World's Best Milky Way Photo | Wānanga

Hi everyone! Welcome to another post, today I decided to write about article about the Milky Way Photo of the Year. 

Text Title: Kiwi's Milky Way photo named one of the world's best

Text Type: News Article 

Text Creator: Allan Granville - Stuff 

Text Purpose: To Inform and show.

What does the author of the text want us to know?

The author wants us to know about the amazing feats that someone in our country had achieved on a global scale. The author describes the many entrees that had went and took on the challenge of capturing the best photo of the milky way. They also informed us of the many obstacles the photographers went through to get this amazing photo of our home galaxy.

'Mt. Taranaki Milky Way' — Larry Rae

Rare Blood Super-moon | Wānanga

Hi everyone! Welcome to another post. This week I decided to do a critical literacy post on the rare blood supermoon that appeared on Wednesday. 

Text Title: Full coverage: After 40 years, rare blood supermoon lights up night sky

Text Type: News Article 

Text Creator: Stuff 

Text Purpose: To inform and show. 

What views of the world is this text presenting? 

This text is showing us a rare phenomenon where the moon appears to be a dark red rusty colour. This has caused excitement for many astronomy lovers and scientists around the world. The text is also informing us about something that hasn't happened in many years. Both a supermoon and blood moon happening at the same time. 

Credit: New York Times 

Credit: Business Insider 

Factual or Satirical? | English

Hi everyone! Welcome to another post, today for English we learned about what factual and satirical mean by looking at news sites and finding evidence on whether it is either factual or satirical. We looked at different sites from 4 different countries, the US (America), Australia, New Zealand, UK. After sorting the websites out we had to choose 2 websites from a country and compare them. 

The Herald

I chose to do one about a website from America. The websites are called The Herald and The Civilian. After choosing we then had to look at the articles on the website and compare one from each of the sites. 

For The Herald, I chose the article "Rugby: All Blacks schedule confirmed for July with tests against Tonga and Fiji".

For the site, The Civilian I chose the article "Will Steve Hansen’s plan to stack two All Blacks on top of each other in a big coat pay dividends?"

Just by looking at the articles, it is very obvious which one is factual and which one is satirical. The Herald is the real one because multiple articles can be seen about it when searched online, the title also sounds very relevant. While, for the Civilian, the title is very unconvincing and sounds absurd. There are also no other articles about the articles and is the only publishing about this particular topic. 

The Civilian 

Extra: Ways to Find out if a site is real or fake.

1. Is the site secure?
2. Do the articles shown on the website seem legitimate?
3. Check the URL, does it have a .com or does it have something you have never recognised before?
4. Look at others sources. Are they reporting the same news as the site you were previously looking at?
5. Reverse Image Search photos to check where they have come from.
6. Think Critically and question articles that may not seem legitimate. 

Monstrous Creature from the deep | Wānanga

Hi everyone! Welcome to another post, This week for our weekly critical literacy questions, I decided to write about an article that I saw when watching the news. The article was about a deep-sea creature washing up on a beach.

Title: Monstrous creature from the deep with its own light and a huge appetite washes ashore

Text Type: New Article

Text creator: Stuff

Text purpose: To inform viewers

Why are we/you reading this text?

The was very interesting in terms of deep-sea creatures, it really captured readers with the striking photo and title of the article. The whole topic of a deep-sea creature washing up on the beach was really shocking and I wanted to find out more about it. 

Credit: The Guardian 

Neanderthal Unearthed | Wānanga

Hi everyone! Welcome to another post, this term we are once again doing critical literacy questions every Friday. For the first week, I decided to do a post about a news article that I have previously read during our wānanga time. 

Title: Neanderthal remains unearthed in an Italian cave

Text Type: News Article 

Text Creator: BBC 

Text purpose: To info viewers

What views of the world is the text representing?

The text represents how the world was before it modernized and shaped into what it is right now. It shows how people lived and the constant dangers they lived in to survive in that kind of environment. This also shows how much they did to be able to live in their environment. 

Credit: BBC 

Brain-dead Teen - Critical Literacy | English

What makes this video convincing?

 -   The video looks like it is a real new report with headlines and background music playing. Which creates tension.

