Rick Steves' Europe - A Good Research Resource

Hey, everyone! I wanted to post a link to a useful resource for students who are doing their essay and presentation on European cities - Rick Steves' Europe Youtube channel. http://www.youtube.com/user/RickSteves

Rick Steves is a professional guidebook author and television presenter. He's very knowledgeable about Europe, so you can trust his videos. We watched his "Christiania" video in class this week (or for Tuesday and Wednesday classes - we will watch it!) He has videos on almost every city in Europe. Some of them have good English captions, but some of them say "automatic captions." If it says "automatic captions" it is probably not correct, so be careful! Look for captions that just say "English."Remember, you can watch a video just to look at the attraction or city so that you can describe what it looks like or see what people do there. Of course you can also pause the video to get facts from it. 

If you watch a video make sure to copy and paste the web address into your Works Cited! Rick Steves has short video clips about attractions, but he also has half hour long shows about whole cities, regions or countries! 

Here are some Rick Steves' Europe video clips! 

Here's a video about some of Vienna's famous food with good subtitles. I am SO HUNGRY after watching it!!!!!!

Here's a whole episode about Paris!

A video with good captions about Rome's Colosseum!

Finally, if you want to rewatch it - the video about Christiania and another about Copenhagen! If you haven't chosen a city, yet, also consider Copenhagen! It's a very interesting place! 

I hope you've enjoyed seeing some videos by one of my favorite TV personalities and authors, Rick Steves! If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to leave them below! :)  

Choosing a Topic: IDEAS #3 Kyoto, Japan

Kyoto, Japan is one of the places on the topic list that I have visited! I have been to Kyoto twice - once on an exchange program when I was 15 years old, and again in 2011 with my husband, Lee. Both times I really enjoyed myself.

The gate at Kiyomizudera, a temple in Kyoto.

Both times I visited Japan, I went to Kiyomizudera, one of Kyoto's most famous temples. Of course, this is only one of many temples and shrines in Kyoto, but I really appreciated this temple's simple beauty. It is named the "pure water" temple, because of a waterfall at the temple.

Another picture I took at Kiyomizudera. In the Edo era apparently at least 200 people jumped off the terrace in the picture. They believed that jumping off the terrace would bring them luck and that they would survive the fall thanks to the temple's guardian gods. Though the temple is about 4 stories up, apparently 85% of the people who jumped actually did survive. 

Another special feature of Kyoto is the chance to glimpse Japan's geisha and maiko tradition. This tradition is almost lost, but in Kyoto there are still maiko - geishas in training. Lee and I went to see a free maiko dance performance at a cultural center.

A maiko is a geisha-in-training. There are very few geisha and maiko in modern Japan, but Kyoto is one of the main places to see them.

My favorite part of the trip, however, was visiting the monkeys at the Iwatayama Monkey Park in the Kyoto suburb of Arashiyama. It was a quick train ride and a short mountain hike away. We spent a few hours feeding and hanging out with the monkeys!

 This baby monkey is not in a zoo - he is outside, and I am watching and feeding him from inside a small building! The monkeys live on the mountainside, and people come to visit.

My husband, Lee, hanging out with a monkey!

 

This trip to Kyoto is one of my happiest memories of all time.

This is just a small assortment of what there is to see and do in Kyoto, however. Kyoto has many other temples and shrines, special festivals, famous foods and other attractions to offer. Kyoto would definitely make an interesting topic for an essay and presentation! Do you have any questions about Kyoto or any of the other presentation topics? Just ask! Happy Choosing!

Choosing a Topic: IDEAS #2 Vienna, Austria

I have never been to Vienna, but I hope to go next summer. There are so many reasons that I dream of going to Vienna. Art, culture and music are three of the biggest reasons.

First, Vienna is home to tons of great European art, including Albrecht Dürer’s “Hare” and the works of Gustav Klimt, which are all over the city. 

Albrecht Dürer’s "Hare."

Gustav Klimt's "The Kiss." 

