Johnny English Returns

Hello, I'm going to talk about the film "Johnny English Returns". This is a film of action and specially of comedy; this film is directed by Oliver Parker. The main characters of this film are:

- Rowan Atkinson (Johnny English)

- Gillian Anderson (Pamela Thornton)

- Dominic West (Simon Ambrose)

- Rosamund Pike (Kate Summer)

- Daniel Kaluuya (agente Tucker)

- Richard Schiff (Fisher)

- Togo Igawa (Ting Wang)

I think this film is great I recommend it to all the people.

The Brothers Grimm

Hello, I'm going to write about a film called 'The Brothers Grimm'.
This film takes place during Napoleon's Empire in Europe. It is a fantasy film that tells the story of how Grimm's brothers tricked people saying there were witches and ghosts near their places and that they could solve the problem. Thanks to this they earned lot of money.
At the same time, the film is a mixture of lots of tales written by the brothers Grimm. All the tales are mixed together to tell just one story that happens to them.

Main actors: Heath Ledger, Matt Damon, Monica Belluci and Lena Headey.

Hello my name is Marta,I am 15 years old and I live in Alcorcon. I have got one brother that is older than me. I like watching TV.

Final Destine 4

Hello, I´m Estefania and I´m going to write about the film called "Final Destine 4". Final destine is the fourth film of Destine final. It´s a story about a man who had a vision of a problem who was going to happen in a competition of cars. Before the accident, he and his friends went out of the place and some of the people that they didn´t meet before as well. After several days, the people who were in the accident started to die and the boy had got vision about their deaths.

El origen perdido by Matilde Asensi

Hello,I am going to write about "El origen perdido", a book written by Matilde Asensi.
On the book, a man becomes vegetal because of a strange illness and his brother starts looking for the reason that is an Aymara's curse. Because of this, he has to go to South America with his two best-friends to look for the cure.

The hunger games

Hello, I'm going to wirte about one of my favourite books, The hunger Games.
It is the first book of the trilogy of The Hunger Games, it was written by Suzanne Collins and it was released in September 2008.
It is a science fiction, adventure book thas takes place in the country of Panem. The main character is Katniss that is selected to take part in the Hunger games, a competition in which 12 boys and 12 girls have to kill each other until there is only one left.
The following two books are Catching Fire and Mockingjay.

Public speaking

Speech skills

1. Briefly summarise the Speech skills story.
2. Why does the school in the BtN story have a special connection with `The King’s Speech’?
3. What is the film about?
4. Why has the school started a speech competition?
5. Do you think public speaking is an important skill to learn? Why or why not?
6. What impact can a powerful speech have?
7. Explain why preparation and practice are important to making a successful speech.
8. Why do you think people fear public speaking so much?
9. How do you feel about speaking in public?  Explain your answer.
10. What do you understand more clearly since watching this story?

The Behind the News story included some famous speeches. Research each speech to learn when and why the speech was made. What made them memorable/powerful speeches?

The following steps will help make public speaking more enjoyable for all.

Step 1: What is your Speech Trying to do?

Find out the purpose of the speech. Is it to entertain, to convince, to explain or to inform the audience of something. Determine how much time you will have. (5 minutes doesn’t sound like much, but can be a lifetime if you only prepared for 2 minutes.) Who is your audience? And where will you be speaking?

Step 2: Narrowing Down Your Topic

Make a list of topics you may wish to talk about. Using that list choose the best 3. From the top 3 list, write down what you know off the top of your head about each. (Having more information before researching will make things easier from the start.) Also think about what you are most passionate about. Choose the best one and stick with it. Don’t start second guessing yourself the day before the speech. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Just the make it the best that you can.

Step 3: Finding Facts

Write out what you already know about the topic. Find some books that are relevant. Use the internet for additional research. I say additional because some like to only focus on the internet, but since not all sources are can be verified some of the information may not be accurate. Ask your parents for help. Interview someone on your topic.

Step 4: Go Through All the Information

Now that you have amassed a bundle of information it is time to sort through and determine what to use.

Step 5: Write It Out

Using the information from step 3, arrange the information in a logical order. You want your speech to flow smoothly.

Step 6: Adding Some Visuals

Once you have everything flowing smoothly, look for places to add in some visuals. Use pictures, charts or diagrams and keep it simple.

Step 7: Practice, Practice and Practice

Once you have finish writing out your speech, you now need to learn it. Just standing up and reading from a piece of paper or cue cards won’t cut it. You don’t need to memorize everything either. But you want everything to come out smoothly, so reading over you speech, and practicing is very important. And don’t wait for the last day. Start early.

