the end

Hey guys!

Well, this is the real end of the story of Melanie & SLAM ....

Today is the last deadline and we have to finish our blog this evening. That makes me feel a little sad.

Dear Mr. Z,
please read the following of my blog entries:

my favourite chapter, 05th June 2016

my favourite character, 12th June 2016

NYC Human Resources Administration teen pregnancy campaign, 19th June 2016 


I really hope you guys like my blog. Thanks to all my readers! It was so much fun writing this blog :)

Bye everyone!

Yours, Melanie

the movie SLAM

Hey everyone!

In this post I´ll tell you as an optional how I would turn SLAM into a movie. 

I´ve divided our novel SLAM into 9 basic topics which I would use as a guideline in the 

movie. All of them have to be mentioned in a way. There we go:

(1) Introduction                                        

The camera shows the streets of London and gets slowly closer to Sam and focuses on him.

Sam is out skating (maybe at the Bowl) and shows some tricks, and then he takes his skateboard and goes home. Sam´s way home and his home are shown. I would use the song “Heaven is a Halfpipe” by the American band OPM 

 I could imagine Merlin Rose (known because of Doktorspiele) as Sam because he looks pretty normal and has already played the roles of more or less stupid teenagers. He is basically the way I imagine Sam to be like.

(2) Development of Sam´s and Alicia´s relationship

Sam´s mum Annie asks Sam to go with him to the birthday party of Alicia´s mum. I would use the conversation of the book but in a short form. As already mentioned in one of my other posts, I could imagine Kate Winslet as Annie because she´s very good looking, seems still young (although she´s way older than Annie) and lovely (as far as I can tell).

When they´re at the party, Sam and Alicia first have their “argument” and then they talk again and go up to Alicia´s bedroom. To find a suitable actor for Alicia was really difficult because I don´t have a clear imagination of Alicia in front of my mind´s eye. I finally decided that I could imagine Lisa Vicari (also known because of Doktorspiele) as Alicia. She seems to fit and is around Alicia´s age.

They go out to grab a coffee and talk a lot. I would present only the really important things they talk about and show that they start a more or less serious relationship.

The scene when they go to Alicia´s and go up to her bedroom is really important. I would use the song “Amnesia” by the band Five Seconds of Summer (I love them!) for it.

The song is super sensitive and a bit sad. It is one of my favourite songs and I feel like it fits perfectly. Their conversation needs to be shown in detail and all the different feelings have to be shown too - the crying Alicia, the unsuspecting Sam …
After Sam comes back, I would only show how they kiss and start taking their clothes off. Then Alicia turns off the light.

The next part has to be just like an overview. It should show Sam and Alicia who are totally drunk of love in some different situations. For example at home in Alicia´s bedroom, out in the park or in the cinema. Therefore I would use the song “crazy in love” by Beyoncé.

Sam meeting Alicia after her text message “I need 2 c u urgent Axx” is also a important scene. I would show the text message, Sam´s reaction and their conversation but end the scene with Alicia going home and Sam running away. 

 

(3) First whizz into the future

I would start this scene with Sam laying in his bed, turn the screen black with the words “one year later” for some seconds and start the scene with Alicia, a crying Rufus and Sam in their bedroom. I would show the struggles Sam has with being a dad and his pregnant mum. I would leave out the part when he meets the other girl. I think that the song “Pillowtalk” by Zayn Malik would fit here. 

The dream should end with another black screen.

(4) Sam´s trip to Hastings

Sam tries to find a job in Hastings to earn some money, but nobody can help him. I would show the old man and the conversation with him at the mini golf place.
Then Sam goes directly to the hostel and meets Mr Brandy. This scene has to be really funny but I would only show how Sam starts to work for him and how he decides to go home. I could imagine Dieter Hallervorden (the grandpa in the movie “Honig im Kopf”) as Mr Brandy but he has to be really rude and always angry.

When Sam comes back home, the police car is in front of their house and a policewoman is inside. Annie should show her madness and her anger on Sam but the forgiving still has to come early.

I would leave out the part with the family counseling and the one with Sam hiding in front of Alicia´s house because I don´t like these parts so much. 

(5) Dealing with the pregnancy

Most important here are the parent´s reactions to Alicia´s pregnancy. I would show the scene as it is in the book. First they tell it Alicia´s parents and then they go over to Sam´s mum.
This part has to be really emotional – Alicia´s dad´s anger, her mum´s desperation and crying, Sam´s mum´s worries, crying and sarcastically reaction and his dad´s childish reaction have to be shown in detail. 

