Pressing Our Buttons

Discussion points for the following adverts:

• What is being sold?
• Who is it being sold to?
• Why might we want this?
• What values (or fears) do the advertisers think the audience has?

 

Class Portal: Coming Along Nicely

Well, the class portal seems to be coming along nicely at the moment. Most of the text tour is complete, but it lacks a little pizzaz.

To make our class portal dazzle I suggest the following:

• We need pictures. They are worth a thousand words. Or so I’ve heard.
• We need to whip that sloppy spelling into shape.
• We need titles that grab the imagination.
• We need someone to show us the bigger picture.
• We need to be able to find our way around the posts.
• We need everything to look the same.

To this end, I suggest that the following roles need to be taken on:

• Images Editors
• Proof Readers
• Sub-Editors
• Big-Ideas People
• Archivist
• Typesetter

Some of these are real jobs in professional publications. Some of these should be real jobs in professional publications, which is why your class portal is better than a professional publication.

Please read the job descriptions below and suggest in the comments which roles you would like to take on. Suggest your first two preferences; I’ll try to make everyone happy.

Image Editors

The image editor’s job is to carefully read the articles and decide what type of image should be used to accompany each post. Because we want to be responsible internet users, we only want to use images that have a Creative Commons license, so that we are not breaking copyright. The image editor will have to make sure that all images are attributed to their source.

You can use http://search.creativecommons.org/ to find appropriate images.

Proof Readers

The proof readers are responsible for making sure that the content is typo free and makes sense. You can make small edits, such as changing ‘teh’ to ‘the’, but if you think it needs major re-writing in order to make sense, simply pass your suggestions on to the original author and they can fix it up.

Sub-Editors

The sub-editor needs to do a couple of things. Firstly, they must read the post carefully and then add any details that they think will make it more interesting or accurate. Some moderate re-writing is appropriate from the sub-editor. The sub-editor should then consider what the main message or point of the post is and then re-title the post, if appropriate.

Big Ideas People

Ok, so this is a made up job. However, the big ideas people will be responsible for bringing they key ideas and themes of the posts together. How they choose to do this is up to them, after all, they are the big ideas people, but they may choose to use tools such as Glogster or Bubbl.us to bring a visual representation of each of the key themes together. One big ideas person might, therefore, put together a poster representing the importance of family relationships for our survival, with some interesting images and key quotes on it. This can then be uploaded to the class portal and could even then serve as a link to the relevant posts relating to that theme.

Think BIG.

Archivist

The archivists need to make sense of all of the material we have produced and put it together in some sort of usable order. They might decide to make a page of hyperlinks that acts as a contents page to all of the text tour posts we have written. Some other structural changes to the site might be appropriate, too, so this can be decided by the archivists.

Typesetter

The typesetter needs to decide upon a format that all related posts should follow and then go through the site applying this format as they see fit. They might decide, for example, that all quotes need to be bold or indented, so they would need to go through the posts and make those changes.

Unknown

I don’t know everything. Don’t tell anyone, though. Maybe I haven’t thought of a job that needs to be done on the class portal. If you can think of a job that you’d like to do, that I haven’t mentioned, please leave your idea in the comments and the group can decide if it’s a good idea.

 

Who was the toughest survivor?

Answer the following poll question and tell us why you chose you answer in the comments section.

Also tell us what you think it was that helped these people survive their situations.

 

My Awesome Year 11s

I was really impressed with my year 11s today! They have broken off into different groups to work on producing multimedia products that explore the notion of ‘survival’.

Between them they are producing:

• An original EP
• A film trailer for a mocumentary
• An original song and music video
• A radio broadcast, including an interview with a fictional musician (who will be playing one of her survival songs)

In the past I just used to get them to make a poster…what a waste that would have been with this talented bunch!

I really cannot wait to see their finished products. Watching them all work together today was fantastic – I’m so proud of them!

I hope they will let me share their efforts on here when thay are done.

—

Update: hmmm, that’s a lot of exclamation marks for such a short post. I’m usually so reserved…

 

Survival Media Products

The Pre-Planning Stage 

• Create a vision statement for the piece you are producing (eg We want to produce a collection of songs that explore the human capacity to survive / We want to produce a documentary that explores what survival means to various people)
• Brainstorm ideas as a group: What aspects of survival do you want to explore? What feelings do you want to explore? What examples can you draw from? Is there anything from the novel Night you wish to explore?
• Produce a comprehensive list of everything that is needed to be written (eg specific scripts, song lyrics)
• Produce a comprehensive list of the other creative tasks to be completed (recording, editing etc)
• Produce a list of people it would be helpful to liaise with to get help on your project.
• Draw up a schedule for what needs to be completed by when and by who. Consider locations and equipment needs in your schedule.

As a group, discuss what you think the biggest challenge will be for this project. Try to come up with some solutions to help you overcome this challenge.

IMPORTANT

First drafts of all written material should be completed before Camp. We will have three lessons to work on this in class time before camp – you will need to determine your own homework to ensure all first drafts are complete on time. Do not focus on the visual elements yet, that will come later.

 

Surviving vs. Thriving- it’s your call

Jackie Millar and Craig Sussek in one of their annual meetings.

Life: the constant rhythm of time beating against our every action, the wash of circumstances and responses – the call and echo of humanity’s plight against themselves.

Here in life, perhaps the most certain thing is death, but you have the choice of how you get there. For all the unexpected, the uncontrollable events that bulldozer into your bubble of ideals and crush them without a second thought, there is something you can control, your response.

