Schülerarbeiten Sek II

U.S. Presidential Elections 2008

Berlin-Brandenburg School Project

Das LISUM Berlin-Brandenburg und die Amerikanische Botschaft haben anläßlich der Wahlen in den USA ein gemeinsames Projekt unter dem Namen Berlin-Brandenburg School Project on the US Presidential Elections 2008 initiiert, an dem unsere Schule mit den beiden Leistungskursen Englisch 12 von Frau Baudisch und Frau Weiland teilnimmt. Im Rahmen des Unterrichtes bildeten die Wahlen ein Schwerpunktthema. Am 17. und 18. 10. waren zwei Vertreter der Amerikanischen Botschaft an unserer Schule und haben mit Leistungskursschülern eine sehr informative, offene und anregende Diskussion zu aktuellen Themen im Zusammenhang mit den Wahlen geführt. Für das Projekt haben sich die beiden teilnehmenden Kurse insbesondere mit Texas - die Guyer High School in Denton/Texas ist unser langjähriger GAPP Partner - beschäftigt. Als Ergebnis sind die beiden Powerpointpräsentationen entstanden.

Powerpoint 1

Powerpoint 2

Diese werden, wie auch die Beiträge der anderen Schulen, auf der website der Amerikanischen Botschaft veröffentlicht. Vertreter aus beiden Kursen werden an einer gemeinsamen Veranstaltung mit Schülern aller beteiligten Schulen im Roten Rathaus am Vormittag des 4.11. sowie an einer Podiumsdiskussion und der offiziellen Wahlparty der Botschaft am Abend des 4.11. teilnehmen.  

Theaterkritiken

Review “Brave New World”

Der Leistungskurs Englisch 13 hat im Januar 2008 im Grips Theater "Schöne Neue Welt"  gesehen - hier zwei Theaterkritiken.  Welcome, stranger, to our society, where all human problems have been solved by abolishing natural emotional relationships. Nowadays, babies aren’t born any longer, no, they are produced, standardized according to five different castes. Thanks to permanent consumption, our holy drug Soma and licentious promiscuity we are now able to say that EVERYBODY IS HAPPY TODAY. Welcome to the BRAVE NEW WORLD.
The Berlin theatre GRIPS presents Huxley’s satirical vision in the only way that does justice to its bizarre absurdity – a sacharinely colourful muscial!
Sustained by the generally catchy songs of the NoWorries, the play absorbs the audience within minutes into the Brave New World. The soundtrack ranges from futuristic brave new propaganda songs (“Life is lalala”, “Brave New World”), which point out pronouncedly the superficial lifestyle dedicated to nothing but pleasure, to melodic love hymns (“Sweet Boy, Sweet Angel”).
Also the costumes by Babara Kremer lovely designed for each different caste help to create an intense, but light atmoshphere. Especially the Beta females shine in candy-like, extremely pink and plushily provocative dresses.
Matthias Fischer-Dieskau’s rather simple set, which brings up selected coherent effects contributing to the play’s entertaining aspects, is impressive as well.
First and foremost, however, it is the outstanding company, whose fun and commitment is more than obvious, who creates the play. Appearantly being experienced, they convince both vocally and rythmically.
All along the performance, the cast characterizes each class convincingly. The Alphas’ uninvolved and snobbish behaviour as well as the Betas’  strong physical attitude is present all the time, whereas the dumb Epsilons literally jump around joyfully.
As far as the particular performances are concerned, Ester Daniel (Helena Watson) and Daniel Jeroma (Bernhard Marx) act charasmatically as the most interesting roles of two “antisocial” individual Alphas. Kathrin Osterode persuades as the attractive Beta Lenina mainly due to her angelic voice. John, played by the well-toned Cristoph Letkwoski, clearly represents the cast’s popular figure as an idealistic neohippy. Most notably, however, is Michaela Hanser’s performance as the constantly high Linda, who returns to civilisation after years of exile in wilderness. Despite of her tragic character, she manages to keep the light and happy atmosphere and wins the audience over.
Not in the least the musical shows the topicality of Huxley’s conception by alluding to both up-to-date celebrities (“Bill McSoft” as the leader, Nina Ruge as an important philosopher due to her “prophecy” “Everything is going to be fine”) and current problems as the shortage of water. In the same manner, the omnipresent sexual acts do not happen in reality, but only virtually, a clear parallel to “second life” nowadays for instance. At the latest by now the audience has to be aware: the Brave New World is not to come anylonger, it’s already reality. Just like in the vision, our alienated society is only based on consumption and has lost any natural coherence.
Unfortunately, the play does not uphold its refreshing divertness. Basically the whole long-winded 2nd half slips off into a trashy love story, neglecting all critical and serious elements the original novel contains.
Still, even this distressing episode does not manage to destroy the altogether amused,  but  pensive mood one is in on the way home from an entertaining philosophical evening.

