MLK-day at the Nobel Peace Center

Today I and one of my classes were fortunate to take part in a special celebration of MLK-day at the Nobel Peace Center here in Oslo. The students worked on group assignments where they were to interview people who were involved in the Civil Rights Movement in the US in the 50s and 60s. These people were of course not actually present, but the students were introduced to their stories in the exhibition "From King to Obama". To prepare for the day, the students had read up on Martin Luther King jr and the Civil Rights Movement. Some of the resources we used for these preparations were this Video: Martin Luther King and this text about Martin Luther King Jr. After learning about the Civil Rights Movement, we listened to representatives from the Red Cross, Democrats abroad and the Anti Racist Center who all spoke about the importance of youth involvement and voluntarism as means of changing the world. Subsequently, the students were invited to take part in a discussion about voluntarism and what they themselves can do to make a change in their hometown, their school and even their world. All in all, I think we all learned new things today. The Nobel Peace Center was really worth the visit and I think my students were exemplary visitors. This photo is from flickr.

Poem of the month

I think the first half of January is the hardest part of the schoolyear for most upper secondary school teachers in Norway. Within a week term grades for all students in all subjects must be ready and a lot of us still have quite a few papers to mark before we cross the finish line. Still, I had to take some time for one of my new year's blog resolutions. My plan is to share one poem every month here on my blog in 2010. January's poem is a very traditional choice, but there are good reasons why this particular poem is read again and again by English students all over the world. I think it is especially suitable right now since at the moment Norway is covered in beautiful snow. Please enjoy Robert Frost's "Stopping by woods on a snowy evening":

Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

For information about the poem as well as a video of Frost reciting it, see here: Poetry everywhere

The photo is taken from flickr: when snow arrives out of the blue

What's this?

I just had to share this short video of Jack's discovery of Christmas Town in A Nightmare Before Christmas. Considering other films by Tim Burton, such as Batman and Corpse Bride, I guess he prefers the dark and gloomy aesthetics of Halloween, but I would take shiny happy Christmas town over Halloween any day.

Teaching the Nobel Peace Prize

This week we spent our English lessons working on the Nobel Peace Prize. First we spent some time working on Obama's Nobel Lecture from last Thursday. You can watch the lecture here and read it here. The lecture is of course very complicated and the vocabulary is advanced to say the least. Despite this, however, my students appeared to watch and listen with concentration to the 25 minutes that my colleague had picked for this assignment. In addition, they answered questions about the lecture and I think they did quite well. Having learned about this years' Peace Prize the students worked in groups and prepared short presentations about previous Laureates. Here is a link to the lesson plan: Lesson Plan: The Nobel Peace Prize. The questions about Obama's lecture are made by one of my excellent colleagues at Sandvika upper secondary school. The picture is from flickr: Nobel

Christmas is all around

My colleague Liv Kristin and I have made it a Christmas tradition to watch Love Actually with our English classes before Christmas. This year, it appears as though we are running out of English lessons, but I still have hope that there will be time to share this two hour dose of Christmas spirit with our students. In previous years, they've seemed to enjoy it as much as we do. If you are in the mood for more Christmas clips, visit Liv Kristin's blog.

Not teaching, but drowning...

...in paper work. The pile of papers that need to be corrected and marked is now so enourmous that I feel there is no time for anything else. Still, sometimes you just have to take a (blogging) break. I haven't had much time to prepare lessons recently, but fortunately I have great colleagues that I cooperate with. One of them suggested we use the story "Two Kinds" by Amy Tan while working on the USA and immigration. The story is about a Chinese-American girl who is pressured by a mother who desperately wants her daughter to become a prodigy. It is an interesting story and my impression was that it also engaged our students. You can read and listen to the story here: Two Kinds by Amy Tan (there are also study questions on this page). For resources about culture and society (including the topic immigration) in the USA, see this page: NDLA - Culture and society in the USA The picture is taken from flickr: grownups

African Literature Week in Oslo

A couple of weeks ago I received an e-mail from our fabulous school librarian Ingrid. She told me about the upcoming African Literature Week here in Oslo. I was so excited to hear that Nigerian authoress Chimamanda N. Adichie would be visiting and I am really looking forward to hearing her talk tomorrow evening. Right now I am reading her latest book, The Thing Around Your Neck. It is a collection of stories, some from Nigeria and others about life for Nigerian immigrants in the USA. I am really enjoying the read and I have already found two or three stories that I think would be suitable for my English class. In fact, I hope to have a lesson with my class about Adichie and her country in the near future. I occasionally catch myself thinking and talking about Africa as if it was one country and this is a bad habit that I am trying to lose. Before I discovered this great authoress I did not even know that Nigeria is the most populated country in Africa (embarrassing). Now I am eager to learn more about this complex country and I hope Adichie's stories will have the same effect on at least some of my students. The image is of an Igbo (one of many peoples in Nigeria) mask and taken from flickr: "Mask"