Survival is dependent on the individual’s ability to respond, the ability to act in spite of every excuse for them to die, to give up.

It seems in this life, no matter where we go, what kind of life we try to live, tragedy will find us. This year itself began with the Queensland floods followed by the Japanese earthquakes and consequent nuclear radiation threat. Just recently the volcanic ash spreading from Chile is grounding people, stopping them from living the rest of their lives, stranding them in a foreign country with depleting food and money. On top of all this, cars are still killing people, drugs are still killing people, people are still killing people- its a wonder we are all still here.

And yet, in spite of all this, there are always those special few, transcending physical circumstances becoming heroes, bringing hope to the media pages for those short days they appear to the public before the newspapers find another sad story to cover.

The life after such circumstances, however, may prove to be harder than any natural disaster, car accident or funeral. Every physical survival seeds from an emotional survival. The psychological battle is constant, often uncontrollable. It is in these circumstances where survival can mean simply coping or thriving.

On the 4th of November, 1995, two teenagers broke into Jackie Millar’s house to steal her car. As they stole the car, Jackie interrupted them causing one of the teenagers, Craig Sussek, forced her to the ground and shot her in the head.

The two teenagers were caught and sent to prison while Jackie was sent to hospital fighting for her life. She survived, a miracle in itself, but found herself stuck in a dysfunctional body with the brain of a two year old. Jackie, a mother of two grown children, had to relearn how to talk, how to walk, how to sit, how to rebuild her life. She can’t remember how her children grew up, nor can she remember the incident itself, but she survived, free to live her life as she pleased.

Jackie Millar had every right to leave such a memory in her old life, to leave those two teenagers that ruined her life to rot in jail, but she isn’t.

As part of the Restorative Justice Project, Jackie visits the now men in prison, every year. She talks with them like they are her sons. She has forgiven them.

She has forgiven them after everything they have put her through- physical and emotional.

Jackie did not simply survive, she is thriving.

This world is full of people who survive from harsh physical circumstances through bitterness and revenge. Gangs open up more and more worlds of violence from vendettas and rash decisions based on retribution. While this can be seen as survival, it simply creates more circumstance to survive from.

For all the emotions and anxiety that comes from circumstances, this energy can be translated into positive action.

So give a second thought on where your thoughts lead you. Will you use them to simply survive or thrive?

 

 

If you would like to know more about Jackie Millar:

http://www.sbs.com.au/dateline/story/about/id/601186/n/Finding-Forgiveness

 

Introduction to Diary of a Survivor

I was quite surprised when listening to many of you considering the meaning of survival in that everyone thought survival meant having to go through some kind of physical hardship or accident of some sort. Amputations, disease, shark attack and the like were presented as major needs for survival. Famine and floods were other stressors. My biggest surprise in all of this was that no one mentioned emotional disorders although it was agreed by those in my discussion group that it first requires emotional strength to attain physical survival as recovery is almost impossible without the mental will to survive.

Many of us may have stories of survival that are unknown by others we interact with on a daily basis. Survivors are usually quite experienced at hiding their pain, especially if the reasons for their need to survive are considered to be social taboos or subjects that are not easily talked about. Two of these areas are mental health and sexual abuse.

Over the next term I will regularly be posting entries on this blog from the diary of an actual sexual abuse victim who has also suffered intense emotional trauma because of the damage this has caused in her life. This woman wrote a journal as part of her counselling therapy not only to explore her own feelings but also as an encouragement to fellow victims to seek help and know that there is life at the end of the pain. As you read the selected entries, I would like you to consider the following 2 questions – Is SURVIVAL living or merely existing? At what point do you stop being a victim and become a survivor?

(A Note from Mr Bates: Due to the sensitive nature of the posts in this series, all of the posts will be password protected. You will need to get the passwords from either Mr Bates or Mrs Lokot to read them.)

 

Survival – Introductory Lesson

For the next Creating and Presenting topic we are looking at the concept of ‘Survival’. In preparation for this, and to practice a wider range of styles of writing naturally about this topic we are going to be doing some blogging together as a class.  To start off with we will write a short article looking at coping with difficult circumstances.

To begin with, answer questions 1-4 together in small groups, discussing possible answers. Please keep a note of your own answers and any other answers you think are interesting.

1. What do you think is meant by survival?
2. What do you think might be the hardest thing to survive, either emotionally or physically?
3. Do you know of any real life survivors of the circumstances you suggested?
4. How do you think they were able to survive?

Once the first 4 questions have been discussed, and the initial notes have been recorded we will go to the computer lab to do some more research into the topic and to begin blogging:

5. Look online for other examples of people that have survived similar circumstances. You might find stories in the news, on blogs or on YouTube. Read / listen to those stories carefully and take note of anything that is suggested helped them to survive.

6. Collate all of this and write a brief article detailing how people might survive the circumstances you suggested.

You will need a WordPress.com user account (You do not need to start a blog, just set up a user account by following the link). Please set one up using your school email address. Please enter your username as Firstname+InitialofSurname, eg JacksonB. Once you have set up an account I can send you an invitation to become a contributor to the blog. Let me know when you are set up.

 

A Man For All Season’s Fakebooks

These Fakebook profiles were created by some of the members of our class.

Thomas More
Margret Roper
Richard Rich #1
Alice More
Richard Rich #2
The Duke of Norfolk

What do you think?

Paste links to your own in the comments!