I am retiring after 45 years at ACU. While it certainly sounds a long time, I remember vividly my first days on Castle Hill Campus in 1977 and then the flow of new literature students, through Castle Hill, then Mount Saint Mary and occasionally MacKillop. Every year a wonderful crop of new faces, new enthusiasms!…
Category: x Blogging
Best Final Summative Entries 2022 Shakespeare and the Renaissance…
These are the best of a wonderful bunch of final blogs by students of ENGL210 in 2022. These blogs show the depth of appreciation for Shakespeare and the Renaissance that these students have uncovered for themselves through writing informally and creatively and through interacting with their peers. Some of the best learning in all my…
Best Final Summative Blogs for Nineteenth Century Literature 2022
Hi All, it is with some real joy that I can post up these final blogs from one of my last two classes (the other being The Age of Shakespeare). These summative entries proclaim loud and clear that the experience of blogging as part of literature studies has profoundly enhanced our students’ experience of literature.…
Nineteenth Century Blogs Fourth and Final Topics: Week 10
Please remember that you are permitted to create your own blog topics on subjects related to what we have been studying – if these topics don’t suit! Tolstoy: The Death of Ivan Illych Tolstoy brings us to one of the high points of 19th Century Literature. He explores with such uncompromising depth, issues of profound human…
Nineteenth Century Blogs Fourth and Final Topics: Week 10
Originally posted on Michael Griffith: Home Page- Literature and Life Autumn 2022:
Please remember that you are permitted to create your own blog topics on subjects related to what we have been studying – if these topics don’t suit! Tolstoy: The Death of Ivan Illych & Master and?Man Tolstoy brings us to one of the high…
Blog 3 Topics for Nineteenth Century Literature- due due Friday 29th April: extended to Monday 1st May
Choose any ONE of the following topics: 1/How do the opening paragraphs of Matthew Arnold’s The Study of Poetry present a view that poetry could solve The Condition of England Question? 2/What makes Matthew Arnold’s poem “Dover Beach” such a personal response to the loss of belief in Victorian England? 3/Prepare a digital kit on…
Best Blogs First Round 1 “Show and Tell”- Shakespeare and the Renaissance 2022- ENGL210
Here are some of the amazing blogs and peer reviews produced by mid-semester: This is a feast of responses to the art that was around in Shakespeare’s time, to the impresssions gleaned from the Shakespeare Room at the Mitchell Library and the amazing Shakespeare statue which sits in Shakespeare Place, outside the MItchell, but now…
Show and Tell 19th Century Literature Mid-Semester Blogs… See the best here… THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR AMAZING WORK…
Thanks you Ashleigh for telling us how reading the Romantics has actually changed the way you live your life right now: Best blog on our Art Gallery visit. Thank you Tia for discovering an epiphanic moment in front of Eugene Von Guerard’s Fig Tree: How entering the Art Gallery is like entering the gates of…
Shakespeare and the Renaissance: 2nd Blog Topics 2022
Choose one painting seen in the Renaissance selection studied at the gallery today. Describe the painting in details and say how this painting has expanded your understanding of the Age of Shakespeare. If you missed the visit you can still do this topic by focussing on one of the paintings on the document provided for…
Shakespeare and the Renaissance 2022
First Blog Topics. Try to stick close to the word length (i.e. 200 words + 50%). While you won’t be penalised for going over the limit you will only get marked on the permitted length. If possible illustrate your blogs (with images either your own or those available on Google), but be sure to identify…
First Blog Topics for 19th Century Literature 2022
Try to stick close to the word length (i.e. 200 words + 50%). While you won’t be penalised for going over the limit you will only get marked on the permitted length. If possible illustrate your blogs (with images either your own or those available on Google), but be sure to identify the source of…
Best Blogs out of Australian Literature (ENGL231) 2021
Best Blogs ENGL231 Thank you Anaïs Woods for your beautiful summary of the relevance of the indigenous content of this unit and of the power of blogging as a way of creating community: https://anaiswoods.wordpress.com/summative-entry/ Thank you Emily for your understanding of the way that literature can provide a means of deepening our understanding of what…
