January 2008

After you have made your New Year resolutions look ahead to the final part of the 1st semester:

JANUARY 2008

We will be working from unit 4 in Reason to Write, so have a look at the topic, language and writing areas in that unit 4.

There will be one more class writing task ( summary - response, on 16th January), and your presentations.

PRESENTATIONS: 14th and 21st January (Sign up when we start back on 7th (10 mins max).

Choose from one of the following: (these have been changed since original post in December)

1.1. A topic/issue of interest based on a cartoon or series of cartoons or news item. > Summarise cartoon/article and present issues of interest/concern.
2. One of the short stories which you could either present and analyse, or produce a piece of creative writing out of the story.
3. Your own choice, but check with me first.

Time limit is 10 minutes in total. You can do this in pairs but you need to clarify each individual contribution. Pairs Max 20 mins.

Orals: 23rd January.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas and the very best of 2008 to you all.

So, some light reading over the holidays, get yourself a copy of '1984' by George Orwell. Cheaper from FNAC than printing out from the link below.


Also think about where privacy begins and ends - where should the line be drawn? What are some of the issues involved?

Consider the individual, the state and in the public interest. The Gordon Brown cartoon may be of relevance as well as the article How far should parents go?

George Orwell - 1984

1984, not Christmas reading, in fact very disturbing, but a MUST. You can read the book from the link. Check out Orwell's background and other works. We will be seeing the film very soon!

The TragiComic Mulatto

Transcript is a bi-monthly review of books and writing from around Europe. Its aim is to promote quality literature written in the 'smaller' languages and to give wider circulation to material from small-language literary publications through the medium of English, French and German.

Read the article in the link above with Mort aux Chats in mind!

An interesting source of intercultural writing and thought.

Assignment 3 (Home) due 17th December

written assessment 2 - due 3rd December

Based on class work and on the coursebook, Reason to Write, pages 12 and 14, though remember these examples are relativley simple.

cartoon <http://www.guardian.co.uk/cartoons/martinrowson/0,,2199764,00.html>

article <http://politics.guardian.co.uk/constitution/story/0,,2199665,00.html>

Please take one minute or two to read my story ( I know it is borring...=P ) and I would like some feedback. Send it to my e-mail: tiago_nunes17@hotmail.
Have suggestions? Shoot!


Thank you all!!

The begining of the horror loool =P

Brotherhood of Darkness

Prologue


Everything was quiet at S. Avenue 21 in Los Angeles, USA. But Sarah Connelly, a thirty year-old woman couldn’t sleep. Something was disturbing her. Everytime she tried to close her eyes, she dreamed about her deceased friends, brutally murdered by a group of students of her college. She could see their mutilated bodies with a hole on their chest where once there was a heart. Sarah suddenly woke up:
“Oh my god, please”, she cried, “ when is this going to stop!”
The next morning, Sarah woke up and went downstairs to eat her breakfast. She went to the kitchen and prepared herself a nice bowl of cereals. While she was eating, the doorbell rang.
“Sarah, could you open the door, please?”, her mother shouted upstairs from her bedroom.
“I’m coming!”, Sarah answered.
Sarah opened the door and the mailman delivered her an envelope addressed to her. When she looked at the envelope, she saw that there was no sender. That’s strange!
“Is there any problem, miss?”, the mailman asked
“No, not at all. Everything’s fine. Thank you!”, Sarah answered smiling
After this, Sarah went inside to finish her breakfast. While eating her breakfast, she opened the envelope and inside there was a simple computer written message written on it:
“These walls can’t hold us much longer! Someday we will get out of here and finish what we have started. You must die… You have to die...
The Brotherhood of Darkness shall rise again!”
After reading this Sarah almost choked on her meal. Sarah's eyes widened and the images from the previous night came to her once more. Could it be? Could the assassins of her friends have escaped from prison? Impossible…
The California State Prison, Los Angeles County is one of the most secure prisons in the United States... Sarah was now shaking. She rushed to the living room where her mother was watching TV.
“Mom, let me see Sky News!”, the girl said. “Why dear?”, her mother asked.
“Just do it, ok?”, Sarah yelled at her mother.
“Ok calm down lady!!” This girl keeps getting stranger and stranger.
On the Sky News channel both of them saw live footage of the prison that was holding the five elements of the brotherhood. The reporter said to the camera pointing at him:
“This morning, the guards here at the California State Prison, Los Angeles County found the cells of Brian Phoenix, Michael Phoenix, Mark Bennington, Peter o’Connor and Mathew Redford completely empty as you can see behind me. The warden already gave his men the instructions to follow. The warden also said that….”
Sarah was devastated. She fell to the ground and started to cry and scream. From this moment on she knew it…. She knew that she would die!



