tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23650291678526159862024-02-19T20:28:50.370+13:00Teach TwentyA high school English teacher's reflections on her classroom programme, using IT in English, being a Head of Department, the vissisitudes of teaching, Life, the Universe and pretty much Everything...Jess Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13333422418731543293noreply@blogger.comBlogger45125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2365029167852615986.post-56451461362798484132018-08-01T13:52:00.005+12:002020-10-07T00:18:14.627+13:00My blog has moved!<span style="font-size: large;">Hi all!</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I have not blogged for a long time and now that I am starting again, I have decided to move my blog to a different email address under my married name.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">You will find the new version of my blog here: <a href="https://torleyt20.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Teach20</a></span>Jess Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13333422418731543293noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2365029167852615986.post-21508021009573403672016-04-30T16:36:00.002+12:002016-04-30T16:36:47.501+12:00GAFE Summit Wellington 2016: Keynote 1 - Jim Sill<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<a href="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/6Twzr7xjNkmBEUf5vFIJLWPIhNNw0nMs-kuKyWfXOFGMHMCd_hfcq_Q4aN8420y1lZCj6lYme2mVNr8KEHx5-an8aEu65TTdy_YBNwn9VD85NK7wV7ua-pre9HR-TgcgtCkMMMw" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Jess & Melody at GAFE Wtn 16.jpg-large" border="0" height="190" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/6Twzr7xjNkmBEUf5vFIJLWPIhNNw0nMs-kuKyWfXOFGMHMCd_hfcq_Q4aN8420y1lZCj6lYme2mVNr8KEHx5-an8aEu65TTdy_YBNwn9VD85NK7wV7ua-pre9HR-TgcgtCkMMMw" style="border: none; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="251" /></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 18.666666666666664px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Keynote 1 - Jim Sill</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">GoPro is scary</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Is anyone being moved by what I am sharing?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Freytag’s Pyramid</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sucking is the first step to being sorta good at something</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">FOMO</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">#goproisscary</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Jim was talking about </span><a href="https://gopro.com/channel/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">GoPro</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> - in short it’s a 360 degree camera which takes pictures anywhere. I have recently read </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Circle_(Eggers_novel)" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dave Egger’s dystopic novel, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Circle</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. </span><span style="color: purple;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">GoPro is like the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Circle </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">in action.</span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Be afraid. Be very afraid. “Secrets are lies….Sharing is caring….Privacy is theft.”</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">#moveme</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As we video stream our lives 24/7 we need to ask ourselves: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: purple;">is anyone being moved by what I am sharing?</span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> This is also a good question to ask in the classroom as educators. If our audience is not connecting to what we are sharing, we are probably doing something wrong.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">#freytagspyramid</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As an English teacher I recognised this plot structure diagram (Gustav Freytag, 1863) immediately:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img alt="freytag2.png" height="150" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/mvmkbTk0NtNw668TkIFtPWWcL90Unnjqyq9YouUykOudWtDwhB9G-lYfmOByVQ-xlcKqruKF6buLUbSr8CmfzjJtYcG-8v8SBnUwO2IdWIYMiehFYKSw74cfvQws-lHOxOLCXVc" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="336" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We could go even further back, to Aristotle, who perhaps put it more succinctly: A whole is what has a beginning, a middle and an end.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The point? Whether we are talking about ancient Greek drama or a 30 second YouTube video, </span><span style="color: purple;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">a story needs to be told</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and it needs some kind of exposition before the audience can buy into the climax and resolution. This is a good thing to remember when you (or your students) are making movies. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m thinking of those ‘nek minnit’ videos. (</span><a href="https://youtu.be/RLphoP6APkg" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Here’s the original.</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">) Unless you show the pre-existing situation and can relate to the character in their setting, the complication of ‘nek minnit’ does not engage us, it is not funny.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">#isuckatthis</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Something which we as adults have hopefully learned, is that when you try something new you suck at it, but if you persist and practice, you get better. Thus, </span><span style="color: purple;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">sucking is the first step to being sorta good at something</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> A good thing to remind our students - no one should expect instant success all the time, when we are learning something, we often suck at it at first.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">#fomo</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We need to engage students using the </span><span style="color: purple;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Fear Of Missing Out</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> We see this in operation everywhere. Everyone else has a smartphone, so you need to get one for FOMO. All the other teachers can use Hapara or Classroom, so you had better learn it for FOMO. And, of course, this is good pyschology to use in the classroom, make the learning something that students want to engage in for FOMO.</span></div>
<br />Jess Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13333422418731543293noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2365029167852615986.post-41112084988126118522015-07-10T13:32:00.002+12:002015-07-10T13:37:42.298+12:00NZATE Day 3: Karlo Mila - Sailing in a new direction to enlarge our worldsDay 3 for me was all about the final keynote from Karlo Mila. I have to confess I had (a) never read Karlo's poetry and in fact (b) never even heard of her before. Having heard her speak this morning I now have a burning desire to rectify 'a'.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEczqT3fvK7D_THYrWI91KJ4B1D8P80qDOpY6Qhg8ZhYgPAMnT0ybj-LLtc2un4b1QbAn3yB8OYh3aWmFcsmC17cElHGfljj7hPCGbZjVU38Xp2qTzDaaBKZwuR4yC33_uwzd02ihJlsg/s1600/Karlo+Mila.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEczqT3fvK7D_THYrWI91KJ4B1D8P80qDOpY6Qhg8ZhYgPAMnT0ybj-LLtc2un4b1QbAn3yB8OYh3aWmFcsmC17cElHGfljj7hPCGbZjVU38Xp2qTzDaaBKZwuR4yC33_uwzd02ihJlsg/s1600/Karlo+Mila.jpg" /></a></div>
You can see a short bio here on the conference keynotes page. <a href="http://www.capitalletters2015.com/key-notes.html">http://www.capitalletters2015.com/key-notes.html</a><br />
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Karlo talked about how young people of Pasifika heritage who are born in Aotearoa can grow up disconnected from their multiple cultures, feeling like they don't fit in anywhere. "Trying to fit into someone else's story sucks," she tells us. "Yes, you have Cinderella, but as a half-caste heavy girl from Palmerston North, you know you aren't even invited to the ball."<br />
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Another example is wanting to paint "NOT" at the end of Colin McCahon's "I AM" (<i><a href="http://www.mccahon.co.nz/cm001186" target="_blank">Gate III</a></i>). This one hits me quite hard as I used to spend hours as an undergrad at Vic staring at that painting. It hung in what was in those times known as the 'Lecture Block' and I saw the verse, "Teach me to order my days rightly, that I may enter the gates of wisdom," as a kind of personal reproach over my lack of adherence to my study timetable or my last minute knocking-up of whatever essay was due. Although I was not a Christian at the time ("I AM" now), I was fascinated by that work. It was the first piece of Colin McCahon's I had ever seen, as a dewey-eyed 17 year old first year, and it had impact. But now I can see that maybe it had such impact on me only because it was part of my story: as a pakeha New Zealander the Judeo-Christian, Western cultural capital was in my kete even if I hadn't claimed it yet and was only beginning to understand that I owned it. "I WAS."<br />
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But, Karlo tells us, having more than one set of cultural resources to navigate by can be a huge asset if young people can be connected to their 'poly-cultural capital'. Reflecting on this, I imagine our rangatahi having Gate III, Shakespeare, Chaucer and Beowulf in their kete alongside Mana Maori, Mana Pasifika, Mana Moana. What could they not achieve, what new directions could they not take us in to enlarge our worlds?<br />
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Malo, Karlo - he mihi nui ki a koe.<br />
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<br />Jess Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13333422418731543293noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2365029167852615986.post-34583101704918639732015-07-10T10:37:00.001+12:002015-07-21T09:40:42.530+12:00NZATE Capital Letters 2015: Day 2<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Day 2 was great, but I did not feel moved to write a lot of notes. Here's what I did jot down.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Workshop 3 was <span style="background-color: white; widows: 1;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Emily McHalick and Susanne Richardson from Heretaunga College, talking about how they have changed their English programme so that students chose their courses by the learning context. It sounds quite exciting but I am not sure how feasible it would be in a college our size. They have a Y11 cohort of around 170, whereas ours is about 70. That has got to impact on how many different options we could offer. We want to go back and talk to the change team about it and maybe do a visit to observe and talk to their SMT about some of the timetabling implications. Emily and Susanne's powerpoint is not up on the conference drive yet but I will add the link here when it is.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; widows: 1;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Keynote: Bernard Beckett</b></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; widows: 1;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Bernard was quite simply brilliant, and I tweeted a few of his quotable moments, but his talk is hard to sum up. Essentially, he was talking about how exam results and compliance culture aren't what English is all about - that our job is getting kids to think about ideas and try on identities via texts. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; widows: 1;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #292f33; letter-spacing: 0.25999999046325684px; line-height: 32px; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: auto;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"If your idea of your job is to get good grades for your students it is, I think, soul-withering."</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #292f33; line-height: 22px; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: auto;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"There is so much that is incredibly valuable and rich that only the English teacher does."</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #292f33; letter-spacing: 0.25999999046325684px; line-height: 32px; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: auto;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Variance studies: Bernard explaining how people misinterpret them, focussing on the variable that shows greatest change, and mistaking this for the most important factor. His analogy: oxygen would probably show little variance in terms of impact on educational outcome. But without it? Outcomes would probably not be that hot...</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #292f33; line-height: 22px; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: auto;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Beckett re the premise behind his new novel <i>Lullaby</i>: "Totally medically unrealistic but narratively convenient!"