| Fight the Nothing! Read to keep characters alive! "The Neverending Story" July 20, 1984 'NEVERENDING STORY,' A FANFASY By Vincent Canby ''The Neverending Story'' is set in a land called Fantasia, where there is a Sea of Possibilities and a Swamp of Sadness, and where the empress lives in a place called the Ivory Tower, which actually looks like a gigantic version of the sort of perfume bottle Jean Harlow might have tossed at Clark Gable in a 1930's comedy. The hero of the tale-within-the tale is another little boy, Atreyu (Noah Hathaway), described as ''the hunter of the purple baffalo,'' who's sent on a quest, the aim of which is to find a cure for the ailing empress, the only person able to save Fantasia from extinction. Fantasia, you see, is in the grip of a terrible disease called the Nothing. Or, as someone explains to Atreyu, it's what happens when ''people lose their hopes and forget their dreams.'' The fact that Fantasia looks like Nowhere raises a rather profound philosophical question. Is it possible for Nowhere to be destroyed by Nothing? The child who can grasp this concept should be immediately packed off to the Sorbonne. When the movie is not sounding like ''The Pre-Teen- Ager's Guide to Existentialism,'' it's simply a series of resolutely unexciting encounters between Atreyu and the creatures that alternately help and hinder his mission. Considering that the credits of the people who worked on this film include such movies as ''2001,'' ''The Empire Strikes Back,'' ''Alien'' and ''Raiders of the Lost Ark,'' the special effects appear to be supremely tacky, like the things one might find in a down-at-the-heel fun house. The creatures include a large friendly bat, a ''racing snail'' and a dragon with white fur and feathers that suggests an impractical bath mat. ''The Neverending Story,'' which has been rated PG (''Parental Guidance Suggested''), should not frighten most small children, but it may put them prematurely to sleep. Running time: 94 minutes. This film is rated PG. Bastian . . . . . Barret Oliver Bastian's Father . . . . . Gerald McRaney Bullies . . . . . Drum Garrett, Darryl Cooksey, Nicholas Gilbert Koreander . . . . . Thomas Hill Teeny Weeny . . . . . Deep Roy Night Hob . . . . . Tilo Pruckner Cairon . . . . . Moses Gunn Atreyu . . . . . Noah Hathaway Falkor's Voice . . . . . Alan Oppenheimer Engywook . . . . . Sydney Bromley Urgl . . . . . Patricia Hayes Childlike Empress . . . . . Tami Stronach Go to DATA READING page Go to SUNSHINE STATE STANDARDS for Reading and Language Arts Go to RECOMMENDATIONS DataRecommend Go to 1000 Books Page Data1000 Go to Protect Your Ears Dataears This page is called DataPhonics or the PHONICS practice INTRODUCTION to the students I invite my students at DATA to write questions to my students from Switzerland, Japan, Africa and other places. Write your questions to talkinternational@yahoo.com YOU CAN BLOG to Mr. Mac at You can visit Maysam's web site at www.oocities.org/haccesol and you can write to Maysam with lots of questions about IRAN at maysam_s@yahoo.com What can parents do to help their children prepare for tests? 1. Read to your child. The reading helps improve the vocabulary. Most students enjoy focusing on the meaning of the words without worrying about the pronunciation. 2. Complete the practice tests. Practice improves the eye-hand coordination. www.firn.edu/doe/sas/fcat.htm 3. Read about new research. Here are some reports about how children improve their reading. 4. Learn about BRAIN RESEARCH. Search GOOGLE for "Nancy Snyderman Brain Game" http://www.abcnews.go.com/onair/ DailyNews/braingame020731.html http://abcnews.go.com/sections/community/ DailyNews/snyderman_020801.html UPCOMING EVENTS Every year: Miami Book Fair www.miamibookfair.com In 2004: Nov. 12-14 It's fun, there are arepas and books, and there are lots of people on the streets near the Miami Dade Communicty College campus in downtown Miami. Just north of Flagler Drive (the zero line) and three blocks west of Biscayne Blvd., it's the place to be in the second weekend of November. AWARDS The Reading Department at Downtown Academy gives its ANNUAL GOLDEN PAGES award to the creators of angelfire.com, oocities.com and bravenet.com for making reading more fun! Honorable Mention Teacher Dennis Yuzenas is nominated and receives the Honorable Mention for the GOLDEN PAGES award for training Mr. Mac in the use of web pages and CDs in a reading program. Students and teachers who want to reach Mr. Y can write to yuzenas@prodigy.com and we can all view the web pages that his class maintains at www.msoa.com in West Palm Beach. (Middle School of the Arts) The latest information (as of October 2004) about web logging... www.angelfire.com has a reliable blogging program. here are some tips... Moblogging Moblogging is short for "Remote Blogging," or posting to your blog via an e-mail enabled remote device. We've created this feature specifically with camera phones in mind, but any e-mail enabled device will work. To post to your blog via e-mail or from a remote device, you'll need to enable the Moblogging feature by selecting the checkbox. Then select your Moblogging security settings. Once the feature is enabled and your