Steve Shann's Page

I'm going to start with Question 5 (about whether the book or the film get outdated), but then wander into some of the other questions as well.

I think that though there are specifics in the story that get outdated, the message that gets through is of course never outdated. Just as Shakesp… Continue

What follows is the post I've put on my own blog on the Internet. I thought I'd put it here too so that you can see what I've been thinking about over the past couple of days.

Our Year 10 satire course poses the question: ‘Should satire have an ethical intent?” It’s a bad… Continue

In both classes, there were lots of questions. Really good questions. Questions which will be at the heart of our exploration and thinking over the coming weeks.
Here they are:

From 1003
Should we already have known what satire is if we have done drama?
Are there aspects of satire that aren’t funny?
How do people constantly come up with ideas relating to satire?
Who drew the cartoon of Bush and bin Laden.
Why is satire so popular?
Why are there so many questions about satire?
What… Continue

Some of the students in 1003 and 1004 are feeling confused about satire. They're disoriented. Things feels strange in this new class with this new topic.
There are many reasons why they’re feeling disoriented. New teacher, new year, new routines, as well as a topic (satire) w… Continue

First day of the new school year today. First class, Year 10 English, a class of pretty switched on boys. We’re starting a semester-long unit on satire, and I’d prepared reasonably carefully: a unit plan outlining where we would go in the first couple of weeks, a wiki which gave details of the whole course, and a ning ready for our collaborations.

The boys were outside the classroom waiting for the lesson to start. I opened the door, found 26 mainly-unfamiliar faces in front of me, said hello,… Continue