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 August,
28th, 2003: Birds & short stories
Task one:
T. C. Boyle - "The Extinction
Tales" speaks about the Stephen's Island Wren. Find out as much
about this bird as possible and pay regard to parallels to the story
as well.
Task two:
Our next story, Glenda Beagan's
"The Last Thrush" deals with a thrush. This is what that
bird loks like.
Use www.google.de
or www.google.com and the search
words thrush poem.
Find a poem or another
literary text which deals with a thrush, read it and try to
understand it. Afterwards you will be asked to present it to the
course by reading it out and giving explanations, of contents as
well as language.
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September
5th: BBC - news & more
Let's get in touch with "the
mother of news", the British BBC. The website is not only full
of current information but offers features, background material,
films and much, much more. You are supposed to find an article of
your individual interest, read it, understand it, sum it up briefly
and present it to the course in brief, perhaps with some useful
vocab to know and to understand in detail what you are talking about.
Before working on the topic, get
acquainted with the website itself and everything which is offered there.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/
September
12th: Northern England - customs & traditions
 Short
story: "A Box to Keep the Screws In" by Jim Andrew
Please search for all sorts of information (text
as well as pictures) to get a better idea or an image of Northern
English details, customs, traditions, etc. mentioned in the short
story. Here are just some terms which I collected:
- Northumbria | tourism
website |
- funeral
- mourning (mourning traditions, celebrations)
- Sunday teas
- carpenter dovetail
- Northern English
- coal cellar
- china teacups
- Custy's confectionery shop
- stove in the scullery
- slag heap
- tip sink tin bowl
- "I have four corners to my bed and at
each an angel spread"
- Jim Andrew
- .....
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September
19th: British-French relations
 Please
get some information on the topic of "British-French
relations". There's a good summary to be found in a Guardian
article from February 2003 | here
it is |.
Those of you who are interested in France &
the French language might find this official statement (June 2003)
by Jacques Chirac quite interesting | here
it is |.
British invasion? Britons buying holiday homes in
France Times, July 2003) | here
it is |.
Just read, take notes and prepare to present the
main information, please.
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November
6th: different topics
- decide on a topic and a related article, please
- work it out and present the main arguments
- some new and interesting words are wanted as
well
- and if you feel like it, it's perhaps something
for your portfolio
1.) Football is quite important in the story
"Away in Airdrie", especially as it takes place in
Scotland. Try to work out the importance of football for the
Scottish, please.
2.) The ecological position of HRH might be of
your interest - it is quite influential in Britain, though. Here are
his speeches on agriculture | here
| and you could use www.google.com
to learn details about his ecological farm "The Home
Farm".
3.) Greenpeace, of course, has got very clear
positions on genetic engineering. Loads of information can be found
on their
website.
4.) Various articles on genetical engineering as
an ethical issue are to be found on the BBC's website | here
|.
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November
21st: Kelman, Airdrie & British - American relations
 President
George W. Bush is in London and there's a lot going on
concerning the British - American relationship. Get an idea by
having a look at British media, please.-
To choose an online newspaper: http://www.wrx.zen.co.uk/alltnews.htm
or go directly to the BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/
- if you are interested in the
author James Kelman or he place Airdrie and perhaps in
Glasgow and its football grounds, just use www.google.com
- short reports are welcome, of
course ;-)
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November
28th: Ulster - from the 1970s up to today
-
please work in three groups
-
learn about key events, work
them out and make sure the others learn about them as well
The Conflict in Northern Ireland (LK
Witten/Ruhr): http://mitglied.lycos.de/RGWLKENGLISCH/index.html
Links:
 various
links to loads of information and products from classes &
courses: http://www.englisch.schule.de/wwwirel.htm
BBC:
The Peace Process: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/northern_ireland/2001/ni_deadlock/default.stm Topical
Issues BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/ (Search
possible; use Ulster or Northern Ireland as search
words)
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 December
4th etc.: Knots in a global society
Just in case you are interested in
some more basic facts, here is a web-site I started around 1999,
already then planning to do a webquest like you are asked to do
right now...
| here
it is |
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January
12th: Technical details for web-pages
1. Web-pages
Open them again, then
save them with a short and sensible file-name (no ö,ü,ä, spaces
etc.) ending with today's date (example:
abc_12).
Look at your pictures,
make sure they are all in the sub-directory "bilder".
Links to other web-pages
should open in a new window.
2. Pictures
All pictures have to be
improved by help of Ulead PhotoImpact. Start the software, please,
open your picture(s) -they all must be in the folder "bilder"-.
Make sure the SIZE is OK
and work on them by clicking WEB - OPTIMIEREN.
Then save them in "bilder"
with the file-name like described above (xyz_12).
If you need more
information about PhotoImpact, here
you are.
3. Links
Check, whether your page
is linked from the start-page and whether you have links to other
web-pages of your mates where appropriate.