(Nina Kratz)

REVIEW    Utopical – Brave New World

On Tuesday the 22nd of January Ms Weiland and her thirteens graders went to see an impressive play in the theater... The play ,Brave New World’, which is based on Aldous Huxley’s famous novel and was perfomed by the actors of the Grips-Theater, is a great utopian musical. Its genuine rendition was really convincing, so that the reader of the book could rediscover most of the important elements in the play.
Brave New World shows a happy, solid and sexist society, which is based on consumption and taking drugs. This modern world is sterile and standardized, which means that human beings are produced in bottles and conditioned, to create equal and non-thinking creatures, by the help of hypnopaedic specialists.
Whereas at Huxley’s time the topic symbolized options for the following generations, it now stands for real circumstances of our time in a lot of ways. The attentive observer should have recognized that the topic is really of current interest. We are already living in the brave new world. Its actuality is clarified by the director in many different ways, for example that the glorified Ford, who invented the assembley line production, is replaced by the names of Mao Sonic and Bill Mc Soft. Indicators of the play’s actuality can also be seen in the facts that birth, life and death are turned into artificial assembleyline-like processes and that consumption of drugs and a highly sexist mass media  are nothing out of the ordinary any more.
But not only was the rendition of the content well done. Also the choreographic elements, the creative costumes and the combination of different stylistic devices in the theater were well chosen. The actors played the upper and lower castes, which were described by behavior, outward appearance and their levels of intelligence, in a very specific and extraordinary way and were expressed by the floating change of acting, singing and dance performances. The music is also a highlight in this production. A band, whose music sounded like a mixture of rock, pop and balades turned everything into a great experience. On the one hand the songs were ironically naive and symbolized Huxley’s careless and eternally happy society and on the other hand there were hymns and lovesongs. All in all, the first half of the play was very absorbing and led the audience into the Brave New World and its social and human problems, while the second part seemed to be a bit longwinded. At the end one could ask oneself if thinking and feeling individuals will be extinct!  

(Gregor Czaika -  LK Englisch Jahrgang 13/Weiland – Februar 2008 )  

Ein Projekt des Profilkurses Englisch: The Giver

Movie Review: Frost/Nixon

by Max Querengässer & Yves Büttner

(AP class 12 English – Ms Weiland)

On February 24, 2009 our English AP class met in Hackesche Hoefe to watch the movie Frost/Nixon in its original version.

Oscar winner Ron Howard brought Peter Morgan’s interpretation of one of the most fascinating duels of talkshow journalism to the movie theaters. Three years after Richard Nixon’s resignation as president he did not remain silent any longer and in a couple of interviews talked about his term. The expectations of discovering the truth about the Watergate case were high especially since the nation had so far never received an apology for the fraud that had almost ended in the first impeachment in history.

Thinking that it would be an easy game, Nixon chose the British talk show host and entertainer David Frost, who had never done a political interview before. 400 million people were waiting for the truth and Michael Sheen (Frost) together with Frank Langella (Nixon) impressively show how tantalizing a political interview can be. At the beginning the viewer gets to know the main facts about the Watergate scandal so that, even if one does not know about this historic event, the message of the film becomes clear.

Having difficulty getting the interview with Nixon at first, talk show host David Frost finally succeeds in convincing Nixon by offering him a considerable sum of money. He tries to find out about the ex-presidents secrets but sometimes he does not realize how important his role in this game is. Frost underestimates the situation and even sacrifices his own money and influence being convinced that this interview would become a sensation. Nixon on the other hand tries to reconstitute his honour as a president.Though the interviews develop into a box fight between two opponents who have both – the chance to win everything or to lose it. The most important scene in the film shows a drunken Nixon, calling Frost the night before the last and most important interview which concerns Watergate. Next to the rising tension, some funny dialogues amuse the viewer. The well-chosen humour and its 70s flavor ease the film up. ”Frost/Nixon” takes a closer look behind the scenes of this memorable meeting. Some parts of the interviews are fake, but still the film is based on a true story. The fake parts do not make the film less believable.

Director Ron Howard staged a brilliant drama of two people, arguing about the truth in front of the camera. The film shows that policy is not always about what a politician says but how he looks while saying it. He demonstrates the power of  pictures compared to words. Even though this issue was used in films before, Ron Howard and his flashy style succeeds in capturing the audience.

The film became nominated for several Golden Globe awards and five Oscars. Unfortunately, it did not win any of them. In our opinion the film earned at least one Oscar – the one for the best actor.