A2 Comms & Culture: Aston Martin & James Bond

Aston Martin are a great example of a brand who have successfully used product placement as a means of constructing themselves as desirable. In 1964 they initiated a relationship with James Bond films, which has helped to define the brand as many men's dream car.

Watch this - and  then read this, and this.

How have Aston Martin constructed themselves as a desirable brand?

A2 Literature - Connections between DOS and TBE

How Death of a Salesman (so far) can be connected to The Bluest Eye

by Amy

One of the key themes that The Bluest Eye and Death of a Salesman share is that of society’s loss of humanity. Death of a Salesman, which is often viewed as a play criticising capitalism, can be seen as a plea for humanism. This is most clearly seen in the character of Linda who urges people to value humanity no matter how great or small a person is and not just jobs and money. Linda states that Willy “must not be allowed to fall into his grave like an old dog. Attention, attention must be finally paid to such a person” emphasising the lack of humanity he is being shown. In The Bluest Eye society is also criticised as it does not seem to care what happens to the lowest in society, causing them to crumble under the pressure it puts on them. Both Willy Loman and Pecola Breedlove lose their sanity as a result of the poor treatment society has given them. It can also be argued that dreams cause both of these characters to fall. In the case of the Loman’s their dreams build too quickly and their expectations are too high causing them to come crashing down. Pecola dreams only of having blue eyes, and her life becomes completely dominated by this one desire which eventually leads to her tragic demise.  

A2 Literature - Death of a Salesman and time

Click here to watch critics - and Miller himself - speak about the use of time in Death of a Salesman.

AS Lang & Lit: P- 40s in All My Sons

Click the link below to see footage of P-40s in World War 2: this is the aircraft that was supplied with faulty parts by Keller's business (& for which Ann's father went to jail):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pxu02bNuma4&feature=youtube_gdata_player

IB - Death & the King's Horseman

Click here to listen to some Yoruba drumming.

Read this: find out what influenced Soyinka to write Death & the King's Horseman.

A2 Comms & Culture - Objects of Desire/Mad Men

AS Comms & Culture

Here are some articles to read, which may help with the 1000 word coursework:

single parent families
how has the family unit changed
same sex parents
same sex parents 2
sibling rivalry

A2 Comms & Culture: Coca Cola and Christmas

How has Coca Cola used Christmas (and even shaped our meanings of Christmas) as a way of constructing the soft drink as a desirable cultural product?

Haddon Sundblom's early pictures of Santa Claus for Coca Cola in the 1930s were inspired by the 19th century poem Twas the Night before Christmas:

Group 1: 1995 advert
Group 2: 1997 advert
Group 3: 1998 advert
Group 4: 2012 advert

A2 Comms - the effect of technology on communication

Here's an interesting article from The Guardian newspaper, which explores the influence of technology on communication - could be useful for your latest essay (due Tuesday 18th December): click here to read it.

A2 Comms - Objects of Desire

Click here to listen to a series of radio programmes on the 'Psychology of Consumerism' around the world: great for globalisation and objects of desire!

IB: How has Soyinka crafted Scene 2 in comparison to Scene 1 in Death and the King's Horseman?

How has Soyinka crafted Scene 2 in comparison to Scene 1 in Death and the King's Horseman?

by Olivia
In scene 2 of Death and the King's Horseman the style of dialogue is far more westernised than in Scene 1. It is also more straight-forward, with no proverbs and the language means what it says whereas the meaning of scene 1 is more difficult to decipher. Scene 2 contains more conversational dialogue, with very literal language, which could make it appear bland in comparison.

The settings of the two scenes are very different. While scene 1 is set in a very open and public market place, scene 2 is set in the much more private setting of the Pilkings' home. There is more attention put on the props and physical aspects on stage, which draw the audience's attention to the more modern and affluent lifestyle displayed by the colonials.

The pace of the scene is faster in scene 2, despite the argumentative circle that the characters end up in. This conveys a sense of urgency, whereas scene 1 is more relaxed, with emphasis placed on songs and poetry.

The use of music is apparent in both scenes, but contrasting. Scene 1 has a more traditionally tribal sound, with persistent drumming continuing throughout the scene. In scene two the tango music choice shows a much more European, or South American, influence. Jane Pilking complains about the noise of the drumming, showing the cultural differences between the two scenes.

By placing this two scenes alongside each other the cultural differences are emphasised, through the clashing beliefs and linguistic styles. The comparison between the two scenes adds emphasis to how the colonialists attempted to enforce English culture in Nigeria.

A2 Literature - Death of a Salesman

Here is a good presentation on Expressionism on Slideshare: click here to find it.
And here is a really good essay about Arthur Miller, with specific focus on Death of a Salesman - a must read! - click here to reach it.