(6) Second whizz into the future

I would leave that part out because I think that two whizz´ into the future are enough and this scene shows only once again how inexperienced and kinda stupid Sam is. 

(7) Birth and the first weeks with the baby

I wouldn´t show the birth in detail because I don´t think that teenagers really want to see that. The scene should just start with a nurse giving Alicia her baby. The part with the argument of the grandmothers about the last name of the baby should be shown shortly, just because it is funny.

Therefore I would use the song “Spirits” by the band The Strumbellas.

 Firstly, because it is a really happy scene and people who watch the movie should start smiling when they see the happy young family. Secondly, because I feel like the song fits in a special way to the situation. “spirits in my head and they won´t go” - Sam and Alicia will never forget about that moment in their lives. They will always remember it.

(8) Update on the events that happened

I would create that part as another overview. Some important scene should be shown, but no conversations and nothing in detail. For example, Sam or Alicia in college, each of them one time with the baby, Sam´s mum Annie with the baby and both of them as real teen parents together with their baby. It should be a lovely scene which makes people smile. Therefore I would choose the song “Wherever you are” by the band Five Seconds of Summer.

 

(9) Third whizz into the future

This is going to be the last scene of the movie. I would turn the screen black and show the words “3 years later” for some seconds. Then I would show Sam and his girlfriend getting off the bus and meeting Alicia and her boyfriend. I would show their conversation so that everyone knows that everything is good at the end. I would use the song “Photograph” of Ed Sheeran here because it should be such a peaceful scene which makes the whole movie a completed, round thing. 

I would end the movie with the camera going up in the sky and showing the city from above, just as the first scene. 

The movie should be especially for teenagers and young adults. It´s probably going to be allowed for people of the age of 12 years and older.
It should be like a mixture of a romantic comedy and a real life story. The focus should be on the love story of Alicia and Sam, becoming teen parents and how especially Sam handles everything.

I hope that you have kind of the same imagination of a movie in front of your mind´s eye as I do. 

Love, Melanie

final conclusion

Dear readers of this lovely blog! 

This post is going to be an essay about the last six weeks. I´ll mention what I think I´ve improved in this time, what skills still need to be improved and what else we could have done in class. 

I´m currently looking back from today to April 24. You might wonder what the special thing about that day was. Well, I´ve posted my first blog entry of my entire life right at this day.
It is really amazing to see now how the blog developed and to see that it has been clicked over 300 times.

First of all, I need to say that we´ve done a lot. I´ve learned a lot and I feel like I´ve also improved at least some skills. This was not the first book I´ve read in English but one of the first. I´ve never before thought about writing a blog and now I do so. And I like it. That´s so unbelievable… I was super sceptical at the beginning but now, it is so "normal" for me.
I´m nearly one hundred percent sure that my writing is better than before. If you read an English book, your lexicon expands and you get another idea of how you can form your sentences. That helped me. Reading the others blog entries was also pretty good to find out more about how we can express our thoughts with the language we know. My grammar is probably also way better because there was always a person who read my blog and told me about several mistakes I´ve done (and the lovely automatic correction of the computer program also helped me a lot because it reminded me of some things I´m always doing wrong). What I found out for myself is that I should repeat some basic rules in English. Rules like the ones for commas and the ones for sentence structure. Maybe we could do that together in class.
I think, my understanding via context is pretty fine but my word by word understanding needs to be improved. I´m actually not worrying about that because I think that will improve its self in the next time.
Honestly I have to say that I can´t think of any new reading techniques I´ve learned in the last few weeks. My speed is maybe a bit higher than before but that´s really hard to tell. And I always had fun reading English texts and especially this novel.
My analysing and debating skills stayed pretty much the same. Maybe a clear table of what needs to be mentioned, would help me.
Sometimes difficult was the right use of some words. If you want to express a certain feeling, you have to translate single words and it can happen that they get thrown out of the right context. 
I was sometimes confused by the given tasks. To describe a person you pretty much don´t know anything about can be really difficult.  
It´s a pity that we didn´t talk about single blog entries that often. I really liked our last lesson when we discussed and analysed the letters of four of our class.
I also would have liked to discuss about the different organizations that help pregnant teenage girls and about how they try to handle their situation in school.
Kind of boring for me were the tasks about those songs about abortion. The relation to the book was not that direct here for me. 

