- Yes students - as so many of you are caught up in the elections the final date for your final Beckett essay is on Thursday Feb 9th. You must place a typed hard copy in my hand, no excuses please, this is a generous extension.
- There will be a special Saturday English Class on February 11th from 10am to 12.40pm
Tuesday, 31 January 2012
HARDCOPY TYPED -FINAL BECKETT ESSAY DUE ON SATURDAY 11TH - EXTRA CLASS ON SAT 11TH FEB
Friday, 27 January 2012
Alternative Essay title for Eng Essay on Beckett - Discuss the elements of Existential Philosophy in "Waiting for Godot".
Dear students - some SL and some HL students have asked for a second choice of essay on Beckett's "Waiting for Godot". So here is a second option, if you are finding the original essay beyond your reach you may submit a hard copy of this essay on Monday. Students must bring an essay to class in hardcopy form and be prepared to share and discuss with your peers. This will be considered a working draft - not finished but in paragraphs and not simply bullet points.
Here are some sources to help you explore the human condition from an existential point of view. Read, digest, reflect and respond imaginatively to the text with you personal voice. Do not simply summarise, this is not sufficient especially for HL students. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existentialism also ......... http://www.philosophyparadise.com/essays/waitingforgodot.html
Here are some sources to help you explore the human condition from an existential point of view. Read, digest, reflect and respond imaginatively to the text with you personal voice. Do not simply summarise, this is not sufficient especially for HL students. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existentialism also ......... http://www.philosophyparadise.com/essays/waitingforgodot.html
Tuesday, 24 January 2012
GODOT ESSAY DRAFT
Background
note on ‘Waiting for Godot’.
Essay on Waiting for Godot (by Michael Sinclair)
The purpose of human life is an
unanswerable question. It seems impossible to find an answer because we don't
know where to begin looking or whom to ask. Existence, to us, seems to be
something imposed upon us by an unknown force. There is no apparent meaning to
it, and yet we suffer as a result of it. The world seems utterly chaotic. We
therefore try to impose meaning on it through pattern and fabricated purposes
to distract ourselves from the fact that our situation is hopelessly
unfathomable. "Waiting for Godot" is a play that captures this
feeling and view of the world, and characterizes it with archetypes that
symbolize humanity and its behaviour when faced with this knowledge. According
to the play, a human being's life is totally dependant on chance, and, by
extension, time is meaningless; therefore, a human's life is also meaningless,
and the realization of this drives humans to rely on nebulous, outside forces,
which may be real or not, for order and direction.
QUESTION
FOR GRADE X1 STUDENTS – ESSAY – finish as homework and email me by Sunday
evening. 1000-1500 words. (Towards Quarter Grade.) SL - 750-1000 WORDS
“Though it seems as if nothing important happens in the play,
actions by actors play an important role in "Waiting for Godot".
The stage directions constitute nearly half of the text. This suggests that actions, expressions and emotions of the actors are as important as the dialogue in the text.”
Examine the stage directions of the opening scene or any scene of the play. How does this approach to the text help us understand the difference between reading a play alone and staging a play as a performance on stage for an audience? How significant are actions ‘struggling with his boot’, ‘exchanging hats’,’looking inside the hat’ in communicating Beckett’s vision.
(You may refer to other scenes in the play for comparison if you wish. You are recommended to watch the film of 'Godot' on my blog at the weekend while you read the play, This will help you see the stage directions in practice.)
The stage directions constitute nearly half of the text. This suggests that actions, expressions and emotions of the actors are as important as the dialogue in the text.”
Examine the stage directions of the opening scene or any scene of the play. How does this approach to the text help us understand the difference between reading a play alone and staging a play as a performance on stage for an audience? How significant are actions ‘struggling with his boot’, ‘exchanging hats’,’looking inside the hat’ in communicating Beckett’s vision.
(You may refer to other scenes in the play for comparison if you wish. You are recommended to watch the film of 'Godot' on my blog at the weekend while you read the play, This will help you see the stage directions in practice.)
Monday, 23 January 2012
MR.C.'s TOK Blog: GRADE X1 STUDENT COUNCIL INFORMATION MEETING WED B...
MR.C.'s TOK Blog: GRADE X1 STUDENT COUNCIL INFORMATION MEETING WED B...: EXCOM Student Council Nomination Form BD SOMANI INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL MUMBAI I, (Print your name and Grade here) _______...
Sunday, 22 January 2012
AudioSlave- Be Yourself Lyrics - rely on yourself, be a good person, do not wait for "Godot" or any saviour... live your life well
EXISTENTIALISM suggests that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject—not merely the
thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual.[4]
In existentialism, the individual's starting point is characterized by
what has been called "the existential attitude", or a sense of
disorientation and confusion in the face of an apparently meaningless or
absurd world.[5]
Many existentialists have also regarded traditional systematic or
academic philosophies, in both style and content, as too abstract and
remote from concrete human experience. (source Wikipedia) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existentialism
HAPPY Republic Day this week to all my students! Essay now due on Monday Jan 30th
- First draft of Godot Essay will be now be due in hard copy form on Monday Jan 30th. This is a small demonstration of my respect for Republic Day and your right to enjoy Thursday as a special day for all Indian people.
