PBS Holds Jane Austen Marathon

Book Review: Planning the Trailer and Essay

Three dates to remember:

• Monday, 1/7: Rough Draft of essay due
• Friday, 1/11: Final Draft of essay due
• Monday, 1/14: Movie Trailer and Poster due

We began class today looking quickly at two different trailers: Wall-E and The Dark Knight. Notice how each trailer played to their movie’s respective core strengths.

I gave out a sheet for your groups to plan out which scenes you want to film and the kind of preparation (people, props, location) you needed for each scene. Make sure your group is in agreement about this! On the back of the sheet is the rubric I will be using to grade the trailers.

I also gave out a sheet to list the pros and cons of your novel. Remember your analysis needs to include dimensions analyzing plot, style, and theme.

Finally, for homework, you are to write your introduction to your book review, which should include a 2-3 sentence summary of the novel, a quick preview of the major strengths and weaknesses you will be highlighting, and a thesis statement that states your final judgment on the novel. Due tomorrow.

To Kill a Mockingbird: Intro

Today we began our unit on To Kill a Mockingbird by discussing the neighborhoods we live in. Several of you had, ah, interesting stories about unusual characters in your neighborhoods.

I passed out a reading schedule of the book. Please note that there’s a test on the first part of the novel on Thursday, 1/10, and a unit test on the whole book on Monday, 1/28. You can also see the reading schedule on the class wiki.

We reviewed the bibliographic citation format for a book with one author and went over the essential questions for TKAM.

Please note the following suggestions for reading the book:

1. Highlight descriptions of places. Create a map of the town of Maycomb.
2. Look out for the motif of birds.
3. Make a note of the different kinds of education the children receive — especially the life lessons they get from Atticus.
4. Look for the differences between the everyday reality that adults see and the imaginative reality that the children see.
5. DO THE DAILY READING GUIDES to prepare for pop quizzes
6. DON’T watch the movie, which is slightly different than the novel, and can confuse you.

We ended class by reading together part of the first chapter to get a sense of Harper Lee’s language and style. You have to read between the lines to understand half of what she’s saying, so read carefully. Don’t get too hung up, however, in understanding everything.

Jane Austen Backlash

For those of you who are reviewing Pride and Prejudice, you might want to read this article from Sirens Magazine:

Jane Austen Must Die!

which argues that Jane Austen’s heroines (including Elizabeth Bennett) are hopelessly outdated for today’s women.

What do you think? Is Jane Austen anti-feminist?

Students 2.0

Here’s a blog that just launched that I immediately added to my feed reader:

Students 2.0

It’s being written by eight students from all around the world who are questioning how education should change with the changing times. These are really great models of the kind of enlightened writing blogging can produce. Here’s an article that I was particularly intrigued by:

Plagiarism: Not Quite As Simple as It Seems>

Haitian Immigrants in Philadelphia

The Philadelphia Weekly has a compelling story of a few people who are trying to help Haitian immigrants in Philadelphia:

You Can’t Go Home Again

I wonder how you feel this story jives against the stories and experiences you’ve read about in class?

Hot Zone: Ebola Outbreak in Uganda

Of interest to those of you reading The Hot Zone:

Don’t know if you’ve heard this on the news or not, but an ebola outbreak is developing in Uganda. 29 are confirmed dead because of the virus and 113 are suspected to be infected. There’s some worry that this will spread to the capital city of Kampala and turn into a full-blown epidemic.

Here are the results from a search for “ebola outbreak Uganda” on Google News:

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&q=ebola+outbreak+uganda&btnG=Search+News

Foil Phishing

This morning I received this e-mail:

Dear MasterCard Member,

For the User Agreement, Section 9, MasterCard may immediately issue a warning, temporarily suspend, indefinitely suspend or terminate your Credit Card and refuse to provide our services to you if we believe that your actions may cause financial loss or legal liability for you, our users or us. Our terms and conditions you agreed to state that your service must always be under your control or those you designate all times. We have noticed some unusual activity related to your service that indicates that other parties may have access and or control of your MasterCard Credit Card. We recently noticed one or more attempts to log in to your MasterCard Credit Card service from a foreign IP address

If you recently accessed your service while traveling, the unusual log in attempts may have been initiated by you. However, if you did not initiate the logins, please visit MaterCard homepage as soon as possible to restore your account status.

The log in attempt was made from – ISP host : domain-parking.martnet.com

To restore your Credit Card status please click here or click on the link below:

https://www.mastercard.com/us/personal/en/cardholderservices/securecode/index.html

Thank you for your prompt attention to this problem. Review Team apologize for any inconvenience. This is a security measure meant to protect you and your account.

Regards,

MasterCard Security Team.

Alarming, right? Looks authentic? A roll-over the link provided shows that it doesn’t actually go to the secure address

https://www.mastercard.com/us/personal/en/cardholderservices/securecode/index.html

but to this one unsecure one

http://211.174.53.78:81/www.mastercard.com/us/personal/en/cardholderservices/securecode/enroll.htm?sid=f512c549dea5b5bd341a1f97b2a2bc93

Click on it and you get a page requesting a bunch of personal information to “confirm” your identity. There are some screenshots here detailing the hoax. [As a rule, NEVER give away personal information online without parent permission, ESPECIALLY your social security number or financial information.]

I was suspicious to begin with, so I googled “phishing MasterCard Security Team” and voila — found the hoax. Even if I had clicked on the link, I would have been forewarned by McAfee Site Advisor (I have the highly recommended Firefox plugin).

If you get a phishing scam like this, don’t delete the e-mail right off. First forward the e-mail to pirt@castlecops.com. Castlecops tracks phishing, malware, and other internet evil and alerts and nags ISPs to stop abetting them.

Then, if you have Gmail, make sure you tap the “Report Spam” button.

End of PSA.

Movie Posters

First of all — you guys are doing a pretty great job with your blog posts. Keep it up — and don’t forget to comment on your group-mates’ posts!

Second of all — those of you who posted your My Space vignettes: I’m blown away. You guys exceeded my expectations, and you really should read some of your classmates to see what a bang-up job they did. Those of you who didn’t — do it now before your grade suffers!

Third of all — don’t forget to start discussing in your small group ideas that you guys come up with for movie trailers and posters. You might want to check out these posters for upcoming movies to see how others have used creative visualizations to build anticipation and set the tone for the movies.

I particularly like the first poster for the upcoming Batman movie, The Dark Knight, which is really wicked clever once you’ve seen this promotional photo of Heath Ledger as the Joker for the film:

What’s happened to the blogging, guys?

Dude, 7th graders: What happened to all the blogging you guys were supposed to do?

You guys should be discussing a specific aspect of storytelling in class, and then analyzing that aspect in a story on your blog that night (taking turns, of course). Is that happening?

And why aren’t you guys commenting on each other’s posts? How come only Andrew, Katy, and Kira are commenting on each other’s posts? (Good job, Andrew, Katy, Kira, BTW)

Get with it, guys. Unless, of course, you want homework over Winter Break. Mwah-ha-ha-ha.