Depicting Alice

Tim Burton´s film is a continuation of Alice´s story in both of Carroll´s Alice´s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass.

What are the differences between the film and the books? and What characters do you hope to find in the film?

Let´s watch the film and disccuss about it a little bit.

Pay attention to the following ideas:

- How are the characters presented in the film? How do they differ from the ones in the book?

- Go to the Tea Party chapter. Similarities and differencies between the film and the book. ( focus on the games, riddles, menu, etc.)

- Describe Alice in the film and in the book. Use as many adjectives as possible.

- In the novel , Alice arrives in Wonderland by falling

down a rabbit hole: however, by the end of the story, it appears she has fallen asleep and dreamt it all. Is this idea of the dream present in the film. How does Burton show her return to Wonderland?

- Analyze the use of colours in the film.
- Sense of humour
- Growth into adultohood
- games and learning th rules
- language, logic and absurd language
- Size changes.
- Surrealism
- Dreams and nightmares.

Talk about some of these ideas in the following voicethread.

Compare both the book you´ve read and the film. Talk about  your favourite character as well and her or his evolution throughout the film. Choose 2 topicos from above and tell me your opinion and ideas about them.

A Teen Mum: Juno

Everything starts with the falling leaves and the colours of the autumn season at the background. Juno is drinking tons of Sunny D and she takes at least 3 pregnancy tests to discover she is pregnant. We have already discussed about her decision and talked about her character. She makes up her mind and decides not to have an abortion. In the end, she decides that giving the child for adoption and get on with her life will be the best.

 Everything takes place without tears and in general the tone of the movie is fun, jolly and not dramatic at all. 

Have a look at the following activities. They are related to some parts of the movie you have already seen. Try to complete questions, vocabulary and think about some questions related to the characters.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/16636178/Film-Juno-Part-1doc
http://www.scribd.com/doc/16636201/Film-Junopart2doc
http://www.scribd.com/doc/16636212/Film-Junopart3

The film is divided into 4 different parts according to the seasons of the year: 

Describe the different events that happen in Juno´s life during her pregnancy according to the 4 seasons: Autumn, Winter, Spring. Summer.

Talk about this and the following questions in the voicethread below:

.

- What is the conflict in the movie?

- What are the  complications the main characters face in reaching their goals? Do they get them?

- How is the conflict resolved in the end?

- What is the theme of the movie? is it  a pro or con abortion movie?

- Describe Juno. Is she a sterotypical teenager?

- Are her parents supportive?

- Describe the couple Loring.

-  Compare both families

- Describe the relation existing between Juno and Mark. What do they have in common?

-  How is the relation between Juno and Vanessa? Do they get on well?

- How is the relation between Juno and Paulie Bleeker? How does it change throughout the film?    How is the idea of love presented in the film?

- If you were Juno and Bleeker, what would you have done?

(to do a warming up activity have a look at a a previous post: teenage pregnancy. You can watch the trailer of the film and work with several questions to introduce the topic)
http://dreaminginenglish-be.blogspot.com.es/search/label/Teenage%20pregancy.%20JUNO

Almost Alice

Almost Alice is a collection of various artists' music inspired by Tim Burton's film, Alice in Wonderland. The album is also notable for featuring songs that were either inspired from quotes directly from Lewis Carroll's original novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

For example, both "The Lobster Quadrille" (by Franz Ferdinand) and "You Are Old, Father William" (by They Might Be Giants) are both word-for-word performances of poems from the original Alice as quoted by The Mock-Turtle (the former) and Alice herself to the Caterpillar (the latter). Furthermore, "Very Good Advice" by Robert Smith is a cover of Kathryn Beaumont's "Very Good Advice" from Disney's original animated version of Alice in Wonderland.
The lead single, "Alice" by Avril Lavigne is played during the end credits of Alice in Wonderland, and is the only song of the album featured in the film.The song was written by her as well. 
Watch this video,  listen to the song and complete the lyrics.
The video is very nice and tries to recreate the world of Wonderland and the different sensations Alice may have felt going down the rabbit  hole! What do you think of Avril Lavigne in this video? she could have been one of Tim Burton´s characters...



