Thursday, August 20, 2009
On the first lesson of the week, Mr Chua came in and soon we were all seen scibbling down our essays. This time, our essay was about the unseen poem which was about Singapore River.
I only got 4/25 for the previous essay writing, I am very determined to pull back my marks.
However, this essay is different from the other essays that we wrote, for this essay, we are supposed to find out how the irony in the poem helps us understand the poem, identify the theme and talk about the metaphors instead of the P.E.E. format. Time flew past and before we knew it, the bell rang and we had to hand up our essays.
On the second Literature lesson of the week, Mr Chua came in and gave us notes about settings. I was expecting the lesson to be another dry one and indeed,it turned to be a very dry one.
He explain to us what were settings and the types of settings. Through out the whole lesson, Mr Chua told us a lot of stories, especially those from the famous storybooks but no one in my class seem to have read any before. The stories did inspire me to go and read them as the plot seems to be very interesting but I forgot most of the books as I was very sleepy and tired.
On the second Literature lesson of the week, Mr Chua came in and gave us notes about settings. I was expecting the lesson to be another dry one and indeed,it turned to be a very dry one.
He explain to us what were settings and the types of settings. Through out the whole lesson, Mr Chua told us a lot of stories, especially those from the famous storybooks but no one in my class seem to have read any before. The stories did inspire me to go and read them as the plot seems to be very interesting but I forgot most of the books as I was very sleepy and tired.
Some of the storybooks are: The Crucible, Azimov's Foundation.
When the lesson was about to end, I just kept looking at the watch waiting for the period to end so that I could see my History test results. And finally the bell rang and after thanking Mr Chua, I......
Overall, I think that this week's lesson has nothing much as we just did a essay on the first Literature lesson of the week which used up the whole entire period and the second Literature lesson was very dry.
Overall, I think that this week's lesson has nothing much as we just did a essay on the first Literature lesson of the week which used up the whole entire period and the second Literature lesson was very dry.
I hope that the future lessons which are about learning new things will not be so dry again but I also do not wish to have lessons where people are called out to read an article to the whole class, I totally detest that!
However, even if the future lessons which are about learning new things are very dry, they should only be a few left as this semester is a rather short one.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
On tuesday, Mr Chua did not came to school so we just sat and did nothing...
On thurday, Mr Chua did came to school but when we were all ready to scribble down on the papers our essays, Mr Chua said that our in-class essay will be postponed to next tuesday. We were all like shocked as for next monday, we will be having our Literature test which will also be on essay and that means we have to do two essays continuosly for two days!!! Give us a break man! Then Mr Chua gave a model essay that he did and of course he did way better as he is a teacher!!!
After that, we went out to the open space outside our classroom. Everybody went out slowly as it was a thursday and everybody hates thursdays as it is a super long day and it is very dry and tiring... Soon, Mr Chua briefed us on what to do and soon, we had to go to our own allocated places to start our rehersing.
The actual reherse which will also be filmed on the camera but will not be counted for SA2 marks is in about 3 weeks time!! UH OH! I think i better start memorising all the lines that i need already or i will be in deep trouble!
After a while we were halted by Mr Chua and he showed us a proper demostration of what we should all be doing. I was Bassanio (Antonio's very very good friend) and it was quite hard at some parts.
Then we were all gathered back and Mr Chua asked us a question that made me awstrucked. He asked "Why did not any of those people acting the Romeo&Juliet asked mi about the kissing scene?"
I think those people are very embarassed that is why they did not dare to ask. Then Mr Chua showed us a demostration on how to "fake kiss" with Chi Yao. It was very amazing but this is done by the teacher! If this was done by students, the whole thing might not go according to the plan. Soon the bell rang and we flew back to our classes.
For this week lesson, I think that it is very funny as it was about acting. However, I am still a little bit nervous about the actual reherse which will be coming in about 3 weeks time.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
On the first Literature lesson of the week, Mr Chua came in late as Ms Tan continued teaching despite the bell rang.
When Mr Chua came in, he told us that we are running short of time and we need to do something that concerns our CA2 marks but neither of us expect something to shock us. He gave us a paper talking about what our weak points are and what we should continue to improve on and he believe that many people cheated for their essays by copying each other work which admit is true for some of my classmates (OOPS!).
So Mr Chua wanted to be fair and not mark those people who did not copy to get zero marks as it would be impossible to know which essay was the genuine piece and the copied piece. Then Mr Chua gave us all back the essays and i think everyone got 4/25... Even me too!!! I was very angry as i wrote about 4 pages long! Even though my evidences were there, Mr Chua still wrote there where are your evidences.
Haiz, never mind, so during the rewriting of the essays, I just changed all the evidences hoping that my 4 pages essay would be better. I only wrote abt 3 and a 1/2 pages long for the rewriting as there was insufficent time. I am seriously very mad that i have to rewrite the whole essay.
