Grade 11 Poetry

Dear 11BPF Here is a very good revision of the poem, "To his Coy Mistress" with many of the more technical aspects of the poem pointed out. I take no credit for this, it is all Mr Bruff, you too can follow him in Youtube!

Here is a very interesting article on the painting "The Spear" and what it means to South Africa. Do you agree with Perry's final statements, that questioning government is every citizen's obligation in a democracy? http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2012/05/23/south-africa-over-exposing-the-president/?xid=newsletter-europe-weekly

5 Minute Macbeth Revision

Here is a video with 10 questions and answers about Macbeth. Here is the link to the video of "Macbeth in 96 seconds," just in case you missed it all in the first 96 second viewing... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5nlx2XzP-4&ob=av3e Embedding has not been enabled on this video, unfortunately. Watch this: it is longer than five minutes but worth the time!

Here is today's grammar lesson. We are going to leave punctuation for a little while and focus on sentence structure instead. You should all (Gr9-11) have notes on the Active and Passive voice, but here is a fantastic re-cap that I hope you will go through.

The Dreaded Comma!

Now that we have apostrophes under control we need to consider the other punctuation that looks like an apostrophe, but at the bottom of a line: the comma. The placement of a comma can radically alter the meaning of a sentence:

or...

Here is the Ultimate Guide to using the comma. Now we shall never abuse these poor punctuation marks again! This is the poster that began my decision to find more resources on the comma

The Dreaded Apostrophe!

Good Morning Everyone. Here is a little tutorial on how to use an apostrophe! Although it has been taught to you many times already and although you have these rules in your notes, here is a re-cap of the uses of the most dreaded punctuation on Earth. Here and here are some more cartoons and articles to help you use this poor, maligned punctuation. There is more grammar revision to follow!

Good Morning Everyone. Such a lot has been happening in the world and SA recently. There seems to be too much to talk about at the moment. I would like us to start by thinking about the purpose of art and expression. I have re-tweeted an article about Mark Zuckerberg getting married and another one about people in SA being fired for their Facebook updates. It seems that expressing yourself is not what it used to be; the internet ensures that all of your "expressions" are available for the world to see, and possbily be offended by... Then there is a storm of controversy that has been caused by a local artist and his depictions of Jacob Zuma and the ANC logo. At what point is art really art? What is the purpose of art in the modern world? Are you offended, enraged, irritated, intrigued or ambivalent when you hear about art like Murray's. Think about whether these works are relevant and necessary in South Africa in 2012.

Here is the video on agriculture and the need for new innovations in feeding the planet: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/jonathan_foley_the_other_inconvenient_truth.html This video did not have an embed function, so you will have to go to the website to watch it. Here is the video by Marcel Dicke on why we, in the Western world, should consider eating insects: Maybe we all need to start changing our mind-set...

Good Morning Everyone! I watched this video last night and my brain is still rattling. I do not fully understand everything that Mr Slavin says but it is truly fascinating what is happening in the world. Then I was wandering around Twitter this morning and found this article on the new Google search engine called the Knowledge Graph. Doesn't it sound algorithm-driven to you? I wonder if the employees at Google can read what they wrote? There are lots of other articles on the Knowledge Graph available today. Here is another one; this one explains more concisely what the Knowledge Graph aims to do.

Here is this week's Listening Comprehension:


Listen to the song and then answer the questions below:

Grade 9 S:
Following on from our conversation about animals and their rights and our need to eat them, I found the following article about the 10 Most Intelligent Animals.

http://animal.discovery.com/tv/a-list/creature-countdowns/smartest/smartest.html

Here are some video clips that show just how intelligent animals can be:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01by4w1/clips

Do we need to start re-considering our interactions with animals?

EXAMS, exams, EXAMS:

Here is the break-down for your exam Grades 9-11:

Last week's Listening Comprehension:

Listen to the video clip and then see if you can answer the following questions.


Remember that all of your answer should be in full sentences and in your own words.

1)      Why has the speaker compared her love affair to that of Romeo and Juliet?                        (2)

2)      Describe the setting of the song.                                                                                                 (2)

3)      What is the emotional path that the speaker follows? How do her feelings towards her “Romeo” change over the course of the song?                                                                         (2)

4)      What challenges do the lovers in the song face that are similar to those of Romeo and Juliet in Shakespeare’s play?                                                                                                                       (2)

5)      What similarities can you see between this girl and Juliet?                                                      (2)

TOTAL: 10

As a start you can watch this video on Youtube:

Welcome

Dear Classlings

Welcome to our classroom blog!
We are going to work here, explore ideas and hopefully have fun.
This blog is not just a space for me to speak at you. It will only work if we work together. I will need your ideas and input.
Some of your classwork and homework will now be here and I will post some interesting articles that are not part of the syllabus too. You can also start talking on Twitter: @Gadds_classroom.

Happy Blogging!
Miss Gadd