</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #292f33; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: auto;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="widows: 1;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #292f33; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: auto;"><b>Workshop 4: Louise Munro - Flipped Classroom for Year 11 Novel Study</b></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #292f33; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: auto;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="widows: 1;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #292f33; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: auto;">Louise was talking about running a novel study on Dystopic fiction where the students could choose their own novel. It was an interesting approach and I can see it working for some classes I have had, especially at Year 12. This year when the students voted on their novel there was a 50:50 split and I suggested a choice - students were reluctant. They said they thought it was easier all doing the same novel, but several of those who had voted the other way never finished the chosen novel - I think the choice may have worked better. We shall see!</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #292f33; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: auto;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #292f33; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: auto;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1Rgu_k04QiVbzFUUnpmZmVYR0E/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Louise's powerpoint is here.</a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #292f33; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: auto;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="widows: 1;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #292f33; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: auto;"><b>Iain McGilchrist - John McGlashan College - 24 Lies Per Second</b></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #292f33; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: auto;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="widows: 1;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #292f33; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: auto;">photoshop friday - note to self: check it out!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #292f33; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: auto;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #292f33; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Iain's resources at at: </span><span style="line-height: 22px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_Nf4odup4m_jPpaSTmqnlTgxKbjYnJZtMjbkfiIQO7o/edit" target="_blank">tiny url.com/24liespersecond</a> </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #292f33; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #292f33; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22px; white-space: pre-wrap;">They are awesome, so go and look at them if you are teaching film.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #292f33; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b><br /></b></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #292f33; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Close Reading: Ten Practical Tactics</b></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #292f33; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #292f33; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22px; white-space: pre-wrap;">1. Circle the full stops, question marks and exclamation marks. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #292f33; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Read the poem only stopping when you hit those. </span></span><span style="color: #292f33; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 22px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Don't stop if there isn't one. </span><span style="color: #292f33; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 22px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Poets write in sentences and the lines don't necessarily match them. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #292f33; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22px; white-space: pre-wrap;">2. Circle key conjunctions - but, and, so</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #292f33; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22px; white-space: pre-wrap;">They may signal a turning point.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #292f33; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22px; white-space: pre-wrap;">3. Juxtaposition underpins everything.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #292f33; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Look for things that are opposites - contrasts. If you see 'dark' then look for 'light.' Then ask:</span></span><span style="color: #292f33; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 22px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> which does the poet prefer?</span></div>
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<span style="color: #292f33; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 22px; white-space: pre-wrap;">4. Pronouns</span></div>
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<span style="color: #292f33; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 22px; white-space: pre-wrap;">5. Substitution</span></div>
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<span style="color: #292f33; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 22px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ask: 'Why didn't the poet use the word ________ instead?'</span></div>
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<span style="color: #292f33; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 22px; white-space: pre-wrap;">6. Sound patterns are secondary</span></div>
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<span style="color: #292f33; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Alliteration is easy to identify but it is difficult to explain why it has been used. Usually to enhance the meaning of words and the connections between them.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #292f33; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22px; white-space: pre-wrap;">7. Skip the parenthetical.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #292f33; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22px; white-space: pre-wrap;">On first reading you can cut to the chase a bit more.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #292f33; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22px; white-space: pre-wrap;">8. Examine pairs and three-of-a-kind. (The 'Poker' rule)</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #292f33; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Crescendo effect to increase the intensity. Parallel constructions intensify the point the poet is making.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #292f33; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22px; white-space: pre-wrap;">9. Read poems aloud.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #292f33; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22px; white-space: pre-wrap;">10. Give the tyres a good kick before you read in-depth.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #292f33; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22px; white-space: pre-wrap;">or 'approach it like a Christmas present' - shake, poke, prod, guess, predict.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #292f33; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Pre-reading skills:</span></span></div>
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</div>
<ul>
<li><span style="color: #292f33; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22px; white-space: pre-wrap;">title and author</span></span></li>
<li><span style="color: #292f33; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22px; white-space: pre-wrap;">stanzas or paragraphs</span></span></li>
<li><span style="color: #292f33; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22px; white-space: pre-wrap;">full stops</span></span></li>
<li><span style="color: #292f33; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22px; white-space: pre-wrap;">key words</span></span></li>
<li><span style="color: #292f33; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22px; white-space: pre-wrap;">opposites</span></span></li>
</ul>
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<span style="color: #292f33; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I was interested to see how many of the above are things I have found I have to teach students when reading Shakespeare. Many have great difficulty decoding, because they do not observe the punctuation - seeming to think that the line end signifies the end of whatever clause they happen to be on. For many, just teaching them this simple thing is a revelation which then opens the language up to them. 'Skip the parenthetical' is also a very useful one for Shakespeare.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #292f33; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #292f33; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I can see the above are going to be very helpful in teaching unfamiliar texts - thanks, Iain!</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #292f33; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></div>
Jess Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13333422418731543293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2365029167852615986.post-84598939078820245802015-07-09T10:57:00.001+12:002015-07-09T11:03:42.508+12:00Shakespeare: Feel the fear and do it anyway!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCtzn3mYVEnnO-DCzjh6MN_vYtO9vbSocJYXr_TCKB8Qd1jngVKqJskUEOMWq65XOqajw58WMmcRrLyt_muO1qQcncSDgFWdGQaoaGLAK6gc5yLLdGdgoaAUFjMp-d7vHvxmtyNWkLpc0/s1600/cartoon+hamlet.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCtzn3mYVEnnO-DCzjh6MN_vYtO9vbSocJYXr_TCKB8Qd1jngVKqJskUEOMWq65XOqajw58WMmcRrLyt_muO1qQcncSDgFWdGQaoaGLAK6gc5yLLdGdgoaAUFjMp-d7vHvxmtyNWkLpc0/s1600/cartoon+hamlet.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Do your students fear Shakespeare? Do they
grumble and complain that they don’t want to study his plays? Do they try and
change English classes to avoid it? Mine do! However, using tough love, IT
tricks, bribery and my passion for the bard, I can usually turn them around and
get the students grudgingly admitting: ‘Maybe I like Shakespeare after all’. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I would like to ‘share the love,’ and pass
on some ideas which have been successful for me, including drama circles,
social media, Kahoot quizzes, video commentaries, debates and good
old-fashioned ‘chalk and talk’.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The attached presentation was prepared for a workshop at Capital Letters 2015 - the NZ Association of Teachers of English Conference. It is mainly based on my
Level 3 Shakespeare Unit where we study <i>Hamlet</i>
and then students complete a research essay for <i>AS 91479 –</i> <i>3.8 Develop an
informed understanding of literature and/or language using critical texts</i>. </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/10TOA7vHZyUJPM1LEsLvxzpOh6HcLFZtt7L4yjfT7lEg/edit#slide=id.p" target="_blank">Click here to view my Google Slides presentation,</a> which includes links to all the resources. Enjoy, and please give me some feedback at the end. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Kia ora.</span></div>
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Jess Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13333422418731543293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2365029167852615986.post-23324336097269975502015-07-08T23:03:00.001+12:002015-07-08T23:03:52.411+12:00Reflecting on NZATE Conference, 2015: Day 1<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I attended my first NZATE conference in 2001, the year before I decided to chuck in my job as a policy analyst and go to teachers' college. It was an experiment: I figured that if I could spend three days with a bunch of English teachers and enjoy it, then that was probably a good test of whether or not I would enjoy teaching English. I still think it was quite a good test, although I am probably a biased sample, having been brought up by two English teachers. (Yes, I did also go and hang out with some students!)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Today, 14 years later, I presented at NZATE conference for the first time ever, talking about teaching Shakespeare, the most fun part of my job. The title of the workshop (Shakespeare: Feel the fear and do it anyway!) refers to</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> both s</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">tudents and teachers, as sometimes teachers too are a bit diffident about tackling Shakespeare, particularly with reluctant students. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I don't claim to be any kind of expert, but I LOVE Shakespeare and decided to share some of the things I do in the hopes that others might pick up something that is worth trying.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I was a bit nervous, but I enjoyed running the workshop and hopefully the attendees got something from it. Presenting was itself a case of feeling the fear and doing it anyway.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A great first day, and having presented my workshop today I can relax and enjoy the rest of the conference. I'll post my workshop presentation tomorrow, it has been temporarily 'unshared' while the conference people organise the online resources.</span>Jess Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13333422418731543293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2365029167852615986.post-87269296373323932772015-07-08T12:34:00.000+12:002015-07-08T13:12:41.226+12:00NZATE 2015 Workshop 1: Karen Melhuish Spencer - What's in it for me?