Final Blogs for Literature Through Time and Space
There have been some amazing blog entries produced since the middle of semester and some of your summative entries about how you have found studying under the impact of Covid are almost worth putting into an Anthology (might in fact happen!). But overall I was deeply moved by the way in which you contributed to…
Blog 4 ENGL231 – due 25 October
1/ Write a brief appraisal of Judith Beveridge’s visit to our class. What did you learn from her about poetry? Its practice and its purpose? 2/ Chose the first line of any one of Judith Beveridge’s poems and write your own poem on a related subject. 3/ Chose any one of Judith Beveridge’s poems and…
Australian Literature – Second Trawl through BLOGS 2021- Main topic – Students coping with Lockdown…
image courtesy of Francis Saad’s blog (see below) Best blog on the impact of lockdown is Anaïs Woods’ reflections on the appearance of the cherry blossom in spring: https://anaiswoods.wordpress.com/2021/09/01/just-look-up-week-6-blog/ Zahra Salami’s take on the dramas she has had to face during lockdown. Thank you for your open and honest writing Zahra: Sarah Vella’s powerful description…
Literature through Time and Space- Second Blog Trawl…
How students are coping with lockdown- this was a very popular topic and has produced some amazing creative work. Read on! You will also find below some wonderful poems and prose extracts inspired by the likes of Thomas Gray, Samuel Johnson, Aemelia Lanyer and others… Overall a wonderful creative response to the literature we have…
Blog Topics 3 for Australian Literature 2021
We have traversed quite some terrain in the last weeks. Chose one of these topics for your blog this week: 1/ Capture the seasonal quality of the Australia bush (in Spring) in a short poem that utilizes some of the techniques of Charles Harpur’s “A Midsummer Noon in the Australian Forest”. Maybe begin your poem…
Blog Topics 3 for Literature Through Time and Space
We have been travelling rapidly through both Time and Space. Chose any one of the following topics for your next blog: 1.Try to write a shaped poem like Herbert’s The Altar 2.Chose one of the women represented in the early 17th Century ( Aemilia Lanyer, Mary Wroth, Katherine Philips, Mary Cavendish), look at their biographical…
Best Blogs from 2021 Literature through Time and Space Group- First Run
Here is a cross section of some of the wonderfully creative responses to the literature we have been studying from the earliest Anglo-Saxon period (starting with Beowulf) through to the early 17th Century – so far! We are heading on through the Restoration and the 18th Century, into the 19th and on to our own…
Second Blog 2 Topics for Australian Literature 2021 (Due Friday 3rd September)
List of Topics for your second blog: Write a first person account of what it is like studying Australian literature during a global pandemic. Give details of how the pandemic has impacted your work (positively and negatively) and how it has impacted the people who you live with. You can of course fictionalise your characters…
Australian Literature: First Crop of Outstanding Blogs Spring 2021
Read Loulay’s amazing experience of visiting her grandfather in Lebanon and how this memory was triggered by Lisa Bellear’s “Urbanised Reebocks Loulay- https://loulayslovelyliterature.wordpress.com/2021/08/13/my-grandfathers-imprisonment-by-the-frenchlanguage/ Read Anaïs’ passionate response to the racism of the taxi drive in Lisa Bellear’s taxi poem Anaïs Woods: https://anaiswoods.wordpress.com/2021/08/13/facing-the-denial-and-acts-of-racism-taxi-by-lisa-bellear-week-3-blog/ Read Chloe’s powerful entry on Romaine’s Genocide poem with a real understanding of…
Welcome to Blogging in Literature Across Time and Space (ENGL111) at ACU
Hi All, here are the topics for the First Blog of the Semester Chose any of the topics listed below, or create a topic of your own – as long as it is in some way connected to the themes of our unit so far. Remember you are permitted to include personal reflections alongside your…
Grand Finalé for Nineteenth Century ePortfolios for 2021.
Best ePortfolio Summative Entries ENGL200 2021 Andrew Carloss Read Andrew’s fabulous reflection and powerfully illustrated piece on how we in this digital age need to take on board the insights of the Romantics and the Russians in order to survive as human beings! Read Emilee McNaught’s reflections on how her experience is mirrored in the…
My review of Jenny’s Blog
Here it is
Best Blogs 19th Century Literature 2021- Round 1!
