Creative work by Florencia and Silvina "MY SON THE FANATIC"

By SilFlor | View this Toon at ToonDoo | Create your own Toon

By creating a cartoon we have decided to foreground one of the female characters of “My Son the Fanatic” who plays a passive role in this diasporic narrative. Our main aim is to give Parvez’s wife not only voice but also an identity. It is due to the writer’s subtle characterization of this woman that we have named her Banita which means ‘woman’, ‘lady’, ‘wife’ in the Punjabi language. We have also considered it very important to reveal her inner feelings so as to get to know her personality traits. What's more, the portrayal of the everyday activities that Banita is in charge of, while the main story is being developed, offers us valuable clues about the position that Punjabi women hold in the sphere of family life. Finally, we have placed emphasis on Banita’s struggle to remain loyal to her roots by repeatedly rejecting some aspects of the Western culture. 

Before plunging into the task, we had to carry out a detailed research on the suggested tools. First, we explored the options. After that, we watched some tutorials in order to learn how to use these tools. We chose the one that we found more appealing and immediately started working on our cartoon. Even though we didn’t undergo great difficulties, it took us some time to come up with the final version. Regarding the benefits of this tool, we must say that it stimulated our imagination and developed our creativity. What’s more, we realized that there are many useful tools which may be of great help to engage our future students in an active learning process. 

Bibliography: 

• Punjabi baby girl names starting with B, with meanings | Tamilcube. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://tamilcube.com/babynames/punjabi-baby-names.aspx?baby=g&term=B 
• Punjabis - Introduction, Location, Language, Folklore, Religion, Major holidays, Rites of passage, Relationships, Living conditions. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.everyculture.com/wc/Norway-to-Russia/Punjabis.html 
• Traditional Dresses of Punjab | Traditional Punjabi Attire. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.discoveredindia.com/punjab/culture-in-punjab/arts-and-crafts/traditional-dresses-of-punjab.htm

Creative Writing - Flor Ferreyra, Ailín Madio & Juli Scalerandi.

By jufloai | View this Toon at ToonDoo | Create your own Toon

We chose "My Son The Fanatic" by Hanif Kureishi because we all agreed that it is a particularly interesting story, dealing with thorny isseus such as racial discrimitation, migration, identity and religion, among others. As we are not proficient technology users, the selction of the tool was an arduos task. We inclined ourselves to work with Toondoo because we thought it would be more user friendly than the others, nonetheless we have encountered many difficulties which we were able to sort out successfully. We hope you enjoy our final product.

The first scene we depicted is the one in which Ali goes to the mosque with his belongings in order to donate them to the charity. Here, we can learn about the character's inner thoughts when he says that capitalism has dragged him into materialism, but luckily his faith and the Koran saved him from living a sinful and consumerist life.
In the second cartoon strip, we pictured Parvez and his sinful actions such as smoking and drinking alcohol while wondering whether he has made a mistake as a father that could have pushed Ali into this ardent fanaticism.
In the third strip we portrayed the final scene in the story. In this scene Parvez, feeling absolutely helpless by the situation, hits Ali. Also, we showed Ali's defiant and at the same time victimising attitude asking his father: "So who's the fanatic now?"
In the final strip we included an absent scene that we decided to add to the story in which Ali, unable to put up with his father's sinful attitude, leaves home.

Creative writing: 'My Son the Fanatic' 