_______ out , ______ around. I´m _________. i ____   _____ . Yeah I ____   ______
I´m ______   out. Where am I now?______  down and i can´t ______ it now. It can´t ______ it now.

Chorus :
oh, Í´ll ____   ____.  ohh I'll ohh I'll ______
When the world is ______   _____When I fall and ____ the groundI'll just ____ myself around
Dont you try to stop me ohh I'll won't cry

I ______ myself in ________,  ______   _____ on my feet again. Is this real? is this pretend?
I _____ take a _______ until the end.

Chorus :
oh, Í´ll ____   ____.  ohh I'll ohh I'll ______
When the world is ______   _____When I fall and ____ the groundI'll just ____ myself around
Dont you try to stop me ohh I'll won't cry

Alice in Wonderland

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is an 1865 novel written by English author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll.

  It tells the story of  a girl named Alice who falls down a rabbit hole into a fantasy world populated by peculiar creatures. Its narrative course and structure, characters and imagery have been enormously influential in both popular culture and literature, especially in the fantasy genre.

It is told in the form of  a DREAM and Carroll uses the third person point of view because in this way he was free to make fun of  and satirize the  standard Victorian didactic ideas.

In fact, this book inaugurated a new era of children's literature in English: books that didn't have to be didactic or moralistic, that didn't teach children lessons. Alice in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking Glass paved the way for many books such as The SpiderWick Chronicles , Harry Potter series, Narnia Chronicles and so on.

In this book rationality is replaced  by the bizarre, everything is unpredictable and disordered.  What makes the story more fun is that Alice tries to apply all her previous "adult" knowledge from the "above world" to the new "under world" she is in and obviously it doesn´t make any sense...

Wonderland is a magic place. Everyone feels free there but it is also a place of bad dreams.It is a fairy land where the Cheschire Cat lives and continuously appears an disappears, where the Mad Hatter moves around and  the place where the  Queen of Hearts and her knaves set their own mad and illogical rules. Animals speak and complain as if they were adults.  It is the place where Alice changes sizes several times and where languages loses its logic and its power to communicate. Wonderland is a chaos, but a lovely one!!!

In the pictures below you can see some of the most famous characters in Wonderland: the White Rabbit, the Dormouse, the Mad Hatter, the Hare, The Cheshire Cat, the Carterpillar, the Queen of Hearts, etc. Let´s describe and compare  them and after reading the book do you remember where do they exactly appear in the story? Do you have a favourite one? Why?

In the book there are many recurrent topics:

- growth into adulthood

- games and learning the rules

- language, logic and absurd language.

- Size changes.

- Surrealism

- Dreams and nightmares

Can you find any of these ideas in the version we have read in class?

Where? Explain the ones you can see and look for examples from the book.

Here you have some famous quotations from the original book, they can help you find the themes suggested above.

Alice.  What is the use of a book, without pictures or conversations?

Alice  Curiouser and curiouser!
Alice   I wonder if I've been changed think. Was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I'm not the same, the next question is 'Who in the world am I?' Ah, that's the great puzzle!
Alice  I can't explain myself, I'm afraid, Sir, because I'm not myself you see.
Alice  If it had grown up, it would have made a dreadfully ugly child; but it makes rather a handsome pig, I think.
The Cat  We're all mad here.
The Hatter   Why is a raven like a writing desk?
The Hatter  Twinkle, twinkle, little bat! How I wonder what you're at.
The Queen  Off with her head!
The Queen  Sentence first -- verdict afterwards.
Alice  But then, shall I never get any older than I am now? That'll be a comfort, one way -- never to be an old woman -- but then -- always to have lessons to learn!
Doorknob  Read the directions and directly you will be directed in the right direction.
Mad Hatter   No wonder you're late. Why, this watch is exactly two days slow.

