Term 1 Week 4d : Homework

Dear Diary,

Phew! The policemen are finally gone! I had managed to cleverly disguise my crime so they will never find out it was I who did it! I should be safe for the moment.

I am still wondering, are there laws for murderers who are pregnant? Would they mercilessly kill both the mother and child, or would they wait until the baby is born, then they execute the murderer? I am certainly not prepared to take a chance. Even masterminds get caught. I would not want to get caught now! I am still pregnant, I would not want my beloved baby to die!

I also do not understand why my darling would dare to do such a thing! Once he came home, he breaks the happy mood immediately, and tells me that he wants a divorce with me. How dare he! I am bearing his own child, how could he do such a thing, abandoning me to take care of the baby myself?

Well, he deserved his death.

Love,

Mary Maloney

OK so that is homework. See you next week with more blog posts.

Term 1 Week 4c : Narrative Writing Part 3

Back with Part 3 of Narrative Writing.

Mr Lundberg carried on with more about narrative writing. Now he started on the final part of the handout, which is generally about writing short stories so I will not go into that.

Next, Mr Lundberg handed to us a story by Roald Dahl, called "Lamb to the Slaughter". It is a brutal murder (not exactly brutal) commited between a loving couple and how the murderer covers it up and manages to get away with the crime. We were to read the passage and come up with the chronological order of events in the story. Then we discussed answers for the "type" questions. (I do not know why it was called so.)

Will be back with YET another blog post - Homework.

Term 1 Week 4b : Narrative Writing Part 2

Down with Part 2 of week 4: Narrative writing. Mr Lundberg continued teaching us several techniques on how to make our story enriching and interesting. After finishing it up, he went on to short story elements. It mainly consists of setting, plot, conflict, character, point of view (p.o.v) and theme.

1. Setting is basically the starting location, scene and time that the event first happened. This could be used to express the writer's feeling and then later the setting could change, showing a change in mood.
2. Plot is how the writer arranges events to develop his basic idea; it is just the sequence of events in the story. For a short story to be good the writer has to have a good plot. If example if I say "The ball flew right into the window. Tom swings the bat and hits the ball. Mr Angry slaps Tom in the face. Tom is scolded by his parents." Does it make sense? NO! Therefore to write a good narrative the writer must have a good plot.
3. Conflict is any form of opposition the main character faces. Like for example, he/she could be facing a pro in a competition, likely stopping him/her from winning the competition, or it could just be anything that gets in the main character's way. The character would be the "protagonist" while the conflict (if it is a person) would be the "antagonist". Actually even the "protagonist" could be struggling with himself, just like he/she is struggling with the "antagonist". In that case the main character has become the "protagonist" and "antagonist" at the same time. Without conflict there is no plot. Well, almost every-time. There are 4 conflicts : Man vs Man, Man vs Circumstances, Man vs Society & Man vs oneself.
4. Characters are people in a work of fiction. In short stories the character could be anyone, from fairies, punks, to even you. Just make sure you know how to write from that certain character's point of view.
   
5. Point of view is defined as the angle from which the story is told. Remember that the point of view has to be correct, or the story's content would be irrelevant. It would be wierd for a policeman to think from the view of a child.
6. Theme is the story's central insight. It is like teaching you a lesson from the story. Like "believe in yourself" and "love is blind".

To be continued with YET another blog post.

Term 1 Week 4a : Narrative Writing Part 1

This week, the class was introduced to narrative writing. Up first was a questionnaire to let him see how much we knew about narrative writing, the style, content, and other categories. I was baffled by them questions. They had many complicated words! And I did not know much about narrative writing. I ended up getting 10 out of 15 correct. Lucky guess...

Then Mr Lundberg started teaching us about narrative writing. Short stories are brief fictional prose that is shorter than a novel. It usually deals with only a few characters. It could have a basic theme from real life to fantasy. There is no limit to how you write it. You can write about yourself in Hell (not scolding vulgarities here) or maybe in a day of your life, as long as you follow the prompts in the exam.

Then he started to teach us how to make our short story enriching and interesting. Using techniques like "Show, don't tell" and understanding the different levels of tension in the story, the narrative writing could well score high marks if graded.

A graph of the intensity of the story content:


To be continued with another blog post.

Term 1 Week 3 : Birmingham Grid for Learning - Multiple Intelligneces

This week, Mr Lundberg took us to the computer lab to do some online activities, creating blogs for study purposes and creating Facebook accounts. I'm not going to touch into that, because I've already done that. What I am going into now is something called Birmingham Grid for Learning - Multiple Intelligences. What is this Birmingham thing? Well, generally this is a questionnaire that will analyse your strengths and weaknesses based on the answers you put in. This lets you know your different learning styles. Go to http://is.gd/62Av6/ to do it yourself and see which aspect you are strong at.

Take a look at my graph.


Please do not post random posts about your graph results.

Hmm... I am rather number smart as the graph says. I am also as interpersonal. Other than that, I am music and "myself" smart. I am surprised that I am actually smarter, in terms of maths, than Ling Tian (1O4 classmate) who got into the mathematics olympiad training program in Hwa Chong. No offense, but he does not seem to know his maths basics well...

I'm surprised, I'm so interpersonal! And I thought I would never to tell someone's character so well...

Nature, music and "myself" smart don't come as a surprise to me. I know myself well, my weaknesses and strengths, personality and other things. I see global warming as a big problem so I am quite angry that few people are acting on it now. Since I got Gold with Honours for SYF 2008 (Choir), it comes naturally to me.

That should be it for the blog post. I'll see you next week with another blog post about narrative writing. Sounds complicated.

Term 1 Week 2 : Plagiarism

This week, my English teacher (Mr Jason Lundberg) was teaching the class about plagiarism. He was telling us about the kinds of plagiarism, some common excuses for plagiarising, and the seriousness of the offense. Looks like plagiarism is a big problem across the globe.

Plagiarism is basically taking some one's ideas and passing it off as one's own. There are two types of plagiarism - intentional and unintentional. It may seem silly, but people do plagiarise without noticing. This suggests that we have to educate people about plagiarism and how to prevent it.

Schools now are educating students at a young age on plagiarism and how to prevent it. Singapore shows just that. Rulang Primary School is teaching Primary 1 pupils about citation, which is basically citing the source of an idea posted by someone. Such lessons on the gravity on plagiarism has increased over the years.

I absolutely object the idea of plagiarism. Firstly, you are stealing others' creation and calling your own. That is copyright infringement and that is unacceptable. Secondly, you are not using your brain to come up with something. You will soon grow dependent on this kind of unruly behaviour. And even if you unintentionally plagiarise, it is still incorrect. You've been warned.

Next week Mr Lundberg is going to revise the book "Little Ironies - Stories of Singapore". I'd better read up on it.

See you next week with another blog post.

Oh you can look up on this video on plagiarism. It can help you get a better understanding of it.