10RLe creative writing

"This is my voice. There are many like it, but this one is mine." 

We'll be updating the blog with creative writing periodically. Here's a picture of the class working hard during our regular Friday creative writing time. Today we're using a quote from Zech Soakai as the starter for either a poem or short story.

We'll put some completed writing up next week.

Responses to Brown Brother

Here are a selection of the student responses to Brown Brother by Joshua Iosefo...






"I think that the speech had a big impact on people because of the fact the it was all true, and it relates to a lot of people in many communities. He spoke a lot about how people assume a lot of things just by looking at you. He also talks about the brown statistics and about how most brown Pacific Islanders are truck drivers, fast food eating and box packing people.





Not all Pacific Islanders do those types of things, most Islanders now are rugby players and fashion designers- people can shape their own future and are capable to do anything."





"This poem was very strong because he is standing up for people who are being stereotyped and for all people who think that everyone should have equal rights like not getting judged just because their brown.





This means that when he heard it he knew that we could relate to the poem about being judged or stereotyped, racism and being called poor because of the clothes we wear, the traditions we have in our culture or what we look like."






"Joshua had an impact on people because of words and phrases he sent out to us. Telling us that we’re not stereotypes, were just people with different colour skin to others. “Brown like the bark of the palm tree that supports my heritage.” Joshua made his poem to make people think about their future, or what they’ve got themselves into. Joshua is speaking up and showing what people would expect from us because we're brown. They look down at brown people because of some people making shame of our cultures, making the society think differently about us Islanders. Really it’s about what the society expects from us brown people."

Express Yourself

Our Year 10 theme for this term is Express Yourself! We started off with the classic NWA song, and now we're moving on to spoken word poetry. This week we have looked at Brown Brother by Joshua Iosefo and Pink Plastic by Zech Soakai.

Check out the videos below.

Brown Brother- Joshua Iosefo

Pink Plastic- Zech Soakai

We're working on our creative writing and close reading skills, moving towards writing and performing our own spoken word pieces.

Hello! Welcome back!

Hello!

So glad to be back blogging here again. The plan is that we post bits and pieces of student work from my bautiful and talented junior classes- 10Le and 9Td.

Here's a poem recently written by Helea Hape Albert, based on a structure we studied in class.

Year 10 Courage Writing

Y10 Students.

You are to read one piece of writing that talks about the idea of 'courage'. It could a newspaper article about someone who has done something brave or it could be a short story that explores that idea of 'courage'.

As soon as you have completed your text you are to write a personal response to the reading. You are to use the following sentence starters and complete them:

This text talks about ....
I liked/disliked this story because ....
A character I liked/disliked was ...
Courage is shown in this text through ...
I believe other people should/shouldn't read this because ...

Make sure you add the Title/Author/Date at the beginning of your comment.

I look forward to reading your posts!

Year 10 Cultural Perspectives - Character Mind Maps.

Here are some examples of Character Mind Maps from 10PTe.

Year 10 Cultural Perspectives: Boy Overboard - Character Mind Map.

Character Mind Map.

After looking at the major themes in the novel we are now concentrating on major characters.The students were asked to focus on:

1. 1 major character in the text. Write down the exterior feelings that the character shows in the text.
2. Write down the interior feelings that the character has but does not show in the text.
3. Write down the thoughts that the character is thinking in a time of need or crisis.
4. The students will be reflecting these feelings/thoughts through a Character Mind Map.
5. They will draw the character and write down the feelings outside the profile of their chosen character.

By doing this, the student's are able to understand the characters in a deeper context.

Here some examples from 10PTe.