Chapter I

Los Angeles, October 10th 2018

My name is Michael Phoenix and I'm thirty years-old. I've been in jail for the past ten years. My brother, my friends and I were arrested for the assassination of our college classmates. Murderers, the judge called us....
The fool doesn't know what he's talking about!! He does not know what it's like...
We were condemned to a lifetime in prison. For crimes that we commited for hatred....and love.


Our story begins ten years ago. We were at the begining of college and Mark invited me and my brother to a party in his place to celebrate the end of high school and the begining of college.

No lesson Wednesday 14th

Caixa Geral de Depósitos - cartoon exhibition

A mostra que vai agora estar patente da Sede da Caixa Geral de Depósitos, constituída por cerca de 200 obras e com o título genérico “A globalização do humor”, foi organizada de forma a trazer a Lisboa os principais trabalhos destas duas últimas edições, que contam com o apoio mecenático da CGD.
Informações
Data: de 12 de Novembro a 3 de Dezembro de 2007Local: Átrio Central da Sede da Caixa Geral de DepósitosHorário: todos os dias úteis das 08h00 às 20h30A entrada é livre.

Exhibition - cartoons

Try and get to this exhibition. There is also another one we will be visiting..... Info coming soon.

Assignments and updates – bitter sweet!

1. Wednesday 7th – class assignment 1 – with dictionary.
The work and preparation you did for the class debates will help you in writing either an opinion or argumentation article. Question suggestions on pages 18 and 19 of the coursebook Reason to Write will be worth thinking about in advance. Also read the article in the book on pages 2, 3, 4.2.
Feedback from debates coming on Monday. Congratulations to you all for last week.
3. Creative writing – Either continue on from the debate topics or escape!!! ….. To post in your group blogs (not assessed, but corrected).
How about for Monday 12th.~
Some ideas:
i.) Play around with a sentence taken from a screen play in your short stories: “With each step farther from the Donor Processing Center, Derek feels his movements ease, his pace quicken, his stiffness loosen. A concentrated and increasing happiness sweeps across his face.”
ii.) Finish the sentence… “……and I really thought he would do it.”
iii.) Start with " I always thought we were the same ......."
iv.) Ideas from Bruce Holland Roger’s Creative Writing workshop will also be valuable. Read the specific stories he has suggetsed in his replies to the workshop notice.
4. Cartoons. If anyone has the time to create a PowerPoint with a few well-selected cartoons for use on Monday 5th (short notice –sorry), but will also be of use for the following Monday.

Ralph Steadman - Punch, Private Eye, New Statesman etc

We will be moving onto summarising and responding to articles, cartoons, etc.
Begin to build up a collection of cartoons in your group blogs - either by theme/topic, or whatever takes your fancy. You will need to be able to summarise the issues so select accordingly. You will finally present a selection to the group as a whole.

Check out cartoons in online media.

Steve Bell cartoons - the guardian newspaper

Political satirist -Steve Bell joins Martin Rowson. Check the other cartoonists in the Guardian. More to come.

What is the issue here?

Then chek the newspaper article linked to the cartoon.

Cartoon caption

Provide captions for these cartoons from the New Yorker. See which win on November 4th.

If you find any good links for MEANINGFUL cartOons, open to somewhat deeper interpretation..... let us know.

Creative Writing Workshop

CREATIVE WRITING WORKSHOP
(ESCRITA CRIATIVA)

com o escritor norte-americano
Bruce Holland Rogers


Quinta-Feira, 8 de Novembro de 2007
sala t11 16-18h

- entrada livre –

Secção de Estudos Ingleses e Norte-americanos (DLCLM)

PLEASE try and go, and on all our behalves, take notes to post in our blog-

Bruce Holland Rogers has been writing fiction full-time since 1991. His stories range from literary and experimental to SF, fantasy, and mystery. Rogers is married to psychologist Holly Arrow and has long been interested in what psychology might teach writers. That interest was the foundation of Word Work: Surviving and Thriving as a Writer. He is the author of four or six story collections, depending on whether or not you count e-books. His stories have won a Pushcart Prize, two Nebula Awards, the World Fantasy Award, and half a dozen assorted nominations. Rogers’s fiction appears regularly in a wide range of magazines and anthologies. He recently began teaching fiction writing for the Whidbey Writers MFA program in Washington state. He also teaches writing seminars in Greece, Italy, and other locations in Europe.

Debate evaluation criteria

For those of you who may have missed some lessons, this is the evaluation criteria we have been using in class for preparing for debate.
From the debates today, you can see there was structure and organisation in the speeches, which, although prepared in advance, gave a framework. In future debates, once this internal organisation is understood, speakers can become brave and improvise.