A2 Comms & Culture - Objects of Desire

IB English - Colonialism

Find out more about Britain's colonial rule over Nigeria by reading this: click here.
And here are two very different viewpoints about colonialism & definitely worth a read: click here.

IB English - Yoruba culture in Death & The King's Horseman

Egungun is the Yoruba festival which worships and honours the dead (ancestors). You can see in this clip an example of what it looks and sounds like:



AS Comms - staged NVC

Analyse the use of NVC in these clips:
Clip 1
Clip 2 (one minute in)
Clip 3 (12 seconds in)

How is non verbal communication used to communicate to a public audience?

AS Comms & Culture - NVC

Read this article for an overview of how different cultures use non verbal communication: click here.

AS Lang/Lit - All My Sons Study Guide

This is one of the more decent study guides for All My Sons, which provides an overview, comment on context & some critical responses to the play: click here.

AS Lang/Lit: warm up for 'All My Sons'

IB English - meet Wole Soyinka

Watch this excellent interview with Wole Soyinka, where he reflects on why he writes:
click here to see it.

A2 Literature - Toni Morrison interview

Click here to read an interview with Toni Morrison from The Paris Review.

A2 Comms & Culture: two ways of seeing Britain's colonial past

Here is an interesting article which presents two very different viewpoints about Britain's colonial past: click here to read it. Which argument do you find most persuasive?

AS Comms & Culture - NVC

Watch this clip, from David Mitchell's 'Soapbox' series, where he reflects on how our NVC is often staged for a public audience:

AS Lang Lit: Obama's victory speech

To read a transcript of Obama's victory speech, Click here. How does he use rhetorical devices to affect his audience?

IB English - Death of a Salesman

Click here to read a really good interview with Arthur Miller, where he reflects on Death of a Salesman.

A2 Comms and Culture - Multiculturalism & National Identity

Develop your understanding of key issues relating to Post Colonialism by listening to these programmes from In Our Time, hosted by Melyvn Bragg:

Englishness
Cultural imperialism
Multiculturalism

Each programme lasts for 30 - 45 minutes & they are essential listening... especially if you are aiming for one of the top grades.

Click here to read an article reflecting on 'mixed race Britain' - an interesting read.

IB - Miller / Soyinka

Here's a really good article about Death of a Salesman: click here.

Please make sure that you have Wole Soyinka's Death and the King's Horseman ready for classes next week. This week is a transitional week...

A2 Comms & Culture: Cultural identity & globalisation

Explore how your own cultural identity has been constructed: to what extent are you a product of globalisation? (due Friday 16th November)

Read how a previous student answered the question you have been set for homework:
click here to read. The Guardian article which attempts to define globalisation can be found in full here: click here.

AS Lang & Lit: All My Sons

As we begin All My Sons in class, it mght be interesting for you to watch the film trailer to the original film version (1948) of the play:

A2 Literature - The Bluest Eye

Here is a lecture on The Bluest Eye delivered at Yale University  - it takes 50 mins to watch but is worth it:

And here is a link to an essay on race and beauty in TBE, which some of you might want to have a read of (it's not easy but have a go & see what you can take from it): click here to read.

A2 Literature - The Bluest Eye audio-visual presentations

Click here to watch some audio-visual presentations on The Bluest Eye made by some of my students last year. I will be asking you to do something similar after Christmas connecting our 3 texts...

AS Language & Lit: Spoken Word Framework

This is a visual framework for analysing spoken language which I found on another teacher's blog (here) - I think it's really good.

A2 Comms & Culture: Your slavery footprint

Find out what your slavery footprint is by taking this survey: click here.

The next step is to consider your own cultural map: list your top 10 cultural influences (e.g. type of music, clothes, favourite food, sport) and find out where they orginate from. Then I would like you to explain in your own words what you have discovered about the global influences on your own cultural identity: click here to read how a student last year reflected on this.

A2 Comms - Immigration

Watch this to get a sense  of the impact of Enoch Powell's Rivers of Blood speech, and to hear an extract from the speech itself...

AS Lang & Lit - work set in place of Thursday's lesson

I have training on Thursday so I am setting work in place of the lesson. Today we talked about the clip from The Wire: how it uses features of spoken language yet is clearly crafted dialogue. I have asked you to write 500 words about The Wire's construction of dialogue in the clip (answering the questions in the previous blog post), based on what we talked about today. Please email me the work by the end of the week - cdignum@rutc.ac.uk - to get your mark in the register. See you next Tuesday ...

AS Language & Literature - Spoken Language

Which features of spoken language can you identify in the following clip from the TV drama series 'The Wire'?

