Words to Burn, Ideas to Ignite - More from NZATE Conference

Workshop 2 – The English Senior Secondary Teaching and Learning Guidelines – Robyn Holding

Perhaps you have never heard of the SSTLG??  Neither had I until the other week when Robyn mentioned them on the English Online listserve. I decided I had better come to her workshop and find out what it’s all about. In the meantime I had a quick look at them on tki. You can find the English SSTLG on Te Kete Ipurangi here.

So now, here I am and Robyn says there is so much in the guidelines that it will make our heads spin….

Purpose of the Guidelines

Basically to tease out the relationship between the ‘front end’ of the NZ Curriculum document and the English Achievement Objectives – the why and how of what we teach in our English classrooms. 

According to Robyn, SSTLG will be really useful for staff teaching out of field or for overseas trained staff who are familiar with the ‘front end’ of the NZ Curriculum document or have a good knowledge of another Education system, but need to know what the NZC is going to look like in the English classroom, with some examples (snapshots).

Rationale for Studying English

How do we answer the student who asks, “Why do we study English, Miss?”

My answers are:

• ·      We use English every day
• ·      We talk about the big questions
• ·      We want to tell our stories
• ·      We learn about life from others’ stories
• ·      It’s fun!

Our group’s final five:

• ·      Understand the world – big ideas
• ·      Experience new things safely
• ·      Express our ideas, thoughts, feelings
• ·      Develop communication and critical thinking skills
• ·      It’s fun, magical!

Ideas from other groups:

• ·      So we are not easily manipulated (not suckers!)
• ·      To understand the relationship between medium and message
• ·      To understand myself and my place in the world
• ·      To broaden our horizons and therefore our tolerance of difference.
• ·      To foster creativity, expression and joy.

And

• ·      To develop competency in the world through understanding and using English.
• ·      To develop compassion and understanding
• ·      To develop a sense of identity and follow your own interests
• ·      To develop critical thinking – in all areas of life
• ·      To have a good laugh (or cry)

This exercise made clear why the nine people who did this for the SSTLG had trouble agreeing on the rationale which ended up in the guide!  You can find this here.

Key Concepts

Also in the SSTLG are the key concepts in English, identified by English lecturers and teachers around the country, (drumroll):

·      Identity

·      Communication

·      Story

·      Meaning

English Achievement Objectives – the Strands

There is also a really good diagram which tries to explain/portray/analyse and otherwise show the English strands – see here.  I am going to copy this and put it up in my classroom!

Pedagogy

The most important section of the SSTLG is the section which focusses on pedagogy. This includes teacher stories  (snapshots) showing how they have done things in their teaching.  I can’t give you the link because we were seeing the beta version and it’s not up on the site yet. But it does look good.

Thanks, Robyn!

So I have an idea what the English SSTLG are all about now. I am thinking that:

·      They will be a great resource for HODs who need to support someone teaching in the English curriculum area for the first time;

·      They will be an excellent place to start for someone who was familiar with the old English in the NZ Curriculum document (the old ‘blue book’) but has been out of teaching for a while and needs to get up to speed with the changes implemented in the new NZC;

·      For existing English staff who have been living the implementation of NZC as it has happened, they will serve as a good reminder and resource, particularly for the Effective Pedagogy section (when it’s up) and teaching as inquiry. We could also be thinking about contributing our own learning stories and examples of pedagogy for the snapshots.

As an example of useful things spotted on the English SSTLG, here’s a PD resource you could use in your department meeting, showing the differences in progression in the Ideas aspect between Levels 6, 7 and 8 of the English curriculum, using Barack Obama’s ‘Yes, we can’  election victory speech.

Thanks, Robyn!

NZATE Conference – Words to Burn, Ideas to Ignite

Here are my notes from Workshop 1:

To Boldly Go… the new Level 2 Analyse Connections standard AS91104 using Science Fiction and Fantasy as a Genre base – Summar Austin, Pakuranga College

Why genre rather than theme?

Genre allows students to analyse the choices made by the author. Texts are connected by shared conventions, but may address different themes, which allows variation in text choices.

Speculative fiction, particularly SF, lends itself to study because of the way writers use metaphor to critique the world around them.

Eg. Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series provides a comedic commentary on our own society.  Kurt Vonnegut’s short story Harrison Bergeron explores the downside to equality.

Student feedback shows they enjoy exploring a genre in depth.

Summar gave out the task she used this year. She intends to revise this next year tailoring it more specifically to a genre approach, as students are more used to a thematic approach.