Step 8: Relax

If you have completed steps 1 through 7 then finally presenting will be a snap. You have adequately prepared so all that is left is to take a deep breath, face your fear and speak.

Mini-saga by Claudia Forte.

The wind was messing up my hair. I walked a step nearer to the edge. I was trembling. Tears were falling down my cheeks. A shy, hesitant second step. Just a few centimeters were between me and my fate. Suddenly my feet ran off the ground.
Someone grabbed my hand.

El invierno en Lisboa

“El invierno en Lisboa” was written in 1987 by Antonio Muñoz Molina.
The book tells the impossible love story between an extraordinary pianist, Santiago Biralbo, and a mysterious woman, Lucrecia. Lucrecia is married to Bruce Malcom who smuggles stolen paintings. Biralbo and Lucrecia will try to be together but it is going to be impossible once Lucrecia has stolen the map which locates a secret basement in Lisbon where a valuable painting was kept for years. They would have to hide and to separate their paths during the whole book to survive as they get involved in Lucrecia’s husband dirty business.
I would recommend this book to people who are accustomed to reading, especially thrillers or books about secret conspiracies, because it may not be an easy book to read sometimes as it is a complicated story and you have to be aware of every little detail because everything has its importance. I especially like the point of view of the narrator of the story as it is not told by the main character but by a friend who Biralbo confesses his secrets to. I also liked the complicated love story which takes place as the background of the main story.

Mini saga Andrés Savchynets

Mike was coming out of Bob’s office. He smilingly told John, “I stretched that five minute meeting to thirty minutes...”. John smiled and walked into Bob’s office. Bob smiled and told John, “Come in John… That was a long meeting. Of course, I listened only to the first five minutes...”

Under The Dome

Under The Dome is a book written by Stephen King. It has 1131 pages, which is a relevant fact because some people may not like spending time reading long books.

In this interesting story, Dale Barbara, a former colonel who now works in a restaurant, wants to move from Chester's Mill (Maine) as he had a fight with some men of the village. But when he's almost reaching the frontier, a mysterious barrier which surrounds the whole village is put in front of him. Nobody knows where has it come from or what is it made of, but it breaks electronic devices near it or gives you an electric charge when you touch it for the first time.
Chester's Mill was a peaceful village, but this event makes its inhabitants get extremely nervous and afraid and they start panicking. This invisible barrier causes a lot of accidents as some cars and planes crash against it.

The most powerful (and evil) man in the village, James Rennie, wants to take advantage of the dome as he can control all the people inside it, but he will have problems with many people.

A lot of exciting things will happen to the people in the village until they find out who or what has put this dome above them.

I would recommend this book to people who really love reading, specially science fiction or adventure books. It's enjoyable from the beginning until the end, as something different and surprising happens in every chapter.

A Thousand Splendid Suns

It is a book written by Khaled Hosseini("Author of the Kite Runner").
"A thousand splendid Suns" is a beautiful and emotive story about two Afgan women.
Why do I like it?
Because it is an incredible friendship story between the two women.
They join to solve their problems and difficulties in a very unfair life.
Also I want to add that if you don´t like to cry ,this is not a book for you.
Mariam and Laila ,our main characters,suffer constant bad treats from their husband,arude shoemaker of Kabul.
Why do I recomend it?
Because it is a very interesting and beautiful book and also with this book you can know a lot of things abaut the muslim culture

MINI-SAGA

A long time ago a monk of church of San Pedro saved a box and inside of it have a cross that if you touch you can stay inside of the cross for centuries. Thirty years ago a treasure robber see the box in the church and he open and touch the cross and little drops of powder surround him and them dissapear.

Entre Nosotros

It is a book written by Juan Ignacio Carrasco.
It's about of a boy called Abel Young; he broke with his girlfriend and his director proposed him to write a story. When he finished the story, the director sent him to a special school and is elected like other students: Arisa and Gabriel. In this school there are vampires but they didn't know. They had to discover the truth like for example: Why were are they in this school?
I like this book so much because I like the stories of vampires and love. It has a lot of adventures and this is so good for the reader.
My favourite part is when Gabriel and Abel go to a chinese restaurant and there they discover a vampire girl who wants to suck their blood.
My favourite character is Arisa because is the only girl in the school and in the beginning is so serious but later is very funny.
I recommended this book to the person who like the stories of vampires, adventures and love.