Vienna is also famous for its music! Here is an article about four of the most famous musicians who worked in Vienna: http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/10/top-10-composers-the-vienna-four/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0

Finally, I am interested in the general culture of Vienna - great coffee, beautiful architecture, and great food like apple strudel (Apfelstrudel!) Personally, I can't wait to go there and speak German to the natives!

Vienna is making me hungry!!!!!!

To wrap up, here's a video (in German - but with English subtitles) interviewing Viennese people on the street about their city. Maybe you can get some ideas about what Vienna looks like and what kind of people live there from the video! Happy choosing!

Choosing a Topic! IDEAS #1: Portland, Oregon

This week or next week you will be choosing a topic for the essay and the presentation. Because you will work on this topic for the rest of the semester, it's important to choose wisely! Choose a city you feel interested in, a city that will be fun, a city that has a lot to write about!

I'm sure you already know a lot about the Korean cities on the list, so I'm going to write a few brief introductions to world cities you might be interested in. First up, my adopted hometown - 

PORTLAND, OREGON

Portland, Oregon was my home for 7 years! It's a very cool city which has attracted many young people in the last 10+ years. It's known for its eco-friendly lifestyle and biking culture. There are many great parks, gardens, and other interesting attractions in Portland! 

Biking is VERY popular in Portland. This is me with my bike "Old Gray" in 2007. I'm biking on the Springwater Trail next to the river. It's safe to bike all around Portland, and there are many bike festivals and events during the year!

There is a lot of beautiful street art in Portland!

Portland has become so popular in the U.S. that there's a television comedy show "Portlandia" made about the city and the strange people who live there! The video below is a comedy song about the strange young people who live in Portland. Even though it's a comedy, the people in the video are real Portland people. I even met a few of them! Portland's city motto is: Keep Portland Weird

Portland is a very strange city, but I love it. If you have any questions about Portland, Oregon, or any of the cities on the topics list, please feel free to ask in the comments! Happy choosing!

The Secret Garden: What is a moor?

When you get to the end of Chapter 1 you'll see the word "moor" and read a description of a moor in the book. The moors are an important part of the English landscape. They appear in "The Secret Garden" as well as in many other famous English novels including "Jane Eyre" and "Wuthering Heights" by the Bronte sisters. To get a better look at the moors, here are some videos where you can see this famous landscape. Don't worry about understanding all the English in these videos. You can also watch travel videos as a way to see a landscape so that you can imagine or describe it more easily.


A photographer talks about photographing the moors.

Various views of the landscape of the moors!

This final video is a movie trailer for "Jane Eyre" based on the famous novel by the same name. You can see a dark side of the moors in this video. The movie is really good too! I recommend it for people who enjoy mysterious romance movies or just good stories!

What do you think about the moors? I've never been there, but they look very interesting to me. Would you want to visit? Have you ever visited an interesting landscape?

Revising My Hometown Paragraph: An Example

Part of your homework is to rewrite your hometown and summer paragraphs. Even teachers can do a better job if they revise! Let's look at the example paragraph and fix it!

1. TOPIC SENTENCE and CONTROLLING IDEA         

Here the topic is "Lake Geneva" and the controlling idea is "beautiful." Is this a good controlling idea for the whole paragraph? 

        My hometown, Lake Geneva, is a beautiful place. Lake Geneva is in southern Wisconsin in the United States. It’s a small town with only about 5,000 residents. However, in the summer Lake Geneva is very crowded and full of tourists. People come to see our lake. The lake is very beautiful, clear and it’s fairly big. It’s a good lake for swimming, boating or doing other water sports. In the fall, winter and spring, Lake Geneva is more peaceful. It’s nice to take a walk to the lake. In the winter sometimes it is so quiet that you can hear the snow fall. I really miss my hometown!

Maybe it's not. Let's change the topic sentence. In the paragraph I describe Lake Geneva as: small, crowded, beautiful and peaceful. That's a lot of different ideas! It would be hard to add them all to one topic sentence. What can I do instead?