Poem Eugenesis by William McIlvanney – you can find it on this blog site if you scroll down – thanks Miss Macdonald!  introduce a stanza a day – students to write quick responses.

Text suggestions

Short stories:

• ·      The Machine Stops, EM Forster.
• ·      Asimov, Robot AL-76 Goes Astray
• ·      Compassion Circuit, John Wyndham
• ·      The Large Ant, Howard Fast
• ·      Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow – Kurt Vonnegut
• ·      The Weapon, Frederick Brown.

Films:

• ·      Minority Report
• ·      Gattaca
• ·      Aliens series
• ·      Bladerunner
• ·      The Island
• ·      Total Recall
• ·      Terminator trilogy
• ·      Space Odyssey 2001
• ·      Barbarella
• ·      Star Wars
• ·      12 Monkeys
• ·      The Day the Earth Stood Still
• ·      Independence Day
• ·      Mad Max
• ·      Space Balls
• ·      Mars Attacks
• ·      Demolition Man
• ·      The Fifth Element
• ·      Vexille
• ·      Lord of the Rings
• ·      Howl’s Moving Castle
• ·      Journey to the Centre of the Earth
• ·      Children of Men

Novels:

• ·      Do Android’s Dream of Electric Sheep – Philip K Dick
• ·      Spares – Michael Marshall Smith
• ·      Dracula
• ·      Frankenstein
• ·      Gulliver’s Travels
• ·      The Handmaid’s Tale
• ·      The Time Traveller’s Wife
• ·      A Clockwork Orange
• ·      Interview with the Vampire – Anne Rice
• ·      Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
• ·      The Wastelands, The Dark Tower – Stephen King
• ·      The Giver – Lois Lowry
• ·      Nineteen Eighty-Four
• ·      Only Forward – Michael Marshall Smith
• ·      The War of the Worlds – HG Wells
• ·      A Picture of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde
• ·      Brave New World
• ·      The Lord of the Rings
• ·      The Hobbit
• ·      Eragon series
• 
  

Authors for students to check out:

• ·      Michael Marshall Smith
• ·      Isaac Asimov
• ·      Ursula Le Guin

Mentioned by other attendees:

• ·      Feed, MT Anderson

Examples of themes identified by students to base their Connections study around:

• ·      How technology is represented in Science Fiction
• ·      The demon inside the hero in Fantasy fiction
• ·      Representations of women in speculative fiction
• ·      Different endings – representing the apocalypse
• ·      Representations of dystopia in SF
• ·      The changing face of the zombie
• ·      The role of fate in fantasy fiction

Class texts used: Only Forward, Inception, The Machine Stops.

“I enjoyed reading texts that I wouldn’t normally read.”  - Student feedback.

Timeline – 2-3 terms

Needed to give time to write logs in class to get the quality – checkpoints for reading logs after each literature study. Time given to conferencing and guiding text choices. Some students relied heavily on texts studied in class, other chose all the texts themselves – allowed for differentiation.

Themes – Power & Justice; Action & Inaction.

Options to present – podcast, powerpoint, seminar as well as written report.

Check out www.sfsignal.com

Great workshop!!!!  Thanks, Summar!!!!

Words to Burn, Ideas to Ignite - NZATE Conference 2012

Kia ora koutou - blogging here from the NZATE conference. Below are my notes on the first keynote, which was totally awesome.

Keynote – Prof. Lyn Tribble - University of Otago - Why Shakespeare wrote ‘Shakespeare’ and why it matters

Robert Greene 1592 – Greene’s Groatsworth of Wit  -  upstart Crow, ref to Henry IV.  Shakespeare gets his own back with Polonius ‘beautified’ (that’s a vile phrase!) in Hamlet.

1593 Venus and Adonis

Individual quarto editions.

John Davies c.1610 dedication to our “English Terence Mr Will. Shakes-speare”

1623 – First Folio ‘only to keep the memory alive” etc. “Sweet swan of Avon”

Fairly early on after his death there are references to Stratford as a tourist destination – people going to see where Shakespeare was born.

There is more evidence linking Shakespeare to his plays than there is for any other playwright of the period, except Jonson.

Arguments against Shakespeare’s authorship basically boil down to:

·      Lack of evidence in his own handwriting – Tribble describes this as right up there with the argument that he never appeared on any TV chat shows. Written records which have survived from the period are mostly legal documents. There were about 900 copies of the plays printed during the period, so why keep the manuscripts? NO play successful and publically performed before 1642 survives in manuscript. With the possible exception of St Thomas More where there is a fragment which may possibly be in Shakespeare’s handwriting, but it is hard to tell when you are matching from a signature.  At the time it was probably thought that the manuscripts had no historical value – but at the time paper was expensive and scarce, and had a cash resale value.