Book review by Andrés Savchynets

• Tittle: The boy of the striped pyjama
• Author: John Boyne
• Genre: Fiction
• Publisher: Random House
• Pages: 224

Irish writer John Boyne's fourth novel is the first he has written for children. It's a hard story of an odd friendship between two boys in terrible circunstances during the jewish holocaust.

Bruno is a nine-year-old boy growing up in Berlin during World War II. He lives in a five-storey house with servants, his mother and father and 12-year-old sister, Gretel. They have just been visited by a very important personage called the Fury. As a consequence of this visit, Bruno's father gets a new uniform, his title changes to Commandment and, they find themselves moving to a new home at a place called Out-With.

When Bruno gets there he is immediately homesick. He has left his school, his three best friends, his house, his grandparents... His new home is smaller, full of soldiers and there is no one to play with. From his bedroom window, however, he notices a group of people dressed in striped pyjamas separated from him by a wire fence. When he asks his father who those people are, he responds that they aren't really people.

Bruno is forbidden to explore. But one day, he follows the wire fence cordoning off the area where these people live from his house. He spots a dot in the distance on the other side of the fence and as he gets closer, he sees it's a boy. Excited by the prospect of a friend, Bruno introduces himself. The Jewish boy's name is Samuel. Almost every day, they meet at the same spot and talk. Eventually, for a variety of reasons, Bruno decides to climb under the fence and explore Shmuel's world.

The story puts you directly into Bruno´s worlwiew. The book is really hard, i also have seen the film and it is also nice. But i prefer th book i recomend it to people from 14 years i think it is interesting as a compulsory reading at school.

La elegancia del Erizo - Muriel Barbery

La elegancia del Erizo is a book written by Muriel Barbery. I think it is a really good book because it makes you realise some corious things about life and people.

It's about one girl of twelve years old who wants to commit suicide because of a series of reasons. The main characters are the girl, who's my favourite one, her family and some other important characters who live in the same neighbour. There is not an exacly problem but the book tell the reasons why the girl wants to comit suicide.

I don't have a facvourite part. I like some parts in which the girl speaks. I would change the end because I don't like it very much. I recommend this book to very special people, everyone who like strange stories.

A DIRTY JOB

A Dirty Job

Written by Christopher Moore and published in 2006. An irresistible best seller of our time.

The story is about Charlie who is the owner of a second-hand store in San Francisco. He was married to Rachel who died in the hospital after the birth of their first child, Sophie; Charlie becomes involved in a new sideline of retrieving the souls of the deaths so as to protect them from the forces of the underworld. The story shows the life of Charlie been a successor of the death.

The first part of the book is a little bit boring but then it becomes more and more interesting. I recommend this book to everyone who wants to read a different type of book with a real interesting plot inside it.

Las cosas que no nos dijimos.

The name of the book that I have chosen is "Las cosas que no nos dijimos", the author of this book is Marc Levy.

This book i about a woman that is called Julia who recieves a phone call from her father's secretary four days before her wedding.

The secretary says to her that her father has died.

The next day after the funeral.Julia recieves a strange box and she discovers that her father has reserved the last surprise for her.

Thanks to this surprise Julia is going to have an extraordinary journey.

In this journey she is going to discover an unexpected past.

In my opinion,this is a good book to read because you don't know what is going to happen in the next chapter because it is a unpredictable book.

I recomend to the people taht like unreal stories with love and funny moments.

Book review Andrés Savchynets

• Tittle: The boy of the striped pyjama
  
• Author: John Boyne
• Genre: Fiction
• Publisher: Random House
• Pages: 224

Irish writer John Boyne's fourth novel is the first he has written for children. It's a hard story of an odd friendship between two boys in terrible circunstances during the jewish holocaust.

Bruno is a nine-year-old boy growing up in Berlin during World War II. He lives in a five-storey house with servants, his mother and father and 12-year-old sister, Gretel. They have just been visited by a very important personage called the Fury. As a consequence of this visit, Bruno's father gets a new uniform, his title changes to Commandment and, they find themselves moving to a new home at a place called Out-With.

When Bruno gets there he is immediately homesick. He has left his school, his three best friends, his house, his grandparents... His new home is smaller, full of soldiers and there is no one to play with. From his bedroom window, however, he notices a group of people dressed in striped pyjamas separated from him by a wire fence. When he asks his father who those people are, he responds that they aren't really people.

