This blog has retired — read this for more

After eight years at my various addresses, beginning on Angelfire then Tripod as my class page and then morphing into the Sydney Boys High School English/ESL site (to 2005) and then on my retirement to its current mode, I am at last ceasing to update this blog, though I will be back to update some of the existing posts and pages and to deal with comments. Thanks to all for the support over the years.

This continues though: limited entry.

See student blog — mostly password access.

I trust much on this site remains useful for some time yet, but do note links can no longer be guaranteed and for some topics you should do your own searches for the latest material.

 

Geocities closing

I had a Geocities site beginning some time around 2000-2001. Some important elements of the English/ESL site have been stored there, but Geocities is closing in October 2009.

I have managed to rescue those posts here. You can see them in the Pages Guide in the sidebar, and also listed below. The tedious business of correcting links from here to Geocities follows!

 

Goodbye, Geocities!

• From Geocities 1: Revision or Ideological Makeover? HREOC’s "Face the Facts" Rejigged.

• From Geocities 2: Essay writing for (clever) dummies

• From Geocities 3: Science

• From Geocities 4: ESL Scales

• From Geocities 5: History essay

• From Geocities 6: “The Tempest” essay

 

English/ESL nominated

Last year English/ESL came in at #75 in the Top 100 Language Blogs 2008 on Lexiophiles. I have just been informed that English/ESL has been nominated for the Top 100 of 2009.

Phase 2: Public Voting (July 8 – July 27)

At the end of the nomination phase, we will prescreen every blog and put it into one of the four categories (see below). In each category 100 blogs will be included for voting. If your blog is on the list you can ask your readers, friends, family and whoever comes to mind to vote for you. We will provide a voting button for your convenience before the voting starts. Every person can only vote once the voting of the top 100 blogs for each category.

  Go to the link on that icon for more information.

 

These posts are really popular!

According to WordPress, since this blog moved here from Tripod in December 2006 there have been 48 posts and pages read more than 1,000 times each. Here are the top five:

1. Studying the Gothic, or Emily Bronte? 19,627 reads
2. Physical journeys and Peter Skrzynecki’s poems 18,963
3. How should I write up a Science experiment? 16,686
4. Workshop 02 — NSW HSC: Area Study: Imaginative Journeys 8,609
5. Mary Shelley, "Frankenstein" — and "Blade Runner" 5,956

Thursday, October 16, 2008 was the busiest day ever, with 1,497 views, while the total for the blog stands at 239,898 since December 2006 with 55,524 so far this year – a daily average this year of 349 (last year it was 324). At the moment there are 220 posts.

Sitemeter measures differently and has been monitoring since November 2002, thus including my earlier addresses. It tells me that there have been since 2002 206,154 visitors reading 300,816 pages.

 

Pause for some stats

6,070 views so far this month.

1. Mary Shelley, "Frankenstein" — and "Blade Runner" 538 in the past seven days
2. How should I write up a Science experiment? 303
3. The "Belonging" Essay 198
4. HSC English NSW Area Study Standard and Advanced "Belonging" 1  168
5. Studying the Gothic, or Emily Bronte? 158
6. Physical journeys and Peter Skrzynecki’s poems 127
7. Belonging pages: HSC 2009-2012 125
8. NSW Module A English HSC Advanced: on not seeing the wood for the trees 83
9. Backgrounding my essay: question and resources to be used 65
10. Workshop 02 — NSW HSC: Area Study: Imaginative Journeys 49

Here are some overall stats on English/ESL:

Top Posts

1. Studying the Gothic, or Emily Bronte? 18,058 views since first posting
2. Physical journeys and Peter Skrzynecki’s poems 17,969 views
3. How should I write up a Science experiment? 13,248 views
4. Workshop 02 — NSW HSC: Area Study: Imaginative Journeys 8,274 views
5. Physical journeys and Peter Skrzynecki’s poems updated 3,144 views
6. Workshop 01 — a theme unit in four different text types: senior English Studies 2,930 views
7. ESL+ 2,840 views
8. Scaffolding 2,764 views

 

200,000 views coming up

According to WordPress, the total page views here will reach 200,000 today or tomorrow. That’s since December 2006. There were 500+ yesterday.

Including pre-WordPress (that is Tripod etc) Sitemeter says we’ve had 260,009 page views since 2002 from 177,474 visitors.

My own visits are not counted.

Update 20 February

The 200,000th page view happened at 7.15 this morning. The visitor came from Normandy in France.

 

Mothballed but not closed

From January 2009 no fewer new posts will be added to this blog. Some posts and pages will be updated from time to time. There is a very strong possibility that new pages relevant to existing pages or to the 2009-2012 HSC in NSW may be added, and in that event there will be an announcement here. See also the Pages Guide in the side bar.

Some posts and pages may gradually fall out of date as links and references will only be updated in a limited number of posts or pages.

Thanks to all who have supported this site and its earlier incarnations on Tripod and Angelfire since 2002. I should point out again I am not closing down.

 

October 08 best ever! Thanks to you.

Already, according to Sitemeter, this is the best month ever on my English/ESL site, both here and previously on Tripod, since counting started in November 2002: 9,200+ visits to today for October, and 11,900+ page views. WordPress stats credit March 2008 with 12,167 views, best so far, and give 11,230 views so far this month — so even by their counting averaging around 500 a day this month October will exceed that best.

Naturally the HSC has had a part, especially the poet Peter S! The day before Paper 1 in the NSW HSC there were 1,497 views, the best day ever. What pleases me from the feedback is how many students seem to have genuinely enjoyed Peter S. That, I hope, may translate into pleasure in poetry for much longer than the HSC itself.

I have been pretty quiet on this blog recently, but will address the new HSC texts, or some of them, in the near future. Some material is in fact already here, and I am about to tag that material 2009 to 2012 HSC. Not all at once, mind, but over the next week or two.

UPDATE

I’ve noticed a number of visitors coming here from the About.com ESL site: for example, see Prepositions?! where this site is listed at the top of “Related Blogs”. 🙂

 

August wrap-up

It has been — or may have been — a record month for English/ESL. Sitemeter says 9,046 visits and 12,340 page views; the previous best was November 2007 with 8,515/11,255. WordPress, counting slightly differently and not including visits to the other bits of English/ESL on Geocities, comes up with a second-best outcome — 12,167 views in March 2008 as against 11,835 in August 2008 and 11,520 in November 2007.

Top posts (individually visited) in the past month on English/ESL, according to WordPress, have been:

1. Physical journeys and Peter Skrzynecki’s poems 1,542 views in August 2008
2. Studying the Gothic, or Emily Bronte? 1,090
3. How should I write up a Science experiment? 680
4. Workshop 02 — NSW HSC: Area Study: Imaginative Journeys 586
5. Physical journeys and Peter Skrzynecki’s peoms updated 458
6. SBHS Trial HSC 2007 Paper 1 Question 1: 323
7. Six suggestions for Imaginative Journeys 274
8. Workshop 03 — Creative Writing (Year 12 175
9. ESL+ 171
10. The mysteries and injustices (?) of the UAI  170

 

Top 100 Language Blogs – Lexiophiles

I can’t say I was displeased when I received an email pointing to Top 100 Language Blogs – Lexiophiles because English/ESL has been listed there — at #75. I strongly recommend your browsing the list as some very interesting blogs may be found there.