Tuesday. Review

Here is the FILE you need to download. Print out any files you don't have.

*About the Final Exam*

The listening section will be shorter than I thought. We won't have much time for that. There will be a few fill-in-the-blank listening questions, like this:

Jim: "She’s not gonna go away. She’s _______ ______ ______. She’s all around me…."

But that is a small percentage of the whole test. Maybe 25%

Questions about the videos -- A Class Divided, March of the Penguins, and Queer Eye Grizzly Man (cd 1) and dating-- will be in the form of true and false questions, short answer (1-2 sentences), vocabulary and so on.

So don't spend all your time listening to every single word in the 4 videos. Understand what is happening in those videos to the best of your ability by using the handouts. That is, review everything in those handouts. Remember, I will not ask you about the content of the other videos ("Fear Factor","Mindfreak," and so on).

David

For Thursday, May 28

We will continue with A Class Divided. If we have time, I will show a short film. You need to print THIS.

David

For Tuesday May 24 -- Discrimination

In Tuesday's class we will be watching part of a well-known documentary on discrimination and racism called "A Class Divided". Here is an introduction to the film (read it):

On the day after Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered in April 1968, Jane Elliott's third graders from the small, all-white town of Riceville, Iowa, came to class confused and upset. They recently had made King their "Hero of the Month," and they couldn't understand why someone would kill him. So Elliott decided to teach her class a daring lesson in the meaning of discrimination. She wanted to show her pupils what discrimination feels like, and what it can do to people.

Elliott divided her class by eye color -- those with blue eyes and those with brown. On the first day, the blue-eyed children were told they were smarter, nicer, neater, and better than those with brown eyes. Throughout the day, Elliott praised them and allowed them privileges such as a taking a longer recess and being first in the lunch line. In contrast, the brown-eyed children had to wear collars around their necks and their behavior and performance were criticized and ridiculed by Elliott. On the second day, the roles were reversed and the blue-eyed children were made to feel inferior while the brown eyes were designated the dominant group.

What happened over the course of the unique two-day exercise astonished both students and teacher. On both days, children who were designated as inferior took on the look and behavior of genuinely inferior students, performing poorly on tests and other work. In contrast, the "superior" students -- students who had been sweet and tolerant before the exercise -- became mean-spirited and seemed to like discriminating against the "inferior" group.

"I watched what had been marvelous, cooperative, wonderful, thoughtful children turn into nasty, vicious, discriminating little third-graders in a space of fifteen minutes," says Elliott. She says she realized then that she had "created a microcosm of society in a third-grade classroom."

We will focus on the first two parts. If you want to prepare in advance, feel free to watch it. Here is the transcript (you don't have to print it out).

Here's some vocabulary you need to know before coming to class:
no-win situation
self-fulfilling prophecy
body language
discrimination
merit
prejudice
privilege
racism
stereotype
brotherhood
Here is a FILE you need to print out before class on Tuesday.

Thank you for your patience regarding the technical difficulties we have faced this semester. I know it is difficult to hear in room 104. So HERE is the video for you to download in advance. Everyone needs to get it for the final exam anyway.

Thursday May 21

HERE is the Grizzly Man video.

Nothing new for Thursday. Maybe a listening quiz! Don't be late...

David

May 19, 2009 : Grizzly Man

We will watch part of Grizzly Man:



Here is a FILE to download and print. Oh my, that took forever to do...

Read the following review of the film and look up any words you don't know:

Timothy Treadwell spent 13 summers trying to protect grizzly bears. He ended up getting killed and eaten by them.

Director Werner Herzog uses some of the 100 hours of footage shot by self-styled grizzly bear protector Timothy Treadwell in his mostly solitary 13 summers in the wilds of Alaska. Unlike more by-the-book profiles, this documentary offers an intimate window into its subject. By using Treadwell's own words, ideas and point of view, Herzog makes audiences feel as if they are poring over a video journal of a tortured soul.

After a failed career as an actor and a stint as a waiter in a popular Los Angeles restaurant, Treadwell began spending his summers in the Alaskan wilderness. Often garrulous and manic, other times beset by self-doubt and paranoia, the boyish blond with a Prince Valiant haircut appeared to have suffered from mental illness. He could be sunny and sweet; he also was given to bouts of rage. Clearly he was an innocent, albeit with grandiose ideas, who believed that he could single-handedly protect the population of 35,000 grizzlies in Alaska.
About the movie

Treadwell insisted that he saw himself as a bear and wished desperately to be one of the imposing but reclusive animals he adored. When they growled at him, he told them like a patient parent, "Don't do that. I love you." But he should have known that wild animals never can feel that same depth of attachment to humans. He stayed longer than usual during the summer of 2003, when food was scarce for the bears, and he and his girlfriend, Annie Huguenard, were mauled and eaten by grizzlies. Treadwell was 46.

Herzog neither mocks Treadwell nor glorify the man. He merely tells the story of someone who sought meaning in his life.

Grizzly Man is a haunting and fascinating portrait of so much that is worth exploring: the implacability of nature, the hubris of human endeavor and the line between supreme dedication and madness.

May 12: Mousehunt

This week we will watch a part of the movie Mouse Hunt. Most people hate it, but I think it is funny. This exercise will be similar to the Speed exercise. We will watch the video and afterwards describe the action on paper. You'll have to hand it in.

Print this VOCABULARY out (2 pages) and bring it to class.

I think writing in groups is an effective, less painful, more fun way of learning.

Thursday, May 7: Fear Factor

Continuing with the theme of fear, we will be watching "Fear Factor". Besides listening for English, I will give you an opportunity for bonus points. Print this out.

Also print out this, and do the exercises. You should use a dictionary even though it says not to. I will briefly review them on Thursday.

Last month I asked you to print the Indiana Jones file. We will use it to make passive sentences on Thursday, if we have time.

Also, I think it is OK to let you off next Thursday for Spring Festival. No class on that May 14.