( Paolo and Francesca by Amos Casioli)My students had their first written examination in Italian this morning. Their half sleepy - half terribly anxious pale faces were waiting outside our school building very early this morning. Once they were all sitting at their desks, at about 9, we handed out the tasks. Nothing special: nor difficult, nor original, nor very interesting: "triviality fair" . After an even too obvious text analysis of an excerpt from Italo Svevo's "La coscienza di Zeno", there were tasks about the Social networks and Internet (32% Italian students wrote about that: not a surprise, indeed) , the Berlin Wall, Creativity and Technology, The history of the Italian State, Youth Culture from 50s to Facebook days and , last but not least, Love in Art and Literature. Did we read anything original? Not much. But poor students, how could they have been original in front of such trivial, obvious proposals? Anyhow, though we tried to appreciate all their efforts and creative achievements , we were quite bored in the end.
By the way, our students didn't mirror the national trend. The most successful task among them was that about love. Most of our students are girls, of course. We reflected on the fact they still have a very romantic, lyrical, "totalitarian" vision of love. To them love is all or nothing, Heaven or Hell, inescapable and essential.
They had to write an article or an essay after reading some poems or excerpts ( all the texts were by Italian writers) but they also had visual suggestions:
1. Magritte LOVERS
2. Chagall, WALK
3. Canova, LOVE AND PSYCHE
Which is your favourite love image? Not only among the ones above...there are lots of beautiful ones. Which task would you have chosen? I would have been rather embarassed...but I think I 'd have written about love, too. Tomorrow Mathematics for some of my students and Latin for the others. I don't think I'll have much to write about tomorrow night... HAVE A VERY GOOD EVENING! SWEET DREAMS TO ALL OF YOU.
MG
If you want to read about EXAMS - DAY 2 CLICK HERE
Amor Vincit Omnia......this is what Robert and I have ingraved inside our wedding rings!!! Thankyou for reminding me :))
ReplyDelete@Kathryn
ReplyDeleteWhat a nice coincidence! This is a Latin sentence I remembered from Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" (The Prioress). I was very good in Latin as a student but my memories are vanishing. Glad to remind you nice things! Have a nice weekend, K. Enjoyed it for me too. I'm working tomorrow!
engraved - what a mistake!!!!
ReplyDeleteDon't worry Kathryn! I'm a teacher, but I would never correct a native speaker's typing mistake like that!
ReplyDeleteI'd choose Canova's Love and Psyche, which means that I'm old and sappy. I'm sure I'd choose Magritte back in my 20s. Thankfully I'm also old enough to not care about my newly simplified taste. :D
ReplyDelete@austenette
ReplyDeleteMany of my students love Canova's works and their harmony, regularity, perfection...They are very young, so...Thanks for dropping by , S. Have a nice weekend.
I love Magritte, so I choose his painting. Reading your report about your pupils' exams I went back in my mind to my own maturita'. I still have nightmares at night about my exams! I dream of the maths exam and wake up sweating!I had a kidney colic during it but I wasn't allowed to exit the exam room otherwise I would have considered "failed". So I had to grin and bear it and do the best I could before getting transported to hospital by ambulance! I was better for my orals, though...But I've hated mathes since then! Ciao. A.
ReplyDelete@lunarossa
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry A! I didn't want to remind you sch terrible memories. I hope they will be soon forget,again. Tomorrow's Sunday, have a great time!