A Great Way to Do the NOVEL

This is a GREAT blog on the novel. Read as much as you can and write me a mail about what you see and learn for about 1 hour. Use my OUTLOOK address.

Wuthering Heights
Click this link.

A Question on "The English Teacher"

Radia,

Here is a question on the novel. It is just a preliminary - I wan to give you more challenging items later - may be in 4 days time from now.

1. What aspects of the personality and behavior of Krishna might make you feel sympathetic towards him? (40 marks)

Since it is a 40 marks question - in the first attempt you should write at least 1000 word answer.

Anglophiles O Level English 2014 Class - March Activities

This is to welcome you all who had joined this class this February, 2014. This is really a very happy occasion for all of us that in the last 3 weeks we had gone through some truly "other-than-ordinary" sessions. I will briefly recount some of the things so that we are able to recollect these later.

1. First, we had this session on 8th March, 2014 where 2 Professors from an American College attended a meeting session with our seniors. In that meeting, which lasted for about 2 and a half hours - we had a good exposure about what the students are doing. Yes the young students sat outside - with some difficulty of course - sunlight and a little heat. We were able to get through the who time in a moderately tolerable way. Those who attended the day - Thank You Everyone. 
2. Next Friday, on 14th March, two of our senior students came and gave a talk on general items that ranged from how to deal with school and academic pressures to how to handle your personal issues. It was a closed-door meeting between the seniors and juniors and I had later received some very encouraging mails about the POSITIVE impact of such meetings. 
3. The next Friday, 21st March, two other seniors shared their own experiences about how to improve a student's extra-curricular activities. It was something very NEW to most of our students. We mostly talked about how to get involved with various organizations and take part in OLYMPIADS. Although the whole concepts were new to the young members of our class - I expect that you make your own plan for such Future Engagements through your participation in Olympiads, Science Fairs, Environmental Challenges etc.

2013 Literature Students' Profile

In 2013 there will be at least 4 students who will be preparing for the AS and A Levels. Today morning Farheen and Tamanna had a discussion about the AS level texts. Farheen shall bring some of her AS texts and hand it over to Tamanna. Their respective texts are listed below.

Farheen

            Mid Summer Night’s Dream + Sense and Sensibility

            God of Small Things + Translations

Sense and Sensibility Links:

http://emc.english.ucsb.edu/emc-courses/JaneAusten-2011/Articles/TannerSS.pdf
http://www.penguinreaders.com/pdf/downloads/pr/teachers-notes/9781405882033.pdf
http://supadu.com/images/ckfinder/252/pdfs/sense_sensibility.pdf
http://novelinks.org/uploads/Novels/SenseAndSensibility/Concept%20Analysis.pdf

Raidah

           Unit 3: Songs of Ourselves + Passage to India
           Unit 4:   Streetcar named Desire + Ideal husband
           Unit 5:  Sense and Sensibility + Midsummer Night's dream
           Unit 6:   God of Small Things + Translations/Equus

Tamanna

            Unit 3: Songs of Ourselves + Passage to India

                        War, Death, Childhood, Time, Romance

            Unit 4: Streetcar Named Desire + Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf

Era

            Unit 1: Wuthering Heights + The Scarlet Letter + Poetry ( Landscape)
            Unit 2: The Spanish Tragedy + A Midsummer Night's Dream
            Unit 3: Captain Corelli's Mandolin + Tess of the D'Urbervilles + The Great Gatsby + Carol            Ann Duff " Rapture"
            Unit 4: Undecided [Streetcar, Salome, Taming of Shrew]

Class Work TODAY

1. Tanima started the day with a very shrill cry for help - the CAT issue.
2. Abrar spent a whole night at the Shahbag Square - appropriating free food and obscene language (the name of the toilets bearing the names of Collaborators).
3. Today we read a few pages from Three Men on a a Boat.
4. We again went through the Filming Shakespeare Contest. 
1. http://filmingshakespeare.com/
5. We discussed two possible story lines for the FILM - 
1. Shylock - A changeling from the Forest
2. Streeting Shakespeare (incorporating A Mid Summer Day's Dream)

Students have been assigned with the following task - 

• Write the first page of your script - we have discussed the storylines - but you can definitely deviate at  your own will. just remember one thing - Film is a Collaborative Art.

An overview of 2012 and Programs for 2013

It is after a long time I am writing for our BLOG. As you all know that I had been sick for a long 100 days, I hardly had time for posting on the BLOG.

A lot of things are expected to happen too. But before that I would like to recount a few things.

The year 2012 have seen a few interesting things:

1. A few students from our English Language / Literature Class have got admission in the following Colleges - Bryn Mawr, Mount Holyoke College, BROWN, U Chicago, Sarah Lawrence College, Augsburg College, SUNY Buffallo and Georgia Tech.
2. ALL of the students received significant amount of Financial Aid [Between 85% - 92%]
3. Our O Level Literature students got A and B grades.
4. Azima Tarannum [Sunbeams, Class-VIII student] got a Silver in Commonwealth Essay Competition.

In 2013 we have taken the following steps

1. We have already watched Satjit Ray's c‡_i cvuPvjx and we have had a long-drawn class on its specific aspects. The students also presented Sketches on different scenes.
2. We plan to watch a few more such Films.
3. We have also decided to Work on a Screenplay based on a Shakespeare Play and turn it into a Short Film AND send it to international Film Festival.  
4. A few students of our class got registered for the online Academic Courses in Algebra and Modernism.
5. We have decided to work on EMMA.
6. We have been working on a few Poems and Novels too.
7. I will assign everyone their individual Comprehension works to Improve their Comprehension Performance. I shall USE the book General Certificate English for this purpose.

Some Recent Class Items we have worked on:

1. Malala Yousoufzai: A whole class on her life and works
2. A whole class of discussion on Buuzkashi Boys, an Afgan shoe-string budget film being screened in the Cannes.
3. Satjit Ray's c‡_i cvuPvjx 

Our Work Today

Today - 23 Nov, 2912 - we did a few things in the class.

Well, I was quite unhappy about the performances of ALL in the previous Writing Session when we Read - and - Answered some questions based on Marques's Short Story "The Handsomest Drowned Man". Most of the students DID understand the story BUT almost everyone failed to communicate their thoughts in a coherent manner.

Therefore, today morning I opened the class with a BIG lecture on how to improve one's writing through (1) Concentration, and (2) Focus on reading.

I brought out a PDF version of St. Thomas's journal "Writing in the Margins". We talked about finding some Personal Space for regular reading habit.

Finally, we talked about 25 titles of Europe that starts with Confessions of St. Augustine. I also suggested everyone to read Three Men in a Boat. Here is a link to this wonder of a comic book - with its Dry British Humour -

http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/0/308/308-h/308-h.htm

Please do also enjoy its terrific illustrations.

Here is a nice link to a simplified version with equally good visual treat.

Three Men In a Boat - Abridged