Excellent Peer Reviews: It will be noted that reviews that suggest improvement are well received and have in fact led to improvement in subsequent blogs. Allow some space for your peer to improve- no one’s work is perfect! An excellent peer review, that combines support, insight and gentle recommendations for improvement= thank you Sarah Saud:…
Protected: Shakespeare Visit to the NSW Art Gallery and to the State Library, 14th April 2021.
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
The Late Romantic Period: Blog Topics for your Second Blog (includes NSW Art Gallery Visit)
Take this opportunity to write about something that has really touched your imagination in the last few weeks, or that has ignited your interest in our visit to the Romantic and Victorian Halls of the NSW Art Gallery on April 14th. Remember you are permitted to create your own topic as long as it falls…
The Early Romantic Period: Blog Topics for your first blog.
Chose any ONE of the topics below: 1 Following on from William Wordsworth’s poems, describe an experience in nature that has given you a sense of meaning that is beyond books. Write down your experience either as a poem or as a prose passage- your choice! 2 Find out some more about the monastery Tintern…
The Wonderful World of Blogging in the Twentieth Century Literature Unit for 2020
Congratulations to All of You for Creating such Wonderful Readable Responses to the Wide Range of Questions posted Each Week: Blogging has become a powerful transformative aspect of literary teaching that enables students to not only connect creatively with the energies of the writers that they love, but also to share their own intimate connection…
Short Stories by Alice Walker and Tim Winton
What a wonderful closing session we had to day with Ian, Wei, Ben, Jimmy, Rosanna and myself, discussing the themes and ideas in these two powerful stories by two of the world’s best contemporary story tellers: African American Alice Walker and Australian surfer Tim Winton. Listen in to the lecture here: https://acu.zoom.us/rec/share/3re0teYtVLro_wVO_pEFHXf24Mn41U_6O7wlP-CtIO2KsB3rGoDXNbIZxLOQGspe.j7nC9tPHvl9qtr4I And here is…
Short Stories by Kate Chopin and Henry Lawson!
So today is our second week of work on the genre of Prose Fiction and these two authors exemplify a range of techniques and express a variety of themes. Check out our White-Board Discussion file below and listen in to the video lecture that we all enjoyed on Zoom: https://acu.zoom.us/rec/share/1zX6rvpN10xtJRTm0tD6dvw_edRsGOchid6UNB8CeDCfOs5L2GfKZhrTZV4aOGU.H-lrA_IfSK11zYDR
Lecture on our Art Gallery Visit, linking literary texts to some of the paintings.
This amazing painting by Ford Madox Brown in the mid-19th Century shows the powerful interconnections between literature and art. Here is a depiction of the Father of English Poetry, Geoffrey Chaucer, reading his wonder Canterbury Tales to the King. And there are all the medieval people around him who might have formed part of his…
Concluding Blog Topics for 20th Century Literature 2020
We have started exploring some of the work of those writers who challenge the tyranny of English culture on their own lives, while at the same time demonstrating their passionate commitment to English as an expressive medium. What a paradox! We have found this in M.Nourbese Philip and now in James Joyce. We are going…
Mission Australia, Clemente Introduction to Literature: Poetry
Please find here the link to the Zoom recording of the session on October 1st: https://acu.zoom.us/rec/share/TMAIrPWiav3Rr5BoufNFo44fYmypAjuTEgw-vWXcu2yXmV985d0yQYYYXglETRfJ.FR6d73cLwkKOzbB_ Please find here also the White Board document for this week:
Clemente Poetry Week 6: Shakespeare, Llewellyn, Kinnell!
