Looking for something to make you smile? Wanting to laugh out loud? Then Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid series may be the one for you. Here are a few to try out…
The Long Haul
The Ugly Truth
The Last Straw
Monthly Archives: September 2016
Audio Books: His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
If you’re looking for something more advanced to listen to, with a fantasy spin to it then His Dark Materials is right up your street…
1. Northern Lights or to give it it’s American name, The Golden Compass
2. The Subtle Knife
3. The Amber Spyglass
Audio books: Roald Dahl
For your Accelerated Reader periods some of you might prefer to listen to a book. Below are some Roald Dahl books you might enjoy.
P.S. Remember if you do this then you must click ‘read to’ or ‘read along with’ before you take the test.
1. Charlie & the Chocolate Factory
2. Charlie & the Great Glass Elevator
3. Matilda
4. James & the Giant Peach
5. Fantastic Mr Fox
6. Boy
7. The Witches
8. The Twits
9. Danny Champion of the World
10. The Giraffe, the Pelly & Me
11. The WOnderful Story of Henry Sugar
Nat 5 Paper 2: School prom
These answers are the full answers as pulled together by the class:
1. The writer concentrates on one girl to show us how much time girl’s spend thinking about their prom, but also to emphasise the money that is spent on it. It also makes it feel like we are one of the people going to prom, giving us a first person sense of getting ready for it.
2. The sentence structure in lines 4-5 helps convey the importance of the event to Lucy by using a list. The list includes all the different things Lucy has had to spend money on for the prom. You wouldn’t spend money on things unless it was important to you. There are a lot of items on the list which emphasises how long and big a process the prom is.
3. The metaphor ‘milestones’ is a good one to use about GCSE’s in students lives. Milestones are markers on journeys that show how far you have travelled. GCSE’s are an important part of English student’s life that they sit at a certain age. The milestone to GCSE comparison tells us that these people have reached a certain point in their life, and it is a significant one as it will determine what they are able to do as adults in the near future.
4. School proms appeal to people because they can copy the lives of those they see in television shows, they can pretend they are at a big event like the Oscars or MTV Awards and lastly it lets them feel like they are celebrities.
5. Proms have had an economic advantage as they saved Moss Borthers from having to close as people started hiring suits from them. It has led to many prom events management companies being set up (prom party planners) and there are now people who collate all the prom information and put it on websites for a fee so people have databases to go to.
6. The word choice ‘shapeless’ to describe the uniforms suggests that they don’t reveal much about the bodies underneath and everyone looks very plain and ugly and unformed in their school clothes. This is contrasted with the ‘huge-skirted’ ball gowns which suggests the females now have a beautiful body shape and look very princess-y. The word ‘dirty‘ is used to describe the trainers at school as well, and again it suggests a lack of care over appearance or something that is sturdy and durable and allowed to be unclean in a practical way. This is contrasted with ‘teetering’ heels which suggests that the girls were very dainty and vulnerable in their shoes. The fragility of the heels suggests they are precious and their is an implication that they were expensive, where as the ‘dirty’ trainers were maybe not so valuable.
7. The writer seems to be in awe of the students organisation skills. She says she is ‘taken aback’ suggesting that she wasn’t expecting that amount of work to have been done and she thought it would have been easier than that. She quotes the amount and regularity of their meetings ‘weekly meeting since September’. The inference here is that September to June is a long time and that has been a lot of meetings with a lot of planning going into them. She then lists some of the work the pupils have done such as working out their theme, or some of the table decorating that has happened to show the actual work that has occurred.
8. First of all, the prom is seen as something that everyone should get to do to mark the end of their school career, it is a chance to enjoy themselves, it is an opportunity to get dressed up and to all get together for an event and experience it together. The head-teacher also says it is an opportunity for students to experience fine dining as some of them will never have eaten at a function before. For others it is a chance to get used to it as they may be expected to fine dine as part of their work in the future.
9. The image in the last line is effective as a metaphor. It says she leaves the girls swaying on their heels at the ‘edge of adulthood’. In reality she has left them at their prom. However, the girls are marking the end of their school life with the prom and will now have to join the adult world doing adult things like getting jobs or going to university. It suggests that this is their last moments getting to be children and that the next day they will be adults completely.
RUAE: Types of Questions
Here is the types of questions document to help you with your RUAE!
Nat 5 Paper 1: Scottish Tourism
These answers are the full answers as pulled together by the class:
1. The first attitude we can see in the paragraphs is that the tourist traders are not bothered about their customers because they treat them like dirt. The second attitude is being excited about the customers because they give them free things like a drink and are enthusiastic towards them.
2. The writer experiences this himself when he takes the bus to the Highlands. He misses his connection, and the bus driver doesn’t seem fazed at all. He also experiences good will in Ullapool. The hotel owner immediately provides him with a room and a complimentary drink showing he is enthusiastic towards his customer.
3. The image is a simile and it compares the attitude of the bus driver to that of a traffic warden. Traffic wardens are thought to be notoriously grumpy towards people and this image implies that the bus driver is being similarly rude and obtuse towards his patrons.
4. First of all he asks a rhetorical question. He says “where have I been all these years?” in response to having missed Scottish Tourism Week for the last 6 years. This is clearly supposed to be sarcasm. On first reading he implies he is upset he has missed it, but the sarcastic tone betrays the fact he is not upset about missing it at all. He tells us the catchphrase for the event this year is ‘competing for growth’ which he then calls ‘meaningless’. His word choice here tells us that he thinks the event is pointless. He then uses word choice to reinforce this idea further when he belittles the conference events calling them ‘pow-wows’, ‘‘industry dinner’’ and ‘soirees’. All of these make the events sound pompous and over the top. He suggests that they’re really just an opportunity for money to be spent.
