Sunday, June 29, 2008

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

The Lord of the Rings was the creation of J.R.R.Tolkien, a professor of Language and Literature at Oxford University. Tolkien spent at least a decade, no only creating the story, but also several different languages and entire series of myths behind the saga.
Making a film based on this incredible book is a daunting task for any filmmaker. There are probably few books with such fanatical followings that not only know every detail of the saga but also have their individual images of the characters.

Happily for all concerned, the director Peter Jackson did a pretty good job. Of course, some aspects of the stories were trimmed but in the general the story remained exceptionally faithful. With an incredible $300 million budget, he made three films all in one, each to be released year apart. This was quite unprecedented as sequels go. There have been film trilogies before but none that have all been filmed at once, not even any of George Lucas’s Star Wars films.

The first third of the film is an introduction to the world and central characters of the Middle Earth: In the Shire where the Hobbits live, Bilbo Baggins celebrates his 111th birthday and under pressure from the wizard Gandalf, he leaves his precious ring to Frodo. Gandalf explain that the ring was forged by the dark Lord and holds a great power. The only hope is for Frodo to find a way to disposing the ring. And so Frodo depart on a journey with three other Hobbits. After some dangers they were able to arrive in Rivendel, the home of elves. There a fellowship was formed to depart on a very dangerous journey to carry the ring to the only place it can be destroyed.

The Lord of the rings is a fairy-tale of myth and fantasy, but mainly, is all about humankind. Reading the book you could understand the corruption of absolute power, the importance of friendship, the strength of hope… And the film could capture that magic and be a new bearer to the message of humanism and statement of greatness.

(350 words)
Ana Paula Ribeiro da Silva – CPE1

Proposal for addressing some schooling problems

Current situation
The facilities available in schools are outdated and uninspiring. Both teachers and students have no options outside the classrooms to stay in the building for longer than necessary. And even worst, students do not like to spend their time in the school in regular time. The environment is not conducive to deal with the new issues provided in the 21st century.
Recommendations
A new approach to literacy, for the 21st century, require us to help children develop the habits of mind, heart and action that can mature into adults capacities for moral reflection, ethical restraint and compassionate service. Nowadays we are dependable of technology for everything and we need to deal with many issues that there is no precedence in the past. So we need call for a different education that prepares children to these needs.
Firstly we need emphasizing relationships with people and nature constructing green spaces for children to play and explore outdoors. Every school should be a “miniature model of a sustainable society”, to prepare children to take up the ecological challenges of the future.
Everybody agrees that math and sciences are important, but usually students hate them. We must experience practical situations. If we foster classes of lab and observations (nature observation) the children would feel more enthusiasm to learn these subjects.
Encourage creativity and imagination is important to develop intellectual and social skills for life. Extra classes of music, drama, painting, dance, poetry, would be available for all students.
Not only this, but extra or different classes are important, there are some basics needs that are vital to students: the school needs attract and retain qualified teachers, provide books for all students and expand or improve meal.
Conclusion
It is vital that the school must maintain the level of the education conducing to a new modern world teaching how to integrate thoughts, feelings and actions. The proposals outlined above would achieve this result improving the facilities in the environment to attract students to a new mature life. I hope that these proposals will be given due consideration.

(350 words)
Ana Paula Ribeiro da Silva – CPE1

Friday, March 28, 2008

Semi formal letter

Dear Sir,

I am writing in response to your magazine article about the declining role in the family of fathers today. I feel that there are many admirable fathers that inspire their children nowadays. I have always felt that fathers who support their children in everything and who has children that wish follow their example as an inspiration to a whole existence should be considered as a role model. I would like to describe someone who in my opinion has fulfilled the criteria of being an ideal father and who has inspired me personally as role model – my own father.
At only just 23-year-old my father as a young man had two children giving him an enormous responsibility. Working in two jobs he was not around a lot, but he never missed anything of importance for us. He is always there for us, whether it was for game of handball on Sunday morning or any other school function. He always expresses his love the best ways he knows investing a lot of time into my upbringing. He was determined to give up anything to make us happy.
My father believes is his on philosophies and I could say that everything I am, came from his knowledge of existence. He taught me that we all need to have passion to do things in life, and following that passion we will be able to do good business and the money will flows from that. He also taught the value of everything, how to love, respect and be a good and moral person. Having my father gave me an advantage in life over many people.
To put in a nutshell, I think that my father have a clear role in the family, even spending most of his time outside my home, he was always there for me. He achieves the role of being a father giving me an example to follow and now because of him, I know what being father means and I really can say that there is at least one real father left.

Yours faithfully,

(345 words)

Ana Paula Ribeiro da Silva – CPE 1