Holiday Home Learning Due 17/10

Next term we are going to be learning about Shakespeare and study his play Romeo and Juliet.

During the holidays I want you to conduct research about Shakespeare (his life, his plays, the theatre they were performed in) and the times he lived in (what people believed, the political climate).
You can present your information however you choose, but it must display what you have learnt.

No home learning this week

And I am away at a funeral tomorrow, so please be lovely for the reliever.
I expect to see some decent looking newspapers when I turn up to work on Monday morning!

Magazine people: try get some work done on your pages if possible.  I've left the USB's in the glass on my desk.  Make sure they get returned and not left in the computers!

A few of you have essays that need to be handed in to me.  Please get the reliever to put them in the clear file pocket that they have with the lesson outline in it, so I can mark them on Monday.

One other thing, can you click on your blog title in your dashboard, go to settings in the menu on the left and in there click on 'posts and comments'.  In here, can you find where it says 'word verification' and change the setting to 'no' then save it.  It's really annoying having to type all the silly words out every time I want to leave a comment on your blogs.

Have a great weekend.

Reading Due 19/9

Find something to read.  What is it?  Tell me about it?  In at least 2 - 3 paragraphs.

I would love to hear about the latest books you are enjoying at the moment :)

You could always write another review on Goodreads and post the link to it up on your blog or as a comment below.

Screenr Lesson Due 12/9

This week I want you to use Screenr and teach people something that you can do on the computer.

It might be something like writing a blog post, using one of the web tools we've tried out, adding a video to your blog, creating a photo collage, using photoshop etc.  If you have an idea that you are unsure about, leave a comment about it and I will get back to you.

Make your screenr video and post it up on your blog - you can grab an embed code, just change the width to suit your blog (450 - 500 px will be good on most your blogs).  You need to talk and explain what you are doing.  You need to be professional - it should be something appropriate to show other teachers and students.

Usually in Year 11 you have to give a speech teaching the class something so think of it as practise for that!

Here's an example Screenr video I made to teach other staff about Moodle:

If you are having trouble, try using Jing or Screencast:
http://www.techsmith.com/jing.html
http://www.screencast.com/

I personally haven't used them, but they appear to be similar.


Thanks for your poems.  If you haven't got one up yet, please get onto that asap.  I will be entering them tomorrow (Thursday).
If you wrote about a current AC teacher the other week, I flicked them the link to your blog.  I hope you don't mind; they were very appreciative :) 

Write a poem for the NZATE Junior Writing comp. Due 5/9

This week for home learning you are to write a poem to enter into the NZATE Junior Writing (Poetry) Competition 2012

Write a poem of no more than 40 lines about an object in your house.
Suggestions: Choose an object and brainstorm everything you can about what it looks,
sounds, tastes, feels and smells like, where it came from, why you have it, what is the best/
worst thing about it, a memory associated with it, what you’d like to forget about it ...
....now use your brainstorm as the beginning for your poem and see where it takes you. 

Prizes:
The winner at each year level (Yr 9 and 10) wins $100 and their poem will be published
in the October issue of English in Aotearoa
The two runners-up at each level win $50 each.
I'll send your poems off to be entered into the competition - you just have to post them on your blogs.

Last week, a lot of you made silly mistakes in your writing.  Please check back and edit any incorrect grammar and spelling.  A lot of you didn't even do the home learning - get it typed up please.

Wallwisher and Your most inspiring teacher! Due 29/8

Most of you didn't update our Wallwisher which was last week's home learning.  It seriously takes 2mins max, so please do this.

This week's home learning is to nominate your most inspiring teacher for the Warehouse Stationery competition that is running.

On your blog: write about who you nominated and why.  Put forward your argument about why they should win.  This could be a couple of paragraphs, a thank you letter to them, a prezi presentation, a voki presentation, a glogster poster - it's really up to you :)

Update our Wallwisher

Apparently a website is being set up for the school library and the librarian would like to highlight good books on it.  So, this week for home learning can you please put up as many good books as you can think of on our Wallwisher.

http://wallwisher.com/wall/10IMNEnglish