How can you tell that this is crafted speech rather than spontaneous speech?

A2 Comms: Edward Said & Orientalism

Watch this clip to see Edward Said explain what influenced him to write 'Orientalism' and the key ideas within it:

AS Comms - the power of body language

This is a 'Ted talk' about the power of body language (NVC) in influencing ourselves as well as others.

A2 Literature - The Bluest Eye

Here is a Feminist reading of The Bluest Eye: click here.

A2 Comms - Colonial attitudes

This advert for Pear's Soap is a great demonstration of colonial attitudes:

Thanks to Jennifer, Zoe & Dara for finding it...

AS Comms - how accents are perceived

Here's an article about how different accents are perceived as signifying different levels of power to different people: click here.

A2 Lit: The Bluest Eye - Imitation of Life

In The Bluest Eye, Maureen mentions a film which she believes features a girl called Pecola: "Anyway, her name was Pecola too. She was so pretty. When it comes back, I'm going to see it again. My mother has seen it four times."

You can watch the opening of the film Maureen refers to (Imitation of Life, 1934) below. It's particularly worth watching to the end of this clip so that you can see how black people were represented in films at this time:

IB - Death of a Salesman & Miller's presentation of time

Here are two interesting responses from our class in relation to the question:
What do you find interesting about the presentation of time so far in the play?

Response 1:
'Arthur Miller uses time as a dramatic device, to tell the story of Willy's past - but also his story in the present. Willy's lack of sense of time transports the audience, as well as the characters, to the most significant parts of Willy's life. I see this as a way of developing Willy's character, through watching the events that make Willy who he is today. However, I also see the change in time as a message for society: that those who have now entered a phase in their life that results in the deterioration of the mind, once lived active lives, full of work, children and other worries that fill the average person's head at some stage. Miller wants the audience to reconsider the attitude towards those who are deemed no longer of any use to society or the economy by presenting an image of what each member of the audience may experience. Time also separates the Willy that Linda once fell in love with and married from the one she now subtly takes care of, without damaging his pride. Time, again, separates the person that Willy dreamed of becoming from the one he has turned out to be...'

Response 2:
'The presence of time is felt in Death of a Salesman right from Miller's very first stage direction:'A melody is heard, played upon a flute.' Though the audience may not realise it at the time, by the end of the play they will almost definitely have come to recognise the sound of the flute as a symbol of Willy Loman's past, associated with his father the craftsman and their life on the road. When analysing Willy as a character, we can note this use of music before our first introduction to him as an indication that the past holds a huge sway over him; it could be said that it is the first thing people notice about him, just as the audience hears the music before the dialogue begins.

As the action on stage unfolds, we can see that when Miller stated that the past should be 'placed on stage' for the protagonist to 'grapple' with, he meant literally rather than figuratively. The use of dramatic stream of consciousness, in which the chronology of the drama follows a pattern identical to that which occurs in Willy's mind, means that the characters and relationships from the salesman's past are just as real as those in the present. In fact, the only way that we can come to differentiate between people past and present is the extent to which they observe the imaginary wall lines (those in the present do, and others do not). Otherwise, past characters are equally, or perhaps even more vivid, as they tend to occupy Willy's attention.

Thus it soon becomes clear to the audience that Willy is a man very much dominated by his past, and the 'burden' Miller describes is the physical presence of characters he continues to live amongst and engage with.'

A2 Comms - Colonialism & Kenya

This a good clip to watch to help us really understand how the processes of Colonialism started, in this case in Kenya:

Kenya and its colonial past is in the news at the moment because of a court case that is being brought against the British government by three Kenyans tortured under colonial rule in the 1950s. You can read about the case by clicking here. And - you can find out more about the Mau Mau rebellion which led to this torture by watching this.

A2 Lit: free indirect speech

This week in class we noticed that parts of The Bluest Eye are written using free indirect speech (or free indirect discourse). I have found a decent page on the internet, which explains this style of narration well: click here to read it.

Death of a Salesman & Expressionism

Here's a good presentation on slideshare, which contextualises Death of a Salesman as an expressionistic drama: click here to access it.

A2 Literature - another interesting blog

Here's another interesting blog entry on The Bluest Eye - this time from a Feminist perspective: click here to read.

AS Comms - applying Goffman to Facebook (extension work)

Here is an essay (warning: it's quite long!) about how we might apply Goffman to Facebook. It's a challenging read but worth having a go at, especially if you are aiming for a top grade. Click here to read it.

A2 Literature - The Bluest Eye

I came across this blog post on The Bluest Eye, which some of you might find useful: click here to read it.

