A ‘Glosoli’ Fairy Story

After watching the music video for Sigur Ros’s song Glosoli, my pre-GCSE students on a Child Care course at Coleg Sir Gar discussed how many aspects of the video are similar to common elements in children’s fairy tales.

With that in mind they have set out to write their own fairy tale, with the children at their placement childcare settings in mind. They are working really hard on this. View their progress below, and I’m sure any feedback you have to encourage or help them develop will be welcome:

Here’s Lucy’s:

And here’s Alices’s

Romeo & Juliet – compiling evidence

My Y10s will recall that one of the reports on the examination for this paper noted that answers on Romeo & Juliet tended to be done less well than some others and commented:

less successful responses usually took a chronological, narrative approach and although students demonstrated an excellent understanding of the plot and the characters, their answers would have addressed themes and Shakespeare’s techniques much more effectively by being more selective and choosing perhaps two or three sections of the play to explore in detail and to use as evidence to construct a tight argument

So, let’s consider one of the exam questions:

In Act 1 Scene 1 Romeo says: “Here’s much to do with hate, but more with love.”
How far do you think that Shakespeare presents love as being more powerful than hate in the play? (40 marks)

Now, summarise very briefly what your argument will be in answer to the question, choose two or three relevant sections (remember to refer to Act, Scene and line numbers rather than pages), and begin to explore those sections in detail, remembering to try and address all strands of the mark scheme:

• Insightful, critical, imaginative & evaluative response to texts and task
• Insightful /impressive engagement with writers’ ideas and attitudes
• Insightful/interpretations using imaginatively selected supporting textual detail
• Impressive analysis of aspects of language and structure; perceptive and imaginative

Compile your response in Google Drive or Word then copy and paste it as a comment below.

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Y10 Literature coursework

The other day I got a very impressive email from a student:

As I am hoping to begin on the coursework at some
point soon, I have been just creating questions for
which I think would suit the task as a title. I have
looked at how they may meet the strands of the
assessment criteria and am seriously stuck on which
to choose. Could you please just have a look through
these and tell me if some have strayed too far away
from what the task is really asking for, or if it is ideal
as a task title.

•How does Steinbeck and Miller end dreams in the way
they began?

•How do M&S leave death as the only option for s
uccess/relief?

•How do M&S present toleration and empathy and would
this toleration and empathy be able to be implied in the
world today?

•How do M&S show that vanity/self-image is mostly
based on lies?

•How do M&S approach failure differently?

•How does M&S approach hierarchy and power shifts
differently?

•How do M&S use specific examples of tragedy to
make tragedy more relatable in a broader sense?

•How do M&S show that our own pasts are often
the reason for failure?

•How do both M&S take different takes on the
conventional genre of tragedy?

•How do M&S use supporting characters as a sense
of false hope?

Here is my response:

This is quite a list, and shows some really impressive consideration of a range thematic ideas. Tasks are best to include the word ‘compare’ (or the equivalent) and something that focuses on authors’ craft (eg. using a word like ‘present’).

Moreover, it’s probably best not to choose a title that presupposes a particular conclusion which several of your suggestions do. For example, to take your first suggestion:

•How does Steinbeck and Miller end dreams in the way they began?

I might not agree that they do, so a better title for that might be something like:

Compare how, and to what extent, Steinbeck and Miller present their characters’ dreams as remaining unfulfilled.

but it would probably be better remaining even more open-ended to allow you to explore the theme in whatever way the evidence and your interpretation takes you. For example:

Compare how the theme of ‘dreams’ is presented by Steinbeck and Miller. 

or for this topic (which I like the sound of):

•How do M&S use specific examples of tragedy to
make tragedy more relatable in a broader sense?

you could go for:

Compare how Miller and Steinbeck use features of the genre of ‘tragedy’ to allow their audience/readers to explore the human condition. 

That task would encourage you to consider key issues that are characteristic of the best candidates such as:

• the specific characteristics of the different forms of drama and the novel (‘tragedy’ is typically thought of as a dramatic genre: does this mean that a novel cannot be a ‘tragedy’ in the same sense? What difference does it make to how the writer presents things if they are designed to be see and heard externally in a theatre alongside other audience members, compared with being played out internally in the reader’s mind, alone? (Moderator’s report said: “Moderators appreciated the sustained and detailed exploration of themes and ideas but judged that some students would have been more successful in addressing AO2 if they had been more mindful of authorial craft and the genre of the text, particularly when their interest in characters was at the expense of their appreciation of characterisation.”)
• how do the specifics of particular characters and events, presented in a particular social, historical and literary context, relate to people encountering them in a different context? (Moderator’s report: “Of all the Assessment Objectives, AO4 tends to be the least successfully treated, especially when addressed by “bolting on” some historical or biographical facts without links to the writer’s ideas, craft and audience. Contexts are best addressed as ambient attitudes, beliefs, philosophies or values represented by or challenged by an author. Comments on such contexts are best done by relevant comment at appropriate places within the response to the two texts.”)