In the book we have some nursery rhymes and songs. For example:

The Queen of Hearts she made some tarts all on a summer's day;

The Knave of Hearts he stole the tarts and took them clean away.
The King of Heartscalled for the tarts and beat the Knave full sore
The Knave of Hearts brought back the tarts and
vowed he'd steal no more.



In Central Park East 74th Street in New York we can see a beautiful sculpture of Alice and her friends. Click on the link and listen to this person talking about it and explaining why she likes it.                 Alice´s sculpture in Central Park

1. In which part of Central Park can you find the statue?

2. Which material is it made of?

3. How high is the sculpture?

4. Who is with Alice in the sculpture?

5. How is her hair held?

6. Where is the dormouse?

7. Why is the sculpture very nice for children?

8. Why is the big mushroom nice  for little children to have a rest?

If you feel like reading and listening to the full story here you have the following audio book.

NATURAL DISASTERS

One of the most powerful earthquakes ever recorded struck on 11th  March 2011 off the north eastern coast of Japan causing severe damage. The earthquake also triggered a tsunami whhich washed away everything in its way.

Watch this video about the tsunami in Japan and find out more about this phenomenon. Try to answer  the following questions.

1. What are the signs of tsunamis?
2. Why are there so many tsunamis and earthquakes in Japan and what does tsunami mean?
 3. According to the video, can you explain why do tsunamis happen?
4. How fast do underwater waves travel?
5. In which sense a tsunami wave is different from a normal wave?
6. What happens when it recedes?
7. How many waves are usually in a tsunami? How often do they come?
 8. Where was the 2011 tsunami originated and which areas dit it affect?
9. How many people died?
10. Where is the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre and what do they do?
11. What´s their advice if a tusami occurs?

 In 2004 something similar happened in Thailand. The Spanish film director J.A. Bayona has done a film called The Impossible about it. Here you´ve got the trailer. 

Do you want to know the secrets of NARRATIVE WRITING??

Narrative from Agung Adyawardhana

A narrative structure organizes facts, ideas, concepts, etc. in a coherent and emotionally engaging way.

This year we will focus on short stories and legends.

A short story is a short work of fiction. Fiction, as you know, is prose writing about imagined events and characters. Prose writing differs from poetry in that it does not depend on verses, meters or rhymes for its organization and presentation.

Novels are another example of fictional prose and are much longer than short stories.

This year we will focus on one of the most important writers of short stories: Poe. He developed and analyzed the structure of fiction short stories. In fact most of his stories are finely crafty stories. All of them contain at least 5 key elements which are very important for the coherent development of the plot of the story till it reaches a climax and we have the final resolution: character, setting, conflict, climax, resolution, plot and theme
Taking this into account let´s  develop these 5 elements a little bit more:

Setting - Where the story takes place; usually every scene has a change of setting.

Character - Description of the character and a little of their background.

Plot - The series of events that unfold in the story.

Conflict - The struggle between two or more opposing forces.

Climax - The strongest part of the story, where the conflict builds up to the emotional peak.

Resolution - Where the conflict is solved.

The angle from which a story is told, that is,  the type of narrator the author chooses to use  is very important as well:

1. In first-person narration the narrator uses "I" to tell his or her story. The first-person narrator may be a major character in the story or simply an observer.
2. Omniscient third-person narrators can reveal the thoughts of all their characters; they are "all-knowing." 
3. A limited omniscient narrator only reveals the thoughts and feelings of a few characters. 

4. An objective third-person narrator does not reveal anyone's thoughts . They provide objective information. It is like a camera doing a panoramic view.

Characters are very important and they may be described in different ways:

1. Round characters are usually main characters and are fully developed. The narrator gives us many details about them and we know their psychological and physical appeareance in a very thorough way. 

2. Flat characters are usually minor characters who are barely developed. In most cases they are just stereotypes, they are not like real people.

 When writing or telling a story we have to pay special attention to the tenses we use. Narrative tenses are very important to make the story coherent and fluent.
Have a look at the following presentation and check the use of simple past, past continuous and past perfect.