A2 Comms - Marxist analysis of fairy tales

Click here to read a Marxist analysis of fairy tales and click here to read a Marxist fairy tale! Both are worth a  read and will help develop your understanding of Marxism further.

AS Comms - Johari & Concentric Circles

Click here to read how one individual applies the Johari window and Roger's Concentric Circle Model to her own taste in music.

A2 Lit: The Bluest Eye

Here is the interview we watched in class, where Toni Morrison explains her motivation for writing The Bluest Eye.

This is one of the best sites I have found online, which offers essays and support material on The Bluest Eye: click here.

A2 Comms: Marxism

We talked today about Marx's Communist Manifesto, which you can take a look at by clicking here.

AS Comms - The Pygmalion Effect

The original study behind the idea of the 'Pygmalion effect' is explained:

A2 Comms - is Marxism on the rise again?

Click here to read an article written a couple of months ago about the consequences of many people's disenchantment with Capitalism.

Interested in finding out which way your political views lie? Click here to take the political compass test.

A2 Literature - coursework texts for this year

Welcome to A2 Literature - I will be teaching you the three texts for the coursework piece (a 3000 word comparative essay). You will need to buy The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison (for link to Amazon, click here) & Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller (for link to Amazon, click here). We will also be studying poems by Philip Larkin. I will give you copies of the individual poems that we will be studying - if you want to buy the text that the poems come from then it is called Collected Poems by Philip Larkin (for link to Amazon, click here.) You need The Bluest Eye asap and Death of a Salesman for the end of October. Please let me know straightaway if you are having problems getting the texts.

A2 Comms - What is Capitalism?

Click here for a good, accessible explanation of what Capitalism is. Even if you think you know, it's always good to read someone else's explanation of it. You might also want to watch this clip of American High School students discussing their understanding of what Capitalism is - in 1948:

How does this compare to how you would explain Capitalism today?

AS COMMS - WELCOME

Welcome to AS Communication & Culture at RUTC - we hope you enjoy the course!
There is a course text for AS, which you might like to buy - click here for details on Amazon.

In our first few lessons, we will be exploring the idea of identity & self presentation. Some really interesting ideas about how we see ourselves and what influences our perception of ourselves can be found in this short film by Kiri Davis:

A2 Comms - advice from last year's students

IB English - final drama text for 2012-13

Hello everyone,

Hope you're having a great holiday & enjoyed the Olympics!
Our final drama text will be:

Death and the King's Horseman by Wole Soyinka
Isbn 978-0-413-69550-5

We will be studying this text second, after Death of a Salesman.

See you in a few weeks,

Clare

IB English - texts for next year

Here we go then - texts for next year:

Please buy, read & make notes:

Pablo Neruda: twenty love poems and a song of despair (ISBN: 978-0-224-07441-4)
Emile Zola: Therese Raquin (ISBN: 0-140-44944-2)

Please buy:

Death of a Salesman (Arthur Miller)
Waiting for Godot (Samuel Beckett - English version, not French!)

You don't need to read these in advance (although you can if you want - but don't give anything away to the class) but I would like you to read about the playwrights.

These two texts can be any edition. There will be a 3rd text as well, the title of which I will post later this week - I changed my mind once I saw what Chris had chosen.

Have a lovely summer - you deserve it after all your hard work this year,

Clare

IB SUMMER ORALS: TIMES & PLACES

IB ORALS: SUMMER 2012

THE COMMENTARY

Thursday 28th June 2012
	Preparation	Room	Oral	Room
Student 1 JESS	8.20	1A15	8.40	1A15
Student 2 MARKUS	9.30	1B5	9.55	1A15
Student 3 CHARLOTTE A	9.50	1B5	10.15	1A15
Student 4 MARTHA	10.10	1B5	10.35	1A15
Student 5 BENEDIKT	10.35	1B5	11.00	1A15
Monday 2nd July 2012
	Preparation	Room	Oral	Room
Student 6 MELISSA	9.30	1B5	9.55	1A15
Student 7 EMMA	9.50	1B5	10.15	1A15
Student 8 BECKY	10.10	1B5	10.35	1A15
Student 9 OLIVIA	10.35	1B5	11.00	1A15
Student 10 ALE	10.55	1B5	11.20	1A15
Student 11 MALIK	11.15	1B5	11.40	1A15
Tuesday 3rd July 2012
	Preparation	Room	Oral	Room
Student 12 NAKUL	9.30	1B5	9.55	1A15
Student 13 ANTONIA	9.50	1B5	10.15	1A15
Student 14 CLAUDIA	10.10	1B5	10.35	1A15
Student 15 FREYA	10.35	1B5	11.00	1A15
Student 16 JULIANNA	10.55	1B5	11.20	1A15