End of Year Survival Units
The last couple of weeks of term means finding ways of surviving. Not only am I tired, but my students are both tired and wondering why they have to work when school is nearly finished. They've had their exams and they know that there is no other assessment to do.
Westerns
I've developed two new units to keep the kids engaged. My Year 10s are working through a Western study. this genre study explores how Western conventions are used in a range of texts. Ideally (ie, if I had time), this would include a novel extract, short story and comic strip, but as we are so very close to the end, I'm focusing on film. After learning about what to expect in a Western, we watched extracts from two classic Western films (Stagecoach and High Noon). Students used the knowledge they gained from this to assess how Rango is a Western (not too hard once they got passed the hero being a chameleon). Finally,we've just started the Coen brother's adaptation of True Grit.
A couple of observations at this point:
1. The class chose to to Westerns. After I decided to do a genre study to develop their understanding of texts conventions and how texts are linked, I gave the class a choice from about five genres. I admit that I am surprised they chose Westerns; I thought maybe disaster movies or science fiction might be more appealing. Thus I have learnt something else about my class: never underestimate them. Some of the students have actually watched the original True Grit, and I got a rare thumbs up (literally) from one of the more cynical boys in the class.
2. They like True Grit. I think that some were drawn to Westerns by the appeal of Rango, but we started watching the True Grit today and they paid attention to the (what I thought they would find boring) court scene at the start, and actually sniggered at a couple of the lines. There were a few comments to each other about aspects of the film. It might seem a strange thing to get excited about, but I took that they were asking each other what the dead birds hanging up were, as as sign of their interest in what was happening.
Nice.
The Future
My Year 9s are also doing a genre study but with a different approach. They are doing 'The Future'. I am using short stories, images, film extracts and movies to encourage them to develop their own vision of what the future might hold.
We started with researching an issue that might affect the planet in the future, such as global warming. They then looked into other people's visions of the future might hold. Since then we have read a short stories (Isaac Asimov, Philip K. Dick, Ray Bradbury so far) and looked at film clips. At each step they have thought about how the future is portrayed in the text.
Students then use this information to help them develop their ideas. They have a wide range of activities to choose from to do this, including writing, drawing and acting-based activities.
Observations thus far:
1. Boys like cars.When asked to draw an image of the future they envisage, most of the boys chose cars. Inevitably they were hovercars. Challenge for next time: how to get the boys to think beyond this; they need to make links between the environment and transport, between people and transport, etc.
2. Girls love cutting up paper. One group asked if they could make collages of the future using magazines. I was a bit skeptical because the images in the magazines, duh, are mostly of the present. However, they really impressed me by choosing images they could tell a story about (apparently most people will have sheep as pets!) and manipulating the images when they needed to. I particularly liked the green people (a reference to the Capitol people in The Hunger Games, as I described it to the girs).
3. No matter how many times I explain why we are doing the unit, it is never enough. I need to keep reminding them that this is an English study; that in this exercise students are making connections between texts, and in the process making text to self connections. I also need to emphasise why the future is an important issue to consider.
Overall, I am really pleased with how these units are developing, and can certainly see room to develop them more next year. Students are engaged, they are working, and they are generally pretty happy with the studies we are doing.
So, school is nearly finished... I think I will survive!
Westerns
I've developed two new units to keep the kids engaged. My Year 10s are working through a Western study. this genre study explores how Western conventions are used in a range of texts. Ideally (ie, if I had time), this would include a novel extract, short story and comic strip, but as we are so very close to the end, I'm focusing on film. After learning about what to expect in a Western, we watched extracts from two classic Western films (Stagecoach and High Noon). Students used the knowledge they gained from this to assess how Rango is a Western (not too hard once they got passed the hero being a chameleon). Finally,we've just started the Coen brother's adaptation of True Grit.
A couple of observations at this point:
1. The class chose to to Westerns. After I decided to do a genre study to develop their understanding of texts conventions and how texts are linked, I gave the class a choice from about five genres. I admit that I am surprised they chose Westerns; I thought maybe disaster movies or science fiction might be more appealing. Thus I have learnt something else about my class: never underestimate them. Some of the students have actually watched the original True Grit, and I got a rare thumbs up (literally) from one of the more cynical boys in the class.
2. They like True Grit. I think that some were drawn to Westerns by the appeal of Rango, but we started watching the True Grit today and they paid attention to the (what I thought they would find boring) court scene at the start, and actually sniggered at a couple of the lines. There were a few comments to each other about aspects of the film. It might seem a strange thing to get excited about, but I took that they were asking each other what the dead birds hanging up were, as as sign of their interest in what was happening.
Nice.
The Future
My Year 9s are also doing a genre study but with a different approach. They are doing 'The Future'. I am using short stories, images, film extracts and movies to encourage them to develop their own vision of what the future might hold.
We started with researching an issue that might affect the planet in the future, such as global warming. They then looked into other people's visions of the future might hold. Since then we have read a short stories (Isaac Asimov, Philip K. Dick, Ray Bradbury so far) and looked at film clips. At each step they have thought about how the future is portrayed in the text.
Students then use this information to help them develop their ideas. They have a wide range of activities to choose from to do this, including writing, drawing and acting-based activities.
Observations thus far:
1. Boys like cars.When asked to draw an image of the future they envisage, most of the boys chose cars. Inevitably they were hovercars. Challenge for next time: how to get the boys to think beyond this; they need to make links between the environment and transport, between people and transport, etc.
2. Girls love cutting up paper. One group asked if they could make collages of the future using magazines. I was a bit skeptical because the images in the magazines, duh, are mostly of the present. However, they really impressed me by choosing images they could tell a story about (apparently most people will have sheep as pets!) and manipulating the images when they needed to. I particularly liked the green people (a reference to the Capitol people in The Hunger Games, as I described it to the girs).
3. No matter how many times I explain why we are doing the unit, it is never enough. I need to keep reminding them that this is an English study; that in this exercise students are making connections between texts, and in the process making text to self connections. I also need to emphasise why the future is an important issue to consider.
Overall, I am really pleased with how these units are developing, and can certainly see room to develop them more next year. Students are engaged, they are working, and they are generally pretty happy with the studies we are doing.
So, school is nearly finished... I think I will survive!
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