I hope that helps your thinking. I’m going to use a modified version of your question and my response as a blog post to share more widely: it is so useful to have this kind of student input that I want to celebrate and use it for the benefit of others, too.

So there you go. I hope that will help more of you as you plan your coursework.

Essay Competition

Here are details of an essay competition for lower-sixth (Year 12) students that I discussed with my English Literature group earlier this week. Further discussion in the comments box would be welcomed.

You may already be aware that Peterhouse (the oldest College of the University of Cambridge) runs three Essay Competitions in History, Science and English each year for lower sixth students. The top prize in each essay competition is £500 and the second prize is £250. All winners and highly commended entrants are invited to a presentation at Peterhouse in late June/early July. This year’s competition is now live and the deadline for receipt of all essays is 21^st March 2014.

For the Thomas Campion English Essay Prize, please click here:

http://www.pet.cam.ac.uk/sites/default/files/Campion%202014.pdf

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Death of a Salesman – Author’s Craft

Here is an extract from the Chief Examiner’s report on this coursework unit:

Moderators appreciated the sustained and detailed exploration of themes and ideas but judged that some students would have been more successful in addressing AO2 if they had been more mindful of authorial craft and the genre of the text, particularly when their interest in characters was at the expense of their appreciation of characterisation.

To focus yet further on this Assessment Objective I want you to answer the following essay question as your half-term homework:

How does Miller close Act One of Death of a Salesman in a way that focuses the audiences on the themes established in Act One, and sets the tone for Act Two?

 

This lesson you will do some preparatory work in pairs to further develop your ability to do the close ‘reading back into the quotation’ that we have been working on in recent lessons, and that I want to be the focus of your response in that essay..

 

Death of a Salesman – Author’s Craft

Here is an extract from the Chief Examiner’s report on this coursework unit:

Moderators appreciated the sustained and detailed exploration of themes and ideas but judged that some students would have been more successful in addressing AO2 if they had been more mindful of authorial craft and the genre of the text, particularly when their interest in characters was at the expense of their appreciation of characterisation.

To focus yet further on this Assessment Objective I want you to answer the following essay question as your half-term homework:

How does Miller close Act One of Death of a Salesman in a way that focuses the audiences on the themes established in Act One, and sets the tone for Act Two?

 

This lesson you will do some preparatory work in pairs to further develop your ability to do the close ‘reading back into the quotation’ that we have been working on in recent lessons, and that I want to be the focus of your response in that essay..

 

Journey’s End

Year 12 English Lit students, this is the place for your analysis and discussion of the relationship between the sequence from the BBC production of Journey’s End that we watched yesterday and Sheriff’s script.

I’d recommend composing your ideas in a Google document or word processor then paste what your work I to the comments below. If you compose directly into the comments box there is a chance of losing everything if there’s a problem saving the comment. Start by quickly adding some immediate and obvious impressions. Before you add anything, check to see what comments other people have added so that we don’t end up with lots of people just saying the same thing. Once some ideas have begun to emerge, you can comment on others’ ideas by developing, refining or questioning them. Hopefully this will spark some discussion that will generate further ideas of your own that you can add as new comments, rather than replies to previous ones.

I look forward to reading your ideas, and joining in when I get the chance later.

Death of a Salesman – More analysis

Now you have seen a few examples of the kind of close analysis of the text that marks out a skilled reader, and had a go yourselves in the comments section of the last blog post, as well as in your books, I want you to practise those skills further, working in pairs.

Below you will find a series of quotations. First you will need to sign-up for one of the quotations by clicking here. The quotations that are available are labelled ‘free slot’. Above the list, and below the ‘Sign Up’ heading, there is a link to a form that allows you to choose the quotation. You will need to select the number of the quotation from a drop-down menu, add your names in the box below, then click submit. Please check that your names have been added to the sign-up sheet before beginning work on your quotation. If someone else has chosen that quotation before you, you will have to pick another one.

Once you know which quotation you are working on, please copy and paste it at the top of a word processor document, then write your analysis of the quotation beneath. Then copy and paste the quotation and your response into a comment box under this post. Please do not work directly in the comment box, as there is a chance that all your work will be lost if the page crashes or the comment does not save properly.

You will find it helpful to find your quotation in the text so you can put it into context, and feel free to refer to other parts of the text that you think are relevant to link to your particular quotation.

Try and do this fairly quickly (no more than 20 minutes at the most). It doesn’t matter  if it feels unfinished: you can always add more ideas later, but I want everyone to publish their comments in time for you then to begin to look at what other people have written, and to make further comments, ask questions, and discuss further the quotations that other people have been working on. To allow this to happen I am disabling comment moderation, so please be responsible and only make relevant and constructive comments and questions. Your homework will be to continue the discussion.

