ON LOVE

 

WORKSHEET

ENHANCING COGNITIVE SKILLS WITH MULTILINGUISM: INTERACTIVE VIDEO ACTIVITY

Our latest interactive activity is about the fascinating world of multilingualism and its impact on cognitive skills. In this activity, we'll explore a video that reveals the cognitive benefits of being bilingual and the advantages of learning foreign languages. To make this learning experience more engaging, we've crafted a set of questions to test knowledge and understanding as well as stimulate thoughtful discussions.

THE WAR POETS - RUPERT BROOKE, SIGFRIED SASSOON & WILFRED OWEN

One of the greatest tragedies the world has ever experienced was the First World War. With absolute determination, nations dedicated every ounce of human talent, energy and resources to the destruction of human life. Millions were killed; millions were disabled by hideous wounds, mental breakdown, bereavement. Life was worsened throughout Europe and the effects were long-lasting.  The so-called Age of Anxiety started, which still goes on. The age of wars.

BYRON, KEATS & SHELLEY - ETERNITY

Byron, Keats and Shelley lived short lives, but the radical way they lived them would change the world. At 19, Shelley wrote The Necessity of Atheism - it was banned and burned, but it freed the Romantics from religion. Through their search for meaning in a world without God, they pioneered the notions of free love, celebrity and secular idolatry that are at the centre of modern Western culture.

For them poetry became the new religion, a way of reaching eternity. Their words are brought to life by Nicholas Shaw, Blake Ritson and Joseph Millson.

EMMA WATSON ON GENDER EQUALITY

Watch the video below and answer the questions in the worksheet HERE

Full transcript of the speech
HeForShe

ROMEO AND JULIET: LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT

A) COMPARE THE SCENE OF ROMEO AND JULIET'S FIRST KISS IN THE FOLLOWING MOVIE ADAPTATION OF THE PLAY  

1) ROMEO AND JULIET (Franco Zeffirelli, 1968)

FRANCES HAUGER, FACEBOOK WHISTLEBLOWER

 WORKSHEET

BUILDING A CATHEDRAL - THE PILLARS OF THE EARTH

THE PILLARS OF THE EARTH by KEN FOLLETT (1989)

In a time of civil war, famine and religious strife, there rises a magnificent Cathedral in Kingsbridge. Against this backdrop, lives entwine: Tom, the master builder, Aliena, the noblewoman, Philip, the prior of Kingsbridge, Jack, the artist in stone and Ellen, the woman from the forest who casts a curse. A sensuous and enduring love story and an epic that shines with the fierce spirit of a passionate age.

The Historical Context (The Anarchy or The 19-year Winter 1135-1154)

Empress Matilda (c. 7 February 1102 – 10 September 1167), also known as Matilda of England or Maude, was the daughter and heir of King Henry I of England. Matilda and her younger brother, William Adelin, were the only legitimate children of King Henry to survive to adulthood. The death of her brother in the White ship disaster in 1120 made Matilda the last heir from the paternal line of her grandfather William the Conqueror.

As a child, Matilda was betrothed to and later married Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor, acquiring the title Empress. The couple had no known children. After being widowed for a few years, she was married to Geoffrey count of Anjou, with whom she had three sons, the eldest of whom became King Henry II of England.

BYRON IN ITALY

Watch the video and complete the tasks in the worksheet

This video clip is taken from the BBC drama series BYRON (2003)

WORKSHEET BYRON IN ITALY

CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE - ANALYSIS OF FRAGMENTS FROM BOOK III

BELLE - A MOVIE & A TRUE STORY FROM THE 18th CENTURY

Belle: The mixed race daughter of a Royal Navy Admiral is raised by her aristocratic great-uncle in 18th century England.

CAMELOT - THE ARTHURIAN LEGEND IN A TV SERIES

In this series , CAMELOT (2011),  they investigate how the legend may have come to be. They imagine  young Arthur, just in his teens,  torn away from his comfortable environment and from his foster parents by Merlin. He is suddenly thrown into the middle of a violent world in which he has to survive and to become a man and a king.

None of the characters is the mythical figure of the tradition. They are complex, conflicting human beings, totally different from their iconic counterparts. 

SEBASTIAN FAULKS ON ROBINSON CRUSOE: VIDEO + WORKSHEET

WORKSHEET

THE AGE OF THE KNIGHT: THE LEGEND OF KING ARTHUR. NOTES & ACTIVITIES.

Minstrels and Knights

Up to the Norman conquest scops composed poems and performed them, usually with the accompaniment of a harp. Later, however, they were replaced by minstrels. Minstrels were a kind of professional entertainer: they would wander from court to court or had a fix abode at the court of a noble. They sang and recited lyrics and narratives, including ballads and romances.

Minstrels sang about romances whose main character was the knight, a central figure in the Middle Ages. This figure grew in importance as a result of the prosperity achieved by the courts, particularly in France, where the nobles wanted to hear stories about heroes, adventures and chivalry.

The knight was an idealised figure in literature. He was expected to uphold a code of chivalry which was usually associated with ideals of honour, courtly love and virtue. He was expected to be loyal to his king or lord, fight for him in battle and, if necessary, sacrifing himself for honour. 

Another knightly phenomenon was courtly love, a love relationship between a knight and his lady, in which the knight served his beloved with the same loyalty he had for his king or lord. 

The duties of a knight also included a Christian element: faith in God and commitment to fight against evil.  The knight was also expected to protect the weak and the poor, to be humble before others, merciful to his enemies and gentle to the noble ladies.

NO WORKING OUT - VIDEO & WORKSHEET

WORKSHEET

LITTLE WOMEN FOR THE 21st CENTURY

1. READ THE PLOT OF THE BOOK THEN TAKE THE QUICK TEST

JOHN STUART MILL, ON LIBERTY

JOHN STUART MILL
Worsheet 
THE TYRANNY OF THE MAJORITY (Excerpt + questions)

VIDEO LESSONS ON JANE AUSTEN AND HER NOVELS

Professor John Mullan - Proposals and Marriage in Jane Austen

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, MICHAEL

In this video Professors Simon Bainbridge and Sally Bushell discuss Wordsworth’s longer poem, ‘Michael’, first published in the second edition of Lyrical Ballads, 1800.

Professor Bainbridge and Professor Bushell go to a particular site in the Lake District, Greenhead Gill (a gill or ghyll is a mountain stream). This site provides both the setting and inspiration for the poem as well as the place in which it is written. They consider the ways in which Wordsworth builds a sense of place into the poem ‘Michael’.

TRANSCRIPT VIDEO 1 

SHAKESPEARE, SONNET 116: LET ME NOT TO THE MARRIAGE OF TRUE MINDS

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove.

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wand'ring bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

WHAT DID OLD ENGLISH SOUND LIKE?

RECONSTRUCTIONS OF BEOWULF, THE BIBLE AND CASUAL CONVERSATION

What is the English language? Is it Anglo-Saxon? It is tempting to think so, in part because the definition simplifies a linguistic history that defies linear summary. Over the course of 1000 years, the language came together from extensive contact with Anglo-Norman, a dialect of French; then became heavily Latinized and full of Greek roots and endings; then absorbed words from Arabic, Spanish, and dozens of other languages, and with them, arguably, absorbed concepts and pictures of the world that cannot be separated from the language itself.

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