I really hope that this was a good feedback for you, Mr. Z! :)

Me, each time, trying to write my blog entries… That is my reflection about my organization skills (haha)

(1) reading the relevant chapters of SLAM

(2) trying to write down the most important information on a sheet of paper

(3) thinking: “it is too late now to start writing the blog entry… I´ll do it tomorrow”

(4) the next day: “No time today. I´ll see what I can do tomorrow.”

(5) the day after tomorrow: “Ugh. I have to write my blog entry!”

(6) finally powering-on the computer and waiting,

(7) running up and down the staircase 5 or more times to take up the book, the sheet of paper, a pencil, the English folder …

(8) starting to write the actual blog entry in Word

(9) Finishing it after surfing more of half of the time on the internet

(10) the day of the deadline, 4 pm: “I have 4 more hours to upload my post.”

(11) the day of the deadline, 7:30 pm: “Shut. I nearly forgot about uploading my blog entry.”

(12) powering-up the computer in a hurry, waiting

(13) copy and paste from Word …

(14) trying to put in some suitable photos

(15) 5 minutes before the deadline: having a mental breakdown

(16) 4 minutes before the deadline: blog entry goes online

(17) leaning back and relaxing

An optional task was to list 6 adjectives which describe our general mood when we think about SLAM and our English lessons.

stupid - because of Sam...
unexpected - in the beginning, I didn´t think about a teen pregnancy and then everything just happened so fast
surprising - there were some turns in the story and I thought that it´ll end in a different way
interesting - it was interesting because I saw things from different perspectives and that
funny - Sam and his sayings...and his mum Annie :)
shocking - how fast you can become a teen parent is really frightening. It was his first girlfriend and the first time having sex for Sam and then something like that happenes...

All in all, I have to say that I really liked what we did. The blog was a lot of work but it really worths it because it is so much fun writing it and reading the others blog entries. (our teacher is probably in the worst way because he has to read everything :o)
I hope for you that you´ll have the chance to write a blog yourself one day. It is such a cool way of communication!

Love, Melanie

NYC Human Resources Administration teen pregnancy campaign

Hey everybody!

This post is going to be a letter to the New York City Human Resources Administration about their campaign against teen pregnancy. I´ll also show you my own teenage pregnancy awareness ad.

We got the different advertisements in class and we have been asked to decide about which we want to talk. I decided to keep my letter generally.

These are the posters:

   

 

source:http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.1278957.1362423003!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/article_750/teen4n-web.jpg


Firstly, this is my letter:

To whom it may concern,

I´ve seen your advertisements of the anti-teen pregnancy campaign that show crying babies in real-life scenarios.
Rhetoric like “Honestly Mom … chances are he won’t stay with you. What happens to me?” and “I’m twice as likely not to graduate high school because you had me as a teen” make clear that the campaign is not about calling teenagers out to have only protected sex.
First of all, I have to say that it´s really good that an organization talks about the topic of teenage pregnancy. I think that teen pregnancies are no exceptions any more. Lots of teenagers become parents nowadays but the society doesn´t take notice of this topic.
It was really difficult for me to estimate your campaign because there are two totally different ways of how you can evaluate it. I´m holding different views because partly I agree to both sides.
On the one hand, the message is really clear and direct. Everyone knows right after reading what the advertisement is talking about. The creative sayings let people stop and give them an impulse to reassess this topic. The crying baby is a good eye-catcher and people will read the text underneath.
The photo in combination with the text and the given fact does something with you. That´s the special thing about these posters.
The strong message that teen pregnancy harms the teen parents and their child gets across and directly into our brains.
On the other hand, the message is too negative and provocative.
This advertising campaign is a perfect example for the entrenchment of differences in race, gender and class.
One of the messages is that you have to have money to “be allowed” to have a child. I feel like this is too provocative. Adults can also have financial problems and it is not about teenagers only.
It seems that if you´re poor, you´re responsible for the unhappiness and social failure of your child. But that could happen to every child, couldn´t it?
The other message is that you should graduate from high school, find a good job, earn a lot of money and get married before you even think about having a child. Here the campaign is more about repeating social norms and rules.
Girls are blamed for teen pregnancy and for broader social ills like poverty and poor education. Single mums are being blamed for not providing the best conditions for their children during the growing up process. That shouldn´t be the intention of a campaign.

I think that your intentions should be more about warning teenagers and telling them about the consequences of unprotected sex.  In my opinion, it would be better if you would present the social services, the abortion rights and the diseases which you can get by having unprotected sex: STDs and HIV / AIDS.
If you have any questions, feel free to contact me.

Yours faithfully,
Melanie Anderer


Secondly, this is my ad:

 

 

I hope you guys like it.

Love, Melanie