Thursday - Period 2

Today we will begin our poetry unit that will focus on 'Images of War'. We will revise poetic techniques and elements through a glossary and mind map that is to be glued in your book.

Following some focus activities and discussion you are asked to post a response to the Wallwisher wall below.  In our next lesson you will embed this completed wall on a new Weebly page.

Week 8 Lessons

As an extension of our study of documentaries, you will this week create your own documentary that presents the College in a favourable or negative light.  You should have completed the planning sheet on Monday that outlines your approach, will spend 1-2 lessons shooting video footage and taking still photographs, and the last lesson compiling your work in MovieMaker.

Completed documentaries need to be submitted on the school network.  You will compose a reflection statement on your Weebly that considers the learning experiences that this task has given you.

Your books need to be handed up in Wednesday's lesson for checking.

Monday - Period 2

Depending on your progress with last week's task, you will complete any or all of the following tasks today:

1. Completion of your written analysis of 'Men of Ore' on your Weebly.  This must be finished and published today.
2. Self-Assessment of your achievement of this task (see Mrs Lans for a sticker for your book).
3. Ensure the 'Contents Page' and all work that should be in your book is up to date.
4. Documentary Planning Sheet to be completed for your one minute documentary presenting the College from a positive or negative perspective.

Wednesday - Week 5 to Thursday - Week 6

Today you will commence your own deconstruction of a 1 minute sequence of the documentary 'Men of Ore'.  You are free to choose any one minute sequence that occurs after the 15 minute mark (already deconstructed in class).  View this sequence as many times as you need and make notes on the following:

1. the time mark of your chosen extract (eg. 16:34 - 17:39)
2. the content addressed during this extract
3. the film techniques employed -consider camera shots and angles, sound effects (diegetic and non-diegetic), lighting, soundtrack, archival footage/images, captions, editing (speed, aural bridge, transitions)
4. the effects achieved by the filmmaker in using these techniques, ie. what is the effect on the documentary audience (responder)

Refer to your 'Documentary Film Response Scaffold' to guide your deconstruction.  You can also discuss your thoughts with other students to clarify your ideas.  When you are ready, use the scaffold to guide your response that you will post on your Weebly.  Create a sub-page under the 'Non-fiction' tab called 'Men of Ore' and type your work there.

Tuesday - Period 4

Today we will continue with our deconstruction of the Australian Story documentary 'Men of Ore'.  You will see the first 15 minutes deconstructed for the techniques employed and the effect that each achieves for the documentary filmmaker.

Take a look at the 'Documentary Film Response Scaffold' in your books and familiarise yourself with the areas you need to address for your own deconstruction.

Thursday - Period 1

Here is the brainstorm completed in class following our viewing of 'Men of Ore'.  Any of these could become the  topic of your editorial for your assessment task.  Today you will receive some exemplars of editorials to guide you in terms of structure, language features and persuasive techniques.

In our lesson today we will begin to deconstruct the documentary in terms of filmic techniques and the effect they achieve on the responder.  Take note of the how a film sequence is deconstructed - you will be doing a sequence deconstruction on your own in the next few weeks.

Wednesday - Period 4

Today we will begin our viewing of an Australian Story documentary - 'Men of Ore'.  This is the story of the rescue team responsible for the retrieval of the trapped miners at the Beaconsfield Gold Mine in 2006.  Following our initial viewing we will consider the issues that arise in this documentary and brainstorm possible topics for the editoral assessment task.

If you wish to view the documentary at home, visit the Australian Story page on the ABC website.

Wednesday - Period 1 & Monday - Period 5

Today we will look at the DIY Doco website that is designed to assist your understanding of how to:

• identify the filmic techniques employed and their effect
• under the style and genres of documentary film texts
• respond to and analyse documentary texts.

In your exercise books you are to record key ideas under the headings:

1. Style & Genre
2. Elements of Documentary Storytelling

(Remember - when recording key ideas you need to record and summarise them concisely using words and phrases that will make sense to you later on.)