5. Paragraph 7 acts as a link between two focuses in the passage. The phrase ‘as a constant tourist in my own country’ tells us that he has just been looking at how he travels and explores his native land of Scotland. The phrase ‘I have my own thoughts on how we may compete for growth’ shows us that he is going on to talk about how he thinks the tourist trade in Scotland could be improved.
6. The two ways attitudes have changed are that ‘bad service and bad manners’ are a thing of the past. This means that your tourist experience at an event is now a happy one and that the attitude towards the tourists is better.
7. Four ways Scotland can improve is by making its hotel rooms cleaner, making its hotel rooms tidier, making sure the countryside is kept clear of litter and keeping the hedgerows neat.
8. The writer describes night arriving by saying ‘as the heavens darkened’. This is exaggeration and makes the scene much more dramatic. It gives a biblical tone to the passage as if he is on an epic journey rather than a simple trip to the Highlands.
9. The title is an effective one as the passage focuses on how we need to physically clean Scotland up, both externally and internally which is referenced in ‘Clean up’. The second meaning is that the Tourist industry needs to change its attitude to encourage more tourists to Scotland.
Some Science Fiction Media Texts
At some point we may cover some Media units. Science Fiction & fantasy texts can offer critiques of the world we live in. Some of the ones we study may include the following:
KURT VONNEGUT
2081:
EPICAC:
All The King’s Horses
Fortitude:
More Stately Mansions:
and Vonnegut talking about his written work being adapted for the screen:
Then we have the contemporary giant of fiction Neil Gaiman:
Foreign Parts:
Feeders and Eaters:
Closing Time:
RUAE: The Triggering
1. The purpose of this article is to inform us about the Triggering – a social media movement to reveal the truth to social justice warriors and people on the extreme left politically.
2. We know this because in the second paragraph it talks about how SJWs block off people whose opinions differ to theirs – use of mass block lists’. Also in the second paragraph it talks about ‘politically incorrect home truths’ which means that sometimes the facts aren’t always necessarily in line with the PC ideas on racism, sexism or ageism.
3&4. The target audience would be other adults who agree with the Triggering. We know this because the writer’s tone throughout appeals to these people with humour. He calls the social justice warriors ‘precious snowflakes’ which makes them seem weak and pathetic. He also calls the Triggering ‘hilarious’ which shows he finds the movement really funny as it antagonises leftist people.
5. The writer’s word choice of ‘cry baby’ is effective in par 1 as it suggests that the SJWs moan all the time. The word has connotations of taking an extreme upset reaction to very small things that shouldn’t really affect us.
6. The metaphor of ‘echo chamber’ to describe social media is very effective. All the different types of social media are the echo chamber and all the different posts become the echoes. Social media takes a point and ends up amplifying it as it gets retweeted just like an echo bouncing.
7. ‘Precious snowflake’ is an effective descriptor of the SJWs. The writer uses this ironically. The ‘snowflake’ suggests these people are delicate and the precious suggests they are worth looking after. Because his tone is ironic we know that he actually means that these people need to become more resilient.
8. The dash adds information about the SJWs not having their ideas confronted. The writer says this is a good thing as if they knew someone was challenging their thoughts then they would sue or seek psychiatric help.
9. The word ‘merely’ suggests that the ‘we hunted the Mammoth’ website is trying to downplay the importance of the Triggering by making it seem small and unworthy.
10. The writer clearly supports the Triggering and thinks it’s a good thing. He says it is a good way to ‘reassert the right to broadcast’ which shows he thinks taking back freedom of speech is a good thing. He also calls Lauren Southern a ‘libertarian activist’. If he didn’t support her ideas he would probably have insulted her, instead he supports her for starting the Triggering.
RUAE: Immigration Panic
Here are the answers to Immigration Panic
1. The purpose of this article is to inform us about the new legislation in Germany which the author thinks will further the divide between Western culture and Muslim immigrants.
2. We know this because it talks about the new law to ban the ‘public wearing of a burqa’. This is seen as controversial as it confuses Muslim women and breaks a religious code. Another piece of evidence from the text showing this is about clashing cultures is the reference to the 19% support the AfD has gained in two regions. They are a neo-nazi group and it suggests people in Germany are becoming more right-wing.
3. The intended audience would be adults interested in what is happening in Germany right now and the ‘immigration crisis’.
4. WE know this because in the final paragraph it talks about ‘340 cases’ of ‘extremists entering refugee camps to get recruits.’ This is worrying because it shows terrorists are able to get here and are trying to get more supporters. There are also new sensible rules being brought in like more police to help try and control the streets more.
5. The expression ‘burst of proposals’ is effective in par 2 as it suggests that the proposals are coming out really fast. There is also something aggressive about this image, it is reminiscent of gunfire, as if the politicians are trying to take out the terrorists with new laws as if they are weapons.
6. The dash gives us more information about the refugee rules that have been changed to make them more effective – in this case they tell us how they have made it easier to send refugees back home.
7. The brackets act as parenthesis to add more information about why Germany would want legislation aimed at helping other cultures integrate with theirs – this is because there is 4.3m Germans who identify with dual citizenship.
8. The metaphor is ‘the debate will be hot’.
9. This is very effective because it is telling is that the debate will be ‘heated’ and potentially dangerous. The regulations they are bringing in are to prevent extremists terrorising Europe which could bring us harm. The temperature of the debate is being compared to something that is really hot and therefore dangerous to go near.
10. The first sentence in the last paragraph acts effectively as a link. The first part of the sentence ‘fears that migrants may commit terror’ links back to the focus of the rest of the passage – that people in Germany are very frightened of immigrants moving to their area who are involved in ISIS. The next part of the phrase ‘are justified’ shows us that the final paragraph will look at ways terrorists have actually infiltrated Europe and the refugee camps.