What I am interested in with these 2 days of debate is your developing this organisation and structure.

Those of you who can combine both improvisation, speaking from the heart and from the moment, with coherent organisation are flying nicely.

Congrats to the 2 groups today.

Bring Coursebook both debate days

Bring Coursebook (Reason to Write) both debate days. Still a few more left.

All the best to the debate planning.

Help the united Nations and improve your vocabulary

Vocabulary practice and as you play you donate rice!
http://www.freerice.com/

Museum for Broken Relationships

Balkan heartbreak a hit in Berlin

One woman donated her wedding dress to the exhibitionA travelling exhibition devoted to the theme of failed relationships is proving a hit in Berlin.

Members of the public are asked to give or donate an object, along with a short description of what it means to them, the time of the relationship, and where they are from.

"Even if the objects seem ordinary the stories are very individual and they make the exhibition come alive," Mr Dobrovic said.

What would you put there? Certainly not notes for the cloned one!!!

Mermaids, Pirates, Mars's horizon and Rhys Hughes

First, let me just tell you how honoured I am that Allyson asked me to post about Rhys Hughes visit to our FCSH.
Now, let me just give you a glimpse of how 'dream like' it all was.
If you managed to be there, then I am sure you grasped the feeling and were able to take a ride in that exotic voyage of his.
I was laughing when he used his 'cavaquinho' as a paddle, and I was afraid when the sun decided to sunk in the gap between both horizons.
Apparently, I was not the only one. Some of you had similar moments of joy and bewilderment, laughing at our non-conventional hero and hoping for a good ending. It came, our voyage was over in such a short time, that it was unfair the reading of only one story.

The question and answer part was the hardest for everyone apparently. We felt numb, and still intoxicated with the imagery he so calmly depicted, some of us grasping for air as we slowly arrived from those dream places. Steadily our session came to an end. Longing for a next visit was the feeling that stayed.
We wish all the best to Rhys, and that his awe-inspiring stories, may inspire future writers as he once was by others.


(For more parts of the reading session visit our blog post about R. Hughes - English Lines - All about Rhys)

Documentaries and film online

Superb array of documentaries - reading for our picking!

Check this link
Watch Here for more soon.

Talk by writer - Rhys Hughes - Wednesday 24th October 14.00

ROOM T 15 at 14.00.

short stories
The toast master
http://www.nightshadebooks.com/toastmaster.html

The Butter mistress
http://www.nightshadebooks.com/toastmaster.html

Serendipity
http://www.magicalrealism.co.uk/issue1/folded_page.php

Talk by writer - Rhys Hughes - Wednesday 24th October 14.00

Rhys Hughes, a prolific Welsh writer of absurdist fiction, will read a Short Story, talk about his work, the new book and answer some questions.

Wednesday 24th October 14.00, room to be confirmed.

He will be talking about his new book “Mermaid of Curitiba.”

His volumes include Worming the Harpy, Romance With Capsicum, Nowhere Near Milkwood, Eyeliad, Rawhead & Bloody Bones and Stories from a lost Anthology.

Magical realism? His unique fantastical fictions have already achieved the level of cult-status. His latest work, The Percolated Stars, sees Batavus Droogstoppel navigating his way around a cosmos at the earth's core, a galaxy consisting of planets with names like: Cheeky, Boss Hog, Fluff and... Maesteg! Influenced by Borges, Calvino and Stanislaw Lem, Hughes's fiction is both intellectual and hilarious with plenty of jokes, puns and satirical side-swipes to keep the reader constantly amused.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhys_Hughes

http://rhysaurus.blogspot.com/

At 7 pm he’s attending the British Council Reading Group at Café no Chiado. Everyone welcome.

Debate change - yet again!!!

Due to talk by visiting speaker, debates will be postponed as follows:

Groups B and D: Monday 29th
Groups C and A: Wednesday 31st

Final planning day this Monday 22nd in terms of working towards speeches. Bring research with you.

Final dates for debating groups

These are the links to the 2 for/against articles you summarised on Wednesday, in full. They will help you with ideas for content for the debates.

reproductive:
http://www.idebate.org/debatabase/topic_details.php?topicID=26
therapeutic:
http://www.idebate.org/debatabase/topic_details.php?topicID=142

Everyone needs to attend the debates to give moral support and join in any post debate discussion.
1. Send me the links to your small group blogs
2. Finalise your moot

Monday 29th October
group D: therapeutic cloning - MOOT "We believe that new treatments and cures vindicate the destruction of embryos."
group B: reproductive cloning - MOOT "We believe that reproductive cloning is a dangerous way forward for the evolution of humanity."

