english@kkc

On the Year 11 English wiki I have made a link to a very interesting website. It is the BBC Maps of War site and the section on World War One is excellent. Go to the Wilfred Owen section on the wiki or to here to access the information. The animated map will also help those studying history.

I haven’t talked about our wikis lately but remember that they have a wealth of information on them. Go to moodle and check them out.

On the sidebar you will see that there is an RSS feed to my new wiki on ‘The Kite Runner’. I have just started it so there isn’t too much there yet but I will add revision notes on a regular basis. The wiki is all about revising - a great place to go to for that last minute study!

This vocabulary game is educational and fun. For each word that you get right, 10 grains of rice will be donated to the United Nations World Food Programme. And for a word game, it is surprisingly addictive.

FreeRice is a sister site of the world poverty site, Poverty.com.

FreeRice has two goals:

1. Provide English vocabulary to everyone for free.
2. Help end world hunger by providing rice to hungry people for free.

WARNING: This game may make you smarter. It may improve your speaking, writing, thinking, grades, exam performance …

PolyCola is a handy site to know about. It lets you look at two search engines at the same time. For instance, the split screen allows you to easily compare results from Yahoo and Google or other search engines of your choice. You will soon get to know what site you prefer and where you can get the best information from. Try it out here.

We are revising Unfamiliar Texts at the moment and I know some of you have a few queries about terms that you are not sure of. Today I will remind you about figures of speech. I will give you some brief definitions of terms and an example.

Antithesis: balanced contrast for special effect.

e.g. (Alexander Pope describing humans)

“Created half to rise, and half to fall;

Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all…”

Hyperbole: deliberate exaggeration for dramatic effect.

e.g. (Lady Macbeth, full of remorse for Duncan’s murder)

“Here’s the smell of blood still. All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.”

Metaphor: a comparison, without ‘like’ or ‘as’, in which one thing is said to be another.

e.g. (Shakespeare’s description of death)

“That undiscover’d country from whose bourne

No traveller returns…”

Oxymoron: a contradiction in two words, again to catch the reader’s attention.

e.g. (from ‘Romeo and Juliet’)

“Parting is such sweet sorrow.”

Personification: giving human qualities to non-human things.

e.g. (Shakespeare’s image of dawn)

“But look, the dawn, in russet mantle clad.

Walks o’er the dew of yon high eastern hill.”

Simile: a comparison beginning with ‘like’ or ‘as’.

e.g.(picture of an overweight woman laughing)

“… all the woman heaves

As a great elm with all its mound of leaves

Wallows before the storm…”

This video from the United States was created by students for students to help stop bullying. It hopes to empower students to prevent violence in schools.

Yesterday we were talking about great April Fool’s Day pranks. I mentioned the famous BBC hoax about the Swiss spaghetti harvest.

In 1957 the respected BBC news show Panorama announced that thanks to a very mild winter and the virtual elimination of the dreaded spaghetti weevil, Swiss farmers were enjoying a bumper spaghetti crop. It accompanied this announcement with footage of Swiss peasants pulling strands of spaghetti down from trees. Huge numbers of viewers were taken in, and many called up wanting to know how they could grow their own spaghetti trees. To this question, the BBC diplomatically replied that they should “place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best.”

The Museum of Hoaxes has put together a list of the top 100 hoaxes and the spaghetti story comes in at number one. Read the top 15 on The List Universe.

I read on BoingBoing that J Robert Lennon has composed a short story using only words found in Dr Seuss’s The Cat in the Hat. I can’t supply the why but here is a taster:

My mother was gone. It was a bump on her head, a big bump. I did not know; mother did not tell me. When she did, I fell. “No,” I said. “No, not you! Do not go!” But there was no way. She sank fast, that was good. I let her go.

Go here to read the rest.

Halloween is coming and that means Zombies. Here is an easy to follow guide on how to deal with them should the need arise.

I have always liked Calvin and Hobbes but these guys are real fans! Watch the video which is of a slideshow outlining the construction of a 200 square foot mural tributing Calvin and Hobbes, made entirely of Post-It notes.