Today, we will start our last unit of the semester. As a recap, you have learnt how to write descriptions, letters, and stories. Today, it is the turn of movie reviews.
So... what's a movie review?
Just to make a point clear: a movie review is not to tell a plot again, nor to point out the sequence of events. It is a critical analysis of a film.
Have a look at the following steps to write a review:
a. Watch the movie & get to know the movie's behing-the-scenes: In a familiar environment without distractions. Ideally, watch it twice, so you can observe more details. Take notes as needed. Also, find out about the director and actors. Have they worked together before? Have they won any prize?
b. Opinion: Most reviewers give their opinions. You can then tell what you liked or disliked. Yet, you need to give impartial details to make the reader/viewer create his/her own opinion. You may say "three out of five stars; thumbs up"
c. Sense of audience: As in any kind of writing, writers need to think of who your readers are going to be. It is different to target a group of children than a group of teenagers.
d. Outlining: When giving a brief reference of what the movie is about, don't tell any essential detail! If so, please warn the reader that there will be a spoiler.
e. Actors: Give brief references of who the actors are and how their performance was.
f. Structure: How was the structure of the movie? Did it have a regular story line?
g. Cinematography and lighting: How well was the movie shot and directed? How was the lightening and effects?
h. Music: Did it have a special score or did it feature songs from popular artists?
i. Permanent revision: Read it as many times as possible. Ask for peer review and edit it permanently. Use the check list. It would be embarrasing to find a mistake once it has been published!
Now that you know what you need to look at, let's try to draft something out:
This is Wallace & Gromit. They're an animated series from Great Britain.
Let's see what you think and make a brief brainstorming with your classmate in your copybook.
In today's session, you are to finish your story. As you finish it, please go through your classmates' blogs and leave feedback on them.
For that purpose, please ensure to read and apply the self-check assessment and check your writing documents uploaded some time ago in virtual.
The idea is to have all the documents ready, so you can submit them on Thursday in paper and via email, so we can do our story magazine to be shared with the school of education, as agreed.
You might like to include pictures, record a video, or draw a comic strip about it. Please feel free to create whatever you want to represent your story and make it suitable for as many audiences as possible.
Before you start writing, think of the Golden Rules of short stories (Taken from Howtobooks)
A single storyline, without sub-plots.
Three or four characters at most.
A single viewpoint, or two at most.
A short time-scale.
Consistent mood, tone and pace.
Consistent writing style.
Appropriate language.
Brief descriptions.
Minimum background.
Concise dialogue.
No lengthy preamble.
No contrived ending.
No preachy message
5. Think of the extension of your story : 150 to 200 words max. It has to be straight to the point. There are wonderful short stories that are that short. Some are for kids as The Donkey and the Little Dog and some others extremely short and even difficult to get as in Wired 14.11. These, for instance, are 1024 characters only.
Get inspired and start writing! Bear in mind your story will be published and uploaded to the web, so you need to do a very good job, as a professional writer, who organizes, edits and gets feedback from several people before sharing the product to the world!
We will divide our work between language exercises and the historical district project. Please organise your time accordingly, so there's enough time to fulfill both.
Please write a brief reflection on the advantages and disadvantages of these exercises in your blog.
Second part: Historical district project (50 minutes)
Get in your groups and start googling for information about the place you want to work on.
Remember to bookmark all the sites you visit! They have to be included in the bibliography, as they were consulted websites.
Share it with your classmates & teacher (top right / sharing options)
Start working, on your different computers on the same doc. Copy / paste information IN ENGLISH about the place you are researching. Please do not consult wikipedia.
You can interact with the google doc by checking the chat on the right. If so, please chat in English!
Your teacher will leave some comments on the doc within this week. Remember this is just the first approach to the research, which has to be book-based.
Dear students,
Welcome to our lab session today!
Please ensure to fulfill the activity today. I'll be printing your blogs on Thursday and give you a progress mark on your blogs (Criteria: Organisation of ideas, coherence of ideas and cohesion; use of vocabulary according to the assigned tasks; and task completion).
Today, we will work on describing places and people, in preparation to your cumulative test on Thursday 14th.
1. Organise your paragraphs coherently!
Keep in mind
ONE idea - ONE paragraph
Therefore, when describing, you can have paragraphs on 1. Location/surrounding; 2. Building (divided into shape, colour, architecture style, special features...); 3. Purpose; 4. Your opinion. This is just a suggestion! Please think of your reader, who will be puzzled with a mixture of characteristics!
You may want to brainstorm and organise the ideas first. Also, use your connectives you have learnt so far. Bear in mind sentence structure (Subject + verb + (object, complement, adverbial).
Describe and compare the following pictures:
1. Offices
2. Bedrooms
3. Santiago
Post the descriptions in your blogs. As soon as you finish them off, please comment on your classmates' blogs and give feedback, as appropriate.
Remember to use your first and given name in the web address and your name in the title. You may then add your personal touch to it.
Make sure that the time zone is adjusted to Santiago.
Post your first entry with a brief presentation of yourself. You can include the things you like to do in your free time, music or movies you like it, etc.
Write your address on the board, so you can start following your classmates' blogs. The idea is to have everyone linked with each other.
Part 2: Writing
On our Thursday class, we started to create a paragraph by brainstorming, classifying ideas by topics and/or similarity.
In your blog entry, include the ideas you brainstormed in your groups, and how you titled them.
Write your paragraph.
Part 3: Interacting with your classmates' blogs
Post your observations, comments and opinions about your classmates' paragraphs in their comment boxes. Please be respectful. Feedback from peers has to be concentrated on content.
What should/can I say about my classmates' paragraph? Follow these steps!
Can it be understood by any audience? Does it provide a clear and straightforward context?
Look at the Inverted Pyramid Writing picture. Does it follow the example?
Another way to think of a paragraph is as a hamburger. In order to make a delicious one, everything has to be in the right place!
(If there is enough time!)Part 4: Sharing links with your classmates
Google websites with reading comprehension exercises. Explore them and try them out.
Post one link to virtual. Say why that particular link was useful to you (colourful, interactive, user-friendly, etc...)
Homework:
Please don't forget to fill out the survey posted in the blog. It is really important for us!
