The new way to avoid checking your emails every ten minutes...

Welcome to my blog! On it I'm going to post all the things we cover in class (handouts, youtube vids, useful stuff in the library, revision notes....) so it'll be in one easy to find spot. If you want to ask me anything direct (and that incluldes you, parents) then don't bother emailing me at my gmail address, but do drop me a line at my school address.
Cheers!


Thursday 25 April 2013

Shared answer 13D

Click here - and get going! I'm going to lock this for editing in a few hours - after that, I'd like you to take the work that you've completed together, and use it for the basis of your own essay. Obviously there'll be bits that you don't like, bits that you want to add, bits that you want to re-order... you get the picture. Also, while  I've got your attention, I'd like you to have a look at all these ideas / concepts / keywords that I've lifted (in order) from this book. Over the next week, it'll be up to you to make sure that you identify anything that you aren't too sure about, and make sure this is taken care of. (I'm not saying buy the book, by the way - but be aware that there are one or two copies floating about).

Edit - the 13C collaborative answer can be found here

Any problems, questions, Bell & Ross watches - send them my way.

Thursday 18 April 2013

Welcome to all my Arnold bros

Just a quick post to say hello to all the Arnold language boffins who could well be looking at this for the first time. I thought I'd take a minute to recap what we covered in class this week, and point you in the direction of some interesting sites that will be of benefit to you in the coming weeks.

First up, we've looked at some of the ways to boost some of your AO2 understanding in your answers; we looked at the ideas of hierarchies within texts or attitudes, and how to spot them, and some of the pressures that push or pull language along the standard / non standard continuum. We finally looked at Cameron's ideas about prescriptivism, which are worthwhile keeping in mind as I'd hate you to fall into the trap that some 13s do (not ones I've taught, obvs) where prescriptivist views = bad, and descriptivist = good; it's often a little more complicated than that...

Just in case you've lost them already, here is the first story we looked at (all about the Twitterbot), and here is the second - Matthew Engel's hilarious, defeatist, whingey racist nonsense. You should know the jobs I've given you - get in touch if you aren't sure. (Oh, and if you're on the Mail website, you really ought to check out the comments section. Makes my day, every day).

Talking about getting in touch, whilst I'm a big fan of the email, if you have a question that is subject based, ask it in the comments section; often someone else has a similar question or misunderstanding, and it'll save me a bit of time to answer it just the once.

Finally, if you fancy some swotting up before the exam, head off to Dan Clayton's infinitely superior blog, where you'll find all sorts of useful material. Don't worry if it seems a little daunting at first; a good place to start for you monkeys would be the ENGA3 tag, but I'm sure you'll figure it out.

Any problems, questions, issues or Bell & Ross watches, send them along to the usual address.