Following on from today’s lesson where you analysed the transcript of Tom and Mr Mitchell’s here’s the link to the clip and for those of you who didn’t finish your table in class please complete for Monday’s lesson. Language features for you to focus on – repetition, downwards convergence, false starts and back channelling.
Also take a look at this blog for further description on key terms influential power and instrumental power – blog post on power
Miss O
Further to today’s lesson where I mentioned about the current news story relating to the Good Friday Peace Agreement, here’s a few links to news articles relating to the secret IRA letters. Have a read to help you gain further understanding of The Troubles and the Republicans/Unionists.
Man accused of 1982 IRA Hyde Park bombing walks free
Ex-First Minister denies knowledge of IRA fugitive
David Cameron orders suspects review
Miss O
The poem Belfast Confetti was written by Ciaran Carson and published in 1990. Carson lived through the Troubles – a period of frequent Protestant-Catholic violence in Belfast from the late 1960s to 1998. A feature of the Troubles was the planting of homemade bombs, particularly by the IRA (Irish Republican Army). These were filled with nuts, bolts and nail, which would become lethal spray when exploded. The following website gives you key information about this conflict:
The poem describes the explosion of a homemade bomb in Belfast, and the British Army riot squad moving in. The poem explores the reality of battle – being trapped, fear and confusion and violence. We are thrown in to the action with the opening word ‘Suddenly..’ similar to Hughes’ Bayonet Charge. Stanza 2 describes the poet/narrator trying to escape the area but being prevented from doing so – the idea of the mythological ‘labyrinth’ is a key image. Every time he tries to escape, his attempts are thwarted by security forces and confusion. The language changes from past to present tense between the first and second stanza to show the narrator’s inability to escape.
The punctuation metaphor is central to the poem. In fact the title itself is multi-layered. Belfast confetti refers to the wage metal fragments from Belfast’s shipyards, already in sever decline by 1990. The ironic use of ‘confetti’ could suggest the uncomfortable marriage of the Protestant and Catholic residents. The phrase refers to the bomb’s shrapnel which Carson pictures as punctuation. The confusion of the blast is mirrored by the narrator’s unfitted sentence in his head ‘stuttering’ almost like machine gun fire.
The poem has irregular line lengths, incomplete sentences, ellipsis and enjambment all giving a fragmented feel to the narrative, as if the narrator’s state of mind is unstable. Long lines alternate with shorter ones to suggest the poet keeps reaching a dead end – ‘colons.’ The use of lists too (the bomb’s contents, the streets, the military paraphernalia) add to the sense of chaos and confusion.
This poem was last named in the Higher June 2011 paper. The poem can be compared to The Charge of the Light Brigade and Bayonet Charge for the theme reality of battles. It could also be compared to The Right Word and The Yellow Palm in relation to divided society. We will look at this poem in today’s lesson.
Miss O
It is important to remember that Hill has created the character of Arthur. To gain higher marks in the exam you must write about characterisation, not just about their characters and their roles in the story. The difference is that you show an awareness of the fact that the characters are not real people but have been constructed by the author to fulfil her purpose – in this case to tell a good ghost story and to frighten the reader. The genre is much more important than the character and for this reason some characters are hardly developed beyond being functional.
Arthur Kipps is both the main character/central protagonist and narrator. In order to enjoy the story the reader must be sympathetic towards him and share his feelings. For a ghost story to be successful the reader must share his fear. Hill makes this very easy through the use of the first person narrative – Kipps tells his own story.
In the first and last chapters, Kipps is approaching old age as a retired lawyer, who has settled at Monks Piece with his wife and family ready for Christmas. We notice that his ‘spirits have for many years now been excessively affected but he weather.’ In the final chapter Kipps is completely exhausted. With great difficulty, he overcomes the paralysis that prevents him from completing his story. He eventually ‘uses the very last of [his] strength’ to finish his story and almost collapses when told. His final word is an exhausted ‘enough’.
The older Arthur appears to be a very different character from his youthful self. His life is typical of a young man of his social class and the period in which he lived. He is privileged, well educated, ambitious, adventurous, impatient, arrogant, brave and foolhardy. He is eager for responsibility and anxious to be promoted in the law firm. However the events at Eel Marsh House transform Arthur in to the man we are presented with at the start of the book.
Your homework for this week is to explore the transformation – how he transforms, why he transforms and how Hill presents the transformation. Use the sheets that I gave you – these are great for this question but also for revision. Here are a few of your sugar paper sheets from today’s lesson – again use for this question/revision!
