Visit #7

Today started off like any other. Signing in at the office, greeting my supervising teachers and the special needs student and looking over the schedule of what was on for today. I started off working with a year 10 life skill student who is studying at a year 3 level. She suffers with anxiety and depression and so for her to come and work with me was really good of her. Unfortunaly today was not one of her best days as she started to feel overwhelmed in an one-on-one session and so she went back to class for the period. As she went back to class, I had spent the rest of the lesson with the special needs student, working with her spelling and sounds of letters. She got distracted quite easily and would try to get out of work wherever she could, although you had to be a bit firm with her but she understood that she needed to do her work or if she wasn’t going to do her work then she would need to sit quietly and not disturb the other student in the learning support room, who was doing their MULTILit with the other ACU student.

For the next period, I went to the year 5 class that I normally go to and spent the lesson observing the grammar lesson as well as marking and doing some data entry. This lesson they had their original teacher back and so I feel like most of the students were happier with that as that is who they are used to and who knows where each of the students were at and the level they also worked at. Today was also a special day as two of the students in the class had birthday’s today! Each of them brought cake and cupcakes and stood in front of the class explain what their families do to celebrate birthdays as well as get sung to and blowing out the candles on the cake. All the students in the class got a slice of cake and a cupcake and went out to enjoy their recess. The next period we went to the library with the other year 5 class and a year 6 class to watch a reading of the book The Cow Tripped Over The Moon. After the reading the cohort had a group discussion about the book and about goals, friendship and how they link together. Group discussions are really good as everyone can share ideas and learn off each other. After the small amount of time in the library, we went back to the classroom to start on the math lesson. As they were starting a new topic today, I did not take the advance group outside and so I continues to mark some religion tests that the students had completed earlier on in the week.

After this period, I took my students out of class to work through the MULTILit program. Again, this part of my day was just like all the other weeks as this is the one thing in my visits that does not change, no matter what is on that day.

Summative Entry for ENGL210

While people in the English Renaissance wore different clothes and had no access to digital technology, their artistic expressions and the experiences these embody still have an impact on human beings living in the 21st Century.

 

The works made by artists and authors remain relevant for years and years to come. The meaning behind each piece of work lives on and no matter what the time it stays relevant somehow or sometimes the meaning can change by the people who are interpreting it. Throughout history, the themes of love, power, betrayal and much more are used again and again. Many works have been based around these themes. The time may have been different but, in regards to English Literature, many things stay the same and still impact human lives years after they have been published.

 

This unit peaked my interest from the very beginning. I have always loved Shakespeare’s work and the Renaissance period has always amazed me and fascinated me. Every part of the Renaissance time period has inspired and drew my interest, the clothing, the way they worked, the works they have produced. We have looked at so many amazing artists and their works, all different and fantastic, taking in all of their experiences and putting them into their amazing works. These works impact everyone, from students to adults, as people study these works and use the experiences and the teachings, shaping their lives, even now in the 21st Century. These works hold life lessons from peoples experience, however, the expressions and experiences in these works are not just seen as life lessons as they are extremely enjoyable and entertaining to read, learn and interpret.

 

Although the expressions and experiences may be the same and impact human beings living in the 21st Century, the style of writing and the speech used in the works are very different. No matter the differences, whether in clothing, technology available or language used, themes and experience still overlap and interlock. This unit has opened my eyes in so many aspects that I had never thought of before in regards to Shakespeare and the Renaissance period, many things that I am thankful for.

(http://arts1301-groupartproject.weebly.com/arts-in-the-renaissance-era.html)

Visit #6

This week was back to normal as all of the exams are over and so I was back to my (semi) normal routine. I started the day sitting in on my year 9 English class. Today they had a relief teacher today and there were looking at the topic ‘Homelessness’ for this lesson. The teacher had started the lesson off with a personal story, relating to the topic, of her experience with a homeless man and how she had slowly helped him back onto his feet. This really had the students engaged and I like the idea of starting a lesson with a personal story as it bring the topic the students are studying, down to a more relatable scale. After her story, she explained the task “The Oasis – Couch Surfing”, a task that was accessible online but she had paper copies available, and let the students start working individually. Even though it was a relief teacher she had seem to know the class very well and was able to keep the noise to a minimum as well as keep the students on time. Even though most of the students were working productively, my thought was because it was a task that was on their laptops and so the students were either on task because it made things easier or getting side tracked, there was still a group of boys that were constantly getting off topic, playing around and talking very loudly. The relief teacher gave the students warnings and yet the students did not stop so she took it upon her to separate the students. She moved one of the students one table over to control the noise and behaviour of the year 9 boys. However, personally, I would have moved the boys further than one table away from each other, as they were still able to talk and distract each other. I also think the technology had quite a bit effect on the distraction that was caused in the classroom. When technology gets involved students tend to get distracted a bit easily.

