Vocabulary I - ADJECTIVES

http://prezi.com/eqzb-t_wxa0m/untitled-prezi/?kw=view-eqzb-t_wxa0m&rc=ref-12442883

Order & Disorder - Paper 2 Practice

Questions 1 & 3

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/83085236/Order%20and%20Disorder%20Q1%20%26%203%20MARK%20SCHEME.ppt

Question 2

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/83085236/Order%20and%20Disorder%20Remedial.ppt

Sample Answers

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/83085236/Order%20and%20disorder%20SAMPLE%20ANSWERS.ppt

Luke's Message - Worksheet

These are some activities for us to work on.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/83085236/Luke's%20Message%20Worksheet.doc

Writing Checklist ppt

  
Have a look at this ppt

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/83085236/Writing%20Checklist.ppt

Writing Checklist

This will be our tool to improve our writing pieces

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/83085236/IGCSE%20Writing%20Checklist%20Ferrarelli%20M.pdf

Literary Terms

Have a look at this presentation of literary terms to enhance your analysis of how writers achieve effects...

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/83085236/Literary%20Terms%20M%20Ferrarelli.ppt

Narrative Writing

Paths Crossing

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/83085236/Paths%20Crossing%20Coursework%202012.ppt

Survey

Do you think working with sample answers is useful to learn more effectively and improve your writing skills?
1. Click on this link: http://vot.rs/
2. Enter this code: 97937
3. Pick your answer.
4. Check the results at: http://mentimeter.com/p/778a2dc8aaa0

Assignment 3 - Ads

Write an article for an international magazine which specialises in marketing analysing the effectiveness and design of two print advertisements belonging to the same campaign.

1 of 2

Bully for You, by Chris Joseph

Read the following piece of electronic fiction and choose one of the activities below:

http://chrisjose.ph/bullyforyou/mother/



1. Imagine you are Ted. Write a journal entry expressing your thoughts and feelings after being bullied at school.

2. You are Ted's father. Write a conversation with Ted's teacher in which you share your ideas about what is happening to Ted.

3. Write an essay in which you analyse the causes and consequences of BULLYING and propose solutions to the problem.

DIGITAL READING DIGITAL THINKING Inanimate Alice

Understanding how writers achieve effects Digital Thinking Skills

Click on the following link and view chapter 3. Then answer the questions below

http://www.inanimatealice.com/

1. Did you do any reading when watching the file?
2. What other resources does the writer have to transmit his/her ideas to the reader/viewer?
3. How is MYSTERY achieved?
4. Did you get nervous or anxious at any moment? Why? Whay made you feel uncomfortable?
5. What is the role of sound in the story? Would it have the same effect without any music or sound effects?
6. Analyse colour: Which is the predominant colour? What effect does this have on the reader/viewer?

Coursework - Sample Feedback

Pilar,

-         Effective intro. Now: Who’s Daniel Chandler? Provide some more info
-         Intro: Why not work a little bit on the importance of connotation?
-         Para.2: Last sentence: quote the source
-         Para.3: are the ads for a tv or light bulb? What are they trying to ‘sell’?
-         Para. 4: Where does the idea of success come from? Expand on this point pls
-         Para.5: Why has light-blue been chosen for the ads? 
-         Why do you think the ads ‘were created in order to comply with certain needs of a certain sector’? Could you be more specific?
-         I find the conclusion ambiguous. I guess you’ll have to reframe it.
-         Very good work!!

Macarena,

-         Your intro arouses the reader’s interest and sets the topic of your article effectively. Check the definitions of denotation and connotation and quote your source.
-         Para.3: What makes viewers think ‘They could be a Chief Engineer’? Expand on this point.
-         Whay makes the image of the man ‘successful and serious’? Keep on working on this point.
-         Para.4: reframe topic sentence pls

Milagros,

-         Your intro’s fine but you may want to make it more engaging. Reframe pls.
-         Para. 2: your arguments are ok but you’ll need to justify your ideas with evidence from the texts: Why does it seem that ‘Nothing is impossible for them’? Keep on working on the slogan.
-         Expand on the point which deals with eye contact.
-         Conclusion: try to restate your points, esp. the ones concerning ‘effects’ and ‘techniques’

Luke's Message, by Chris Joseph

Luke's Message

http://threenineone.com/cj/lukesmessage/luke.html

Harsh Destiny, by Pilar Vigo Malusardi

Harsh Destiny

All of our movements provoke unexpected reactions in the world, actions we thought were insignificant; however, accumulate throughout time coming back to us, either for the better or worse. Considering the infinite possibilities pool, I wonder whether I could have changed our fate. Perhaps it did not have to end that way.