At the end of your
web-page, your name should be mentioned, at least your surname.
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February
13th: Proposition 187
Research, sources,
quotes, results -your task is easy: "California Proposition
187"
-
use those three
words as search words for google.de
-
what was propositon
187? What did it aim at? What about its success? What has become
of it?
-
write a short text
about it by using quotations from the web but don't just produce
a piece of paper full of cut&paste quotes from web-pages
-
at the end: where do
you see positions which can be seen behing proposition 187
personified by characters from Boyle's novel? How do you
personally feel about proposition 187?
-
print out your
result (word-file) with your name on it, please.
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February
20th: Mexico, illegal immigration to the US & more
Wanted: detailed
information about
-
social and economic
situation in Mexico
-
living conditions
-
situation of
migratory workers/illegal immigrants to the US
-
border situation, La
Migra, INS, fence, pictures...
Try www.google.de
with suitable search words like "social condition Mexico",
"economic situation Mexico", etc. - and/or have a click to
find out, whether some of these links are still on the web and offer
suitable information: http://www.englisch.schule.de/boyle/boylecur.htm
Definitely worth
clicking: http://home.att.net/~jackkurtz/tortcurt5.html
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March
19th: "Tortilla Curtain" - web-pages of students before
you...
Please have a look at a
web-project about "Tortilla Curtain" which was done by a
course at this school in 1998:
http://www.englisch.schule.de/boyle/boyleind.htm
Click through it to find
out what you like or don't like and where you think something should
be changed or added to. Take notes (--> Word) and add the
web-address of the page you refer to).
Then do the same with
the second project from 2002 which was done by a group of students
from this school who worked on the novel in their negotiated study:
http://www.ulricianum-aurich.de/en22l/hope/tortilla/start.htm
Do the same like above
and at the end, please print out your notes.
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April
15th: Preparing the new topic "South Africa"
10 Jahre neues Afrika:
siebenteilige Serie Frankfurter Rundschau |klick|
Facts:
Elections in South
Africa: Yesterday's
BBC-News + loads of additional inforrmation
Click on www.bbc.co.uk/news
to find today's news as well, please
Literature:
Books for young people
by Neverley Naidoo http://www.beverleynaidoo.com/index2.html
: "Journey to Jo'burg",
"Chain of Fire", "No Turning Back", "The
Other Side of Truth" - get an idea of the books and look for
further information (reviews, school projects, etc. by help of www.google.de
)
(last course's work on
"Out
of Bounds")
And what about J. M.
Coetzee's "Disgrace"? | more
|
Or for example Jo-Anne
Richards' "The Innocence of Roast Chicken"?
Any other authors/novels
from South Africa which look interesting? Google results?
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April
22nd: An important South African
Test the web and
yourself, please. Your task is to work out various bits of
information to get an idea of Steve Biko.
Start with a first basic
info on http://africanhistory.about.com/library/biographies/blbio-stevebiko.htm
-
present your results
to the course, arrange them on a Word-page (don't forget a photo,
please)
-
the overall question:
Is he important for the South African history?
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May
13th: Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela
More details wanted then
the ones given in the encarta-article
about Mandela, especially concerning the anti-apartheid movement
under Mandela's leadership and the ANC. Violent one? Non-violent?
Details, please, facts and information. A lot of key-words from the
encarta-article might be used for google:
ANC Youth League (1944),
Defiance Campaign (in the 50s), Oliver Tambo, Sharpeville Massacre,
ANC strategy of nonviolence, Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation)
Robben Island, Long Walk to Freedom, Nobel Peace Prize, Mandela and
Thatcher, etc.
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June
4th: J. M. Coetzee - "Disgrace" - coping with the
beginning
Work in pairs, please
and concentrate on the first chapter
-
pp. 3 - 5:
protagonist, university life & career vs. reality
-
protagonist and
relationship/attitude towards women
-
find background info
for Byron, Wordsworth, Emma Bovay (Flaubert)
-
"Did Origen
castrate himself" (p. 9) | more
| (what does it mean?)
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June
25th: J. M. Coetzee - "Disgrace" - helpful background
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Dictionaries:
Before you use the
online dictionaries, ask your partner/neighbour for required
vocabulary. Sometimes it takes far longer to use the online
sources!
You can use the
Wordsmyth English Dictionary-Thesaurus. It is easy to
handle and offers simple definitions.
You need an easy German-English
Dictionary ? Much better than that is linguadict:
Online Dictionary with more than 2 million words, that's at least
what they say: linguadict
Surf to the Cambridge
International Dictionary of English that is targeted at
learners of English. The definitions are clear and simple. You can
search for words in the dictionary of idioms and for phrasal verbs,
too.
Visit Merriam-Webster,
which is not only an important dictionary with a thesaurus option,
it also offers a selection of extremely difficult word games,
puzzles, and definition dilemmas.
If you need an online-grammar,
test this one, perhaps it can help you.
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