June
5
ELA B30: June 5 Viewing Blood Diamond…
- In our course, we’ve just been speaking about Universal Issues and our next theme is about Power and Ambition. The movie the B30 class began viewing today, Blood Diamond, deals with both of these topics, as well as quite a few of the others from the first part of the course. Identity, the value of a name, influences on a person’s beliefs, human qualities and what defines them, responsibilities of individuals to their society – all of these are encompassed in the movie and we will discuss them on Monday.
-There is a great deal of realistic war violence and profanities in this movie, so students were given permission slips to have signed by their parents. - I will be away tomorrow, so the students will finish watching the movie and it will take up the duration of the class.
- Next week, I know some will be preoccupied with Grad appointments and such. It is quite important, though, that you not miss as many classes as possible. We will be doing a study / reading of the ten -chapter 119 page novel Animal Farm. If you cannot make it to class, make sure you get a copy of the novel to read on your own. It will be one of the three options you will have to refer to for your last essay on the Departmental exam. (Hamlet and the novel Night are the other two.)
For those not familiar with the movie Blood Diamond, here is a trailer.
This is a great movie. Anyways, for the new moon and eclipse that you have on the computer, I will bring you some cd’s on Monday. How many should I bring?
Hey Steph,
I am glad you are enjoying the movie, although it seems a little unfortunate to be able to say a movie about such a real and tragic subject is “great”, right? I’m as desensitized to the realism of movies like this as anyone. I feel a little ambitious for a while, feel like I at least care about the issue and see it as not just being a movie, but I am no better than anyone else since I don’t do anything more than “care”. It’s ironic, too, that all the great movies that earn Oscar nods are about real subjects of great tragedy, like Schindler’s List, Crash, or Hotel Rwanda. We have the freedom to live comfy lives and appreciate movies like them because they’re great cinematic creations, and we don’t have to see the real story in person. It’s unfortunate, but just part of our Canadian life. (My little self evaluative rant, here. lol)
For some reason that escapes me, I cannot start my laptop. It won’t turn on. I left it at the school last night for your class to be able to finish watching that movie with the projector and Mr. Burnet dropped the laptop off here this afternoon but it won’t power up. It’s a little unnerving, but I have saved everything on an external hard drive so I can still access my files and documents, just not burn anything for you. We can see on Monday if one of the school computers has a dvd burner or borrow Mrs. Saelhof’s to burn the files to dvd. (You will be able to fit a lot more onto a dvd and then save them on your own computer to do what you want with them.)
You may be getting handwritten handouts for the next two weeks. lol Computers! Man, do I rely on them!!
Have a great weekend. See you Monday.
PS: That movie is still stuck inside my laptop and since it won’t turn on I can’t get it out. lol I have to return it Wednesday. Nice, hmm??