by Romina Garnero and Melisa Lecuona

Working process

It was quite simple for us to make a decision with regard to the tool we were going to employ as we wanted to work with one that we had never used before, in order to learn about its use and acquire another tool into our repertoire. Besides, we thought that using a comic strip lent itself to the use of irony, and the fact that we could express the characters’ thoughts and recreate the dialogues easily made us reach the final decision. We have chosen the short story ‘My Son the Fanatic’ by Hanif Kureishi because we found it really interesting and despite its short length it addresses important subjects such as: identity, hybridity, migration, religion, family bonds and roles, loss, assimilation, segregation, among others. After settling the tool (ToonDoo) and the text, we selected four scenes which are determining to the understanding of the plot, though we decided to focus on the thoughts the characters might be having at that moment. The first strip depicts an untold scene, which could be thought of through Parvez’s dialogues with Bettina and his work colleagues. Ali is praying on his mat with all his possessions packed to be given away. We imagined that he could be asking Allah for his father’s salvation. At this point we depicted him as letting his beard grow but not fully and without a taqiyah (the Muslim cap), as he has not revealed his choice yet. The second scene is not told by the narrator but is mentioned in Ali’s dialogue with his father. We focalized our attention on the thoughts each character could be having at that moment, contrasted with what they could be saying. The actual speech was recreated by us. We decided to include Ali’s mother and the divergence between her thoughts and actual speech, though she does not have a voice in the story at all, and she is just mentioned twice as if she had nothing to offer to the story. Thus, this led us to include her to make her a participant, showing in her actual words her submission to her husband while using irony to reveal her thoughts.  

The third and fourth strips show events mentioned by the third person narrator which also include direct speech. In both we have recreated the dialogue except for the final utterance which is taken from the story and is therefore highlighted in a different colour. We decided to keep it as it is because it represents the name of the story and besides changing it would have caused a different effect probably. In these strips Ali’s appearance is changed representing his choice for the Muslim religion and culture and his rejection towards his father’s way of living.

Tool description and conclusion

The use of ToonDoo has proved to be quite simple, even though we faced technical issues when trying to download and see our final product. We believe it is a very useful tool and despite the problems we encountered, everything was solved eventually and we are proud of our achievement. After learning how it is used by clicking and trying different options, we are going to consider this tool for future use in the classroom with our students. 

Reference: Kureishi, Hanif. My Son, the Fanatic. London: Routledge, 1996. Print.

Creative Writing: Wide Sargasso Sea Trailer by Mailén Sagretti and Paula Rossoli

 B) We have created a movie trailer of “Wide Sargasso Sea”. This novel, in particular, was really interesting for us since through it we’ve learned about Bertha Mason’s past. While reading “Jane Eyre” we didn't get to sympathize with Bertha as she was the person who interfered in the lives of Mr. Rochester and Jane. In fact, we hated her character as she was portrayed as a monster, a demon. Yet, Wide Sargasso Sea provided us with an untold story full of mystery, love, cruelty and obsession, among other things that revealed Bertha’s plight and made us feel pity for her. Creating this trailer was a significant and enriching experience for us. Yet, it involved hard work. The first time we got together, we spent a lot of time thinking about suitable characters for our own version. We tried to look for actors and actresses who physically resembled the major characters in the story. After we reached an agreement, we had to make some research regarding films starring the selected celebrities. We concentrated on three movies: “12 Years a Slave”, starring Michael Fassbender (Mr. Rochester), “A Dangerous Method”, starring Keira Knightley (Antoinette) and “Belle” starring, Gugu Mbatha- Raw (Amelie). We haven’t quoted phrases from the novel. Instead, we chose key events in Antoinette’s life and created short phrases briefly describing those moments to create suspense and to fuel the audience’s desire to watch this film. We also used www.imdb.com to gather information about the actors. 

 C) Once we found the movies, we started downloading several scenes to get the ones we needed. To download the videos we used savefrom.net - an online tool. In order to create our trailer we used Windows Movie Maker. We were acquainted with this tool. Still, at times we faced trouble. At first, we didn’t really know how split images from the same film and put them together. The music was another problem. We knew which song we wanted but it was a video file. So in order to convert the video to an mp3 file we used YouTube MP3. Moreover, it was difficult to add the music we wanted because we didn’t know how to get rid of the music from the original video. Thankfully, with a lot of patience, we managed to get it done. Both tools are really useful and somehow easy to use. A great feature of Movie Maker is that it allows you to save the project and continue with it later on. Finally, to cite all the videos chosen for the trailer we used www.easybib.com. A really helpful tool! We hope you enjoy our trailer! We feel really proud of our own production. Dealing with internet tools can be sometimes frustrating and tiresome. Yet, once you have achieved your goal, you feel rewarded and finally realize there’s a new world to explore behind the blackboard and the chalk. 

