Engaging and Creative Ways to Teach English

1. Engaging and Creative Ways to Teach English Karen Yager- Knox Grammar School yagerk@knox.nsw.edu.au

2. Purpose • Provoke thought and sharing of ideas and strategies • Links to great websites • Access to a wiki and wordpress site with a range of resources and units of work

3. Writing • Confidence: The ideas and getting started • Inspiration: Models and exemplars • Craft to artistry: The writing process • Vocabulary: Sophistication • Refinement: Editing

4. Confidence • Creativity is innate • ‘Just get black on white’ Robert Gray, 2011: • Notebook or iPhone • Based on experience and passion • Haiku • Impressions • 12-word novel • Twitter text • Sentence of the week

5. The blanched, faceless wraith Of the escaped memories Flies off to the night He hits the ground and And bellows a requiem To a time long lost

6. Blank, befuddled, thoughtless, bemused, he sits in front of screen as boredom ensues. He accelerates. The thrill explodes! He clips the kerb, breathes his last.

7. Inspiration • Listening precedes speaking and reading precedes writing. • Audio books, podcasts • Extracts: http://www.randomhouse.co.uk/vintage/offthepage/extracts.htm

8. Inspiration • Inanimate Alice:http://www.inanimatealice.com/ - tells the story of Alice, a young girl growing up in the first half of the 21st century in China • Dust Echoes: http://www.abc.net.au/dustechoes/dustEchoesFlash.htm - lyrical animations beautifully illustrated of Aboriginal myths. • State Library of Victoria: Mirror of the World: Books and Ideas: http://www.mirroroftheworld.com.au/ - amazing images and extracts from texts to inspire writing.

9. Craft to Artistry • Spotlighting: the word and sentence level - Lexical density • Structure: • Purpose and audience • Form • Syntax and paragraphing • Framing devices

10. Craft to Artistry • Senses: • Sound: euphony, discordance…the vowels and consonants • Sight: Figurative devices • Feeling: nuances

11. The Craft of Composing a Narrative Explicit & Systematic Teaching Features of a Narrative Audience Genre Structure - complication Ideas - coda Character Setting Vocabulary Syntax Cohesion • Explicitly teach all aspects of a narrative • Zoom into the word and sentence level • Using short, timed activities • Listening to the sound of the writing • Peer and self marking • Quality feedback

12. Activities • Flash fiction with a motif and extended metaphor. • 50-word micro-story without the letter ‘e’. • Focus on the idea first through images or quotes and then planning the narrative using a mind map. • A word cloud to brainstorm ideas using Wordle - http://www.wordle.net/ • Starting in the middle of the action focusing on the verbs. • Starting at the end and writing backwards. • Composing the same narrative with different settings or changed characters, complications and resolutions.

13. Setting • Development of a sense of time and place • Focus on showing not telling through imagery appealing to the senses especially sound, colour, touch and smell, strong verbs, contrast, and a variety of sentence structures. • Atmosphere • Colour • Symbolism • Genre • Authenticity • Detailed descriptions • What if question

14. Character • Idiosyncrasies • Talismans • How they move and act in the setting • Dialogue and voice • Relationships • Actions • Perspectives and values • http://www.voki.com/

15. Vocabulary • Range & precision of language choices • Sophisticated: • effective figurative and sound devices • powerful verbs • adverbs and adjectives • synonyms

16. Activities • Grammar Skills:http://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/words/grammar/ • Grammar Monster: http://www.grammar-monster.com/index.html • Cyber Grammar: http://www.cybergrammar.co.uk/index.php • Visuword:http://www.visuwords.com/ - a beautiful online thesaurus to find more effective synonyms.

17. Refinement • Insert comment • Recording work and really listening noting the sound and the meaning • Peer assessment through a wiki or blog • Voicethread: http://voicethread.com/

18. ‘Stories are the lifeblood of a nation’ Garth Boomer. Digital Texts • A digital timeline • A narrative • A reflection • A life-story • Choose your own… • Local hero • A podcast • Comic strips • Choose your own adventure • Alternative perspectives • A soundscape • A digital poem • A news report • A travel tale: Google Earth Littrips: http://www.googlelittrips.org/

19. The Sites • http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/audiovideo/sites/about/pages/howto.shtml • http://www.digi-tales.org/ • http://www.photobus.co.uk/index.php?id=2 • http://www.changinglives.com.au/2008/04/abrar-autumn-and-i.html • Digital timeline: http://www.dipity.com/ • Museum Box: http://museumbox.e2bn.org/ • Comic strips: http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/

20. Essays • Clarity and cohesion • KISS theory • Thesis or line of argument or point of view with at least three supporting arguments • Topic sentences • Evidence

21. Persuasion • Persuasion 101:http://prezi.com/62290/: An introduction to persuasion. • Essay Map: http://www.readwritethink.org/materials/essaymap/ • Naplan: http://www.naplan.edu.au/writing_2011_-_domains.html

22. Persuasion • Youtube: Henry V’s Saint Crispin’s Day Speech & Barack Obama’s victory speech • Audacity/Garage Band/Adobe Soundbooth: Critical commentary on a soliloquy • Rhetoric: http://www.putlearningfirst.com/language/20rhet/20rhet.html • American Rhetoric:http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htmVodcasts and podcasts of speeches such as Martin Luther King.

23. Poetry • http://www.abc.net.au/rn/poetica/features/pod/ or http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/home.do: Listen to one of the poets reading his or her poems and focus on the artistry. • Instant poetry: http://ettcweb.lr.k12.nj.us/forms/newpoem.htm: Students can create poetry at this site. • Sonnet Central: http://www.sonnets.org/ - access to hundreds of sonnets and recordings too inspire writing.

24. Poetic Creativity • Found poems created in word - "paw through popular culture like sculptors on trash heaps" • Digital poems with images • Performance poetry • Concepts: Imagery

25. Shakespeare • Illustrated Shakespeare: http://www.english.emory.edu/classes/Shakespeare_Illustrated/Shakespeare.html - The paintings could be used to trigger imaginative texts about the characters in the plays. • Investigate Shakespeare: http://www.pbs.org/shakespeare/# • Readings of Shakespeare’s Sonnets: http://town.hall.org/Archives/radio/IMS/HarperAudio/020994_harp_ITH.html • Blackadder: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wE5jB2tl70M • Open Source for lines: http://www.opensourceshakespeare.org/views/plays/plays.php

26. Using Images

27. Shakespeare • Context through slideshow • Digital representation of a Shakespearian sonnet or a character. • Sonnet slideshow • Curio box for a character in Power Point or Photostory accompanied by a recount or personal response. • Virtual Macbeth:http://virtualmacbeth.wikispaces.com/ - a Second Life treatment of Macbeth – fabulous for provoking students into creating their own wiki or blog for one of Shakespeare’s plays or characters. • Beat of the heart

28. Great Web20 Resources • Box of tricks – A-Z of internet sites: http://www.boxoftricks.net/?page_id=29 • Cooltoolsforschools Wiki: http://cooltoolsforschools.wikispaces.com/?responseToken=08d40fc592f425e0609f7b90a024fde22 • Australian Films: http://aso.gov.au/titles/

29. Sites to Share • Wikispace: http://nsrconnectivity.wikispaces.com/ • Wordpress: http://karenygr.wordpress.com/2010/06/18/hsc-paper-2-presentations/