Bruno is forbidden to explore. But one day, he follows the wire fence cordoning off the area where these people live from his house. He spots a dot in the distance on the other side of the fence and as he gets closer, he sees it's a boy. Excited by the prospect of a friend, Bruno introduces himself. The Jewish boy's name is Samuel. Almost every day, they meet at the same spot and talk. Eventually, for a variety of reasons, Bruno decides to climb under the fence and explore Shmuel's world.

The story puts you directly into Bruno´s worlwiew. The book is really hard, i also have seen the film and it is also nice. But i prefer th book i recomend it to people from 14 years i think it is interesting as a compulsory reading at school.

Las Cartas de Invierno

CARTAS DE INVIERNO

I´m going to talk about this book. I like it a lot because it is a horror and a thriller book.

The author is Agustín Fernández Paz.

This book was written in 1995.

The characters are:

Xavier: the main character

Adrián: the best friend of Xavier

Teresa: Xavier's sister

PLOT

This story is about Adrián moving to a new house in a small village.

This house is a "hounted" house.

Xavier received many letters from Adrián telling that lots of strange things were happening in the house.

Adrián went to the house and then Teresa arrived too because Xavier had told Teresa about the strange events ocurred in the house.

I like it a lot because I love this type of books, and it is that type of books that you can´t stop reading it.

I really enjoyed reading this book.

By: Elisa Manrique Sastre 4ªC

Book Day 2011

By celebrating this Day throughout the world, UNESCO seeks to promote reading, publishing and the protection of intellectual property through copyright.

23 April: a symbolic date for world literature for on this date and in the same year of 1616, Cervantes, Shakespeare and Inca Garcilaso de la Vega all died. It is also the date of birth or death of other prominent authors such as Maurice Druon, K.Laxness, Vladimir Nabokov, Josep Pla and Manuel Mejía Vallejo.

Mini saga

I thought that i'm alone,but maybe i'm not right at all.
I started to listen strange noises that come from the wall,maybe i don't have to do it but I do
it,in 2 seconds I was near the wall, listening through, my heart became to beat very fast I couldn't move and I thought ¿This is my final?

Mini Saga

I can't run any further.I'm exausted and my legs don't propertly.It is trying to catch me,a shadow of nobody.I asked it; What are you?It answered me.I'm your friday math's exam.I woke up quickly.I'm still scared and sweeding a lot. What a nightmare!!

Quiz About Dickens

What do you know about Charles Dickens? Do you know where he was born? Who did he marry? Add comments with your questions and answers about Dickens. Let’s share our knowledge; any contribution is welcome. You can find lots of questions and answers about Dickens and his life here:
Enseñar y aprender con la web 2.0

You will also find a lot of them in the following blogs- in comments:
Morning has broken
Ies Parque
Parque de Lisboa 10

Jeopardy

Here is an example of the game we are going to play- more or less- on Monday. Have a look: Jeopardy.
Remember the questions are being published in different blogs and you can have a look at most of them in the school hall.

Banksy

Who is he? This is what we have discovered.

Banksy is an anonymous graffiti artist or a group of them. People don’t know much information about him, and it is not really clear. People think his name is Robert or Robin Banks, he is from Bristol (London), as most of his paintings are there, and he was born in 1974-75. They say he started painting in the early 90s and he got influenced by Blek Le Rat.

Simon Hattenstone, a journalist, said he had interviewed Banksy. He said he was blond, tall and thin and he was dressed like a rapper. He said he looked like a mixture between Jimmy Nail and Mike Skinner. Also, a newspaper said he was caught while he was painting, and his identity was revealed.

Most of his paintings show rats, children and policemen or soldiers. They mainly show children are influenced by television or things related to politics, he protests against huge walls separating people and wars.

Irene Rodríguez. 4º C

Banksy

Banksy is the “name” of an English graffiti artist whose real name is unconfirmed. Some journalists have seen him drawing on walls and finally he was discovered as you can see in the photos below. Banksy was born in Bristol in 1974 or 1975. His graffitis have messages about these topics Anti-war, Anti-capitalism, Anti-fascism, and Anarchism.

His work was born of Bristol’s underground scene. He made collaborations with other artists and musicians. Banksy was the son of a photocopier technician. He tried to be a butcher but he didn´t enjoy it. He became involved in graffiti during the Bristol’s aerosol boom in the 80`. His style is similar to the one used by Blek le rat who is a French artist who also makes stencils.