·      Debate about education and experience – Well yes, there are no records of Shakespeare attending King Edward’s Grammar School, but then there are no records of anyone attending it. Shakespeare’s knowledge of the lives of the nobility and royalty is not necessarily terrible accurate – eg. Lord Capulet supervising the cooks; Love’s Labour’s Lost has people travelling from Italy to France via Spain…

Virtually all the young men who came to London at this time to write plays and poetry had similar backgrounds.

“Using the term “genius” to describe Shakespeare is in some ways accurate but also obscures as much as it reveals.”

Positive mention of Lois Potter’s recent book,  The Life of William Shakespeare: A Critical Biography.

Aaargh! Don’t stop now!!!! I could happily listen to another hour of this!!

Now in these hot days is the mad blood stirring...

Phew! The Shakespeare Festival is over! It has been mad but brilliant.






Our journey started right back at the beginning of term 1 when I called a meeting to see who was interested in participating in this year's University of Otago Sheilah Winn Festival of Shakespeare in Schools. Our college has a long tradition of involvement in the Sheilah Winn and has been selected to go to the National Festival a number of times in the past. In 2010 two of our students were in the group chosen to go to London to Shakespeare's Globe.


Because I love Shakespeare and enjoy a bit of amateur dramatics I have always been a keen supporter of the Sheilah Winn, but I have learnt from doing it over the years that I am not really a very good director!  I understand the text and am good on how to deliver the lines and on the character's motivations, but I still feel I have a lot to learn when it comes to mise en scene and use of the stage, etc. I do my best but it is great to have help from those with better understanding of stagecraft.


This year I was really lucky that Kassie McLuskie, a drama and dance teacher with plenty of Shakespeare experience, including two courses at Shakespeare's Globe, just happened to be looking for short term relief work at our college and offered to assist with Shakespeare. She was absolutely the answer to my prayers because I find Shakespeare a big ask on top of teaching and running the department, even though I love it. I had already had a couple of meetings with the interested students and had told them that I was keen to do the market place fight from the start of Romeo and Juliet, since it looked like we had a large group interested. When Kassie came on board it was truly serendipitous that she also wanted to do the opening scene from Romeo and Juliet.  The only fishhook was that Kassie was due to go overseas four weeks before the Regional Festival, so could not be there for the final weeks of rehearsals and the performance.  However, we agreed from the start that this could work, with Kassie setting the production up and me assisting and then taking over when she went to the UK. 


Kassie and I had similar views on the importance of allowing all interested students to participate - we both feel that all students who want to be involved should have the chance to be - the Festival is about celebrating Shakespeare and getting kids engaged with the plays and having fun. Neither of us was interested in auditioning to select a few experienced senior drama students in order to come up with a brilliant but exclusive production.


We had about 20 people come forward, some of whom came for a few rehearsals and dropped out, until the cast finally settled at 16. Our college goes from Year 7 to 13 (it combines the equivalent of a Middle School with a High School) so our cast ranged in age from 10 to 18 years. Many of them did not know each other, so Kassie started with a lot of team and relationship building to build the group dynamic. The early rehearsals therefore involved a lot of pair and group work as well as name games etc until people began to get to know each other. Overall, the cast was not particularly experienced. Of the 16, only 3 had been involved in Sheilah Winn before, and only a handful were actually drama students, most were just interested students with little or no acting experience.


As well as building the group ensemble, Kassie got the students to explore archetypes such as the Sovereign, the Carer, the Trickster and the Warrior. These were all types which would be present in the market place at Verona. After a few weeks when Kassie and I were more familiar with the students' abilities, we cast the speaking roles. Again, we found that our thinking was similar on who would best suit which part. One thing which we found amusing was that we had one girl who was a NZ representative fencer, so we wanted her in one of the fighting roles. We cast her as Benvolio, as she didn't have quite the stage presence for Tybalt, but she came to us at the next rehearsal and asked if it was alright for her to swap roles with the girl playing Escalus. Both girls wanted the swap so we agreed, but it meant our fencer didn't get to do any of the sword fighting!


One of the huge frustrations with a school production like this is simply getting the students to come to rehearsals. Each week we rehearsed one lunchtime and one day after school: inevitably for every rehearsal someone had a clash with a class trip, an important committee meeting, sporting event, someone was away sick, or occasionally paid employment prevented some from being at the after school practice.  We had our first cast meeting on 8 February and our first rehearsal on 14 February. We rehearsed at least twice a week, sometimes more. It would probably amaze a professional actor but not any of my teacher colleagues to hear that the first rehearsal we had with every single cast member actually present was not until Monday 23 April!