 Movies and videos: 

Audreyhepburn652. "Jane Eyre (1983)_ The NO- Wedding." YouTube. YouTube, 4 Feb. 2012. Web. 22 Oct. 2014. 
EpicSiyoth. "Sawano Hiroyuki - Destiny." YouTube. YouTube, 28 Feb. 2012. Web. 21 Oct. 2014. . Film Trailers In HD And HQ. "Pride And Prejudice Trailer HD." YouTube. YouTube, 24 Aug. 2009. Web. 21 Oct. 2014. 
FoxSearchlight. "12 YEARS A SLAVE Featurette: "The Cast"" YouTube. YouTube, 05 Nov. 2013. Web. 21 Oct. 2014.
Lionsgate Unlocked. "Shakespeare in Love on Blu-ray - "His Next Masterpiece"" YouTube. YouTube, 3 Feb. 2012. Web. 22 Oct. 2014. 
MOVIES Coming Soon. "Belle Featurette - Gugu Breakout (2014) - Gugu Mbatha-Raw Movie HD." YouTube. YouTube, 28 Apr. 2014. Web. 22 Oct. 2014.
Mrgreen1066. "Roots: Slaves Working in the Fields." YouTube. YouTube, 8 July 2009. Web. 22 Oct. 2014.
Stagnola. "Keira Knightley in King Arthur." YouTube. YouTube, 16 Dec. 2006. Web. 21 Oct. 2014. Steve Delcourte. "A Dangerous Method, Personal Trailer by Steve Delcourte." YouTube. YouTube, 12 June 2012. Web. 22 Oct. 2014. . Taylor Wirth. "10 Days | The Windward Islands | GoPro HD Hero." YouTube. YouTube, 4 Jan. 2013. Web. 22 Oct. 2014.
VISO Trailers. "War Horse - Official Trailer [HD]." YouTube. YouTube, 6 Oct. 2011. Web. 22 Oct. 2014. 

My Son the Fanatic trailer 2014- Lancioni, Panebianco & Prandi

Critical reading and creative writing

A- Trailer for “My Son the Fanatic”

B-  It took us some time to decide which story we were going to work with. We finally selected My son the fanatic. We first selected the parts of the story we were going to include and then we agreed on three famous actors to carry out our film, which were Irrfan Khan (as Parvez), Dev Patel (as Ali) and Natalie Portman (as Bettina). Then, we made a research on which films these actors made in order to take some scenes from them (“Slumdog Millonaire”, “Closer”, “The Reluctant Fundamentalist”, etc). We had some inconvenience when finding the same actor performing different activities, for example, in finding Dev Patel playing football, cricket, studying, etc but we more or less managed to look for other films in which there were similar actors or at least they were not clearly seen.

In connection with the trailer itself, first we show Parvez’ s and Ali’s lifestyles in English society. Parvez portrayed as a Pakistani taxi driver, alcoholic person and a tolerant Muslim. His wife does the ironing and Parvez has intimate conversations with his close friend, Bettina. His son Ali plays cricket, football and studies hard. Then, Parvez’s life takes an unexpected dark turn when his son Ali converts to fundamentalist Islam, leading to a family breakdown and social conflict. We quote some phrases from the story to show a serious conversation between Parvez and Ali discussing about religion and their roles English society. Last, we include a violent scene between father and son and the final words of the story which are “Who’s the fanatic now?”. In this way we want to anticipate that the story begins just there whith Ali’s words.

As regards the bibliography used, we have taken some sentences in direct speech from the story “My Son the Fanatic” such as “We are not in the village now. We are in England. We have to fit in!”//“You’re too implicated in Western civilization”// “You musn’t give up on him”,  images from “Google images” and scenes from the films mentioned above. We used www.imdb.com to get informatin about the films in which the actors chosen have performed.

C- We took those videos from Youtube and we downloaded them with JDownloader in an mp4 format for better quality. We chose a muslim music and some film sounds to add to our trailer. In order to make it, we used Windows movie maker, which is quite simple and easy to use.

