Printout

Hey everyone,

FINAL COUNTDOWN =)
We have printed out the third part of our blog entries and bring them to class tomorrow.
They are in a folder, so please, Friederike could you punch holes in the second part?
Thank you and see you tomorrow,

Sandra & Wenke

An awesome Story

Dallas Clayton shows that many people still seek for literature and books. He made his first kids book accessable online and reached thousands of people wordlwide. It is just another different way of getting in touch with literature. - An Awesome Book

Online Teaching Ressources

The Guardian offers a broad range of different teaching materials for all ages. Not only are there online activities, blogs or videos but also work sheets are available for download. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

Visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/childrens-books-site

or
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education

Drama !!!

What is a drama? What defines it and why should I care about it?
A drama is one of the major forms of literary genres and it is meant to be performed (e.g. on stage). Famous dramas are "Death of a Salesman" by Arthur Miller, "Hamlet" by William Shakespeare, or "Life of Galileo" by Bertolt Brecht.

Though drama is a very old genre (it has been used in the Ancient Greek as well as in India in the 2nd century BCE), it has been changed and adopted in modern times, too. New forms are for example Radio Drama, Soap opera, Medical drama and Modern melodrama.

 

Basic information on typical aspects of a drama

• a piece of text written to be performed on stage
• written in the form of dialogues
• a classical drama is devided into five acts
• restricted number of people involved for practical reasons
• classical drama (e. g. Aristotle): unity of place, time and action (= action takes place within one day)
• the audience is listening and reacts
• tension builds up to the third act

Summary Writing

„Summarise the text“ or „Summarise the content of the extract given.” are common tasks set for pupils who learn a foreign language. For most of them, it is a highly challenging one worth practising. I collected some hints that might help them write a summary.  

Why does one have to write a summary?

A summary refers to the general comprehension of a text and it usually comprises a length of 25-30% of the original text. With regards to analyses and interpretation, it is defined as a key qualification deciphering the content of a certain text. In this way, it is possible to analyse the text’s structure (of argumentation) just as introduced linguistic and stylistic devices. Only if the message of a text is clearly identified, one will be able to both analyse and interpret the meaning of a text thoroughly and consider a broader context in terms of content and style.

How to prepare a summary

Every summary referring to the content of a text begins with an umbrella sentence, presenting (so far as this in known) information about the author, type of the text, publication date and the text’s thematic emphasis. The following key questions may be useful when developing the structure of a summary:

factual texts	literary texts (or extracts)
What is the theme/problem of the text? What is the author’s intention? How is his/her argumentation structured?	What is the situation like? Who are the protagonists and how do they behave? What is the general atmosphere of the text? What is the theme/problem of the text? How is the text structured?

When dealing with these key questions, it is always necessary to make a clear decision about other rather general but indispensable questions:

> What is of central importance?

> Which information can be considered as trivial and support the creative character of a text?

> Which points do not necessarily have to be mentioned?

> Is it possible to understand the message of the text even without the mentioning of these points?

> What is repeated and redundant?

Writing a summary

Obviously, the answers of the key questions build a basic component and serve as fabric for the summary but sometimes a detailed outline can be helpful as well. As a general rule, it is only allowed to introduce remarks that can actually be verified and found in the original text. In addition to that, the logic of argumentation should be clear and comprehensible.

Length: about one third or one fourth of the original text

Tense: present tense

Transformation: Pronouns, temporal adverbs and statements about location are changed (like in indirect speech, i.e. I becomes he or she, yesterday becomes the day before, here becomes there)  

Taboo: A summary neither includes direct speech nor quotations nor any judgmental personal statements!

With regards to linguistic features, a summary tends to require a slightly elevated level and a certain degree of abstraction. It is of conceptual nature and needs to be distinguished from a report or an account. The usage of generalisations and shortenings are necessary in order to achieve the already mentioned degree of abstraction:  

General terms: means of transport instead of car, bike and underground

Extensive evaluating verbs: to focus on, to claim, to maintain, to criticise, to report, to illustrate, …

Generalising adjectives: to be worried about, to be reluctant, to be concerned with, …

Conjunctions: temporal (before, when), causal (because, as, so), conditional (if, unless), concessive (though, although), contrastive (but, instead of), consecutive (so that, thus).

Abiturprüfungsaufgaben und Lösungen 2009 Brandenburg/Berlin. 4th ed. Freising, GER: Stark Verlag, 2008. Print.

Flyer

My Favorite Page

     This is an idea to motivate pupils to read! The project is called "My Favorite Page" and it originally comes from a French teacher who wanted to teach without using the textbook every lesson.
The idea is the following: books with all kind of different subjects are distributed on a table in the middle of the classroom. It is important that the books contain pictures, photographs or images to facilitate the understanding. Every pupil chooses one book.
     In the following lessons, the pupils become acquainted with reading strategies and they learn how to write about the most relevant aspects of a text. Additionally, they understand how to create a well - structured and colourful visualization on a poster. Then, every pupil works chooses his favorite page of the book. They prepare a little presentation in which they inform their classmates about the main characters and the plot of the book. Therefore it is highly important that they practice to speak in front of an audience. A well - working trick is to fold a piece of paper in the middle. On the left side, they write the complete text. On the right side, they write the most important key words. If they should the thread, they have the possibility of turning the page. After having taken a look at the complete text, they can come back to the list of key words easily.

 And this is what a poster could look like :-)
http://www.plattscsd.org/SMS/images/RockPoster.jpg, Stafford Middle School, New York