The numbered quotations for you to choose from are below:

1. WILLY: Biff Loman is lost. In the greatest country in the world a young man with such—personal attractiveness, gets lost. And such a hard worker. There’s one thing about Biff— he’s not lazy.LINDA: Never.WILLY: [with pity and resolve]: I’ll see him in the morning; I’ll have a nice talk with him. I’ll get him a job selling. He could be big in no time. My God! Remember how they used to follow him around in high school? When he smiled at one of them their faces lit up. When he walked down the street… [He loses himself in reminiscences.]
2. BIFF: Well, I spent six or seven years after high school trying to work myself up. Shipping clerk, salesman, business of one kind or another. And it’s a measly manner of existence. To get on that subway on the hot mornings in summer. To devote your whole life to keeping stock, or making phone calls, or selling or buying. To suffer fifty weeks of the year for the sake of a two week vacation, when all you really desire is to be outdoors with your shirt off. And always to have to get ahead of the next fella. And still—that’s how you build a future.
3. WILLY: You and Hap and I, and I’ll show you all the towns. America is full of beautiful towns and fine, upstanding people. And they know me, boys, they know me up and down New England. The finest people. And when I bring you fellas up, there’ll be open sesame for all of us, ‘cause one thing, boys: I have friends. I can park my car in any street in New England, and the cops protect it like their own. This summer, heh?
4. WILLY: Don’t say? Tell you a secret, boys. Don’t breathe it to a soul. Someday I’ll have my own business, and I’ll never have to leave home any more.HAPPY: Like Uncle Charley, heh?WILLY: Bigger than Uncle Charley! Because Charley is not liked. He’s liked, but he’s not — well liked
5. WILLY: [stopping the incipient argument, to Happy]: Sure, he’s gotta practice with a regulation ball, doesn’t he? [To Biff] Coach’ll probably congratulate you on your initiative!BIFF: Oh, he keeps congratulating my initiative all the time, pop.WILLY: That’s because he likes you. If somebody else took that ball there’d be an uproar. So what’s the report, boys, what’s the report? (Act 1)
6. WILLY: That’s just what I mean, Bernard can get the best marks in school, y’understand, but when he gets out in the business world, y’understand, you are going to be five times ahead of him. That’s why I thank Almighty God you’re both built like Adonises. Because the man who makes an appearance in the business world, the man who creates personal interest, is the man who gets ahead. Be liked and you will never want. You take me, for instance. I never have to wait in line to see a buyer. “Willy Loman is here!” That’s all they have to know and I go right through.
7. LINDA: We should’ve bought the land next door.WILLY: The street is lined with cars. There’s not a breath of fresh air in the neighborhood. The grass don’t grow anymore, you can’t raise a carrot in the backyard. They should’ve had a law against apartment houses. Remember those two beautiful elm trees out there? When I and Biff hung the swing between them?LINDA: Yeah, like being a million miles from the city.
8. BIFF [with enthusiasm]: Listen, why don’t you come out West with me?HAPPY: You and I, heh?BIFF: Sure, maybe we could buy a ranch. Raise cattle, use our muscles. Men built like we are should be working out in the open.
9. WILLY: How can he find himself on a farm? Is that a life? A farmhand? In the beginning, when he was young, I thought, well, a young man, it’s good for him to tramp around, take a lot of different jobs. But it’s more than ten years now and he has yet to make thirty-five dollars a week!LINDA: He’s finding himself, Willy.WILLY: Not finding yourself at the age of thirty-four is a disgrace!
10. WILLY: There’s more people! That’s what’s ruining this country! The competition is maddening! Smell the stink from that apartment house! And the one on the other side… How can they whip cheese?
11. HAPPY [enthralled]: That’s what I dream about Biff. Sometimes I wanna just rip my clothes off in the middle of the store and outbox that goddamned merchandise manager. I mean I can outbox, outlift and outrun anybody in that store, and I have to take orders from those petty, common sons of bitches till I can’t stand it anymore.
12. HAPPY: I bet he’d back you. ‘Cause he thought highly of you, Biff. I mean, they all do. You’re well liked, Biff. That’s why I say to come back here, and we both have the apartment. And I’m tellin’ you, Biff, any babe you want…
13. WILLY: Oh, I’ll knock ‘em dead next week. I’ll go to Hartford. I’m very well liked in Hartford. You know, the trouble is, Linda, people don’t seem to take to me.[They move onto the forestage]LINDA: Oh, don’t be foolish.

    WILLY: I know it when I walk in. They seem to laugh at me.

    LINDA: Why? Why would they laugh at you? Don’t talk that way, Willy.

    [Willy moves to the edge of the stage. Linda goes into the kitchen and starts to darn stockings.]

    WILLY: I don’t know the reason for it, but they just pass me by. I’m not noticed.

14. LINDA: I’m just wondering if Oliver will remember him. You think he might?WILLY: [coming out of the bathroom in his pajamas]: Remember him? What’s the matter with you, you crazy? If he’d stayed with Oliver he’d be on top by now! Wait’ll Oliver gets a look at him. You don’t know the average caliber any more. The average young man today —[he’s getting into bed]— is got a caliber of zero. Greatest thing in the world for him was to bum around.