your thoughts down, including examples, opinions and supporting details.

Step three: watch Katie Makkai's performance

Step four: You can find the full text on the poemhunter website.  Make a copy of this text and paste it into a new document in your English folder called "Pretty:" Reading Skills."  Then I want you to decide how to set it out, as the text is all mashed together on the poemhunter website.  Where will you start new stanzas or paragraphs?  Use the comments function to highlight words and then find out what they mean.

Week 6: focus on Coolgardie text: reading on, between & beyond the lines

This week we have continued our work on the Coolgardie text, tracking our progress through the questions and using one to one and small group discussion to help work out the answers.  The most confusing question for most people was about the granny ring.  We all learnt something new when we looked this word up:

We finished our class time on this reading assignment on Thursday, and Ms Quick will mark it in the weekend.  If anyone is unable to get this completed by Saturday morning, Ms Quick will contact parents and run a lunchtime support session for students to catch up.  

Coolgardie

Yesterday we continued work on our language techniques kahoot creations.  We will have a go at these on Friday.

Today I shared two documents via Hapara.  If you go to your ENA111 folder in your google drive, you will have your own, named copies of the text on the Coolgardie track and the question sheet.  You will be able to write your answers straight onto the question sheet.  This is our project for the next two lessons.  I am looking for evidence of your independent reading skills in this activity.