It was at the end of my last year in high school and, having had our seats reassigned, the boy I liked sat next to me. Quiet as he was, he did not have many friends; he was not anything special to look at, nor did he have any extraordinary qualities, but he had always been very kind to me. Be it coincidence, fate, or luck, it made me happy that chance had decided to make our paths cross. However, I did not have the courage to seize this chance. I should have let him know I loved him. Although we both knew deep inside that this was more than friendship, neither of us took a step foward. As a philosopher once said, nothing comes from good will if one does not act upon it.

In those days, I had taken to photography. Though I took my camera everywhere,  still I had not found that subject that would trigger my inspiration. Chancely, I realized that this boy, with the sad look in his eyes, was the perfect model I had been looking for. The moment he looked up at me, I immediately knew that he was the one. He had an aura about him that really caught my eye, as if he were in a place of his own, where nobody could perceive his presence.

It was  hard to strike up a conversation with him; he was not very easy-going but, in the long run, I noticed that he had a natural charm many had failed to see. We had a lot of things in common, especially our family problems, and at once we became soul mates. Just the two of us could grasp what it felt to be lonely. Not even our parents were aware of our grief, as they were busy fighting each other. Needless to say, happiness was a feeling we could only enjoy in each other’s presence, mainly when we hang out on the school rooftop, a place off-limits to students. These were the moments I cherished the most, the two of us together without a worry in the world. I would take pictures of him, the sun bathing every inch of his body.

For the last weeks, before the inevitable happened, I noticed an air of gloominess enveloping him. His vacant eyes betrayed nothing but concern. Once and again I asked him the reason for his erratic attitute. Silence, at best, was his reply. He seemed to have burnt himself out.

I guess I did see it coming, just not this soon. Maybe, I hoped it would not happen. That afternoon, we were on the rooftop, as was our norm, me leaning against the wall, both with eyes fixed over the rails towards the horizon. He was quieter than usual and not very much responsive. When I talked to him, he limited himself to nods and smiles. I only took my eyes off him for a few seconds to look for my camera. When I turned round, I found him balancing on the edge of the wall, 25 meters of empty space layed between him and the ground. I did not even get a chance to shout out before he turned to look at me, with half closed eyes and, just like that, he let himself fall.

It took but a moment, there he was reflecting on the void left behind. Inmediately after, a deafening silence like sirens, and the single realization that all he had ever wanted was to be loved for the person he truly was. Yet death had taken him, as it does with everyone in their due time, only it came too soon for him.

Ever since, I have willingly spent endless hours locked up in my room, stuck in a world of concrete and glass. Years have gone by in the blink of an eye. No matter what I do with my life from now on, it does not interfere with the messed up jumble that makes up destiny, as nobody cares for my existence. No one is going to find me here, no rescue is coming; the tide, in its fury, is drowning me. Little do I want to carry on in this cold, empty world. The only barely perceptible sound is that of my own voice whispering to my brain: “Were life to give me a second chance, would I be corageous enough to hinder his jump or would I follow him in his flight?”

The Forest, by Julián Domecq

“The Forest”

The noise of the alarm clock woke me up, when I opened my eyes to turn it off I realize that I have forgotten to changed the alarm time. I was late for school. Fortunately my clothes were prepared in my chair and my bag was ready. I rushed downstairs and grab a piece of bread for the journey. In my way I noticed that the road that i always picked was closed. Many roads were opened to reach the school, but the one of the forest was the most exciting one.

            When I put my feet on the grass a strange wind gently caress my face. It was a huge forest, while I was almost striding, the idea of getting school had faded away and my head was flooded with all the things that i could do on that mysterious place. The branches with all the leaves barely let the sun beams through; I was imagining a whole movie on my subconscious. I tried hard to spot new animals or insects, maybe I could find a new specimen. In every single hole I peered, but it was in vain. Suddenly my head stopped the dreaming, and almost unwittingly my legs start running, I could only heard my exhausted breath.