Tatiana, Guillermina, Angela

Loverboys (by Lu and Agus)

B- This cartoon stands for the break up scene in Castillo’s Loverboys that has deeply affected the main character of the story. We believe it represents the writer’s intention and  the whole story: it is about love and its universality, everyone can feel identified with a love story in spite of their believes, age and sexual orientation.

We have chosen to represent both the characters thoughts and her actual words as the writer does in the story Loverboys to illustrate the narrative techniques Castillo uses (free direct speech, spontaneous and dialogic narrative).

The first part of this comic strip is set at the character’s bar, the place where she met her loverboy, so as to represent that even though she was leaving him, she wanted him to stay. The second picture illustrates his departure. The background shows how they took different paths, but her position portrays her desire for him to come back and the fact that she isn’t over him. This idea is emphasized by the loverboy as a shadow of the past that is still present in her mind and heart. Finally, we see her drinking to forget him which is completely useless because she’s still torturing herself with her memories.

C- Fortunately, we haven’t faced any major technical problems. Toondoo proved to be simple and very easy to use. Moreover, it has allowed us to create a cartoon which we couldn’t have invented otherwise because of our limited drawing capacity.

Wide Sargasso Sea - Trailer (by Andrea Sanchez and Ma.Laura Straface)

We have decided to create a trailer of Wide Sargasso Sea. The rationale behind our choice is that we’ve really enjoyed reading it since Rhys offers an alternative explanation of Bertha’s madness  (Jane Eyre). What we’ve liked the most about Wide Sargasso Sea is that it gives voice to the Other. It isn't just a prequel. It’s the epitome of writing back to the Empire. Moreover, we consider that it has many important themes that can be fully exploited in a trailer. We watched the BBC adaptation of Wide Sargasso Sea some time ago and we noticed that several scenes portraying significant events of the novel were missing, such as Antoinette’s traumatic childhood, which, in our opinion, is essential to understand her struggle for identity. In our trailer, we’ve tried to prove that our imaginary film version of Wide Sargasso Sea is more complete than the BBC version since it shows the most important features and themes of the novel. To achieve our aim, we’ve carried out research on different movies, documentaries and videos looking for visual content that could help us match those parts from Wide Sargasso Sea that we had previously selected. We’ve looked for scenes in period movies so as to find a couple with Antoinette and Rochester’s characteristics and also scenes from slavery movies in order to depict Antoinette’s past as a child. We’ve joined all these scenes together to create our trailer.

As regards our textual strategy, we’ve selected different quotations from some of the main characters to match each of the different chosen parts of the trailer. To make it more vivid, we’ve used different text-to-speech converters so as to be able to convert the characters’ quotations into natural sounding voices.  Furthermore, in order to give our trailer a proper format we’ve written some lines to sum up what the movie is about and we’ve chosen a distinctive voice to read these lines aloud.  This audio strategy has been extremely helpful because we believe that when watching the trailer the viewer can immediately differentiate the characters’ voices from the voice-over. We’ve done extensive research on this since there are many text-to-speech converters that offer kind of “robotic” voices and our aim was to give our trailer a realistic look.

What’s been really challenging is that, as we mentioned before, there is already a film version of Wide Sargasso Sea but we couldn’t use any scenes from it and we didn’t want to use any pictures either. Therefore, this has given us much scope for creativity. 

Technical comment

In order to join all the movie scenes together we’ve worked with 'Cyberlink Power Director'- professional video editing software. The advantage of it is that it allows you to cut different movies scenes, join them together, and add transitions, effects, music and text. We’ve cut the different scenes we selected from movies, documentaries and videos and we’ve added them to our ‘Cyberlink Power Director’ project. As regards the audio, we’ve recorded the quotations and voice-over (previously converted into audio with different text-to-speech software) with Windows Sound Recorder. We’ve added the recordings to our project together with the scenes. We’ve also added the names of the actors and actresses so as to resemble a real trailer. Finally, we’ve added suspenseful music to create tension.

We really hope that our trailer looks as real as possible since that was our major aim from the very beginning.

Video editing software:

Cyberlink Power Director

Text-to-Speech converters:

http://www.naturalreaders.com/

http://www.oddcast.com/home/demos/tts/tts_example.php?sitepal

http://www.ivona.com

Movies, videos and documentaries:

Bianco E Nero. Dir. Cristina Comencini. Perf. Fabio Volo, Ambra Angiolini, Aïssa Maïga. 01 Distribution, 2008. DVD.