<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Student-Centred Learning </b><a href="http://bit.ly/NZATE15">http://bit.ly/NZATE15</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Reminding ourselves about issues like:</span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">relevance</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">reason why we are learning</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">choice</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">opportunities for collaboration</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In our group we saw that the answers were very different depending on whether we were thinking of junior or senior classes. In senior classes collaboration only goes so far until we hit the realities of the NCEA assessment task.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Real, engaging and authentic</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Learning that is grounded in stuff that is relevant for our learners. They have to understand how it's part of English, and it has to connect to their own experience. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Accelerated by and supported by: social networks, Skype, social media, blogs/wikis, quadblogging, multimedia presentations, book creator.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Responsible for my learning</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You have to know why and what you are learning, set goals, understand next steps and know how to get there.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Accelerated by collaborative docs, eportfolios, vlogs, learning logs etc.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Challenge and Choice</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">See clear links to large concepts. Use SOLO to help understand how to make thinking more complex.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Accelerated by: differentiated tasks, student voice via google forms etc to find out needs, multimedia tools, social media.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Collaborate and Connect</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Reflective learning is effectively social - we need others to push our thinking and learning. Create collaboratively, share what we have learned.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Accelerated by: collaborative docs, social media, social networks, etc.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Great workshop to remind ourselves of those things we know we ought to be doing and help us focus back on areas to work on - thanks, Karen!</span></div>
Jess Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13333422418731543293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2365029167852615986.post-65073710778283285112015-07-08T11:35:00.000+12:002015-07-08T11:35:34.216+12:00NZATE 2015: Keynote 1 - Glenn Colquhoun<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Myths and Legends of the Ancient Pakeha</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Glenn calls conference: "a small prayer meeting of those who love 'story' on a Wednesday morning."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Our country has two poetries: one is written in English, the other is spoken, chanted and sung in Maori. The two do not often connect. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">However, poetry in English has its own oral tradition - sea shanty, lullaby, songs etc. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is gold: Glenn is singing a moteatea 'composed by Captain Cook on first making landfall in Aotearoa'. I think I'm going to cry - that was awesome!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Glenn has been connecting back into the oral tradition so most of the poems he shared with us today have been sung. This is lyric poetry in the real oral tradition. For me, this is reaching into what I have always personally felt about the connection between say, Beowulf and Shakespeare, and moteatea or waiata tawhito.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"There are many volumes of pakehatanga left unsung."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"There is something delicious about bodies that have stood the test of time."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Whakapapa does not only connect those who are related."</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #292f33; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 20px;">Singing one's poems is an unveiling: "To truly sing your stories requires the revelation of character."</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #292f33; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 20px;">"I like to think these songs are really an old form of medicine."</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #292f33; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 20px;">I actually was reduced to tears by Glenn's Moteatea mo Maria - telling the story of his </span><span style="color: #292f33; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;">pakeha ancestry in te reo rangatira. The whakapakehatia was superfluous. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #292f33; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;">He mihi nui ki a koe, e Glenn, mo tenei taonga kua whakatuari ki a matou - tena koe.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #292f33; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></span>Jess Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13333422418731543293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2365029167852615986.post-84993272585985145382014-07-11T11:50:00.002+12:002014-07-11T12:06:11.548+12:00NZATE CONFERENCE Keynote 4: Ted Dawe<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ted Dawe doesn't need any introduction to any NZ readers of this blog (does <i>anyone</i> read this blog?) but if you aren't aware of his work you can check out his website here: <a href="http://www.teddawe.com/">http://www.teddawe.com</a> or the Ted Dawe page on the Random House website: <a href="http://www.randomhouse.co.nz/authors/ted-dawe.aspx">http://www.randomhouse.co.nz/authors/ted-dawe.aspx</a> Ted's book <i>Into the River </i>won<span style="line-height: 19px;"> the 2013 New Zealand Post Children's Book Awards Margaret Mahy Book of the Year.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">Ted tells us he belongs to two vocational 'tribes': writers and English teachers, and that he regards the English teachers as the more important. At teachers' college he was told by Bernie Gadd that the new intake were the 'successes' of the education system and that they would spend their time trying to help the 'failures'. Ted found this challenging as he did not regard himself as a success and had gone to teachers' college for lack of anything better to do.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">He spent his first two years teaching at Auckland Grammar and went to the UK intending never to teach again, but ended up supply teaching in London. Then relieved in Sydney for 3 years and came back to Auckland, teaching at Aorere College and then as HOD English at Dilworth. He is currently at a school for international students in a non-teaching role.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">"It's a funny business being a writer." It wasn't until he went to England that he discovered what being a writer was about by writing to his grandmother. He had promised to write to her every week so every Sunday evening he sat down and did so. At first it was hard but after a while it got easier and he began to look forward to it and enjoy it. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">Now he says, "Not having a novel on the go is like being a bird trapped inside a room."</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">He began to write the kinds of books his students might like. He wanted an S.E. Hinton for NZ. His first book, </span><i style="line-height: 19px;">Thunder Road</i><span style="line-height: 19px;">, was written over the summer break one year. 42 days, 2000 words a day. "It's doable." Sometimes it didn't work, so I would go mow the lawns or something; the next day I would open the laptop and it would happen. "I'll write till the day I die."</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">He made his students read chapters of his manuscript for homework and they gave him critiques (e.g. "You can't do a donut in a Mazda 323, it's front wheel drive, man! You need a Nissan Skyline.")</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">"When you carry a novel around in your head, you don't have a lot of space for anything else. Not enough RAM."</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;"><i>Captain Sailorbird and other stories</i> - intended to address the question students always asked: "Where do your ideas come from?"</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">Ted told us about self-publishing </span><i style="line-height: 19px;">Into the River</i><span style="line-height: 19px;"> - his publishers turned it down because it was too long. This story extended into the controversy about it and the eight pages of all the dirty bits, sex and drugs, from throughout the whole of the novel, which the </span><i style="line-height: 19px;">NZ Herald</i><span style="line-height: 19px;"> published under a QR code, on the basis of which many people formed an opinion of the entire novel. Family First submitted it to the NZ Censor. Ted explained that the previous book to be referred to the censor was <i>50 Shades of Grey</i>, which passed with no conditions. Three of the four judges thought <i>Into the River</i> was fine, but one published a dissenting opinion and got it rated R14. This is an issue because of the way it is not displayed on public libraries shelves, for example. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">At this point I have to admit I have not read <i>Into the River</i> but I am about to go and do so and if it is any good whatsoever (which presumably it is, since it won the Children's Book of the year), then I am going to buy a class set!!!</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">You can buy it here! </span></span><a href="http://www.fishpond.co.nz/Books/Into-River-Ted-Dawe/9781775536048">http://www.fishpond.co.nz/Books/Into-River-Ted-Dawe/9781775536048</a><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">Read about the controversy:</span></span><br />
<a href="http://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/news/article.cfm?c_id=6&objectid=11184942">http://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/news/article.cfm?c_id=6&objectid=11184942</a><br />
<a href="http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10910993">http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10910993</a> Jess Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13333422418731543293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2365029167852615986.post-61336435084933605172014-07-11T10:06:00.000+12:002014-07-11T10:10:43.167+12:00NZATE CONFERENCE Workshop 5 - Sian Evans: You Auteur Know Better...Sian explained that she wants to give students a different experience of text from the same old film study they have been doing every year.<br />
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Possible ways of looking at film include:<br />
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<ul>
<li>Genre theory</li>
<li>Auteur theory</li>
<li>Narrative theory</li>
<li>Archetypal theory</li>
</ul>
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Have a look in Sian's Looking Glass book for suggestions on the last two of these:</div>
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<b>Genre theory</b> </div>
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Looking at the archetypes of the code structures that place the text within that genre. Looking at the set of codes, conventions and structures. You can introduce this nicely with the following youtube clip, "Trailer for every academy award winning movie, ever."</div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/rbhrz1-4hN4?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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Approach:</div>
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- research the genre</div>
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- compile a list of conventions using Chandler guidelines</div>
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- Get students to discuss the director's approach to each of these conventions: are they adhered to, subverted or ignored? What is the effect?</div>
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<i>Sian shared a great idea for a lesson you can't be bothered planning: put an essay question on the board, tell them you will be writing the essay with them in the period, and that if they finish theirs, they can have yours. I love it!</i></div>
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<b>Auteur theory</b></div>
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Is what makes a film recognisable as the work of a specific director, even across genres. To be an auteur the director has to be one who exercises control over all aspects of production.</div>
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A great way to introduce auteur theory is to use the following clip, which parodies the distinctive style of a variety of directors all on the same subject:</div>
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Sian uses Baz Luhrmann to teach auteur theory. She tells us that in some Hollywood circles, Luhrmann is known as the "anti-Kubrick". She uses one lesson to look at trailers for some of Kubrick's films (2001: A Space Odyssey and The Shining) to introduce Kubrick's style.</div>