- I am looking for volunteers to read their drafts in class on Monday and Tuesday 30th and 31st.
- This extension is also to allow more time for the independent study of the resources on the blog, a class discussion next week and then a final essay to be completed by Monday 6th February.
- These dates also recognise that students should not have to study on India's Republic Day, and I wish you a happy day with family and friends :)
WAITING FOR GODOT : The Movie - Theatrical Trailer (Parody)
Student made parody based on a nightmare scenario, 'what if Hollywood decided to film "Godot" as a blockbuster with the usual over the top movie trailer?" This is gentle mockery of Hollywood, not Beckett!
Saturday, 21 January 2012
IOPS RESUME - LIST OF SPEAKERS as updated last week in class.
MONDAY SPEAKERS -ROHAN and KANIEL; RHEA M and RHEA K according to my notes.
PLS EMAIL ME TO CONFIRM.
SL STUDENTS PLS EMAIL ME IF YOU WERE DUE TO SPEAK ON THURSDAY TO CONFIRM YOU ARE SPEAKING ON MONDAY.
SO WE JUST CARRY ON WITH THE LIST WE UPDATED IN CLASS AFTER NEW YEAR. THAT IS WHY WE UPDATED IT :)
PLS EMAIL ME TO CONFIRM.
SL STUDENTS PLS EMAIL ME IF YOU WERE DUE TO SPEAK ON THURSDAY TO CONFIRM YOU ARE SPEAKING ON MONDAY.
SO WE JUST CARRY ON WITH THE LIST WE UPDATED IN CLASS AFTER NEW YEAR. THAT IS WHY WE UPDATED IT :)
Friday, 20 January 2012
Beckett Essay Due Thursday 26th Jan
Hi everyone -
I got a nasty cold/flu, but getting better and will see you Monday. As you have Sports Day tomorrow, please note the deadline for the Beckett essay is now Thursday.
Best wishes
Mr C
I got a nasty cold/flu, but getting better and will see you Monday. As you have Sports Day tomorrow, please note the deadline for the Beckett essay is now Thursday.
Best wishes
Mr C
Thursday, 19 January 2012
Samuel Beckett - An Outsider in His Own Life
An Outsider in His Own Life
From the beginning, Samuel Beckett's sense of utter isolation was profound
It's not hard to guess why Samuel Beckett's latest biographer, Anthony Cronin, portrays him as ''the last modernist.'' When ''Waiting for Godot'' opened in London in 1955, Kenneth Tynan remarked, ''It has no plot, no climax, no denouement; no beginning, no middle and no end.'' If modernism liberated the writer from conventional storytelling and ordinary psychology, Beckett's novels and plays took modernism just as far as it could go. But ''Godot'' was an evening's entertainment compared with what followed. Like the anorexic sculptures of his friend Giacometti, Beckett's work grew ever more austere and minimal, halting at the point of disappearance while retaining much of its hypnotic power. Like the man himself, whose gaunt figure, courteous mien and aversion to publicity became legendary, Beckett's writing took literature as close to silence as we can imagine.
Though Beckett lived until 1989, he belongs chronologically (and spiritually) to a much earlier era. Born in 1906, he fits in easily with writers like Vladimir Nabokov, William Faulkner, Henry Miller, Witold Gombrowicz, Henry Roth, Nathanael West and Louis-Ferdinand Celine. They were all second-generation modernists who arrived on the scene in the late 20's or early 30's, shortly after Eliot, Joyce, Kafka and Proust had written their major works. Caught between the anxieties of influence and the uncertainties of political and economic crisis, they turned toward a dark, acrid and mocking humor that became one of the great literary vehicles of the Depression years.
Beckett seemed to be the last of this generation, not only because he carried on so long but also because he was late in finding his own voice. It was not until after the war that he made his wholly original synthesis of Proust's explorations of memory, Joyce's linguistic virtuosity and learned whimsy, the Surrealists' fascination with dream logic and Eliot's and Kafka's profound sense of sterility and blockage. These writers were in the air in 1928, when Beckett arrived in Paris and quickly attached himself to the circle around Joyce and Eugene Jolas's avant-garde magazine, Transition. The elements of Beckett's vision could already be found in his grim little 1931 book on Proust, where he evoked the deadening effect of habit as the only defense against time and mortality. He arrived early at an extremely bleak view of life and a sense of the peculiarity of his own detached and morbid temperament. But the fiction and poetry that followed were too cerebral and, at the same time, too directly autobiographical to make much of an impact. He probably accumulated more publishers' rejections than any other great 20th-century writer. Had Beckett died by 1945, like some of his colleagues in the French Resistance, his early work would have been among the minor curiosities of Irish literature.
http://www.samuel-beckett.net/outsider.html
By MORRIS DICKSTEIN
From the beginning, Samuel Beckett's sense of utter isolation was profound
It's not hard to guess why Samuel Beckett's latest biographer, Anthony Cronin, portrays him as ''the last modernist.'' When ''Waiting for Godot'' opened in London in 1955, Kenneth Tynan remarked, ''It has no plot, no climax, no denouement; no beginning, no middle and no end.'' If modernism liberated the writer from conventional storytelling and ordinary psychology, Beckett's novels and plays took modernism just as far as it could go. But ''Godot'' was an evening's entertainment compared with what followed. Like the anorexic sculptures of his friend Giacometti, Beckett's work grew ever more austere and minimal, halting at the point of disappearance while retaining much of its hypnotic power. Like the man himself, whose gaunt figure, courteous mien and aversion to publicity became legendary, Beckett's writing took literature as close to silence as we can imagine.