Once the bell rung, the year 9’s started to move to their next class and I had begun to move to where I had to be next, my year 5 class. This class also had a relief teacher, that had taught a lot of the students before, as she used to work for the school as a kindergarten teacher but is now retired. The class was studying math when I walked in so I took the advance math group, which consisted of 4 boys, outside to focus on getting their answers right while completing their work booklets. The boys were working on a time elapsed worksheet but I had noticed that the boys were getting distracted easily and were getting a bit noisy this lesson. Halfway through the lesson, however, half of the boys left for cross country practice. With only 2 of the boys, they were a lot more focused and only got distracted occasionally as the runners ran past. This was the last lesson before recess and as recess started to end and the year 5 students started to go back to their seats the teacher got me to go make some photocopies of a form that she needed to hand out to the students at the end of the lesson, while she started the writing task for the students. The students task was a creative writing class in which they had to create a creative writing piece about The 39 Clues a book they have been reading in class. The work they were doing was some silent individual work that was being marked by their original teacher when she returned, and this mark was going towards their final grade. I think that this was not a good task for the relief teacher to give to the students as she did not really know what as happening in the book or what the teacher actually wanted and the students were being marked on it as well! Some of the students were getting distracted easily as I think that this is more of a task for groups to complete and didn’t quiet see how this was a good task for the year 5 students. While they were doing their creative writing class, I was marking their math books until the period was over so I could then take the MULTILit students for their reading time.

Once the bell went for period 4, I took the first student, that I needed from that class, and took them to the learning support room to start their MULTILit. Both students were progress quite well as opposed to last week. Again, this part of the day is kind of the same each week and not much changes when it gets to this part of the day. It is the same thing each week and not much change.

Visit #5

Today wasn’t much of a day. As Naplan examinations were being held there was not much for us UNI students to do. As there were exams being held in the learning support room we were being relocated to the library. Our supervising teacher was holding an exam in the library however there was a year 8 girl who is doing life skill for her classes and so while our supervising teacher looked after the year 9 students who were undertaking their Naplan test, I was sitting with the life skills student and helping her navigate through her online learning scaffold for spelling and grammar. The website took a bit of time to get into as there were some technological difficulties with the iPad and then with the internet, as the schools Wi-Fi was being updated, however, we were able to get on it and play around for a couple of hours before my supervising teacher came over with something new to do. The school is trialling a new life skills resource site and to know what level the students are at, as well as, what resources they will need, they are required to complete a, sort of, placement test. There were two life skill girls who were undertaking the test in this period and so I was sitting with them to help anyway I would. As it was a test I could not help them too much but I was able to read them the questions or rephrase it so that they could better understand.

The Naplan and placement test took us into the next period and once they were both done, we only had a little bit of time before the bell went for recess. We moved from the library back into the learning support room and so I wouldn’t be stuck sitting in the with nothing to do, my supervising teachers had me start to mark the placement tests that were just completed. Waiting for the bell to ring for recess wasn’t too exciting. The learning support room only had my supervising teacher organising what they had needed to after the Naplan exam and taking care/helping the special needs student and then there was me, sitting at a spare table marking the placement tests.

After recess had finished, I stayed in the learning support room, instead of going to my usual year 5 class, and helped catch up on all the MULTILit that we had missed because of the exam. I spent the first period after recess going through the MULTILit program with a year 6 boy who suffers with dyslexia. We went through the first part of the program like normal, him performing really well, although I’m not normally in the room while he does his MULTILit so I do not know whether he has been improving or not. When we got to the reading section of the program, however, as he has been falling behind on his reading of his class novel, I got him to read a couple of pages with me, while asking him questions about what he was reading, before my supervising teacher got me to read the book to him, this way his reading to get done that little bit fast and I was demonstrating good reading, in her words.