Assessment Task # 1 issued - Editorial composition (exposition).

Monday - Period 2 & Tuesday - Period 4

Today we will revise non-fiction by considering the following questions:

• What is non-fiction?
• What forms does non-fiction take?
• What is the purpose of non-fiction?
• Whose point of view is presented?
• What is the difference between fact and opinion?
• How do the following shape how we see things: one's attitude/perspective/outlook, knowledge, societal context, cultural background?

Using the information from your group discussion summarise your responses to these questions on your non-fiction Weebly page. 

Homework:  Create 2 QR codes using the QR code generator to the right.  One is for the URL of your Weebly, the other is the URL of your non-fiction Weebly page.  Glue in your English book.

Thursday - Period 1

Today we will set up individual Weebly accounts for your online work.

Subject Specific Terminology & Report Criteria issued and examined.

Wednesday - Period 4

This year you will use both an exercise book and a personal website to complete your work.  Your exercise book will contain handouts and things you need to refer back to at a later date.  Other work (written, visual, etc) will be composed and maintained on your own website.  This site will be an electronic portfolio of your best work.

So today's activities will include:

1. Expositional journalling (in preparation for NAPLAN later this year)
2. Establishing your exercise book
3. Establishing your website using Weebly. (Insufficient time - transferred to Thursday's lesson).

We will begin looking at Non fiction: Documentaries in our next lesson.

Monday - Period 5 (7/2/11)

In our first lesson we will attend to a few preliminary activities:

1. Spelling Assessment
2. Reading Comprehensions Assessment
3. Technology Survey

Please have your exercise book with you for our next lesson.

Friday - Period 2

Game Shows - 'Deal or No Deal'
Today we will look at the production of a game show.  In particular we are interested in examining the purpose, the filmic and production techniques employed, audience responses and emotion appeal to the viewer.

1. Initial viewing
2. Post viewing questions:  complete the online comprehension questions below.

Friday - Period 1 & Wednesday - Period 3

Activities:
1.  Use the 'comments' link below and post a comment in which you define what reality TV is.
2.  Respond the the survey below.
3.  Viewing and initial deconstruction of an episode of 'Highway Patrol'.

4.  Highway Patrol is both a documentary and reality television.  Compose a paragraph that explains how this statement is true.  (Remember to begin with a topic sentence and then use body sentences to contain evidence to support your topic sentence.)  Type your response using the 'comment' link below.

Wednesday - Period 3

Reality Television

Following completion of our novel unit, we will spend the remaining weeks of school looking critically at reality television.  Today's activity was to place various reality TV programs on a continuum to identify the 'level' of reality the show represents.  We also classified the different sub-genres of reality TV programs.  See images below.

Reality TV Continuum

Reality TV Classifications

Term 4

For the remainder of the term we will be working paperless by using a class and student weebly sites to effect our study of Lonesome Howl. Please visit the class weebly to access the learning activities.

Monday - Period 4 & Tuesday - Period 5

We will continue our reading of Steven Herrick's verse novel, 'Lonesome Howl'

Friday - Period 2

Today we will commence our reading of Steven Herrick's verse novel, 'Lonesome Howl'.  To read a brief summary of the book, visit this website.

On this website you can also listen to this podcast interview with Steven Herrick about poetry and his verse novel/s.

Wednesday - Period 3

Today we need to finish writing quotes on Wallwisher (see last post).  Once they are complete we will classify them according to the issue that is creating the conflict between Julie, Michelle, Franky and their parents.

Dramatic reading of 'Fossils' extract by Tyson & Naomi (thanks to both of you!)

For the remainder of this lesson you will locate examples from the play that demonstrate the conflict that each character experiences.  These will be recorded on the wallwisher sites below:

www.wallwisher.com/wall/juliejones
www.wallwisher.com/wall/michellewatson
www.wallwisher.com/wall/frankyzeferelli