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We watched the both trailers and identified:</div>
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<ul>
<li>symmetrical sets</li>
<li>classical, dramatic music</li>
<li>broad, sweeping establishing shots</li>
<li>a lot of long shots, distancing the audience from the subject</li>
<li>long single take slowly zooming in "creepy Kubrick zoom"</li>
<li>a lot of tracking shots</li>
<li>a lot of white - blank canvasses</li>
<li>naturalistic</li>
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Then you watch some extracts from the studied director and compare them -</div>
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e.g. Luhrmann's style (trailers for Romeo + Juliet, The Great Gatsby):</div>
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<ul>
<li>frenetic pace - upbeat music, fast editing, cutting in time with the music</li>
<li>roller coaster of emotion</li>
<li>uses popular music of the day to tap into popular culture and emotion</li>
<li>cluttered mise en scene - colour, light</li>
<li>rapid zooms, rapid cuts</li>
<li>overt symbols - 'in your face'</li>
<li>context - uses modern zeitgeist type moments to connect us to a moment in history</li>
<li>fireworks</li>
<li>big party scene as exposition</li>
<li>Leonardo di Caprio</li>
<li>lots of closeups</li>
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Follow Sian on twitter @sianyarns or email her at iamthesian@gmail.com</div>
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Awesome workshop, thanks Sian!</div>
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Jess Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13333422418731543293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2365029167852615986.post-11720254476425713342014-07-10T14:48:00.002+12:002014-07-10T14:48:46.281+12:00NZATE CONFERENCE 2014 Workshop #4 Iain McGilchrist: Chicken Club<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>The first rule of Chicken Club is that you must talk about Chicken Club...</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The aim of this workshop: to help us teach with more enjoyment by applying ideas from Iain's reading.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Hackschooling makes me happy</i> - Logan LaPlante</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Check out this amazing TED talk from a 13 year old: </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h11u3vtcpaY&feature=kp">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h11u3vtcpaY&feature=kp</a><br />
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As English teachers we are probably already better placed to do hack schooling than teachers in other subjects.<br />
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How do we help our students hack their education? Go with their interests.<br />
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<i>The Short and Incredibly Happy Life of Riley</i> by Colin Thompson and Amy Lissiat<br />
ISBN 978-0-7336-2167-3<br />
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How can we help our students be happy? Providing choices, not being the font of all knowledge, giving them the confidence to try things and go with their own ideas.<br />
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<b><i>The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything...</i> - Ken Robinson </b><br />
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Watch a one minute video introducing this here: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDhhIghXxfo">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDhhIghXxfo</a><br />
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So we need to help students identify their passions, find their tribe, share their passions.<br />
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<b><i>Nudge</i> by Thaler and Sunstein</b><br />
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This book is by a couple of economists but can be applied to the English classroom.<br />
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Principles of nudging: maintain choices, choice architecture, setting sensible defaults, people go with the herd, people do not like to lose, positive norms.<br />
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Easy nudges: "All high achieving students write more that the minimum number of words."<br />
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"You'll miss out on M and E grades if you don't explicitly discuss the effects on the audience.<br />
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<b><i>Flourish</i> by Martin Seligman</b><br />
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<ul>
<li>Positive well-being</li>
<li>Engagement</li>
<li>Relationships - very little that is positive is solitary</li>
<li>Meaning</li>
<li>Accomplishment</li>
</ul>
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How can you practise experiencing positive emotions:</div>
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- kindness exercises (e.g. the 1c stamps); write a gratitude letter; ask what went well today? What did you do that made it go well? Identify your signature strengths and use them.</div>
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- Losada ratio - 5:1 affirming to corrective.</div>
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With your class encourage random acts of kindness - we will be happier and they will be happier.</div>
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<b>How to Read Literature Like a Professor for Kids by Thomas C Foster</b></div>
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Helping kids understand symbolism, structure, great ideas for both reading and creative writing.</div>
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Iain left us with the question of what will we take away to try next term. I am going to have to think about that but I have a lot of ideas and options. Probably the idea of nudge... and I definitely want to read the Thomas Foster book. </div>
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Great workshop, thanks, Iain!</div>
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<br />Jess Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13333422418731543293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2365029167852615986.post-53876657454856161412014-07-10T12:02:00.001+12:002014-07-10T12:02:48.008+12:00Workshop #3 - Alison Cleary: The Whole Shebang... an integrated approach to Level 2Programme rationale: disliked a 'piecemeal' approach around a series of assessments, wanted a more connected approach and an programme which could be run across two years. Alison is in a google school where they are using teacher dashboard.<br />
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Learners first: know the learner. Her class was a high achieving class who had all got Merit endorsements or above in Level 1. Half had been in extension classes since Year 9, the other half were selected on the basis of good results in Year 11. They do class profiles for all classes in all subjects, covering pastoral/health etc information as well as academic.<br />
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Focus at the start of the year on Analysis - what does analyse mean, look at the AOs from the curriculum. Introduction to Analysis - what, how and why?<br />
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Introduce the 'big theme' - Fate: is life predetermined or are we in control?<br />
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Run, Lola, Run!<br />
Macbeth<br />
Choice (from a small selection)<br />
Independent study of an extended text.<br />
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Journal writing. Gave everyone an exercise book on first day for journal writing/writing portfolio. [She lets them take it home. Apparently they bring it back - novel concept for me!] Using writing as 'do now' twice a week, puts three topics on the board, usually one suggested from listening to student issues, one arising from textual study and one is always 'own choice'.<br />
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Once a fortnight the class is in a computer room for either connections or writing, and students can also work on their writing at home (on google docs).<br />
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One the aims is moving year 12s off the TEX/SEX essay model onto proposing a thesis statement and arguing it.<br />
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English has not been compulsory at year 12 for them for 2 years, but it has had little impact on numbers. Students are still choosing to take English, but they don't have to deal with those who really don't want to and are only doing it because the school makes them.<br />
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Literary models: Alison showed us a great poem a student wrote based on a trigger which was a paragraph from Tim O'Brien's story <i>The Things They Carried, </i>as an example of writing using a textual trigger.<br />
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Close reading tasks are all broken down into the 4 AOs (the aspects) so they have questions about ideas, structure, purpose and audience and style.<br />
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The question was asked as to which standards they assess: close viewing with film in term 1, writing portfolio and connections. Speech is optional. A couple have asked to do the reading instead of the writing portfolio. Students do two or three of the externals, they encourage them to do only two but some students want to do three.<br />
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Overall this was a very interesting programme although, as another participant commented, it was perhaps giving me more ideas for my level 3 programme than my level 2, given the fact that it was pitched at a high ability year 12 class.Jess Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13333422418731543293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2365029167852615986.post-82228429498657875332014-07-10T10:23:00.002+12:002014-07-10T10:23:58.900+12:00NZATE CONFERENCE 2014 Keynote #3 - Michael Pryor: Five Kinds of Magic<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Michael told us about the magic he discovered in the library, where the first book he ever took out was CS Lewis' <i>The Magician's Nephew</i>. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The second kind of magic was when he went to a course on how to do magic tricks. This involved a funny story and Michael pulling a bunch of flowers out of his sleeve.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He tells us that writing fantasy fiction has its challenges. Fantasy writers are dreamers. Part of the magic of writing fantasy is that while we do everything other writers do we also have to do world-building.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">[By this stage I have no idea which of the five kinds of magic we are on but I am enjoying this! I have stopped secretly checking the Slytherin House pro boards site news on another tab... ]</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Planning, researching and devising the world before you start can pay off. Michael told us about someone who had spent 5 years on 'the map' before he started! "I think this was a little obsessive. It's a spectrum," he explains to general laughter.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Some of the things Michael sees as important to know before he starts writing:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">climate</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">topography</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">food</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">clothing</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">language/diction</span></li>
</ul>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He tells us, iff you want to know the difference between language and diction you go back to Tolkien - "Every fantasy writer in the modern era has a debt to Tolkien."</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">currency</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">government</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">religion</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">architecture</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">history (your world will have a back story)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">science and technology</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">flora and fauna</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">measurement</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">weapons and armour</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">travel</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">communication</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">time (how do you measure?)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">MAGIC</span></li>