Wednesday 31st October
group A: therapeutic cloning - MOOT "We believe that there is no current justification for therapeutic cloning."
group C: reproductive cloning - MOOT "This house believes that reproductive cloning will change the world in a positive way."

powerpoint link -Diogo's talk.

cloning links

Send me links you find on cloningvia e-mail and I will post them in the class blog for general use, to add to the videos already posted.
Allyson

A talk on cloning - Wednesday 10th October, 14.00

Diogo Bruno will be giving a talk on reproductive and therapeutic cloning -

ABSTRACT:
Cloning is the act of creating a replica of a cell or individual. Reproductive cloning involves the creation of a new individual, genetically equal to other already alive while therapeutic cloning aims to form cells, tissues or organs that can be used to treat diseases in an alive animal. The scientific basis of cloning and stem cell therapy will be explained in this presentation.
Stem cells are undifferentiated, capable of self-renewal and can differentiate into other types of cells. There are two different types of stem cells currently in study that have some functional differences: (1)embryonic stem cells (ESC) come from the inner cell mass of a blastocyst and are pluripotent while (2)adult stem cells (ASC) are short populations of multipotent cells found in the adult.
Reproductive cloning and ESC-based therapeutic cloning both use somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), a method in which a nucleus from a somatic cell is inserted in a denucleated oocyte. The most known example of reproductive cloning is the "Dolly" sheep which was a huge breakthrough in our knowledge even if it is thought that its early death was due to a accelerating aging phenomenon derived from the limitations of the method. The use of ESC is highly controversial, especially amongst religious groups.
ASC therapy has less ethical issues associated. Also, it has been found that ASCs, in addiction to forming tissue specific cells, have some de-differentiation capacity and a plasticity function that can be useful in the therapy of a multitude of diseases like hematologic disorders, autoimmune and immune-deficiency disorders, cardiovascular diseases, metabolic diseases and others.

RESEARCH PROJECT - TASK OUTLINE - FORUM CONTRIBUTION AND REPORT

RESEARCH PROJECT 10%
Due January 7th 2008
But you need to get thinking soon!!

TASK OBJECTIVE
To write a report based of your participation in an online discussion forum.

TASK OUTLINE
Join a forum of interest to you. Some suggestions are below. Make sure it is an ACTIVE forum. Read and contribute your opinions to the forum over a period of time. The report should include a summary of the topic under discussion, your opinions on the topic and a conclusion. Include copies of your contributions and any material you used to help you come to your decisions. Also give a brief outline of what you learnt from the process.

TASK PROCEDURE
You will need to sign in to a forum, contribute to the discussions over a period of time. Choose a forum in a subject you are interested in – perhaps relating to a hobby or passion – basketball, reading…Make sure there are frequent contributions.

SUGGESTED FORUMS
1.1 Sign into HAVE YOUR SAY in the BBC forum and check the RSS feeds in the class blog FROM HAVE YOUR SAY. Contribute to the forums and keep a record of your contributions and the forum.
You can sign in to the forum from here:
http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?threadID=7516&sortBy=1&edition=2&ttl=20070929120035

1.2 International Debate Education Association
Sign into this forum and choose a topic.
http://www.idebate.org/registration/index.php
You could contribute under the debates under discussion on cloning and stem cell research.
http://www.idebate.org/debatabase/topic_details.php?topicID=142#discussion
http://www.idebate.org/debatabase/topic_details.php?topicID=26

1.3 BBC Learning English Discussion Forum
Sign into this forum and choose a topic. http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/youmeus/discussion/moderators.shtml
OR…… MAKE SUGGESTIONS TO THE WHOLE GROUP.

European Day of Languages-26th September

Check these links:

Overview of European Day of Languages and international learning programmes:

http://ec.europa.eu/education/policies/lang/awareness/day_en.html
Tips for language learning:

http://ec.europa.eu/education/policies/lang/doc/guide_en.pdf

Course Overview

Course assessment

Saying hello!

“The door to success is marked ‘Push’ and ‘Pull’.” Proverb

Congratulations on taking off into the 2nd year and welcome to the group.

I had a wonderful summer which included roaming the Scottish Highlands, walking the coastline of northeast Norfolk and watching seals, and along that coastline, came across a new trendy food in Britain called samphire, which is a type of sea shore plant. Also read lots, one of which to recommend is - "If nobody speaks of remarkable things" by Jon Mcgregor ... more of that another time. Finally returning to Portugal to relax at home.

To get the ball rolling, the cameras clicking and the creative spirit glowing, let the group know you have arrived by telling us where you have been - the highlights of these last few months. Post a reply.