Kassie's last rehearsal with us was on 29 March, and at the time Kassie left, we had not had a rehearsal with even every principal present, let alone the whole cast! But by that point, Kassie had completed all the blocking and the production was basically set up. From there we practiced and polished, coped with the intervention of the school holidays (in fact, rehearsed twice during the break) and came back for an intensive week of final rehearsals in the first week of this term. Our metalwork teacher, Marcus Thompson, made some wonderful swords for us, and the fabric teacher, Benita De Kock, sewed costumes so that we could tell the Montagues from the Capulets and know that the Prince was top dog!


Finally, Saturday 28 April was the big day: the Kapiti Regional Festival. We piled costumes and props into a car and one of the school vans, and headed for Kapiti College. When we arrived we were able to sneak some rehearsal time on the stage before heading to our green room (a classroom) to get the students into costume and makeup. Back to the hall for our 15 minute technical rehearsal and then it was time for last minute makeup adjustments. We were not scheduled to perform until the second half of the programme, so the students sat in the back of the hall to watch the first half.  This had unexpected spin-off benefits: having heard a number of other students rushing and mumbling through their lines and not being loud enough or articulating clearly enough, our cast came out of the first half with a new appreciation of what I had been nagging them about for weeks - the importance of speaking slowly, clearly and loudly enough to be heard and understood! It definitely had a positive effect on delivery of their lines.


Our students performed well and I was really proud of them. It was their best ever performance, and you can't ask for more than that. At the end of the afternoon our scene was awarded the Kapiti Observer Cup for the Most Innovative and Creative Performance, but honestly if they had won no prize at all I still would have been so proud of them - they were AWESOME!!!!I was also proud to see our students going up to actors from other schools to congratulate them on their performances and achievements. 


Most of our group are keen to be involved in Shakespeare again next year, and some of the seniors are already planning student-directed scenes for next year. Our performance at the school assembly today (and that was another drama getting everyone present to do that!) has also had a positive outcome with some of our audience commenting to their form teachers that they would like to join in the Shakespeare next year.


Even though it is incredibly stressful worrying about why they aren't at rehearsal and worrying if it will ever come together, the time and effort that goes into the production is definitely worthwhile.  I enjoyed Saturday's Festival so much and there are 16 students who now love Shakespeare and have had a lot of fun, with others in the school who are interested in having a go in the future. 


And that is what this job is all about!  Yeeha!




Above is the video of the performance at the Kapiti Regional Festival on 28 April.

Happy Shakespeare's Birthday!

Happy Bard Day everyone!  I have responded to the call for a personal statement about what Shakespeare means to me....

To start with I inherited my love of Shakespeare from my parents. My mum, Prue, pulled a copy of As You Like It out of her dad's small bookcase when she was 11 or 12. She says that marvellous characters leapt out of the page at her and she was mesmerised. At her high school (Wellington East Girls' College) she was in the Classics stream which studied two Shakespeare plays every year, so by the time she left school (no 7th Form in those days) she had 9 plays under her belt and enjoyed every moment of them. She went on to become an English teacher and one of her proudest achievements was directing a full production of A Midsummer Night's Dream at Kerikeri High School.

My dad, Martin, was also hooked on Shakespeare. He did his Master of Arts thesis on Shakespeare's character additions - i.e. original characters Shakespeare added to his found plots. He had a prodigious memory and used to tell the story about how someone came over to him in the university common room one day and asked him to identify a quotation from one of the plays. He immediately gave the correct play, act, scene and character. His enquirer went back over to his companions and reported; money changed hands! Dad too went on to become an English teacher.

When I was born I was named after Jessica in The Merchant of Venice, with a nod to the Scottish family name of 'Jessie'.  I remember going to see dad as Baptista in The Taming of the Shrew done by the Hawera Repertory Society, and I remember mum and dad rehearsing students for the Sheilah Winn competition in the 70s in Hawera. Any Shakespeare production on TV or in a town near enough to travel to and great would be the excitement. Afterwards the production would be analyzed in the lounge over cups of tea, no aspect escaped discussion: the casting, the mise en scene, the costumes, the acting, the delivery of the text, etc, etc. Was the interpretation justified by the text? Bits we liked, bits we would have done differently: "I would have said/done it like this..."