And Mr Chua said that in order to prevent people from copying each other work again in the future, we are going to do all essays in class. I was even more pissed off when I heard that! 45mins is just totally NOT ENOUGH TIME TO WRITE A GOOD ESSAY!!! So i guess the only way to counter that is to that hopefully, Mr Chua will give us the essay question before the day that we have to do the essay, then I can go home and plan out the whole essay, then it would not be much of a problem during the essay writing lesson...
I am seriously hoping that Mr Chua will reconsider this!!!!!
On thursday, Mr Chua came in with his laptop, and started distrubuting worksheets. Soon, we were updating our contents page for the Literature file.
My file was so thick and messy, as I have still not taken out the worksheets for semester 1 and most of them are all not filed! So i planned to go home and file but i still updated the contents page anyway.
Soon, Nadia was asked to read the first paragraph of a article which was about a woman talking about Little India. We took turns to read by asking another person to read within 5 seconds or we had to read again. Only rovin was the unlucky one to read two paragraphs. Luckily, lady luck was with me and my name was not called.
Then Mr Chua explained to us more about the article, and showed us two videos. One was about HDB flats which I see everyday and another was Little India. They were very different, in terms of houses, liveliness, convenience and the noise level... We were then asked to write down the differences between the both of them.
At that point of time, I somehow could not think of any differences.
I really hope that Mr Chua would change his mind and allow us to do our essays at home as it is exteremly troublesome and it can increase our stress level very easily too, which is very bad for our health...
Err, im not too sure on what to post on this week as i didnt came to school for almost the whole week, thus missing out the two lessons. All thanks to the H1N1 virus!!!! URGH!!! I will have my revenge on it one day!!! ~.~
Monday, August 3, 2009
On the first literature lesson of the week, Mr Chua came back in again to teach us more about irony. Mr Chua kept on emphasising that the 'irony' topic that we are learning is very important in the rest of our secondary sch lives even if we do not take literature as one of our subject next year. The 'irony' topic will also be tested in English! Looking at how important the topic is now, I think i better put in a lot of effort into this topic or it spells doom!
Then the class had to answer questions given by Mr Chua. These questions have to be answered the 'long' way which needs a lot of explaining.
I was unluckily one of the chosen one to answer one of the questions after I was chosen after Mr Chua explained it to us so I must get it right or mr head will be hunted by Mr Chua!!! So i just gave it my best shot, shooting out every reason and it was indeed a very long one.
However, Mr Chua said i almost made it there but i still missed out a very important thing whcih is to explain the irony! (dam it!!!) Never mind, i hope that I will have better luck the next time Im chosen.
On the second Literature lesson of the week Mrs Soh took over our class again. She taught us on metaphor and a little bit on irony again. She also showed us videos (YAY!) on the old Singapore river (again?!?!) and the new Singapore river. The two videos had a lot of differences.
Then wee were asked to read a poem on the Singapore River (and again?!?!) and identify the metaphors in it.
I seriously do not understand why are there so many things regarding Singapore River this year...
Until now, I am still not so sure what is a metaphor and how to identify them (scratches head). Well thats about all that we learnt and i seriously think that it is very hard to explain questions within the 'irony' topic as it requires lots of information.
At the end of the lesson, we were told to do a homework. It is an essay to do on the effects of irony and also 3 Pros and Cons or the Singapore River now and then when it is still a trading port.
On the first lesson of the week. We had two special visitors to who came to our class. Then, we were seperated into our EOY groups. Different role plays have to sit at different rows in our class. I was Bassanio in The Merchant Of Venice. One of my group mate was acting as Gratanio so we both shared a table.
Soon, the directors who were all seated at the first row were given a clipboard and a checklist and were assigned to go down their group to check their groupmates costumes design. After checking, the role plays of each group were to choose the better costume design amoung the two groups. However, the Bassanio in the other small group had a costume design very similar to me! So we had a hard time choosing but with the help of the directors, we chose the other group Bassanio's costume design.
Heard from my group'director that the EOY acting will start on week 5 in term 3!!! I seriously hope that my group will co-opertate!
On the second literature lesson of the week, Mrs Soh took over our lesson, but not because Mr Chua was not around! Mr Chua was in fact standing at the back of the class the whole lesson "monitoring" Mrs Soh teaching. I think that Mrs Soh and the other new teachers are perhaps still trainees.
And soon we were off into a very dramatic lesson. We were learning about irony. I find it quite interesting as on the first slide, the previous US president face was on the slide and it looked funny.
Through this lesson I learned about the types of irony; verbal, situational and dramatic as well as the effects of irony whcih are: express folly, express anger and heighten tragedy.Mrs Soh even showed us videos on some things that she goes through which is a very good thing because it helps us to remembers things more easily and it is also better than having a long lecture whih can be very dry. Mrs Soh even did some actions for us for each type of irony which i found very interesting and useful.
I can see that Mrs Soh is trying very hard and if I were to be standing in her place, my face would become a red chilli if i did those animations!
In the end, I find this week's lessons very fun and interesting, especially the second one.