security settings are chosen, you can send text and image posts to your blog without logging in to the Blog Control Panel. The e-mail address to send your posts to looks like this: blogname.directory/membername@ blog.angelfire.com Blogname in the above address corresponds to the name of the directory in your account to which you have published your blog, and directory/membername corresponds to the Angelfire directory and member name you registered for. (for example: myblog.ma3/chick@blog.angelfire.com) Formatting Remote Posts Since many e-mail enabled remote devices have small or awkward keypads, we have created some short commands to help you format your Moblog entries. Each of these commands must be on a separate line. The commands are as follows: Pw: your password If your security settings require a password, you must include this string in your post. Ti: title of your entry Creates a title for your entry. If you don't supply a title, the subject line of your e-mail will be used. Tp: topic of your entry Topics must have already been created through the web interface. For topics, you need only enter enough characters to match an existing topic. The match is case-insensitve. Dr: [no value needed] Saves the post as a draft instead of publishing immediately. Ro: l or r Rotates all images left or right 90 degrees. |
| A list of useful LINKS datausefullinks COMING SOON: Financial Information BRAIN GAME These links are here to allow students and parents to review some of the topics that students have covered in the school. Many of the subjects are briefly coverd in school, so this web page gives students a chance to review information that they might have missed.... |
| Welcome to DATA School -- Full of READING and readers! SCROLL DOWN for the list of student-made web pages... The OFFICIAL school page is here www.downtownacademy.org This page is the READING TEACHER's page that links all of my students' pages. www.oocities.org/teachers2teachers /dataintro2 A message from Mr. Mac The students are doing a wonderful job of learning to follow instructions and create interesting web sites. My web site is boring compared to their sites. I am very happy when students decide to write to each other's email addresses. Please remember that a) all emails are written proof of what you write. If you write something good, then the other person can hold your positive message in their email box and read it again and again and enjoy the words you sent. b) if you send a negative message, those words can be printed or sent to Mr. Mac and the person who sent the negative message will lose International Points. For information about Internationla Points, go to www.geocitities.com/teachers2teachers/dataip.html c) good etiquette (good manners) = positive feelings in the world of the Internet. When you send a smile, the happiness returns to you when the other person writes to you. d) EVERYONE in the world can see your web page. DO NOT put personal information on your page. Do NOT put your last name, do NOT put your address or phone number on your web site. You can put your EMAIL address, but you will probably receive junk mail and spam because some people like to send junk mail. The best thing to do is look for the list of email addresses that is on your classroom wall. You can add your name to the list and you can invite people to send you email messages. e) If you have questions, contact Mr. Mac. Do you want to make a web page? We suggest that you use one of these providers www.angelfire.com www.bravenet.com www.oocities.org The reading department at DATA thanks the people who created and maintain these web servers. We appreciate their contribution to making our lives richer. The Reading Department at Downtown Academy gives its ANNUAL GOLDEN PAGES award to the creators of angelfire.com, oocities.com and bravenet.com for making reading more fun! Mr. Mac wants to thank Charles, Nicholas, Storm and others in 6A plus Andrew, Damian S., Kayla and others in 6C for helping other students to learn how to use these web sites. Thank you, sixth grade! In the 8th Grade, thank you to Katie, Rosa Mia and others for showing other students how to make their own web pages. In 7th Grade, thank you to Tierra, Bryan, Kara, and others for helping other students make their web sites. If you hear about other easy-to-use web sites, please write to Mr. Mac at talkinternational@yahoo.com -- Remmber, one International Point for each message that you send to Mr. Mac. IPs are added up in December, February and May. Here are the lists of web sites created by students 6th grade Storm Nicholas on Geocities Nicholas on angelfire Dane denmarkdata@yahoo.com Jerome datadatabear Matt datavick 7th grade Tierra Tierra's Grandma 8th grade Katie http://www.angelfire.com/fl5/datastudents/ http://www.angelfire.com/fl5/datadata1/ +++ Let's blog! fl5/datadata1/blog +++ Videotaping We're videotaping teh work of students as NEWS REPORTERS. Thank you to Lanita, Trekkie, Lynnique, Delaney, Tierra, Charles, Nicholas, Storm, Sharon, Ashley Mab, and others for their video work. Remember to ask for a copy of the video tape to select the best segments for us to save. |
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