 -  They provide evidence on the fact that the girl is braindead, in other words providing viewers with reports from so-called doctors. 

Who published this video?
 -  The Onion News Network

How are teenagers portrayed in this clip?
 -  In the video teenagers are seen as lazy people.

 -  Teenagers are seen as braindead people who can only go on their phones. 

Why has the director cast them this way?
 -  To make fun of the stereotype when teenagers are seen are lazy people who don't do anything. 

In whose interest is this text?
 -  This would likely be for adults and parents showing an example of what could happen to their children.

 -  Teenagers, to show and inform how people of their generation are behaving.

Who is real in the text?
 - Everyone in the video is real but the characters they portrayed are fake. 

What social realities does this video portray? 
 -  In the video, there were clips and images of people protesting. 

 -  There were stereotypes boycotting how a group of people acts based on how they are acting. 

Woodstock ⎢ Critical Literacy

Hi everyone! Welcome to another post, today I wrote another summary for our weekly reflections. This week I decided to do a summary of a recent topic we covered during Social Studies, this unit was called Woodstock. 

Title: Woodstock 

Woodstock was an event that took place during the Vietnam War in an attempt to bring peace and persuade people that the Vietnam War wasn't a good idea. During the festival numerous musicians and bands performed, each mentioning something about the war and peace. Woodstock left a huge impact on the music industry opening up to new genres of music. 

Text Type: Article 

Text Creator: Kiddle Encyclopedia 

Text Purpose: To inform 

Why is the text written in the way it is?

The text was written to inform readers about an event that had impacted the world. The text structures the text so it will easily be read so that we can understand the text that we are reading about. It features many sentences about how they even came to be famous and the purpose of the event. This shows us the text was written in a way where it is easily read and understood. 

Poster

Children of Blood and Bones ⎢ Critical Literacy

Hi everyone! Welcome to another post, today we did another reflection session. Today I decided to do a reflection about a book that we have been reading in English. I have already made a post about this book, but that was when we were starting the book, but now that we have finished it I decided to do a reflection about it. 

Title: Children of Blood and Bone

The book was written by Tomi Adeyemi and features South African Gods and Goddesses. The story features a girl who goes on a journey to attempt to bring back magic to the kingdom of Orïsha. The author of the story developed this story with the purpose to inform readers about the tragic shootings happening to African-Americans. She also gained inspiration from Yoruba culture, books and animations such as Harry Potter and Avatar: The Last Airbender. 

Text Type: Book 

Text Creator: Tomi Adeyemi 

Text Purpose: To inform 

What views of the world is the text presenting?

In the text, it represents unfairness to a certain class of people. One class is superior to the other. It shows how the lower class were treated and how they were judged by the higher class. This can be linked to something in the world that would be called social class, something that is used to group people into a set of hierarchical social categories. To further explain, a certain class will always be on top of the other class the person of the higher class may have a person of lower-class working for them. The book explains how the people of a higher class were mistreating the people of a lower class. 

Israeli Archeologists ⼁Critical Literacy

Hi everyone! Welcome to another post, today we did another reflection session, for this session I decided to write about a news article I saw on a site. The article was called 'Israeli Archeologists discovered fragments of Dead Sea scroll from 2nd century', I decided to do this, because the topic interested me. 

Title: Israeli Archeologists discovered fragments of Dead Sea scroll from 2nd century

The text was a news article about archaeologists from Israel finding dead sea scrolls dating back from the 2nd century. The scrolls contained biblical texts and were found in a desert cave, the text is believed to have contained Greek texts from the books of Zechariah and Nahum which is believed to have been written during the 1st century judging by the writing style. The scrolls were found in a cave called the 'Cave of Horror' which is well-known for the number of skeletons found inside the cave. 

Text Type: News Article 

Text Creator: Ilan Ben Zion 

Text Purpose: To inform

What does the author of this text want us to know?

The author wants to inform us about how the archaeologists found the scrolls and why it is important to their research. They also wanted us to know how they found the scrolls and where it was found. By this we know how the scrolls were important and what knowledge we can gain from observing the scrolls. This also shows that the knowledge that we gain from the scrolls can let us know more about the past. 

Credit: https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/new-dead-sea-scrolls-1.5951332