            Suddenly a root appeared in the middle and my feet got tangled, in the blink of an eye I was on the floor, but it take me seconds to  realize that the soil had a quaggy texture. When I got up the nice and green forest suddenly turned into a creepy and gloomy place, the blossom flowers were now dead roots coming from some puddles that you can’t even see the bottom, the birds and rabbits that had been there a few seconds ago had mysteriously disappear and the only living creatures were a few frogs hidden in marsh plants. I took two steps and suddenly all the landscape were covered by fog and I could barely see where to put my next step.

            The idea of being late to school has completely disappeared, I was astonished, the road had completely disappeared and my head only cared about the strange change of a beautiful forest into a creepy and gloomy swamp. Never in my life I had saw this part of the forest, it was something new for my eyes. I noticed that my bag was much heavier than it was before; I turned around to see what was it and my scream was heard from miles away. A green and cold snake was almost reaching my neck when I threw the bag away and I did what I was supposed to do, run as fast as possible. In the moment that I rushed I couldn’t even remembered what was thinking , and again the only thing that I could hear was my breath and my steps hitting again the draft soil, the beams were all over the green grass, the trees and the blossom flowers appeared again as the swamp never appeared.

            Suddenly I was a few meters from the school, I was dirty and with my heart beating very quick, but my mind only thought on the strange things that happened on that forest. I heard the bell and my best friend came and asked me why I was all dirty and where was my bag and I responded: “Only the forest and I know what really happened”

Luke's Message, by Chris Joseph (WORKSHEET)

TWITTERATURE

Twitterature on Twitter: Twighlight, by Stephenie Meyer

https://twitter.com/AcimanandRensin

More Samples of Digital Fiction:Twelve Blue, by Michael Joyce

Read this example of electronic & hypertextual literature:

http://collection.eliterature.org/1/works/joyce__twelve_blue/twelvepic.html

POVERTY

Look at the following digital board and answer the questions together with a classmate.


http://www.stixy.com/guest/241760

Language

Language

Issues of language are central to culture and thus to cultural studies.
Language is important to an understanding of culture for two central and related
reasons: first, language is the privileged medium in which cultural meanings are formed and communicated; and second, language is the primary means and
medium through which we form knowledge about ourselves and the social world.
Language forms the network by which we classify the world and make it
meaningful, that is, cultural.

Following the influence of structuralism within cultural studies, the
investigation of culture has often been regarded as virtually interchangeable with
the exploration of meaning produced symbolically through signifying systems that
work ‘like a language’. To hold that culture works ‘like a language’ is to argue that
all meaningful representations are assembled and generate meaning with essentially
the same mechanisms as a language. That is, the selection and organization of signs
into texts which are constituted through a form of grammar.

An essentialist or referential understanding of language argues that signs have
stable meanings that derive from their enduring referents in the real. In that way,
words refer to the essence of an object or category which they are said to reflect.
Thus the metaphor of the mirror is to the fore in this conception of language.
However, for the anti-essentialist (anti-representationalism) view of language that
informs cultural studies, language is a system of differential signs that generate
meaning through phonetic and conceptual difference. That is to say, meaning is
relational and unstable rather than referential and fixed. Here meaning derives from
the use of signs so that language is better understood with the metaphor of the tool
rather than that of the mirror.



For cultural studies, language is not a neutral medium for the formation and
transfer of values, meanings and forms of knowledge that exist independently
beyond its boundaries. Rather, language is constitutive of those very values,
meanings and knowledges. That is, language gives meaning to material objects and
social practices that are brought into view and made intelligible to us in terms
which language delimits.

Within those philosophies of language that have been deployed by cultural
studies there is a division between those who think there is something called ‘a
language’ that has a structure and those who do not. In the former camp lies
Saussure and structuralism (semiotics) which has been concerned with the ‘systems
of relations’ of the underlying structure of sign systems and the grammar that
makes meaning possible. Meaning production is held to be the effect of the ‘deep
structures’ of language that are manifested in specific cultural phenomena or
human speakers but which are not the outcome of the intentions of actors per se.
However, thinkers in the latter camp see the concept of ‘language’ as itself a tool
or metaphor for understanding the marks and noises that human beings deploy to
achieve their purposes but which does not itself have any underlying structure or
‘existence’. Thus, Derrida undermines the notion of the stable structures of
language. Meaning, it is argued, cannot be confined to single words, sentences or
particular texts but is the outcome of relationships between texts, that is,
intertextuality. For Derrida, meaning can never be ‘fixed’, rather words carry
multiple meanings including the echoes or traces of meanings from related words
in different contexts.
(Adapted from: The SAGE Dictionary of Cultural Studies, by Chris Baker)