</ul>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Magic is one of the things that make fantasy, fantasy." But it can ruin a story. If it is powerful enough it can destroy the story by destroying all tension and solving all problems. The way to get around this is to put limitations on magic. e.g. Magic can only be done by females. Or magic can only be done by people under the age of 16.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Fourth kind of magic: research. "I love the splendid things I stumble across when I am supposed to be researching." One of these was discovering <i>The Boy's Own Paper</i>. This leads us into the idea of steam punk as a fusion of <i>The Boy's Own Paper</i> world and the world of cyber punk, and into Michael's series <b>The Laws of Magic</b>. He talked about how his characters began acting in a way they weren't supposed to. Romance entered in and he tried to force it out but the characters kept coming back to it so he had to listen to them.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Check out his webpage here: <a href="http://www.michaelpryor.com.au/laws-of-magic/">http://www.michaelpryor.com.au/laws-of-magic/</a> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I think the fifth kind of magic was the writing part! Michael finished by saying: <span style="background-color: white; color: #292f33; line-height: 20px;">"I write fantasy because I love it and because it's MAGIC."</span></span><br />
<br />Jess Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13333422418731543293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2365029167852615986.post-17502320733059431912014-07-09T15:27:00.000+12:002014-07-09T15:27:42.837+12:00NZATE CONFERENCE 2014 Workshop #2 - Through the Lens: Visual Language - production and close viewing at Level 3<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Presenters: Helaina Coote and Tamara Yuill Proctor</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Helaina has been developing this course over a number of years - an English course with a visual focus. In terms of assessment they offer 3.9 Close reading visual text, 3.7 Connections and 3.6 Produce visual text, 3.5 Produce oral text (seminar) and one external, 3.2 Visual Text. The course is called English and is different from the English Literature class, which sits 3.1 and 3.2. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Close Viewing Strategies - 3.9</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">- Text studies (making meaning strand) are connected to the production activities (creating meaning strand).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">- Developing an overarching theme. They had two classes doing genre studies using the James Bond franchise, and one doing a thematic study around the idea of marginalisation.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">- Explicitly teach the skill of responding critically.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">- Create a context for your text and access secondary material.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">- Exemplify: have annotated exemplars to show the students what is required.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">- Create scaffolds and checklists for the students.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Produce Visual Text Strategies - 3.6</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">- Keep the brief open and see what emerges.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Although this standard encountered the most initial resistance from students it was also the one that they enjoyed the most. Students from the other course were asking if they could do it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We saw some amazing samples of student work, some based on studied text and others on issues of the student's own choice.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>Jess Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13333422418731543293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2365029167852615986.post-9262239852093089212014-07-09T14:02:00.000+12:002014-07-09T14:02:13.576+12:00NZATE CONFERENCE 2014: Keynote #2: Dame Fiona KidmanChildhood reading - Arthur Ransome taught her that children weren't necessarily powerless, JRR Tolkien introduced her to the world of fantasy. She admits she no longer reads fantasy. She feels that the fantasy stories that work are anchored in reality.<br />
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She spoke about her school experiences, the 3 years she had at high school (travelling from Kerikeri to Kaikohe by bus every day) and the teacher who introduced her to Gerard Manley Hopkins, especially <i>Pied Beauty:</i><br />
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<table align="CENTER" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="background-color: white;"><tbody>
<tr><td> </td></tr>
<tr><td>G<span>LORY</span> be to God for dappled things—</td><td><a href="" name="1"></a></td></tr>
<tr><td> For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;</td><td><a href="" name="2"></a></td></tr>
<tr><td> For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;</td><td><a href="" name="3"></a></td></tr>
<tr><td>Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;</td><td><a href="" name="4"></a></td></tr>
<tr><td> Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;</td><td align="RIGHT" valign="TOP"><span><a href="" name="5"><i> 5</i></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td> And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.</td><td><a href="" name="6"></a></td></tr>
<tr><td> </td></tr>
<tr><td>All things counter, original, spare, strange;</td><td><a href="" name="7"></a></td></tr>
<tr><td> Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)</td><td><a href="" name="8"></a></td></tr>
<tr><td> With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;</td><td><a href="" name="9"></a></td></tr>
<tr><td>He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:</td><td align="RIGHT" valign="TOP"><span><a href="" name="10"><i> 10</i></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td> Praise him.</td><td><a href="" name="11"></a></td></tr>
<tr><td> </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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In Rotorua she met Jean Batten, who came to the library where Fiona was working. She spoke of Jean Batten and the magic and myth surrounding her.<br />
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Fiona also talked about the story of Hinemoa and Tutanekai. After several diversions via her own romantic story she returned to Maori legend and story to say that she hoped that we taught the work of modern Maori writers.<br />
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Suggestions for writing: trigger points - a piece of jewellery, a special meal, a car breakdown etc. Asks people to pick one they can relate to, get in pairs and tell their story, then immediately write it down.Jess Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13333422418731543293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2365029167852615986.post-15195834721550730352014-07-09T12:16:00.002+12:002014-07-09T12:16:34.342+12:00Workshop 1: Tanya Phillips - Handing over the control: Maori Student Voice in the English Classroom<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Tanya pointed out that Maori students are a diverse group and we need to be conscious of the needs of our own learners.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">She started what she was doing because she thought they were doing okay at her school but then was dismayed when she surveyed other schools. She repeated the survey at her own school and was really depressed by the results.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">How are we measuring success? We are measuring it by achievement in a Pakeha education system.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The <i>Ka Hikitia</i> model is the way to go:</span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Maori achieving success as Maori.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Recognising effort put in is a huge thing. Students tend to like their teachers as people but dis</span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">like English as a subject. They know they have to put in more work to get the same number of credits they could get more easily in another subject. They like having choice.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Most of the stuff is being done to us."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">They like having both their efforts and their work praised.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Some students mentioned studying black civil rights in America and wondered why, obviously the links to NZ were not being made.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Schools need change at every level to encourage Te Ao Maori. We need to more beyond tokenism. McFarlane: "When schools fail to promote Maori identity, there is a corresponding decline in Maori achievement." </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We need to teach behaviour the same way we teach the curriculum.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">How do we fix the bad feedback:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1. Relationships. Positive relationships that are learning focussed. Humour, trust, fairness, honesty, compassion, high expectations. (Read <i>Culture Counts</i>). Whanau, kanohi ki te kanohi.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2. Curriculum. Teaches through rather than about culture, looking at the whole child. Focussing on the front end of the curriculum, not just the learning objectives in the back.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ako:</span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> The collaborative and reciprocal nature of the learning process.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Tuakana/teina relationship: reciprocal teaching and learning.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Positive Maori roll models. Check out maorifuturemakers.com</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">How would I know this is a NZ classroom?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3. </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Pedagogy: mana motuhake, mana tu, mana Ōkaipo (sense of place) and mana Tangatarua.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>Jess Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13333422418731543293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2365029167852615986.post-58860131255402958152014-07-09T11:18:00.001+12:002014-07-09T11:18:38.971+12:00NZATE CONFERENCE 2014: Keynote #1 Joe Bennett<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Well, here I am again at conference. Sometimes I think this is weird way to spend my holiday, and it is also my birthday today...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The powhiri is over and we were given a warm welcome by a group of students here at John Paul College in Rotorua.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<b><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Joe Bennett</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You might be surprised to know that he was a teacher once upon a time. At one stage he taught in Canada for three years. During this time an inspector asked to see the planning of a colleague, Bren. He said no. After he had said no three times the inspector was unhappy, so he offered to show him where he did his planning. Bren walked the inspector across the whole school and into the English Department, along the corridor and stopped about a meters from his classroom door. He said, "About here, usually." Joe said that he was with Bren, and that he had stopped teaching when they got into modes and divided English up into things you could teach and things that you were't allowed to teach. He also mentioned "Double Gina on Friday afternoon," something I think we can all relate to as we all have a Gina in our teaching lives.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Joe proceeded to amuse us all by describing a lesson in which he said nothing and only shrugged when the students asked if he was planning on teaching them. He did some great imitations of parents at teacher-parent interviews. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Then Joe told us how he it was that he became a teacher. A friend of his applied for a job on his behalf and he ended up teaching English in Spain. After that we spent too much time laughing for me to care about writing notes.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Joe told us about the teacher who influenced him: Jack. Jack read King Lear to them in sixth form and did all the parts himself because he wasn't going to let them mangle it. After a lot of very funny stuff, Joe then nearly made us all cry by telling us about visiting Jack when he was ill. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So, we laughed a lot, nearly cried, and were told that English was about teaching everything and nothing. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It was all true.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>Jess Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13333422418731543293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2365029167852615986.post-2943758836506528092013-10-13T23:34:00.000+13:002013-10-14T01:05:06.066+13:00Cross-Curricular Collaboration and Cleaning...<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Well, the second week of the holidays is gone. Time flies when you are... working.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I marked my Year 11 Creative Writing, Formal Writing, and Personal Reading Responses. I checkmarked a few Level 2 and Level 1 assessments for some of my colleagues. I marked Year 10 Film essays from so long ago that they will be surprised to see them. I did not manage to mark the Year 10 exercise books. Again. But I'll get there eventually.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I sorted, filed and biffed out a lot of the mound of paper on my desk. I cleaned all the desks, the computer tables, some of the shelves and sort of cleaned the whiteboard. When I say 'sort of', this is a precise description. There is something terribly wrong with my whiteboard and it needs serious surgery. I have only applied first aid.