The last thing I did for the day was the MULTILit program with my regular year 5’s. This part of the day is the same as all the other weeks. It is the same routine every week and I’m really proud of them when they get on a roll and are able to move through the program quite quickly. However, today they were a bit put off and tired from Naplan and so I think their brains went to bed as they were not completing their testing or reading as effinictly as normal. It normally takes a bit for students to fully concentrate after exams, especially when there has been 3 days of exams but I’m proud of how they are progressing.

Peer Review #5

Peer Review on Jonas Camilleri (Https://jonascamilleri.wordpress.com)

Hi Jonas,

I really love this blog post. Even though you mentioned at the beginning that you were unable to attend the lecture, the blog post was very insightful and upon reading your blog post, if you had not of mentioned it, I would not have known that you did not attend the lecture. I cannot wait to read the rest of your blog posts! I wish I could give you some constructive criticism but I cannot think of anything I can say to improve on this. I really enjoyed this post and took a lot away from it, looking at this blog topic from a different perspective was a great experience.

Anastasia xx

Blog Post #6

Take Sir Philip Sidney’s lines (above) in which he values poetry over history and philosophy and develop his argument in your own words, based on your own experience of the value of poetry to you.

Sir Philip Sidney is one of the many extrodanry people we have been looking at in this English unit, and his insights on poetry and why he values it over history and philosophy caught my attention the most during this week. He argues that poetry is far more important that history and philosophy and I couldn’t help but agree. History is all about dates and recounts. Re-telling a story, explaining what happened and why it happened, as well as when it happened. While poetry, not only tells the audience what happened by also an interpretation of the feelings behind the event and different perspectives of the event.

Looking at the history of an event tells you the place and date of the event, for instance, one of Shakespeare’s plays. The history behind one of his plays would be, when he wrote it, where it was performed and other facts. History and philosophy cant describe the feeling and the reactions of the people in the crowd. The things that people felt as they watched it, the experience they took away with them once the performance was over, the interpretation that they see and put with the play. You can not get these things, these feelings, from history or philosophy. Through poetry, the author writes about their experiences and their feelings, writing about their interpretation from the topic or experience. They use poetry to show their artistic expression and show the audience, leaving them to interpret something new, or to figure the authors expression.

This is just one of the many reasons why I love poetry and why, even though I find history very interesting, I think poetry should be valued and appreciated more compared to history.

Visit #4

It has been 3 weeks since I have been on work placement, because of school holidays and UNI holidays, I haven’t been able to go to the Hills Adventist College until this week, since the last time I was there. Despite the long time that had passed since I have gone, it felt like only a week when I walked onto the grounds and signed in at the office. Walking into the learning support room, I greeting my supervising teachers, my fellow ACU student, and we started talking about what was happening that day. I started the day in the year 9 English class, the one that I was sitting in the past visit, and just observed the teacher. Naplan was in a week and so they were preparing, as recently the function of the Naplan tests, especially for year 9’s, have changed and are affecting their HSC. As a class they were going through the Naplan structure and marking guidelines, particularly for the spelling aspects. The students task was to write as much as they can towards a certain argument in 10 minutes. A lot of the students did quite well in the 10 minutes and were able to write a lot, but the main feature is the content and not the amount. As they were focusing on spelling, the teacher got the students to peer mark their friends work, out of 6, in regards to the marking guidelines on spelling from Naplan. After that, the teacher went around to each student, one-by-one, and got them to read out their response as she gave them constructive feedback. I thought this was a really good strategy to use right before the exam’s as then it is fresh in the students mind and they are able to fix and study accordingly.

For the next period, I was with the year 5 class, the same one I have been for the pervious weeks. They were kind of the same as the year 9 class in preparing for the Naplan exam that was around the corner. The year 5 teacher’s method on preparing for the Naplan was different to the year 9 teacher’s. The teacher I was observing for this period had her class do a practice paper, in exam conditions for them to get used to the Naplan format. I was just in charge of making sure the timer on the projector didn’t fade to black so that the students knew exactly how much time they had left to complete it. A practice exam is a good way to do things and study for an upcoming test, however when it happens in class I feel like it wastes time that could be used to go over things and work on areas that the students are struggling in. I was talking to the teacher after the exam was over and it was time for recess and she mentioned to me that they will be doing one practice exam for each subject of Naplan, this week in preparation for next week. The subject that there were doing the practice exam on, today was reading. Most of the kids were able to finish the practice exam with a lot of time left over and it was only, maybe 2 or 3, students that had to be given a little bit of extra time in order to finish the exam. After recess, the class started to do math and like last week. I think it is really good to reward the students, in this case the reward is getting to work outside, who excel in math as it makes the students want to keep exceling and as for the other students, they see the students who excel get rewarded and it makes them want to try and work harder so they can get rewarded as well.