Masterpiece Classic: Wuthering Heights. Dir. Coky Giedroyc. Perf. Charlotte Riley, Tom Hardy, Andrew Lincoln. PBS, 2009. DVD.

Tula: The Revolt. Dir. Jeroen Leinders. Perf. Danny Glover, Jeroen Krabbé, Deobia Oparei. Fisheye Feature Films, 2013. DVD.

12 Years a Slave. Dir. Steve McQueen. Perf. Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Kenneth Williams, Fox Searchlight Pictures, 2013. DVD.
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, by Anne Bronte. Dir. Mike Barker. Perf. Toby Stephens, Tara Fitzgerald, Rupert Graves. BBC, 1996. DVD.

The Glass Virgin. Dir. Sarah Hellings. Perf. Jan Graveson, Christine Kavanagh, Brendan Coyle. Festival Films, 1995. DVD.

Slavery in Jamaica-Documentary. Dir. Georgina Harvey. BBC, 2005. DVD.

Witches-Documentary. Prod. Michelle Thibeault. Film Roos, 1996. A&E.

H. Kist. "Bill Viola - Fire Woman (2005)." YouTube. YouTube, 10 May 2014. Web. 07 Oct. 2014.

Clarisa & Paula's ToonDoo: "The Loverboy Writes Back"

The loverboy writes back by ppauorozco | Make your own at www.toondoo.com

Mourning in To The Lighthouse

In 2011, Laura Filiputti wrote this post in connection with the topic

I was just re reading chapter 6 (or 7, depends on the copy) of To the Lighthouse and I remembered we discussed Grief and how the death of Mrs. Ramsay had  affected the Ramsays and Lily.
This is actually a transcript from Grey's Anatomy which has, what I believe to be, a very accurate description of how one feels towards grief and losing someone. I think that the different stages presented here can be traced back to Lily in particular and how she feels towards Mrs. Ramsay's death.
Hope you like it and find it useful!

According to Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, when we're dying or have suffered a catastrophic loss, we all move through five distinct stages of grief. We go into denial because the loss is so unthinkable we can’t imagine it’s true. We become angry with everyone, angry with survivors, angry with ourselves. Then we bargain. We beg. We plead. We offer everything we have, we offer our souls in exchange for just one more day. When the bargaining has failed and the anger is too hard to maintain, we fall into depression, despair, until finally we have to accept that we’ve done everything we can. We let go. We let go and move into acceptance.
The dictionary defines grief as keen mental suffering or
distress over affliction or loss.
Sharp sorrow, painful regret.
As surgeons, as scientists, we're taught to learn from and
rely on books, on definitions, on definitives.
But in life, strict definitions rarely apply.
In life, grief can look like a lot of things that bear little
resemblance to sharp sorrow.
Grief may be a thing we all have in common,
but it looks different on everyone..
It isn't just death we have to grieve, it's life, it's loss,
it's change...
And when we wonder why it has to suck so much sometimes,
has to hurt so bad, the thing we gotta try to remember is
that it can turn on a dime...
That's how you stay alive. When it hurts so much you can't
breathe. That's how you survive...
By remembering that one day, somehow, impossibly, you
won't feel this way. It won't hurt this much...
Grief comes in it's own time for everyone.
In it's own way...
So the best we can do, best anyone can do, is try
for honesty...
The really crappy thing, the very worst part of grief,
is that you can't control it...
The best we can do is try to let ourselves feel it, when
it comes...
And let it go when we can...
The very worst part is that the minute you think you're
past it, it starts all over again...
And always, everytime, it takes your breath away...
There are five stages of grief.
They look different on all of us.
But there are always five...
Denial...
Anger...
Bargaining...
Depression...
Acceptance...

Art in the 19th and early 20th century

The term Impressionism derives from Claude Monet's painting "Impression Sunrise" (1872)

You can read an interesting chronology of this movement and look at some paintings here.