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have seen many other teachers here during the holidays, all doing the same things. Marking, cleaning, planning, catching up on the mountain of paperwork. Fixing their wall displays. (That is still on my 'to do' list).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In amongst all this not terribly exciting part of being a teacher, there was actually a highlight to the week: planning a joint Health & PE and English unit with some of my colleagues from the PE department. This is a Year 10 unit where students investigate concepts and styles of leadership and the ways leaders influence others. They will be able to apply these understandings not only in the practical side of PE but also in their wider school and community life. The main focus of the unit is a research inquiry into a leader of the student's choice. They will work on the research in both Health and English. In English we will teach research skills and also oral language skills and speech writing. The students then present their research as a formal speech to the class. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We planned the unit jointly with both HPE and English Achievement Objectives. Staff from both departments will teach the unit, and we will assess it jointly: HPE focussing on the understandings of leadership, English focussing on the research skills and oral language skills. For the icing on the cake we are assessing the speeches against the NCEA Level 1 Speech standard as well as the Year 10 criteria, so students can get a head start on next year's literacy credits.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Although we trialled this unit last year it was a bit 'seat of the pants' as it was organised at the last minute when we became aware through conversations with the students that there was the possibility for collaboration. This year we have sat down and planned it jointly, and we are considering teaching the unit earlier in the school year in 2014 so that the leadership concepts can then be built on in other PE units.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The English Department has collaborated a lot in the past with Social Sciences: we have a combined English and Social Studies programme at Year 9 which we call Integrated Studies, and at Year 10 and to a lesser extent at senior level we try to draw links between the English texts and Social Studies and History topics. It is nice though to be extending joint planning and cross-curricular links into other areas. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As well as the Leadership unit with the PE department, we are also collaborating with the Science department at Year 13 level where students' L3 Biology research on 1080 Poison is being presented as a speech and assessed against the L3 English Oral Presentation standard. Although this only involves a few students it is still a useful way of enabling students to make links between their subject areas.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Students are also using formal essays written in other subjects as part of their portfolio of evidence for the English writing standards. Over the last two weeks I have marked several History and Geography essays and a PE essay on Obesity as part of students' English writing assessments. It is good to see students realising that their writing skills are transferable.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When I started this week's blog I couldn't think of a single positive thing to say! Yet again, the process of reflection has cheered me up: I have been saved by the reminder of the great things we are doing in the way of cross-curricular collaboration. Phew!</span><br />
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Jess Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13333422418731543293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2365029167852615986.post-10265131090274798712013-10-06T22:31:00.000+13:002013-10-06T22:31:06.333+13:00Having a holiday (not)... or: how Twitter saved my week!<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's the end of the first week of the school holidays. I admit, I did have the first weekend off. I spent most of it asleep or reading, though dragged myself out of bed to go for a run on the Sunday. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Since then, I have been at school every day, most days doing 5 - 7 hours. I have marked all my Year 13 Connections assessments and their writing portfolios, I've finally done the same tonight for the Year 12s.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I still have all the Year 11 creative and formal writing to mark, some level 1 personal reading responses, a set of essays for my Year 10s (I'm too ashamed to say how long they've been sitting there), and the Year 10 exercise books.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Aside from the fact that I've been sleeping in later than normal, wearing casual clothes and the small matter of there being no students around or classes to teach, it has been hard to tell the difference between term time and holiday time.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At the end of the middle weekend of my two week holiday, I just feel depressed because I haven't finished my marking yet, let alone got to the rest of my 'to do' list. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And every moment I have spent reading a novel in the evening or sleeping late instead of being at school early marking, I have felt guilty, guilty, guilty. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ooooh, yes! I have remembered a happy thing! On Monday I was able to participate in the twitter #Engchat. Normally it's hard to do this as it happens around lunchtime on Monday NZ time and I am usually teaching. It was a really interesting chat as it was a combined English and Social Studies discussion on integrated programmes. As I was involved in helping design the integrated Eng/SS programme for our Year 9s at Otaki College I found this discussion very stimulating. It was fascinating to hear about teachers in US schools running similar programmes and/or collaborating with their colleagues to run parallel teaching between English and History or other disciplines. <a href="http://storify.com/Steph_SMac/engsschat-09-30-2013" target="_blank">Click here to go to the archive for the combined EngSSchat</a> if you would like to see what was discussed.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wow, just like that I have gone from depressed about my week to remembering a glorious hour of exciting collaborative teaching discussion with my professional learning network around the world, which has reminded me that <b>I love my job! </b>Thank goodness for twitter!!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Follow me on twitter @shakespearenut</i></span><br />
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<br />Jess Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13333422418731543293noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2365029167852615986.post-47596166674817279822013-06-16T14:35:00.003+12:002013-10-06T22:32:10.277+13:00I love teenagers!<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Staff House Challenge in Traditional Dress - <br />
Our new Principal, Andy Fraser, <br />
in his kilt. :-)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Wow! What a week! It has been my first week back at school after half a term's sick leave while recovering from surgery.<br />
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It was an absolute delight to be back at school on Monday. I spent the whole day with a huge grin on my face. I was loving catching up with all my students. They were all so pleased to see me back and many of them said so! By the end of the day I was wondering around the admin block burbling things like, "I love teenagers!" Many of my colleagues did a double take (particularly those who are parents of teenagers) when they realised I was <b>serious</b>! Some muttered dire warnings to the effect of: "This won't last!" Still, by the end of the day I was physically exhausted and went straight home to bed.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioyIV1WbXpu9_W2PqIJGzCEHyA7L6wz-L7eyv2QyW169GwzJjlK-sZ7dTM5abYNc-gIObokGBDUl6RzHjkDWiKYS5vRb-iYVhKekO4M6QnJZ02yM8_2K0Ug97oLf3C8AQoVB2Hpejlkms/s1600/IMG_5128.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioyIV1WbXpu9_W2PqIJGzCEHyA7L6wz-L7eyv2QyW169GwzJjlK-sZ7dTM5abYNc-gIObokGBDUl6RzHjkDWiKYS5vRb-iYVhKekO4M6QnJZ02yM8_2K0Ug97oLf3C8AQoVB2Hpejlkms/s200/IMG_5128.JPG" width="150" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Marcia, HOD PE, in the egg <br />
and spoon leg of the relay.</td></tr>
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Day 2: still smiling... to cut a long story short, by Friday I was still enjoying my job but I was VERY tired and the gloss had definitely worn off! The strain of five full time days at work (plus two nights out at choir - not doing THAT next week) had really told on me physically, and I was beginning to snap at people and do a good impression of 'grumpy teacher' instead of 'hysterically joyous teacher'.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg25RTF84ATQI4CexAALNNY3wpRO5cwlTFe27bd3w3CUJyOw7iRG2MDJ3i8HvZpsjetLA8cwtQGHnRBb4TAx-prlWFt4FbrzO82cf1JGCiuuwblDbk-DoHU-jbNrBvMsZRHzDzgMpnx4P4/s1600/IMG_5131.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg25RTF84ATQI4CexAALNNY3wpRO5cwlTFe27bd3w3CUJyOw7iRG2MDJ3i8HvZpsjetLA8cwtQGHnRBb4TAx-prlWFt4FbrzO82cf1JGCiuuwblDbk-DoHU-jbNrBvMsZRHzDzgMpnx4P4/s200/IMG_5131.JPG" width="150" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Greg (in traditional cricket gear) <br />
pushing Janice (traditional tramping gear)<br />
in the wheelbarrow leg.</td></tr>
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Friday lunchtime was the Staff House Challenge: points for traditional dress (I went Scottish with a twist of Maoritanga); and points for the winners of the relay (involving egg and spoon, three legged race and wheel barrow). I did my bit with the egg and spoon.<br />
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I could not have survived this week, or indeed been so relaxed about my extended absence, if I hadn't had a very good reliever taking my classes. I was so lucky to get an English specialist teacher who did a fabulous job with my classes and kept them on track. She also kindly arranged for them all to be doing independent work (mostly essay writing) this week, so that my role was roving to give feedback and keep students on task, rather than a lot of whole class teacher-directed work. Thank you so much <b>Michelle Jones!!!</b> :-)<br />
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I still got to the end of the week somewhat shell-shocked, but I made it! Slowly easing back in and have some decisions to make about the direction of my programme.<br />
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<b>Year 10s:</b> Have been finishing off their film unit on <u>10 Things I Hate About You</u> with an essay on whether the film is typical of the teen movie genre. I was intending to move on to an introduction to Shakespeare and a quick look at <u>The Taming of the Shrew</u> - BUT: in Social Studies they are doing the Pursuit of Power unit at the moment (focussing on Hitler) and have just been shown the film of <u>The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas</u>. There is a fair amount of interest and engagement and I am wondering if I should go on to my Striped PJs novel unit now rather than next term as originally planned. Will decide tomorrow, possibly will discuss it with the class and get their view.<br />
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<b>Year 11s:</b> Have been finishing their novel unit on The Whale Rider with writing theme or character essays. These will get formative feedback for the 2.1 external but a copy will also go in their writing portfolios. In the coming week I want to move on to their Connections study.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh99R0AeA6ANgkUilfU3fc0m6LLrR-kouZiLSUSs8TEdIgHux7g-LQD9VYIXU_TStj90V7q9TkjG2ZyEep5MfJqLESAspVINri_t-GpKD3xImlTQo3f11yUKzqLCuzPRYT-O4KGnoyYmyE/s1600/IMG_5129.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh99R0AeA6ANgkUilfU3fc0m6LLrR-kouZiLSUSs8TEdIgHux7g-LQD9VYIXU_TStj90V7q9TkjG2ZyEep5MfJqLESAspVINri_t-GpKD3xImlTQo3f11yUKzqLCuzPRYT-O4KGnoyYmyE/s200/IMG_5129.JPG" width="150" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chris G and Anna in the <br />
three-legged race (this was<br />
before they knocked over <br />
all the pegs!)</td></tr>
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<b>Year 12s:</b> Have had a slightly depleted class this week with some away on an Outdoor Ed trip. The remainder have been finishing the novel study on <u>All Quiet on the Western Front</u> by doing preparatory work for a style+theme essay. By the end of the week it was clear that they needed some help moving from this to an essay so I spent the last lesson doing whole class collaborative deconstruction of the essay question, planning of the essay and writing the introduction. Hopefully they are now on track but I will do some more work on body paragraphs with them in the coming week. When we have finished the novel essays I need to return to mop up the end of the film unit on <u>Platoon</u> which we ran out of time on at the end of last term. Not ideal but it was easier to leave a discrete unit for Michelle to run rather than expecting her to finish a film study I am teaching by ear and creating resources for as I go!<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhz2e3RX5kh8qxwft8uIGcXvDVqwxYfHBm0mN8j5xT9nyTxZMtqlSTo7NaA3Fy1D4UDy4UeRBh4TUUtcjsrcInkfDwNKhIa5aDPAWjlXbc_Dsqx2pCWZ2dRs_H7qeIHls3K5l7AwpAY2sA/s1600/IMG_5137.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhz2e3RX5kh8qxwft8uIGcXvDVqwxYfHBm0mN8j5xT9nyTxZMtqlSTo7NaA3Fy1D4UDy4UeRBh4TUUtcjsrcInkfDwNKhIa5aDPAWjlXbc_Dsqx2pCWZ2dRs_H7qeIHls3K5l7AwpAY2sA/s320/IMG_5137.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My wonderful colleague, Avatar.</td></tr>