Video Lecture of Class on Poetry: https://acu.zoom.us/rec/share/rxtG-7lPcztIIdUB58AMli4D-YqTNCws58CqvEGbT-saVzxNyHcD1FXhDsM8AgQO.lGCH_bbMnLVrFB-B Poetry Handout for Lectures in Week 6 and 7:
Some Fabulous Posts from Students working on Twentieth Century Literature in 2020 the year of Covid 19
These students, many of them bound to their home/bedroom offices since March 2020 are working passionately on their literary understanding. These blogs show a heightened creativity in times of crisis and reveal a wonderful range of experiences triggered by their reading of early twentieth century authors. What comes through very strongly is the extent to…
Hamlet Act 1, Scene 5 Clemente Week 5 2020
Please find the link to the video lecture for week 5 here: https://acu.zoom.us/rec/share/IZqtMnraRUk95u0_E0LdMP_gDo_4ouvJnwmw_c-yS8c9hYp_a9EP6Xt8Kxo-zxc.k5cQNRsNejApBvvj You can also find here the study questions document for week 5:
W.B. Yeats & Virginia Woolf
Blog Topics Emerging from Week 8 and earlier…. Take the first line of any one of Yeats’ poems that has touched your imagination and write a poem of your own based around the theme of Yeats’ poem. This is a wonderful way of developing your own writing ability and was often recommended as the best…
Hamlet for Mission Australia Week 3
Please find the Zoom recording for this week attached, together with other important documents that were circulated in class. Here is the recording: https://acu.zoom.us/rec/share/8uX2EoEwkwwTUZkn8GAxpAD51WirfzLFBuUy9TDXi0c8Js_HqzUCew0J-hfqqmLN.MjW6_zc8WkhFFTZl
T.S.Eliot, literary modernism and the quest for meaning.
T.S.Eliot, right from the start of his career was a passionate seeker for truth. This expressed itself in the metaphor of the journey which runs right through his whole work from “Prufrock” through to “The Four Quartets”. What truth was Eliot seeking? He was clearly living at a time of universal fragmentation, immediately after the…
creativity in time of war
Today we broached the world of Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen and Rupert Brooke. The focus was on the way the English language became transformed during this period with the direct impact of the horrors of the First World War. The jingoistic idealism of Rupert Brooke was kicked out by the hard hitting, grating, consonantal observation…
The Early Twentieth Century
Blog Topics for Week 3 – Based on Weeks One and Two The Early Twentieth Century- Introduction to the 20th Century & Gerard Manley Hopkins Chose any one topic for this week. Be creative, concise and edit your work carefully! Enjoy 1/ Take the first line of any one of Hopkins’ poems and write your…
The Early Twentieth Century
Originally posted on Michael Griffith: Home Page- Literature and Life Autumn 2022:
Blog Topics for Week 3 – Based on Weeks One and Two The Early Twentieth Century- Gerard Manley Hopkins & Joseph Conrad Chose any one topic for this week. Be creative, concise and edit your work carefully! Enjoy 1/ Take the first line of…
Coronavirus perceived through the filter of Hamlet or Ophelia!
Students studying Shakespeare this semester have been asked to write a response to the global situation as perceived by Hamlet or Ophelia. This has led to some extraordinarily creative and heart filled descriptions of global condition from the perspective of our 2020 university students. Enjoy: Thank you Alexandra: https://s00240376.wordpress.com/2020/03/15/to-you-with-love-ophelia/ To you, with love-Ophelia March 15, 2020The…
Recordings for Children’s Literature ENGL104
Audio Recordings for both tutorials on 22nd April 2020- on Racism and Post-Colonialism:
Some great blogs by 19th Century students in their first three weeks of studying the Romantics
Updated my Literature and Life Site.
Hoping you all enjoy this update of my WordPress Web/Blog site. I have now created separate pages for all the various activities in which I am engaged, from University Teaching, through to Extra-Mural (off campus teaching), through to leading contemplative pilgrimages, through to enjoying the wilderness around Sydney. Enjoy all the new content and links…
Top of the Class ePortfolios in The Visionary Imagination ENGL329
A Section of Brett Whiteley’s Alchemy on display at the Brett Whiteley Studio, Surry Hills Here are the top 9 ePortfolios presented for marking in Visionary Imagination ENGL329- and again indeed it was very hard to pick between them, although the top 2 in the list scored the maximum marks possible. All are outstanding examples…
Top of the Class ePortfolios in American Literature
Here are the top 12 ePortfolios presented for marking in American Literature ENGL204- and indeed it was very hard to pick between them. All are outstanding examples of the art of blogging and of creating an effective ePortfolio in WordPress. More importantly they all demonstate a passionate interest in the way that literature can shape…
The Dry Salvages- 4 Quartets – Session 4
Thank you all for being such wonderful participants in our collaborative exploration of T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets. We are all now a little wiser and come to this astonishing group of poems with fresh eyes. T.S. Eliot is a poet who brings the spiritual and poetic search for truth a little closer to us all. Despite…
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