CTW Mellon Faculty Projects Description

Hebrew Faculty Projects

Levana Polate (Hebrew, Trinity C. & Wesleyan U.)

Declaration of Independence
Small project to incorporate into all her Hebrew classes a study of Israel's Declaration of Independence using xMedia Engine.

The goals are to:

acquaint students of all levels with the historical events that led to the Declaration of the State of Israel
familiarize students with the principles stated in the document
have students use this study to broaden their listening and pronunciation skills
have students broaden their comprehension skills
have students gain a deeper understanding of Israeli culture and history

Hanna Senesh
Small project to write, in Hebrew, an annotated multimedia version using XMediaEngine of the true story of an Israeli heroine, Hanna Senesh, a poet and paratrooper who volunteered to help the British fight the Nazis during World War II. This project will be based on the book "The Paratrooper Who Didn't Return" by Oded Betzer.

The goals for this project are to:

make the story accessible to Hebrew 201 and higher level students,
familiarize students with two poems of Hannah Senesh
introduce historical and cultural elements of the period,
have students continue to develop listening and pronunciation skills,
have students continue to develop comprehension skills,
familiarize students with some components of Hebrew syntax.

Annotation of "A Ship of Inmigrants"
She annotated the first two chapters of Arie Lova Eliav's story "A Ship of Immigrants." Her main goal was to make this story accessible to intermediate level students and allow them to develop listening, pronunciation, orthographic and grammatical skills. A report of the project is available. Her personal website can be found here.

Annotation of "Hatikvah"
Further Mellon project grants have allowed her to use MacGALT to annotate the Israeli national Anthem, "Hatikvah". A report of the project is available.

Annotation of "The Wall"
Using MacGALT, she annotated Yosi Gamzu's Israeli song "The Wall". A report of the project is available.

Annotation of "Sheer Lashalom"
A Mellon project grant allowed her to annote the protest song "Sheer Lashalom" (Song for Peace) using MacGALT. A report of the project is available.

Annotation of the poem "Isaac"
Using MacGALT, she annotated Yehuda Amichai's "An Arab Shepherd Searching for his Goat on Mount Zion".

Multimedia reading of playlet: Politika
Levana wrote a short play about an Israeli couple living in New York during the Gulf War; this play was performed and videotaped by students and will later be digitized and annotated using MANNA. Finally, she will do a project on Sarah Ahronson, based on a book by Devorah Omer.

Annotation of video "No problem"
Work with digitized segments of a video tape that portrays new immigrants to Israel in real life situations. The goal is to expose first year Hebrew students to vernacular Hebrew. The project will include transcript of the narrative and dialogues, multimedia annotations, glossary, as well as written and spoken exercises.

Maps & cities
Map based project intended to give students of Hebrew an insight in the evolution of the State of Israel over the past fifty years. This will be mostly based on the use of maps but will also include video, digitized audio and text as well as Hebrew and geographical exercises.

Multimedia reading of playlet: "The Patriot"
Playlet written by Levana Polate to designed to illustrate the different political positions in Israel towards the Peace Process. This project will be based on the digitized video of this playlet that will be annotated, glossed and transcribed. Additional exercises will be included to enhance retention of information.

Faculty Projects by Language

Arabic Projects
Chinese Projects
Classics Projects
French Projects
German Projects
Italian Projects
Japanese Projects
Russian Projects
Spanish Projects