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<b>Year 13:</b> In some ways have been the most problematic class during my absence, mostly due to many needing more help to complete their <u>Hamlet</u> research essays (upcoming blog on everything that went wrong with that unit and what I learnt from it). Some of them were working with Avatar (my colleague who was acting Head of Department in my absence) on this during classes in the first part of the term, rather than in class with Michelle studying <u>Nineteen Eighty-Four</u>. As a result, most have now finished the <u>Hamlet</u> essay, but several have not finished reading the novel (the novel I gave out at the end of LAST TERM!) and are nowhere near ready to write a theme essay on it. I have given them some class time this week finishing their essays but most of the time has gone to the first viewing of our film, <u>V for Vendetta</u>, as we must move on to the film study now. Things have been complicated by having several students away on a Geography trip too, hopefully they have watched the film at home as requested.....<br />
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I can see that I need to give myself time to settle back in, take the temperature of my classes, and reconsider my year's programme to ensure the essentials are covered. A relaxing weekend has helped. Next week I am not going to try to go to both my choirs (two nights out was one too many). I just have to pace myself and keep healthy.<br />
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Advice to myself: Kia kaha, kiddo, don't push it! Keep enjoying those students!<br />
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Jess Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13333422418731543293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2365029167852615986.post-29059395513627729532013-03-13T07:56:00.000+13:002013-03-13T07:56:10.841+13:00What happened in January...<br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">All the things I should have been blogging about this year, but wasn’t...</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">My complete inactivity in this week was largely the reason I didn’t get blogging... It was total R & R. We had headed back home from spending New Year at the in-laws and my partner had started back to work after the Christmas break. I slept a lot, I read a lot of trashy novels, and I completely ignored my ‘to do’ list! I do think teachers need some down time like this, though.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Apart from my friend Beth coming for two days to reorganise part of my book collection at home, this week was dominated by the NCEA results coming out and by the time I spent poring over them and thinking about them. Who had done well and why? Who had not? Why? What did we do right? What do we need to improve? What did I teach well? What did I obviously not teach well? For once, even though I obsessed about the results for days I didn’t get depressed by them. There were plenty of good news stories to counterbalance the dismal outcomes for a certain cohort who will remain nameless... </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">In addition, a lot of time this week went into thinking about our teaching programmes in the English Department and what, if anything, needed to change as a consequence of analysing the NCEA results.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; letter-spacing: 0px; text-align: center;">Senior Management and Ash doing a mail out 23 January</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">I spent most of this week doing a massive clean up in my classroom. I went through every box file and got rid of many bins of paper for recycling from the train wreck which was my desk and the floor around it! I filed till I dropped and I got out the bucket and the cleaning gear and cleaned all the shelves and the desks and the whiteboard and yadayada. While this may sound mundane, having a clean and organised classroom makes a huge difference to my mental and emotional health, not to mention making teaching and learning easier in a classroom environment a bit more adapted to its primary purpose!</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The other thing that happened this week was that we had a voluntary PD (professional development) day around information technologies, which was held at our college on the Friday (25th January). I ran a session for this on using MyPortfolio to record evidence of professional practice and reflection against the RTCs (<a href="http://www.teacherscouncil.govt.nz/rtc/index.stm"><span style="color: #0e23a3; letter-spacing: 0px;">Registered Teacher Criteria</span></a>). I somehow have become the school expert on MyPortfolio by starting to use it before anyone else did... I am running this training again soon so I will post in detail on it then, with links to my handouts and templates, etc.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">At the weekend my partner Sean and I did the Waikanae Garden Trail:</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><span style="font-size: small;">And suddenly, my holiday was over...</span></div>
Jess Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13333422418731543293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2365029167852615986.post-41307819456311911512013-03-10T23:40:00.002+13:002013-03-10T23:46:41.697+13:00Bad Blogger!<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is March already and my blog has been sadly neglected. One of my New Year's resolutions was to blog every week. I started in the first week of January by drafting a blog entry, but couldn't post it because of the terrible wireless coverage where we were staying. And it stayed unposted when we got home from our holiday... and so did all the other things I would have blogged about in the meantime.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So for what it's worth, here is what would have been my first blog of the year. In blue are my comments on how I am doing on my resolutions so far!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>1st week of January: The New Year's Resolutions</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>1. Be positive</b>. I think it is all too easy to focus on the problems, the lack of resources, the constraints of the curriculum or those imposed by assessments, regulation, etc. I found myself considering the title "Facing down the New Year" for this blog and decided I needed to get myself into a more positive frame of mind. After all, I <i>love</i> my job and I <i>am</i> looking forward to getting back to my classroom! </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: blue;">Actually, I am doing really well on this. I am feeling good about my classes and the school and focussing on the positives. :-)</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>2. Focus on the kids.</b> Remember, the students' learning experiences are the most important thing, and this includes their learning context, especially social. Relationships are the key to a positive learning experience, and I know I find it all too easy to get focussed on the learning goal at the expense of the process. In education, as in life, the ends rarely justify the means... if the means aren't working, you've probably lost most of the audience before the learning goal is in sight. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: blue;">Hmmm, this is a timely reminder. Most of the time this is easy but sometimes the paperwork grind gets in the way, the course planner says I should have finished this unit by now, and it is hard to hang on to the centrality of the learner, as opposed to my next administrative deadline.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3. </span><b style="font-family: Helvetica;">Hold on to the joy:</b><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"> Those moments when the lesson is zinging, when someone ‘gets it’, when they come rushing to tell me what they did in the weekend, when they want to talk about the book they are reading, when a student cracks a joke which ruins the point I’m making but makes my day. The joy from being able to share the books I love and the love of reading, and get paid for it! </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="color: blue;">Yes! Holding on most of the time. But see 2 above!</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">4. </span><b style="font-family: Helvetica; letter-spacing: 0px;">Document it:</b><span style="font-family: Helvetica; letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; letter-spacing: 0px;">We have ERO coming this year so I not only have to</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span><i style="font-family: Helvetica; letter-spacing: 0px;">be</i><span style="font-family: Helvetica; letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; letter-spacing: 0px;">a good teacher, I need an evidence trail to</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span><i style="font-family: Helvetica; letter-spacing: 0px;">prove</i><span style="font-family: Helvetica; letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; letter-spacing: 0px;">it. Beyond the obvious of the management document, course outlines, unit plans, data analysis, etc, I would like to try this year to document more of the</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span><b style="font-family: Helvetica; letter-spacing: 0px;">joy</b><span style="font-family: Helvetica; letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; letter-spacing: 0px;">moments (see 2 above). I’m not sure how this is going to work, whether it is a case of using my blog to record them, or whether I am going to drive my students nuts taking photos on my iPhone of them in action... watch this space!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica; letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: blue;">Aaargh! Keep watching. Not doing so well on the blogging, but I have started working on my own eportfolio to document my professional practice.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">5. <b>Get better at using the technology I already have:</b> I have a Mimio, which is an amazing gadget that turns my ordinary whiteboard into a smartboard, but I am not using it much. My goal this year is to be using it regularly for the functions I already know, and to expand my knowledge so I can use it for a wider range of things.</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm doing pretty well on this. I have gone from hardly ever using the Mimio to using it almost every lesson. I am still mostly using it for basic data show and recording notes on the whiteboard though, but I am using it!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">6.<b> Blog regularly:</b> Make a blog entry every week - no matter how short, how simple, how apparently 'uninspired' I might think it - to maintain the discipline of regular self-reflection.</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Crashing, crushing failure here, but I am not going to admit defeat! I <i>will</i> turn this around.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And this ends my 9 week old blog post.... originally drafted on 7 January. :-) </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The photo below is the Kapiti Coast and Kapiti Island taken from the Paekakariki Hill Road in early January. It was a stunning day.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>Jess Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13333422418731543293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2365029167852615986.post-44668591548277076782012-10-25T15:14:00.000+13:002012-10-25T15:14:08.207+13:00School Libraries Supporting LearningI'm back at National Library Palmerston North with Sue, our college librarian, for the final day of our library professional development course, <i>School Libraries Supporting Learning,</i> which is being facilitated by Jan Watts. For everything you ever needed to know about school libraries, go to this website here: <a href="http://schools.natlib.govt.nz/">http://schools.natlib.govt.nz</a><br />
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<b>School-based Initiatives</b><br />
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The day started with reports back from participants on how their in-school library initiatives had progressed since our last meeting. We reported back on the work Sue has done creating a library manual, and the visits Sue and I did to other colleges looking for ideas for our library development for when we move the library next year. In addition to what we reported Sue has also trained up student librarians and set up a roster for them to cover intervals and lunchtimes, and has done a huge weed out of the collection - the book stall at the college gala is benefitting from this! We heard from schools preparing summer reading programmes, culling out of date stock, developing collections and spaces, preparing school reading profiles, schools with either the librarian or students presenting book reviews at assemblies, and a school which had purchased a significant number of new books and had been working on processing these and weeding the old collection to make room for the new acquisitions. It was great hearing from the other schools about the changes they are making.<br />
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<b>The Library Supporting Inquiry Learning</b><br />