My parents quoted Shakespeare in every day conversation so much that when I finally was old enough to begin reading the plays I kept recognizing family sayings.  My mother is given to muttering things like: "Marry, well bethought!" when someone has a good idea, or "A murrain on thee" when someone annoys her. My dad, who died quite young, over 30 years ago now, was quoting Hamlet on his deathbed!

My mum belonged to the Wellington Shakespeare Society for many years and was involved in judging their award at the Sheilah Winn National Festival a couple of times. The years she did this I went along too and sat through the whole weekend, which is just a delight - seeing hundreds of teenagers performing Shakespeare, loving it, having fun and thinking that it's cool!

All my siblings like Shakespeare too, but I guess I got the genetic double-whammy: after 40 years of doing other things I finally realized that I was fighting destiny and also became an English teacher. I get a special kick out of introducing my students to Shakespeare for the first time. I tell them that as far as I am concerned he is the greatest writer in the English language. His plays are still read and performed around the world every day, hundreds of years after his death.

He is a great writer because he understands people and can show their different motives and reactions. He is a fantastic poet and his language is intricate, clever, memorable, funny. His plays deal with issues and situations which are still fully relevant to human society today. He can wrench your heart or make you laugh. Above all, his plays are entertaining and thought-provoking.

As well as teaching the plays and sonnets in the classroom, I have been involved with preparing students for the SGCNZ University of Otago Sheilah Winn Festival of Shakespeare in Schools for some years now. I don't think I am the world's greatest director but I do my best. I love the plays and try to involve all the students that want to participate. I love seeing students who are tentative at the start grow in confidence and realize that Shakespeare can be a lot of fun.

One morning last term I met one of my Sheilah Winn cast in the staff carpark. She is a tiny year 7 student who spends her entire onstage time grinning (whether this is in character or not) because she is having so much fun. She called out, "When do we have Shakespeare, Miss?" When I replied that we were rehearsing at lunchtime that day, she cried, "Yay! I love Shakespeare!" in tones of rapture, and ran up and threw her arms around me in her enthusiasm!  It's moments like this that make all the effort that goes into a production worth going the extra mile.

Here are some of the Romeo and Juliet cast rehearsing during the school holidays last week. We are doing the prologue and first scene - the fight in the market place. The Regional Festival is coming up this Saturday 28 April so we are on the last lap.

Happy Birthday Shakespeare! - still alive and well and being performed in Otaki, New Zealand in 2012.

Just for a change, a poem

Good Friday 2012

He is sitting 

on the other side of the church

staunch, stoic

When he comes forward in line

I see him in a series of flashback camera stills

11 years old and half his current size

circling on his bike by the cricket net

I don’t feel like coming to practice today, Miss

on Saturday morning whacking it for six

in flapping board shorts and the biggest pads

15 years old 

flipping paper balls in my classroom

doodling elaborate tattoos

I watch him now 

this young man

step forward and

hongi the cross

breathing deeply, eyes closed

sharing his ihi with the tree of life

and the God who died on it

my heart catches

tears well up

and I smile

this is the pride of a parent

from one who is childless

Secret Santa

Last week was essentially the final week of the school year for us, since in week 7 we have Activities Week rather than the normal timetable.

It was somewhat frenetic. My Y10s were finishing NCEA Level 1 static images. Note to self: do this earlier next year! I do not want to be assessing anything for the Y10s in term four except for possibly wide reading. Actually I don't want to be doing any internal assessments at all for anyone, but I'm allowed to dream.

Senior signout day on Wednesday was disappointing. It had not been well advertised and the turn out was extremely low. This leaves me a big headache in terms of worrying about how many of the English texts will eventually come back and how many will be lost forever as Y12s and Y13s leave without signing out. The deans will now have to phone the Y12s and Y13s who didn't turn up, and inevitably I will end up phoning parents of non-returners at the start of next year, sigh.

Enough complaining! The highlight of the week for me was getting my last two Y12s through their final Level 1 assessment to get their literacy. There was a sense of urgency about this (for me, not them!) given their existing credits were all old standards and they needed to complete within the transition year. I felt a huge sense of relief when they both finally passed what they needed to pass :-)

Junior Prizegiving on Thursday afternoon went really well and students and parents seemed to enjoy it. There were some great music performances to enliven the proceedings, including Maddy from my form class, who won the local talent quest earlier this year. Unfortunately, I wasn't feeling well later on Thursday afternoon and did not make it to the Y13 Leavers' Dinner. Apparently it was a really great evening.

My Year 10s insisted on having a Christmas tree in our form room, and we did secret Santa on Friday for our last form class meeting, which was lots of fun. Santa gave me a new mug, which is very cool. Thank you, Santa!