For an overview of French painting in the 19th century, go to the USA National Gallery of Art, where you will also find a discussion of Post-Impressionism.

Post-Impressionism can be exemplified by Georges Seurat's "The Lighthouse at Honfleur" (1886)

Cubism started in Paris in 1908, reached its peak in 1914, and continued into the 20's. Watch this slideshow of works at the London Tate Gallery for an explanation of its features or read this discussion of its features

Picasso's "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" (1907) forecasts the new style.

Virginia Woolf dates the change in "human nature" to December 1910, when the first exhibition of French Post-Impressionist and Cubist painting took place in London.

Can you suggest what elements  you can find in common with modernism?

This is an optional activity.

Life in the UK

Extract from

Scenes of a Sexual Nature (2006) 

Unfortunately, really poor subtitles

Essays

You will find below a link to the essays already published in Goodreads.

Do take the time to stop by and read them, and if you do, leave a comment. You will be surprised by the wide range of approaches.

If your essay is not finished, try to complete your work soon. If I told you it was ready and your name is not included, let me know as soon as you publish your essay so as to add it.

Agustina

Andrea

Clarisa

Florencia B.

Florencia F.

Guillermina

Julieta

Lucía

Mailén

Melisa

María Laura

Paula  O

Paula R.

Romina

Silvina

Tatiana

From Shakespeare to the Absurd

Watch this clip from the film version of Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead

 What differences can you find with Hamlet?

Can you find any similarities with this clip?

Shakespeare's contemporary quotes

Shakespeare round-up

Watch this panel discussion held earlier this year in Germany, organised by the British Council.

What ideas do you find most striking? Why? Do they make you reconsider the conclusions in your digital posters? 

Make a very brief comment in the Padlet below (please indicate your name). Just double click and start writing. It's probably better to click on the link and open the poster in a new tab.

Created with Padlet

Finally, think back on the digital posters and presentations and the activity above. Would you say this has been a meaningful learning experience? What would you change to improve it?

Post a comment in this Padlet. It's probably better to click on the link and open the poster in a new tab.

Created with Padlet

Shakespeare, our contemporary?

Here is our glog! What we wanted to illustrate, as many of us, was the fact that Shakespeare is still our contemporary. One of the many reasons for this is the fact that his themes are timeless. No matter our age or where we are, we all feel attracted to topics such as thwarted or impossible love, fear of death, betrayal, jelousy, ambition, revenge. The relevance of these themes, and therefore of Shakespeare, has been reflected on the many films based both on Shakespeare's storylines and on these topics in particular. This glog presents some of the previously mentioned films as a proof of how appealing Shakespeare is. Hope you enjoy it!

Shakespeare, our contemporary?

Through our glog we aimed to represent visually how Shakespeare is present in our everyday lives. The English language owes a lot to him as tons of words were put into use because of their appearance in his plays - some of them being borrowings and others his own creation. We use the English language on a daily basis without realising that much of what we are saying is due to his brilliance. Even some proverbs and entire phrases or part of his soliloquys are employed as part of our everyday speech. Besides, there are plenty of songs based on his masterpieces; and appart from that, a large number of films have been made out of his plays or taking some aspects of them. Shakespeare is also present worldwide in places such as Stratford-upon-Avon, where his own house as well as his wife's cottage are open to the public as tourist attractions, and Verona where you can find Juliet's balcony and where couples from all over the world go to make their vows and promise eternal love as Romeo and Juliet do in the play. What makes Shakespeare our contemporary is the universality of the themes and values he depicts in his plays: love in all its forms, lust, appearance and reality, ambition, loyalty, order and disorder, identity, death and illness, good and evil, among others. It is impossible not to feel identified with some of his characters; and this is where his genius lies: he gave his characters and plays in general a universal appeal. ROMINA, AILÍN AND MELISA.

Shakespeare, the Bard of England!

SHAKESPEARE, THE BARD OF ENGLAND!