After working with the advance math students, helping them understand the work a bit better, if they were struggling and making sure they were getting everything write, I grabbed the year 5 student I have been doing MULTILit with and went up to the learning support room. As Naplan is right around the corner it is very import that I make sure that these students are trying really hard to get better and read the words a little faster. It was interesting today to see how the different teachers as well as the students prepare for an exam and how the student find each methods. During the MULTILit I asked the students how they think they’re gonna go for Naplan and they were both pretty confident in their abilities and their teachers abilities which was amazing to see.

Blog Post #5

From the perspective of the moon, in a paragraph, describe the current situation on earth as you see it.

I move around the world, bringing night and sleep wherever I go. When the sun goes down, I come out. I see crime and bad doing happening in the shadows. Lurking through the night, its everywhere and only seems to stop when I go away. But then again when I leave one side of the world I am greeted with another side of the world fighting just the same. Some places are different. They are quite and peaceful, while others, make me question how the world is supposed to look. How this blue and green planet wants other to think when they look at it. The green is slowly become buildings, skyscrapers filling the sky line, while the blue water is slowly becoming polluted, rubbish and other toxic things filling it up and changing the beauty of it.

However, not everything that I see around this planet is terrible. Every so often I can see something beautiful, remarkable, that out weigh the bad. I see parents tucking their child into bed, kissing them goodnight after an amazing bedtime story; I see romantic evenings shared between two people; I see people helping out where they can and getting help in return. The love that people share, the love that I see around this planet, cancels out the wrong doings and crime. I don’t always see things in this optimistic point of view, but every once in a while I will see something amazing that will put a new perspective of this world into view. This planet is ever moving and changing, who knows what it will look like or how my thought about it will change.

(http://www.thatcreativefeeling.com/creative-moon-art/)

Peer Review #4

Peer Review on Tamara Sibbald (https://tksibbald.wordpress.com/)

Hi Tamara,

This blog post is amazing!! The descriptive was you have answered the blog topic you chose was simply fantastic. The way you write and expressed everything was amazing, you are really talented in creative writing and I hope you continue it! I really enjoyed reading this and I tried and tried to find something constructive to say in this comment but I simply could not find anything. You have gramma checked and wrote so amazingly that I can not say anything that you can improve on.

Great work! I cannot wait to read more things!

Anastasia xx

Blog #4

Chose any two of the paintings you fell in love with yesterday and give a critical appraisal of their importance to your understanding of the world of the Renaissance and/or Shakespeare.

This trip to the art gallery was such an eye opener in regards to the Renaissance/Shakespeare time period. The main two that captured my attention are very similar but show two different views of the same event. They are the “Deposition” painted by Prospero Fontana, 1563, and “Dead Christ on the Cross” painted by Guilio Procaccini, 1618. These two paintings are the artist representation of the same subject, Jesus dying on the cross for our sins.

Looking around the room, made me realise how religious the Renaissance period was, however, these two paintings showed me two different sides and views of the story. The first painting that I looked at was the “Deposition” by Prospero Fontana. To me, Fontana is trying to capture the positive side to this event. The use of the bright colour almost gives off a happy and positive vibe towards the event. Fontana looks at Jesus dying on the cross and sees this as a joyous occasions as he has died for our sins. Using the bright colours in the background and the bright coloured clothing worn by everyone in the painting but Jesus.

The painting on the right of the “Deposition” in the NSW Art Gallery is the next painting I am going talk about. This painting is “Dead Christ on the Cross” by Guilio Procaccini. This painting, like the last, conveys the artist perspective on the Jesus dying on the cross for our sins. Compared to the “Deposition”, “Dead Christ on the Cross” uses very dark colours. Having these two side by side in the Gallery really shows the contrast of perspective the two artists view this event to be.

Overall, the trip to the NSW Art Gallery was such an amazing experience, like always, and being able to see all of the wonderful artworks for the Shakespeare and Renaissance period was simply wonderful and a very eye-opening experience.

(https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/219.1994/)

(https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/249.2005/)