The memes project

Last week we started to explore memes.  We defined a meme - something that captures an idea and is spread widely.  Our focus is on memes that use visual and verbal techniques.  Then we started to find examples of memes, and to explain what makes them clever or funny.

Visual techniques - to do with pictures, their placement, the use of space around the images, juxtaposition of images and manipulation of images.

Verbal techniques - to do with words.  Can include rhyme, pun, metaphor, simile, personification

Clever memes often reference more than one element of a culture.  e.g. a reference to a film and to Donald Trump together, or a popular food phrase and an animal together.

Have a look at the memes in this link.

Choose two of these and paste them into your meme document from last week, and then explain what makes them clever underneath.

Extension: have a look at these school memes, and then have a go at making one of your own. 

Ties in parliament

1.   Read the Herald article on wearing ties in parliament.
2. In groups, make a list of the MPs who want to keep ties, and a list of the MPs who want to get rid of ties
3. What jobs would you expect to wear a tie for?
4. In England, school children have to wear a tie to school from when they are four years old.  Do you think this is something we should do?
5. What do you like about wearing school uniform?
6. What rules would you like to change about what GHS students have to wear to school?
7. Choose an organisation which wears a uniform.  Write to the boss of that organisation, outlining what you think is good about their uniform and what needs improving.

Telling our stories in pictures

 Kia ora 10B!  I'm excited to be your English teacher for 2021.  English is all about stories - telling them, reading and watching them, pulling them apart and talking and writing about them.

Today we are going to work on telling some of our own stories using a visual collage.  The first step is to think about your answers to the questions below and to make a collection of images in a doc in your English folder on google drive.  I have made a start on mine at the bottom of this blogpost.

• Where were you born?
• What three places are special to you?
• What is or was your favourite children's storybook?
• What is or was your favourite nursery rhyme or children's poem?
• A song you like because of the story it tells?
• What is a line from a favourite song of yours that is powerful for you?
• Who or what do you love most?
• What did you read over summer that you enjoyed (short or long text)?
• What did you watch over summer that you enjoyed?