As most of us in our class, we wanted to show that as Ben Jonson (1572-1637) once said `Shakespeare was not of an age but for all time’. We concentrated on whether we should deal or not with Shakespeare’s works in the classroom. We found two main reasons. On the one hand, we believe that Shakespeare is still popular and famous since his stories are universally constant what means that they appeal to us despite the many years that separate us from him. With our glogster, we proved that Shakespeare is still present everywhere both in our daily lives and in fiction, as Disney’s movies depict. On the other hand,Shakespeare has created a lot of the English we use today. Even though, sometimes even we are not aware of that he has contributed a lot of new words and phrases to the English language.Finally, as a conclusion we chose to add a video which explains in a more academic language why and how we should work with Shakespeare’s works. We hope you enjoy it! Florencia and Julieta.

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aA9TpJquRA

IS SHAKESPEARE MODERN? (by Angela Panebianco and Guillermina Lancioni)

IS SHAKESPEARE MODERN? (click on title to access)

Nearly 400 years have passed since Shakespeare's death, and he is still present in our lives, for instance, in marketing and advertising, in the film industry, in language and in the most significant of all, THE ARTS. For this reason, we designed this Glogster to honour his significant influence on modern life and his enormous contribution to society of all times.
We hope you enjoy it!

Is Shakespeare Our Contemporary? By Mailen & Paula

Based on major global interpersonal and intrapersonal conflicts, Shakespeare’s plays and poems constitute a valuable source of input for modern worldwide film industries. Universal, appealing and relevant to human beings, the central themes – sorrow, loyalty, revelry, love, treason, death and fate – underlying the Bard’s works are still consumed by 21st century audiences. Our craving for well developed and tragic plots clearly reveals Shakespeare’s immortality. Beyond doubt, the bard is our faithful contemporary.

Shakespeare by Bianco - Bordigoni

More than four hundred years have passed, and our beloved William Shakespeare is still a literary icon. He has left us an enduring legacy not only of works of literature with memorable characters and compelling plots, but also of famous expressions and a unique writing style.

Shakespeare Presentation

Here is our Prezi presentation! We wanted to highlight that in spite of being dead for 450 years Shakespeare's still our contemporary... Even when his writing style is complex, the Magazine shows students' engagement with his plays. Apart from that concrete proof that after 450 years he's still alive, we included a useful site that can make our reading pleasant or at least manageable. Hope you enjoy the Prezi and find it useful! Tatiana, Lucia & Paula

Presentation "Long Live the Bard"

In my presentation I wanted to prove that Shakespeare has enduring appeal and that his influence goes beyond literature. Therefore, I looked for some pictures and videos that show William and his extraordinary work are part of our ordinary life.

In this post you can see the poster I've used to present my talk. I will include the link to Glogster and, since my Edu Glogster is about to expire; I will include the links for the websites I mentioned: 

Glogster: http://clarisaf.edu.glogster.com/long-live-the-bard

Adds: http://transmedialshakespeare.wordpress.com/2011/03/15/shakespeare-in-advertising-2/

Songs: http://www.pastemagazine.com/blogs/lists/2012/04/10-great-shakespeare-inspired-songs.html

Video: http://youtu.be/0mlulJ7hrHY

Hope you enjoy it!

4 Shakespeare plays on screen (by Andrea Sánchez and Ma.Laura Straface)

The rationale behind our digital poster is to prove that Shakespeare is still contemporary. He is alive in popular culture even nowadays. So as to show this idea, we’ve decided to work with different films.

We’ve chosen 4 plays and we’ve concentrated on different movie scenes related to each play. We’ve also added some modern movie scenes that have been inspired by Shakespeare. Overall, it seems to us that Shakespeare’s themes will never be outdated that’s why we can still find so many modern movies that include  Shakespeare’s themes, plots, dialogues, etc. 