A.  I could make a general topic sentence: "I really like my hometown, Lake Geneva" or "Lake Geneva is a great place." Since every sentence is positive, that would be okay. 

B. I could think about how my paragraph is organized. I talk about Lake Geneva in the summer, fall, winter and spring. How about this, then?: "My hometown, Lake Geneva, is a great place to visit in every season." We could also use the more common collocation "year-round." "My hometown, Lake Geneva, is a great place to visit year-round." 

2. ADDING DETAILS

Now that I have a new topic sentence, I should add details. Thankfully, many students asked me follow-up questions about my hometown, so I can answer some of them in my writing. Here are some questions and answers:

How expensive is it? - it is cheaper than other parts of the U.S.

Can you fish there? What kinds of fish do people catch? - Yes, fishing is popular. Bass, trout... 

What is Lake Geneva's famous food? - bratwurst, cheese, fish fry  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bratwurst

I will add some of these details to my paragraph now. I don't need to use all the answers to the follow-up questions. I should choose details that match my controlling idea. 

3. CHANGE ONE THING, CHANGE OTHER THINGS.

Remember, when you change one thing, you may need to change other things. You might add transition signals: First, second, finally... You might take out a sentence that doesn't match or change a word. 

FINAL REVISION!!!!

         My hometown, Lake Geneva, is a great place to visit year-round. Lake Geneva is in southern Wisconsin in the United States. It’s a small town with only about 5,000 residents. However, in the summer Lake Geneva is very crowded and full of tourists. People come to see our lake. The lake is very beautiful and clear, and it’s fairly big. It’s a good lake for swimming, boating or doing other water sports. It's also a good place to catch fish. People catch bass and trout in the lake. In the fall and spring, Lake Geneva is more peaceful. It’s nice to take a walk to the lake. You can also enjoy some popular Wisconsin foods, such as bratwurst or cheese. Bratwurst is a kind of sausage, originally from Germany. In the spring you can also eat maple syrup fresh from the tree at the Maple Syrup Festival. In the winter, you can ski, snowboard or sled in Lake Geneva, but there aren't many visitors. The town can be very quiet. Sometimes it is so quiet that you can hear the snow fall. I really miss my hometown, and I hope I can visit again soon. 

My brother, Thomas "Ishtar" Howell, in front of the fountain at the Riviera, a popular meeting place in town. 

The Secret Garden

Hello, everyone! I was really happy to talk with some of you on the last blog entry! Please keep commenting if you have any questions you'd like to ask or if you want to introduce yourself! I will post some cool videos and other information about Lake Geneva in a week or so.

For now, though, I want to talk about "The Secret Garden" by Frances Hodgson Burnett. This is the book we're going to read together this semester.

"The Secret Garden" was one of my favorite books when I was a child. I probably read it over 10 times. I really liked reading about the house in the book, Misselthwaite Manor, which had so many different rooms - almost 100! I used to imagine what was in all the different rooms.

When I was growing up, my copy of the book had this cover. 

"The Secret Garden" was written in 1910, but it is still very popular in English-speaking countries. It has been made into many different movie versions and a Broadway play! Here are some of the different versions.

"The Secret Garden" 1987, made for American TV. This has the whole movie, but it doesn't have subtitles, so it could be difficult to understand.

"The Secret Garden" 1993, feature film. This is just a short movie clip!

It's even been made into a Japanese anime called Anime Himitsu no Hanazono (アニメ ひみつの花園). You can't get this version in English. If anyone decides to watch it in Japanese, please tell me your opinion of it!

Finally, it became a Broadway musical!

If you like, watch some of these videos and see what you think! Remember, however, that the book will not be exactly the same as the movies! The movies can help you understand better or enjoy the book, but to really know the story, you must read! :) 

COMMENT! - What do you think of these videos? Have you seen any of these movies or shows? What were some of your favorite books when you were a child?