Sample Essay

Please do not use this as your essay.  I have included this as a reference point to get you started.  I will know my own work and you will obviously get zero if you use it!

Star Trek

Science Fiction writing through the ages has been a struggle for survival.  Wether it is a virus about to wipe out the earth’s population or  a super powered man stopping a robbery, all Science Fiction is a battle between good and evil.  The director of the film Star Trek from 2009, J.J Abrams, has shown the binary opposition through good and evil quite clearly by manipulating how the characters look and speak.  The writers, Robert Orci and Alex Kurtzman, on the other hand have produced a story involving the technologically advanced Romulans hell bent on revenge and incredibly cunning Federation who will sacrifice themselves to save the universe. 

The writers also have created heroes of different varieties.  While their ideologies are the same, the way they achieve their goals are often very different.  James Kirk is the main hero of the story and he could be classed as the anti-hero.  A man who is willing to break the rules to bring justice, peace and safety.

Binary Opposites – Exam Preparation

Today we watched the film and prepared some notes that could be useful in our exam essay. A new copy of the document we used can be found here. You have all seen the movie already so I am hoping that you will focus on the notes today. Some notes that I took should get you started are featured below.

  Homework

Please complete the planning sheet that you should have done in class. A copy can be found here if you did not write it down in class. This sheet will help you prepare for your exam, without it you are at great risk of failing this topic. I will be checking you homework Tuesday.

Ideology and Sounds

Today in class we understood what it meant by ideology. We also examined the sounds used in films, in particular Star Trek, the film we are studying. You should be looking at what the director has used in the film to create a mood or how the director has used sound to represent people or events.

The presentation that was used in this lesson can be found here.

Below are the notes that were made on the board. We discussed what happened in the movie and our favourite characters.

Tomorrow we will be watching the rest of the film. We will be watching Star Trek every Friday so make sure you are there!

Binary Oppositions

At this stage we have watched the majority of the film that we are studying (Star Trek).  I recommend that you find a way to watch this film either at home or organise a time to see me at lunch time to watch the movie.  You can easily watch the entire film in three lunch times.  I will be conducting these sessions and be personally inviting people who have missed lessons to come and watch the film.

A link to the work that we have done today can be found here.

Please see me if you are having problems with anything in this lesson or in a future lesson.

Important Concepts

Binary Oppositions

Dichotomy

Year 10 English – Welcome!

Welcome Bundamba State Secondary College to my website!  Here you will find resources on a variety of different subjects.  At the moment the majority of the information here relates to Computing but in the next six weeks you will find all sorts of resources that you will find useful for your assessment which will be completed at the end of this term.  Your assessment will involve the study of a film and in this case it is Star Trek (from 2009) which you will be expected to know and reference in your essay exam.

It is extremely important that you have seen this film and know it well.

To get started I welcome you to look at the following links:

• IMDB Movie Summary
• Rotten Tomatoes Review
• Star Trek (2009) Movie Trailers

Year 10 – OCR Catchup

It is getting to that time of year. We have three weeks to go and two units needing completion. I have marked your folders and made suggestions on how to fix your work. Some students have minor cosmetic work to do, others have full tasks that have not been done.

If you come after school twice in the next two weeks I can guarantee that you will pass both units. If you do not it will be incredibly difficult. Ideally I would like to run three sessions a week with eight students in each session. With your GCSE exams completed you have no excuses for not booking in a time. Please see me this lesson to book a time with me. the sessions will go until 4:30pm, earlier of you finish quicker. You should only need an hour so you could be gone by 4pm.

Our priority is unit 1 to begin with. If you have done the work over the last three weeks you will be virtually finished this unit. Pleas don’t miss out on this opportunity.

Do you want to waste all the time spent in this classroom over the last two years?

Year 10 – Game On!

Its that time of year where you are seeing the Summer with a massive smile on your face.  However, this is the time where most students will start to stress because they haven’t completed ECDL.  Firstly, lets remember the most important reason why we are doing ECDL.

Its a GCSE Equivalent Qualification.  This is the same as getting a B at GCSE IT.  How many B’s are you getting?  More importantly, how good would it be if you walk into year 11 knowing that before you even take all your other GCSE’s, you already have a B in one subject!

I will be hunting you down if you do not finish this.  I will be calling your parents telling them the importance of this qualification.  I will be seeing you repeatedly until you come to my after school sessions to complete this.

Please see me with the modules that you need to complete.  This does not apply to my year 10 class that have a lesson on Tuesday, period 5.  They have OCR coursework that will need to be completed and I will be seeing you about this also!  Please check the year 10 page for details about the OCR coursework and your dropbox folders for a list of tasks that need fixing up.

If you wish you can get your friends together and do a group session.  I am more than happy to see any student or group of students after school on any day.

There are no excuses, everyone will be finishing their course.

Beautiful Work with Perfect Answers!

Priya Manda in year 7 has just completed the database definition home learning set over the past two weeks.  Not only has Priya delivered a perfect set of PowerPoint slides describing the main features of Microsoft Access but she has also made her own themes for the presentations.  I’m particularly impressed with the second presentation. Year 10 students might find these presentations useful as the beginning of your revision for ECDL.  Feel free to add your comments/questions.

Database Definitions 1
Database Definitions 2