Welcome

Hello you have reached David Loffman's teaching blog.

This blog is set up for the the students I teach.

You can use this blog to see class notes

to follow up ideas and clarify concepts or topics covered in class

to remind yourself of homework tasks and deadlines

to learn about specific study skills such as summary or note taking

to look at topics in detail

Please let me know how I can improve this blog.

To find posts that are relevant to the course you are studying you need to look to the top right column next to this post. Under the heading Labels click on the course title. All the posts relevant to your course will appear. The most recent first. If you are looking for an older post, then click on Older posts and more will appear.

Reading Journal Notes

IB READING JOURNAL

“A reading journal is a place where you should be noting your thoughts and impressions during your act of reading. It will help you to build up your own stock of ideas on a given text.”

I suggest you start a new section of the text on a new page.

You should reflect and comment on any aspect of the text that draws your attention and you should write as much as you like.  Treat the journal as an opportunity to jot down ideas, experiment and test out thoughts.

Your reflections ought to comment on such things as plot, structure, characterisation, setting, language, themes, etc

Genre – in drama you must consider stage directions, dramatic techniques, dialogue, symbolism, contrasts, costumes etc

Context – consider where and when the play was first performed, the relevant political, economic, ideological, cultural influences of that period etc. As important you must also consider the relevant contextual factors of the present society in which you are reading the text. For example evaluate the attitudes and assumptions made about Blanche’s husband in the play and how these have changed and developed in today’s society.   

Literary context - how has the literary establishment responded to this text? Consider how this has changed over time.

But really you should just read and respond to the text as ideas come to you.

IB Standard Year 2 Summer Reading

Below is a list of texts that you must read over the summer in conjunction with a reading journal.

For Chris you must buy, read and make notes on
Pablo Neruda: twenty love poems and a song of despair (ISBN: 978-0-224-07441-4)
and Emile Zola: Therese Raquin (ISBN: 0-140-44944-2)

For David you must buy, read and make notes on
A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams - click here for a link to the play on amazon

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett -  click here for a link to the page on amazon

and Translations by Brian Friel - click here for a link to the play on amazon

It is vital that you keep a personal journal of your reading. Here is a link to a post with some guidelines about the reading journal.

Please pass this information on to other students in the class.

It is also vitally important that you buy the recommended editions of the texts chosen. Use the ISBN numbers in this post, the email sent out and the ISBN numbers in the amazon links on this post. If we have different editions it will be very confusing and frustrating in September.

Enjoy your reading

David