Friday 31 January 2014

THE ART OF POETRY

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Click here to download a PDF presentation of the elements of poetry.


A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language.  W. H. Auden 

Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.  
Robert Frost

Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood. T. S. Eliot


Poetry is the revelation of a feeling that the poet believes to be interior and personal which the reader recognizes as his own.  Salvatore Quasimodo 

Tuesday 28 January 2014

ENJOYING EMMA



"A few minutes were sufficient for making her acquainted with her own heart. A mind like hers, once opening to suspicion, made rapid progress. She touched - she admitted - she acknowledged the whole truth. Why was it so much worse that Harriet should be in love with Mr. Knightley, than with Frank Churchill? Why was the evil so dreadfully increased by Harriet's having some hope of a return? It darted through her, with the speed of an arrow, that Mr. Knightley must marry no one but herself! Her own conduct, as well as her own heart, was before her in the same few minutes. Till now that she was threatened with its loss, Emma had never known how much of her happiness depended on being first with Mr. Knightley, first in interest and affection."


Here you  can download and read the eBook of Jane Austen's Emma; you can also listen to the full audio-book.


Monday 27 January 2014

INTERNATIONAL HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE DAY





Here  you can also read the post I wrote last year.

Sunday 26 January 2014

ANNE FRANK

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Anne Frank was one of over one million Jewish children who died in the Holocaust. She was born Annelies Marie Frank on 12 June 1929, in Frankfurt, Germany, to Otto and Edith Frank.
For the first 5 years of her life, Anne lived with her parents and older sister, Margot, in an apartment on the outskirts of Frankfurt. After the Nazis seized power in 1933, Otto Frank and his family fled to Amsterdam in the Netherlands, where he had business connections.
The Germans occupied Amsterdam in May 1940. In July 1942, German authorities and their Dutch collaborators began to concentrate Jews from throughout the Netherlands at Westerbork, a transit camp near the Dutch town of Assen, near the German border. From Westerbork, German officials deported the Jews to Auschwitz-Birkenau, a concentration camp complex in German-occupied Poland.
During the first half of July, Anne and her family went into hiding in an apartment which would also hide four Dutch Jews as well - Hermann, Auguste, and Peter van Pels, and Fritz Pfeffer. For two years, they lived in a secret attic apartment behind the office of the family-owned business at 263 Prinsengracht Street, which Anne referred to in her diary as the Secret Annex. Otto Frank's friends and colleagues, Johannes Kleiman, Victor Kugler, Jan Gies, and Miep Gies, had helped to prepare the hiding place and smuggled food and clothing to the Franks at great risk to their own lives.
On 4 August 1944, the Gestapo discovered the hiding place after being tipped off by an anonymous Dutch caller.
The Gestapo sent them to Westerbork; one month later, in September 1944, SS and police authorities placed them  on a train transport to Auschwitz. Selected for labor due to their youth, Anne and her sister, Margot were transferred to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp near Celle, in northern Germany in October 1944.
Both sisters died of typhus in March 1945, just a few weeks before British troops liberated Bergen-Belsen on 15 April 1945. SS officials also selected Anne's parents for labor. Anne's mother, Edith, died in Auschwitz in January 1945. Only Anne's father, Otto, survived the war. Soviet forces liberated Otto at Auschwitz on  27 January  1945.


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While in hiding, Anne kept a diary in which she recorded her fears, hopes, and experiences. Found in the secret apartment after the family was arrested, the diary was kept for Anne by Miep Gies, one of the people who had helped hide the Franks. It was published after the war in many languages and is used in thousands of middle school and high school curricula in Europe and the Americas. Anne Frank has become a symbol for the lost promise of the children who died in the Holocaust.


Here you can watch a documentary about Anne Frank and her family. 

I don’t want to have lived in vain like most people. I want to be useful or bring enjoyment to all people, even those I've never met. I want to go on living even after my death!
Anne Frank 

Friday 24 January 2014

ANCIENT BRITAIN


Here you can download a PDF presentation of ancient Britain.  
Now let's watch a short video which explores the Norman Conquest of 1066, the Battle of Hastings, and the imposition of Norman power on Saxon England.


Wednesday 22 January 2014

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING


Much Ado About Nothing is a comedy by William Shakespeare which was written between 1598 and 1599.  The play was included in the First Folio, published in 1623. 
Shakespeare adapted the love-affair of Claudio and Hero from one of the Novelle by Matteo Bandello of Mantua, published in 1554, but the witty wooing of Beatrice and Benedick is original.

Much Ado About Nothing is generally considered one of Shakespeare's best comedies, because it combines elements of lightness and laughter with more serious meditations on honor, shame  and deception, and because its characters and intrigues are so engaging. Like As You Like It and Twelfth Night, it is a blissful comedy that ends with multiple marriages and no deaths. 
Here you can find the full text of the play.



Thursday 16 January 2014

ENJOYING SENSE AND SENSIBILITY





Here you  can download and read the eBook of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility; you can listen to the full audio-book and watch an interesting review on the novel as well. 
Click here to download a useful guide which offers ideas  and tips on how to teach the works of Jane Austen.      
   


Thursday 2 January 2014

NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS



Here you can find a listening comprehension lesson about New Year's resolutions. 




Wednesday 1 January 2014

JANUARY



The days are short, 

the sun a spark, 
hung thin between 
the dark and dark 

fat snowy footsteps 
track the floor 
and parkas pile up 
near the door 

the river is 
frozen place, 
held still beneath 
the trees black lace 

the sky is low 
the wind is gray 
the radiator 
purrs all day. 

John Updike