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Jenny Wilson and Lesley Wing-Jan:<br />
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<li>Student-centred learning</li>
<li>students lead the process and identify their needs</li>
<li>Teachers and librarians guide and support</li>
<li>Rich and relevant learning, rather than reciting information</li>
<li>Students then present and <b>act</b> on that information</li>
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Key stages:<br />
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<li>Tuning in: <i>identifying prior knowledge, immersion, preparing to find out</i> - focus of the inquiry, questions related to the inquiry, (if group task) who to work with and roles of group members.</li>
<li>Finding out and sorting out: <i>shared experiences, direct experiences, taking students beyond what they already know</i> - sources of information to use, how to organize and record information, how to present information found.</li>
<li>Action and reflection: <i>applying and reflecting</i> - what to do with the information, making something new, how to make connections between ideas, experiences and learning</li>
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<u>Points which came up in discussion:</u><br />
Accessing prior learning. Using oral sources eg. phoning/skyping an expert. Identifying the dilemmas - where sources disagree - this can identify a genuine area for investigation - real contexts.<br />
Teaching triangular validation - three different sources which say the same thing, to be sure it's correct.<br />
Resulting in some sort of social action at the end, eg. letter to editor, design new rubbish bin.<br />
The importance of teaching the skills - especially the research, quoting, referencing, validating and identifying sources etc.<br />
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There are a range of inquiry learning resources available on the National Library website here:<br />
<a href="http://schools.natlib.govt.nz/search/node/inquiry">http://schools.natlib.govt.nz/search/node/inquiry</a> This is the most fabulous resource for both teachers and librarians, with a huge range of excellent links and resources, give yourself 5 or 10 minutes and go and look at them!<br />
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<b>Playing in the Sandpit...</b><br />
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This was time for us to work with an adviser to explore a resource with which we were not familiar. Sue investigated the kids-friendly search engines while I learned more about EPIC, which I had heard of but was not familiar with - the old story, if it requires a school-wide password, I won't know it so I won't use it! 15 minutes later... I am a total EPIC convert and have decided yes it has relevance to English teaching, it is not just something for the history teacher!! To find out about EPIC, go here:<br />
<a href="http://www.tki.org.nz/epic2">http://www.tki.org.nz/epic2</a><br />
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<b>School Library Reporting</b><br />
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What and how do we report to the Board of Trustees on the activities of the school library? Make sure reporting highlights evidence-based practice, include case studies; what can we show rather than tell? Acknowledge the contributions of others (Board, parents, student helpers, etc).<br />
Target audience: BOT, Principal and Management, but also school community.<br />
Timing: annually - maybe towards the end of the year. Some library managers give a brief report of activities to TLR once a term.<br />
Format: paper, prezi, youtube, powerpoint etc<br />
Content: examples of collaborative practice with teachers, team teaching, targeted initiatives/strategies, evidence, student/teacher feedback. Special library events or promotions, statistics - usage, collection, patterns of use, services etc. Developments undertaken, recommendations for future developments which could require additional funding and which relate to the direction and goals of the school.<br />
Tips: be brief, clear, avoid library jargon, use data, photographs, charts, video.<br />
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<b>Where to from here?</b><br />
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Open Libraries - physically, virtually; welcoming, dynamic, lively, open-minded, ubiquitous - online 24/7, BYOD, connected. Building a connected learning culture, students who are literate in a range of media, digital citizens, readers, with a culture of success. A library which is learner-centred.<br />
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<b>Our next steps at Otaki</b><br />
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<li>Staff survey</li>
<li>Completing our manual - day to day procedures documented; student user profiles</li>
<li>Reporting to Board of Trustees on this year's activities</li>
<li>Next year a focus on expanding our graphic novel collection further</li>
<li>Library Development Group: continuing preparation for our library relocation</li>
<li>Looking at curriculum cooperative ventures for next year e.g. a Science research unit</li>
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<b>Professional Learning Networks</b></div>
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We spent some time discussing various ways, tools and media for growing our own PLNs. This made me feel good because I was already doing most of the suggested things, such as: Twitter, GoodReads, LibraryThing, blogging and following blogs, list serves, formal PD opportunities (such as this course), online communities and professional organizations, and using Evernote. I don't use Delicious (anyone want to comment on why I should if I already use Evernote??). As a result of this session I signed up to Scoop.It using my twitter profile (@shakespearenut). I tend not to use Google Reader as someone said it was going to be phased out - not sure if this is still true. The blogs I follow I tend to have an email notification for a new post. Comments, anyone??<br />
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This has been a GREAT course!! Thanks so much to Jan Watt and the National Library team! :-)</div>
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<br />Jess Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13333422418731543293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2365029167852615986.post-63358562777487398752012-07-25T19:25:00.001+12:002012-07-25T19:25:50.040+12:00The winds of change: blowing our way...It's a week and a half into the new term and, as usual, nothing is normal in our college world... (yes, I know that's tautological!)<br />
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My 'holiday' was frenetic with finishing major reports and course outline information for next year, attending conference, singing in a couple of concerts for a choir I belong to, writing an essay for my course at the wananga, several days in at college marking, a parent/teacher meeting, being ill with a sinus infection and... a glorious two days off doing absolutely nothing. A lot got done but it was one of the least restful holidays I have had for a long time. In retrospect, much as I enjoyed the NZATE conference (see previous blog posts), it cost me a truck load of money (the school was only paying for about 1/4 of the costs) and it took a huge chunk of time which perhaps would have been better spent catching up on my sleep deficit. It pains me to say this, because I enjoy conference so much and normally get so much out of it professionally.<br />
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Week 1 of term was mainly spent helping seniors through the final stages of assessments (Connections for levels 1 and 2, and close reading of film for my Year 13s). I also needed to get my head around my programme planning for the rest of the year, re-jigging as necessary, and there is always the marking I didn't get done in the holidays. Week 2 has been very 'bitsy' as we had a teacher only afternoon on Monday, I had in-school PD on restorative practice on Tuesday afternoon, and today I have been in Palmerston North for a library course.<br />
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Which brings me to the 'winds of change' part. Due to the demographics of the local community and the fact that the population bulge is working its way on out, we have had a steady roll reduction in recent years. On the first day of term I was told that in order to reduce our property 'footprint' to our correct entitlement for the reduced roll, the Ministry of Education intends not only to remove some prefabs but also to bulldoze half of the building in which my department (English) and the library (for which I am also responsible) are currently housed. The library and the English and Social Sciences Departments are to be relocated elsewhere in the school, but where 7 teachers currently teach in 6 classrooms we will have to teach in 4. I am sure this makes perfect sense to someone somewhere in Wellington, but to me it seems a little bizarre to go around lopping bits off permanent buildings and the idea of not having a permanent classroom is extremely depressing. However, in this case, mine not to reason why. The decision is a done deal.<br />
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So, it is a case of seeing it not as a problem but as an opportunity. The library has to be relocated, and this gives us the possibility to redesign the space to better meet the needs of students, teachers and the community. We have been wanting to renovate the library for a long time, and now it is going to happen.<br />
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Moving the English Department will put some urgency around jobs we know need doing, such as deciding which old paper resources should be scanned and retained in electronic form, which kept, and which are outdated and no longer needed. We are going to need to do a big 'clean out' and weed out textbooks which we no longer use or need.<br />
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The first priority for me and Sue, our college librarian, will be planning our process and timeline. The move is apparently going to happen in term 1 or 2 next year, so we don't have a lot of time to work in. Watch this space.<br />
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Never a dull moment in this job! ;-)Jess Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13333422418731543293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2365029167852615986.post-2595197084376759862012-07-06T11:00:00.000+12:002012-07-06T11:00:05.975+12:00Unpacking the possibilities...<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">Final
Keynote: <a href="http://www.bookcouncil.org.nz/writers/mcqueencilla.html">Cilla
McQueen</a> - New Zealand Poet Laureate 2009-2011<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Unpacking the possibilities of metaphor is
a poet’s pleasure.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Both Cilla’s parents were teachers. She
loved English and History and taught languages at Columba College. Her
knowledge of English language is “continually developing.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">At primary school her writing was mostly
about horses and skiing…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">She began keeping a journal in the 1970s.
Her first book, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Homing In</i>, was
published in 1981.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Metaphor’s layers of possible meanings can
enable a poem to say more than it seems to say.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Reading, both silently and aloud, is very
important.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“I think a real book is more memorable than
its electronic version.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Perhaps reading aloud is even more
important nowadays.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“I like the human role of teacher as
interface.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">I like the fact that she wrote a poem
“surreptitiously” in the classroom while teaching! </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Wingdings; mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;">J</span></span><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">McQueen has been a full time poet since she
was the Robert Burns Fellow in the mid 1980s. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">We were privileged to hear her read three
of her poems:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-GB">To Ben, At The Lake<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-GB">Learning to Read<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-GB">Revolution<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">A few other links:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cilla_McQueen">Wikipedia entry on Cilla
McQueen</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><a href="http://www.nzonscreen.com/title/kaleidoscope---cilla-mcqueen-1984">An old
TV clip from Kaleidoscope 1984</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><a href="http://nzpoetlaureate.natlib.govt.nz/p/cilla-mcqueen.html">Poet Laureate</a>
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><a href="http://www.nzepc.auckland.ac.nz/authors/mcqueen/index.asp">This one has
links to some of her poetry online</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><a href="http://www.otago.ac.nz/press/booksauthors/otagoauthors/cillamcqueen.html">Otago
University Press page</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Jess Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13333422418731543293noreply@blogger.com0