Banksy's first film, Exit through the Gift Shop,  made its debut at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival.  The film was released in the UK on 5 March. It is a story of how an eccentric French shop keeper and amateur film maker attempted to locate and befriend Banksy, only to have the artist turn the camera back on its owner. The film contains footage of Banksy, Sheppard Fairley, Invader and many of the world's most infamous graffiti artists at work.

He had published these books

• Banksy, Banging Your Head Against A Brick Wall (2001)
• Banksy, Existencilism (2002)
• Banksy, Cut it Out (2004)
• Banksy, Wall and Piece (2005) Banksy, Pictures of Walls (2005) 

Andrés Sauchynets. 4º C

WHO IS BANKSY?

Banksy is a graffiti painter whose identity is unknown. Either his work is labelled as art or as vandalism. Anyway, his graffiti are sold for over 200,000 pounds. He has different graffiti paints all around the world, but no one has ever seen him doing them. Despite this, there are several different suggestions about who he is.

Identity:

It is said that he was born in Bristol (England), as there are an important number of his paints on the walls of this city. It is also said that he was born between the years 1974-1975 because he started painting in the 90s, when he should have been about 14 or 15 years old. 

Supposedly, his real name is Robin (or maybe Robert) Banks. A recent article claims that his real name is Robin Gunningham, a former public schoolboy, but the reporter started her investigation from a photograph so it may be true, it may be not. In an interview he did in the year 2003, the reporter describes him as “a cross between Jimmy Nail and Mike Skinner, of the Streets”, white man wearing scruffy clothes, a silver tooth and an earring. However, this information may not be true, or mistaken, Banksy rarely does interviews and he has never been photographed by any newspaper; there have been some times in which newspapers have stated they have photographed the real Banksy, but each time it was a different person, so it is really difficult to know if the one on the newspaper is the real one or not.

Graffiti:

He uses stencils for doing his paints, because he “was quite crap with a spray can” so he “started cutting out stencils instead” as he said in an interview in 2003.

All of his graffiti have an implicit political or social criticism, but always with (a dark) sense of humor. He asks for an anti-war, anti-Capitalism, anti-fascism, anti-imperialism, anti-authoritarianism, anarchist, nihilist and existentialist world.

He takes advantage of the surroundings of where the graffiti is and connects the place with his paints. He has several paints in which the wall seems to be folded or broken, giving them a spectacular view.

His most common paints are rats or children, specially doing things children are not meant to do or to look like, showing a hopeless society.

Claudia Forte. 4º C

Follow your dreams

I have chosen this graffiti that is located in a wall of Chinatown.

I think this graffitti contains a social message; it is about the difficulties and the few opportunities that people have to follow their dreams. Personally, I have chosen this graffiti because of the importance of the message and because I agreee it is very difficult to follow our dreams.

In the graffiti I chose, which is in Gillette Square (Dalston), there is a little boy carrying a big stereo in his hand, with an air vent as the speaker of the stereo. He dresses as a rapper, with baggy clothes and a cap. He looks like a boy from the Bronx or another depressed area. He is also carrying a teddy bear, and he has a golden gun necklace. The expression in his face shows he is sad or maybe a little bit aggressive.

I think he is trying to show children nowadays grow quickly and the don't have time to be children. The golden necklace with the gun means he is exposed to violence so he sees it as normal.

Banksy

If I must take a graffiti among all of Banksy´s, I would choose the one that has a young boy (maybe of 8 years old) carrying a radio like the b-boys do and holding a teddy bear on the other hand. For me, the meaning of this graffiti is that sometime ago, a child could be a child: innocent and free. But nowadays, life is so hard in the suburbs that boys are forced to act like adults to survive (the radio) while they are still children inside (teddy bear).

Presentation:

The picture I have chosen shows the silhouette of a little boy kneeling

down on the ground holding a brush and with a tin full of paint by his

side. On the wall, in bright orange, it is written “Take this- society”. The

colloquial expression “Take that, society” it is used when you do something

against the rules, or something not very civic. I think this picture is just a

way of mocking at all these people who criticise him; a way of showing that

he does whatever he wants, and that no one can tell him what he can or

can’t do.

Banksy

This Banksy picture it's located in London in the Holland Park Roundabout.

In the picture appeared a child keen down. He is holding a paint brush and near by there is an orange paint bottle. In the wall it's written with the orange paint "Take this society".

I think in this picture Banksy is complaining about the violent and consumist society that is around us and he uses the image of a child as a symbol of innocence.