It’s also worth mentioning that in the case of Hamlet, we have chosen different relevant scenes from each film version and we’ve joined them together into one single video in order to show a clear comparison among them. 

http://www.glogster.com/andysanders/4-shakespeare-s-plays-on-screen/g-6k102k4hm006u0t89l2s7is

If you want to watch the videos just click on the link below the image. Once there, scroll to the bottom of the poster and change to HTML5 view (videos load faster in this way)

The Sun celebrates

From The Guardian

The Sun has published one of its best educational spreads today to mark the 450th anniversary of William Shakespeare's birthday: "Happy Bard Day".
It was written by the paper's managing editor (and former Press Complaints Commission director), Stig Abell, who recently spent his tube journeys to work each day reading every one of Shakespeare's plays.
His knowledge has paid off. The pages contain summaries of all 37 plays plus some amusing spoof front pages created by John Perry, the man responsible for the paper's take on history, Hold Ye Front Page (see here and here).
Arguably the best of them is the one about Hamlet: "Massacre at the palace: Claudius killed, Queen poisoned. Hamlet and Laertes dead too." The pay-off is a gem: "Alas poor Yorick - skull found."
Missing from the spread, however, is that famous opening line to a verse in Cymbeline: "Fear no more the heat o' the Sun".
It would have been an apt comment on the paper's less hard-edged approach to the world of late.

Follow Mariel Amez's board The Sun Celebrates on Pinterest.

The Royal Shakespeare Company celebrated with fireworks

#Cakespeare

Other ways of celebrating Shakespeare's Birthday!

The V&A wants to celebrate the big day with a fabulous birthday cake. We would like you to design, make and decorate a cake inspired by the Bard. We need to you to muster all of your culinary and design skills to come up with a fairy cake fit for Titania, or a sinfully decadent cream cake that would make Falstaff swoon. Upload your entries to Twitter or Instagram using the hashtag #Cakespeare. The winner will be announced on 7 May.

Watch out for the results!

Follow Victoria and Albert Museum's board #Cakespeare on Pinterest.

Hamlet on screen

There are probably countless film versions of Hamlet, ranging from the one starring Sir Laurence Olivier (1948)





to the one with Kenneth Brannagh (1996) 






 Next Saturday 26th Film and Arts is airing a version featuring Ethan Hawke (2000)

 

 It has met with highly mixed  reviews

 It can be a good idea to compare these five different renderings of the (perhaps) most famous soliloquy in drama. There are some questions to help you in the video itself. You can also compare the video from Hamlet la Metamorfosis available in the previous post

Hamlet

In order to celebrate Shakespeare's 450th birthday we are going to start the year reading Hamlet.

Try to get  an edition that is rich in explanatory notes (eg Longman Shakespeare, Cambridge School Shakespeare or many others)

As you read, you will make comments in the Goodreads group. Click on the link on the right-hand side menu to join (you will need an account, which is free).

If you have trouble finding a copy, you can start with Open Source Shakespeare .

"Hamlet la Metamorfosis" from Shakespeare Argentina on Vimeo.

Shakespeare's birthday

2014 marks the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth. But if we are only as old as we feel, can we say that Shakespeare is old?

You will find below a list of resources. They include audio, video, images and text. Take your time to explore them.

Then, in groups of 2 or 3, design a digital poster in which you bring together some items that you find particularly meaningful, on the theme "Is Shakespeare our contemporary?". Prepare a short speech (five minutes) in which you account for your choices and final design.
(Some options for a digital poster are Glogster, Tackk and Mural.ly. See some tutorials in Spanish. But of course you can choose another tool.)


Open Source Shakespeare attempts to be the best free Web site containing Shakespeare's complete works. It is intended for scholars, thespians, and Shakespeare lovers of every kind. OSS includes the 1864 Globe Edition of the complete works, which was the definitive single-volume Shakespeare edition for over a half-century.

Approaching Shakespeare  (Podcasts) Each lecture in this series focuses on a single play by Shakespeare, and employs a range of different approaches to try to understand a central critical question about it.

Royal Shakespeare Company resources

Shakespeare in 100 Objects

Shakespeare and Music

Shakespeare’s Villains

Words Shakespeare Invented

Shakespeare: A Worldwide Classroom

Global Shakespeares Video & Performance Archive a collaborative project providing online access to performances of Shakespeare from many parts of the world as well as essays and metadata by scholars and educators in the field.
Shakespeare in American Life Includes lesson plans, podcasts, videos and articles.

Earlier this year the British Council Germany held  a seminar entitled "Shakespeare - Our Contemporary?". See a brief summary below. If you are interested, you can watch all - or some of - the lectures