Transition Year English

wtd2008

Hi all,

I have Transition Year English for the first time in years and was wondering if you have any ideas for projects/novels/plays to do for the year.
Was hoping to keep it focused on the LC and maybe do one of the poets and look at the Comparative movie but want to make it interesting for them too!
Any ideas?
Thanks.

implausible

Film studies is a good one. Use one of the texts from the comparative and use it to point out film techniques, then take another film and compare. You're introducing them to the concept of film as a studied text and getting them used to comparing. You could also do a compare and contrast between a novel and the film version of it.

A project on a poet's life, maybe a local one e.g. Yeats, Kavanagh. And, speaking of local, are there any big writers in your area? They could research him/her or get him/her to visit the school (if alive, obviously!)

A few years ago I did a module on Conflict/War. The students studied How Many Miles to Babylon, did some research on WW1 and covered a few of the WW1 poets. At the end of the year they did a mural on the wall for me, with quotes and images. I meant to cover a film but never got around to it.

TY is a good time to introduce/recap Shakespeare by studying the sonnets to get them used to the language and one of the shorter plays. You could throw film in here too.

School magazine is another one. You could do it as part of media studies.

Try and bring in other subjects. TY is about the only time you get to do some decent cross-curricular stuff.

KaiserLu

I'm in the same boat. one thing you have to keep in mind is that students in TY are of mixed ability, so everything you do has to engage everyone on some level. Its a lot harder than it sounds!!

Have you considered "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy? Its a really great book, written simply, that could challenge everyone in some way or another. Plus, you've also got the movie to show afterwards. It could be a good introduction into bookreading for some students who have never read a book outside of school before!

Hope this helps.

wtd2008

Thanks for the ideas...should be an interesting year. I had a look at the Transition Year forum and most of the students are complaining how boring the year is. Am going to try to make it as cross curricular as I can, maybe mix with my other subject. Will get them involved in the school magazine also.
Thanks again.

spurious

They could write a book themselves, like these TYs did.