Though Beckett lived until 1989, he belongs chronologically (and spiritually) to a much earlier era. Born in 1906, he fits in easily with writers like Vladimir Nabokov, William Faulkner, Henry Miller, Witold Gombrowicz, Henry Roth, Nathanael West and Louis-Ferdinand Celine. They were all second-generation modernists who arrived on the scene in the late 20's or early 30's, shortly after Eliot, Joyce, Kafka and Proust had written their major works. Caught between the anxieties of influence and the uncertainties of political and economic crisis, they turned toward a dark, acrid and mocking humor that became one of the great literary vehicles of the Depression years.
Beckett seemed to be the last of this generation, not only because he carried on so long but also because he was late in finding his own voice. It was not until after the war that he made his wholly original synthesis of Proust's explorations of memory, Joyce's linguistic virtuosity and learned whimsy, the Surrealists' fascination with dream logic and Eliot's and Kafka's profound sense of sterility and blockage. These writers were in the air in 1928, when Beckett arrived in Paris and quickly attached himself to the circle around Joyce and Eugene Jolas's avant-garde magazine, Transition. The elements of Beckett's vision could already be found in his grim little 1931 book on Proust, where he evoked the deadening effect of habit as the only defense against time and mortality. He arrived early at an extremely bleak view of life and a sense of the peculiarity of his own detached and morbid temperament. But the fiction and poetry that followed were too cerebral and, at the same time, too directly autobiographical to make much of an impact. He probably accumulated more publishers' rejections than any other great 20th-century writer. Had Beckett died by 1945, like some of his colleagues in the French Resistance, his early work would have been among the minor curiosities of Irish literature.
http://www.samuel-beckett.net/outsider.html
Friday, 13 January 2012
Sorry I missed lecture in Colaba was helping Grade 12 students.....
Hi Students - so sorry I did not make it as many Grade X 12 students
turned up in Room 9 for help with their final TOK presentations and
essays. I could not say no to them. They were eager for advice and I did
not finish with them until 6pm. So sorry as I wanted to enjoy the
experience of the lecture with you all. Please post here and let me know
if it was good. Thanks.
Thursday, 12 January 2012
Wednesday, 11 January 2012
THE GUARDIAN BOOKCLUB ONLINE- what is the academic discourse?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/series/bookclub
A key resource for students who wish to improve their writing style, reading book reviews and some of the books featured is a way to join the academic discourse. Find out more about Professor John Mullan and Terry Eagleton, two important contemporary critics on Postmodernism.
A key resource for students who wish to improve their writing style, reading book reviews and some of the books featured is a way to join the academic discourse. Find out more about Professor John Mullan and Terry Eagleton, two important contemporary critics on Postmodernism.
Tuesday, 10 January 2012
Monday, 9 January 2012
Mr. C.'s IB English Blog: IB REPORT ON GRADES -percentages of 7s per subject...
Mr. C.'s IB English Blog: IB REPORT ON GRADES -percentages of 7s per subject...: http://ibo.org/newsletter_recognition/march_2006/articletwo/ Click on this link to read an IB report on Grades in 2006. Don't worry...
Saturday, 7 January 2012
Don't forget you need Beckett's 'Waiting for Godot' text in class
Getting ready? Great! Pack Samuel Beckett for this week! No IOPs this week - they start next week Monday 16th. Looking forward to seeing you all tomorrow - Happy New Year!
Wednesday, 4 January 2012
IOPS Update -resuming Monday week Jan 16th
- Dear students - in fairness to everyone I will wait until the second week of school to resume the orals.
- The first week back students will be reading "Waiting for Godot" so bring a copy of the play with you to school.
- In class we will update the order of speakers together based on the original lottery list - I will then post the new dates and student list on the blog, once we have finalised it together.
Monday, 2 January 2012
Happy New Year to one and all!
- Best wishes to all of Grade X1 and your families.
- Thanks for emails and messages sent and sorry if you did not get a reply as I am still marking the 200,000 words of scripts on my desk and in my laptop. However, the quality of the work on Paper 1 was very good and I am very pleased with all the essays I have read so far.
- Sorry we are not allowed to give individual grades before the reports are sent but I am really impressed by you. Truly a great group of students, perhaps the best I have ever taught.
- Monday we will start with "Waiting for Godot" - please read it and watch the film on this blog. It's different and 'slow', the action is intellectual and not in events in the play. Nothing happens! So what is going on?
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