Narrative tenses from Carmen Olmedo Rueda

Let´s try to put into practice all this information and write your own narrative text. Have a look at the following presentation and follow the instructions given. Choose of the pictures given and write a text following the narrative structure explained above. Focus on the setting, characters, conflict and resolution of the problem. Pay attention to narrative tenses as well.

Literary genres and subgenres

Literary genres from Arlene Opina

Literary Genres from krporter

MASS MEDIA AND ADVERTISING

The Mass Media have become more and more important in our lives: tvs, radios, computers, smart phones, etc. The Media have a direct effect on our every day life and whether we like it or not we are directly exposed to them. Internet has become one of the greatest influences on our perception of the world and social media such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and so on are powerful tools to communicate and get new information. 

When we talk about the written press in Britain there´s a difference between tabloid and broadsheet newspapers.

     The first thing you notice when you look at a newspaper is the size! Broadsheets being the largest, most serious papers that you have to fold to read.
They contain different news, they have a different style of writing and they aim to attract different readers.

However, the competition for readers is intense, and tabloids and broadsheets may steal tricks off each other in order to win the circulation war!!!

Pay attention to the following differences:

- TABLOIDS are aimed at lower social levels, they use puns and jokes in headlines, there are shorter articles with more focus on celebrity gossip and" human stories", they use gimmicks to attrack readers such as games,  contests, etc. and they have a bold layout ( they use colours and different typographies to make them easy to read) and lots of pictures.

- BROADSHEETS are aimed at higher level people and generally speaking they don´t use colour on the frontpage. Articles are more detailed and in general longer. There´s more space for international news and politics

- Surf the net and look for some news in the following papers: The Sun, The Daily Mirror, The Times, The Independent, The Guardia, USA today, The New York Times.  Where would you classify them? Are they tabloids or broadsheets?

- Choose one piece of news in a Broadsheet and in a Tabloid paper and analyze how the information is presented. Talk about typography, pictures, design and content.

As a large number of people consume mass media it is pretty obvious that advertising plays a very important role in them. While watching TV or surfing the net, listening to the radio and so on  we receive hundreds of advertising so mass media are the favourite target of the different companies that want to sell their products or to make their ideas well known and easily spread.

Do you like adverts? What do you like about them? ( music, words, images, etc.)  or are you one of those people who change channels. There are different types of advertising:
 flyers, pop- ups, classified ads, slogans, jingles, commercials, posters, etc

Where can you find them? Can you think of any examples of these different types of ads?

Advertising is a very difficult job and professionals use many different techniques to draw our attention and in most cases we can´t escape from them.... because they try to make you happier, healthier, slimmer  more fashionable, more intelligent, less stressded     They can use humour to get you in a good mood, etc.

People working in publicity are quite competitive, and very witty. Would you like to be one of them for a while?

Decide which product you want to sell and in which way. What kind of advertising you are going to use? (use the examples above). Think of a catchy slogan and appealing pictures an colours. There are many things you will have to take into account. For example:

- Decide they type of customer your product is going to be aimed at.

-  Use careful chosen language. ( use of alliteration, rhyme, memorable slogan, persuasive words, exaggerated words and lots of adjectives)

- Focus on the  positive factors of your product. ( negative aspects are ignored)

Have a look at the following slogans? do they ring a bell? what type of product do you think they are advertising? Do you remember the brand?

"Just do it."

"Coffee at its best"

"Beanz Meanz Heinz."

"Finger lickin' good"
“Have it your way.”

Because I'm worth it"
Have a break, have a Kit Kat

"I'm lovin' it"
“Connecting People”
“Obey your thirst.”
"Snap! Crackle! Pop!"
"No more tears." -
"Don't dream it. Drive it."
"The best a man can get"

Have a look at the post "advertising and commercials" ( you can look for it on the labels section)  and watch some funny commercials. Do you like them? Would you like to show us one you have enjoyed?