Here’s the plan for the next half term. You will notice I have included a list of the number of the lesson left plus generic focuses for each lesson/weekly homeworks. There is room for negotiation if you want to focus on specific things. After Easter I will offer revision classes based on areas you feel least confident with – as per last time these will be lunchtime and after school. See you tomorrow for The Woman in Black work.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
20 |
Thursday 6 March | Conflict Poetry – Overview of last 8 poems | |
|
19 |
Monday 10 March | Of Mice and Men – Chapter 4 extract | |
|
18 |
Tuesday 11 March | Of Mice and Men – Context | |
|
17 |
Thursday 13 March | Unseen Poetry | Unseen Poetry Question |
|
16 |
Monday 17 March | Of Mice and Men – Context | OMAM Part b Question |
|
15 |
Tuesday 18 March | Of Mice and Men – final chapter extract | |
|
14 |
Thursday 20 March | Unseen Poetry | |
|
13 |
Monday 24 March | Of Mice and Men | OMAM Part b Question |
|
12 |
Tuesday 25 March | Of Mice and Men | |
|
11 |
Thursday 27 March | Poetry | |
|
10 |
Monday 31 March | The Woman in Black – Themes/Ghost Story genre | |
|
9 |
Tuesday 1 April | Of Mice and Men | |
|
8 |
Thursday 3 April | Poetry | Conflict question |
|
7 |
Monday 7 April | The Woman in Black (MOCK?) | |
|
6 |
Tuesday 8 April | Of Mice and Men | |
|
5 |
Thursday 10 April | Poetry | |
| Easter Holidays |
Following on from last week’s lesson sans ICT, here is the link to the trailer for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The film is a romantic science fiction thriller film about an estranged couple who have each other erased from their memories. We discussed whether losing your memory would be liberating or should destroying – consider this whilst watching the trailer.
Come on, come back focuses on an incident in a future war. Stevie Smith was possibly inspired by the nuclear arms race that began after WW2, as superpowers in the East and West began testing powerful new weapons. The rising of the Iron Curtain intensified the threat of mass destruction and led to the Nuclear Fear of the 1950s and 1960s. At the 1925 Geneva Conference the French suggested a protocol for the non-use of poisonous gases: “The use in war of asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases, and all of the analogous liquids, materials or devices, has been justly condemned by the general opinion of the civilised world.” It was signed on 17th June, 1925. However we know that chemical warfare has been used in the 1960s by the USA on Vietnam and Saddam Hussein over Kurdistan in the 1980s. Consider links between Come on, come back and At the Border, 1979.
See this brilliant blog for analysis of the poem to add to your class notes:
Analysis of Come on, come back from a fab blog
Miss O
Choman Hardi was born in Kurdistan, an ethnic region of Iraq. Her family fled to Iran but returned to Irag in 1979, when Hardi 
was five, as described in the poem (therefore partly autobiographical). The poet describes crossing the Iran-Iraq border – marked by a ‘thick iron chain’ – with her family.The Kurds were persecuted by Saddam Hussein, who used chemical weapons against them for their support of Iran in the Iran-Iraq war.
The poem has a detached tone, perhaps as the poet is looking back at a childhood experience. Hardi also used child-like language due to the age of the narrator. The poem is written in a simple conversational style with no elaborate desicrtion or imagery. The short sentences create a sense of the child’s memory and make the message, and to a certain extent the poem, seem obvious. The ‘thick iron chain’ is unadorned yet could the chain symbolise something? Consider Hughes poems that although present conflict through a cynical viewpoint also use simple/child like language at times.
The structure is narrative- the story moving quickly between the actions of the refugees, the words spoken and description of the immediate scene and countryside. The stanzas are of unequal length, therefore are irregular. The stanzas could suggest fragments of memories as the narrator pieces together the memories of the scene.
Other key points to consider:
Major themes of the poem are:
A few videos below for further analysis of At the Border, 1979.
Miss O
Compulsory Homework
Of Mice and Men
Please reread Of Mice and Men over the half term break.
In the Part A of the exam you will need to analyse an extract from the book. As you are reading the text again begin to consider the language Steinbeck uses to secribe the characters and settings. Part B will ask you to comment on context and link to the Of Mice and Men. We will work on this after the break.
Optional homework (Aim high – Do It!)
The Woman in Black
Reread the book – the more you read it, the better your understanding will be.
Spend 45 minutes on the following question:
How does Arthur Kipps change from the young lawyer about to travel to Crythin Gifford to the middle aged step father who feels compelled to write his story?
Conflict Poetry
Spend 45 minutes on the following question:
Compare the attitudes to the conflict of war in ‘Come on, come back’ by Stevie Smith and one other poem from the ‘Conflict’ cluster.
I will add a post on ‘Come on, come back’ when I have a decent computer! Hopefully in the next few days.
Unseen Poetry
To help you prepare for the Unseen Poetry section of the exam, you can start to look at other poems in the Anthology and see if you can understand ideas in the poem, language and structural features. Feel free to annotate your anthology.
Have a lovely half term guys!
miss, the dog ate my homework 