Good luck for the exam on Tuesday 29th May. This will take place in the morning.
Breakfast revision club will be on in the morning, starting at 7.45. Amber and Red students will be in EN12 with Mrs Hands and Miss Dobson-Hughes. All other students (should be!) with their teachers in their classrooms. You may bring breakfast with you as long as you tidy up afterwards!
Below are two powerpoints explaining the overall structure of the exams
Super Learning Session UPDATED
Unit 2 Exam Revisiting Resource 1 OMM and RJ Dual lesson
Try this as an exercise: put the stanzas onto a timeline? What order do you find they go in?
1. Structuring the poem in this manner allows us to see the effects of the conflict on bothpersonas within the poem, creating a stronger effect by mixing in both of their viewpoints. The male pilot equates his action with a sexual thrill; seeing the image of Marilyn Monroe’s skirts blowing up reminds him of the thrill of dropping the bomb. Yet, the same cannot be said of the ‘scarlet girl’, who may lay down in submission but its one of a very different kind. The structure of the stanza order allows us to place these two images side by side.
The stanza in the middle beginning ‘On the river bank’ creates a ‘calm before the storm’ feeling. If this stanza is symbolic of the moment of impact (bees = plane, drizzle = noise/bomb, rhododendrons = people), then this is the dividing point of the poem – and the dividing point in this conflict. From this moment on, life is not the same, for either of the personas within the poem.
2. The passage of time is indicated by the words ‘later’ being repeated. How much time has passed is up to the reader to decide. We are included in the present before the consequences with the stanza ‘In the Enola Gay’ writting in present tense. His reflection on the events and her death as a result of them are then described as ‘later’. The suggestion of this is that when the pilot is in the moment of physical conflict (dropping the bomb), although he is nervous he doesn’t truly understand the horrendous consequences of what he is about to do. It is only as he gets older, lives and experiences more and reflects upon his past that the horror truly strikes him.
“Ladybirds
Ladybirds”
Why are these words written separately at the end? Leave a comment to win a prize!
Next week will be the start of the controlled assessment for the Poetry Reading task for Year 11. For the Y side of the year group, this will take place on Friday 9th and Monday 12th; the X side will be taking them on Thursday 8th and Friday 9th.
One of the biggest problems we have with controlled assessments is that people DO NOT revise for them!
You wouldn’t expect to turn up to an exam without revising – a controlled assessment is exactly the same. You NEED to have an idea of what you are going to write BEFORE you turn up for the exam.
Spend some time this weekend and the evening prior to your controlled assessment revising WHAT you have to write/say and HOW you are going to write/say it. That way, when you get into the controlled assessment on Thursday or Friday, you’re not having to waste time deciding what to write and trying to analyse the poem – you can just get straight on with it.
We know you’re under so much pressure at the moment – we all are! – but we’re behind you 100% to make sure that you achieve your true potential. If you have any questions, worries or stresses about the controlled assessment, come and speak to one of your English teachers this week.
Revision Tips:
Resources:
Edexcel Unit 3 Poetry mark scheme – Exam out of 24
L1 Intro and Base Details Group Work
Unit 3 Controlled Assessment Example Answer and Writing Frame
Good luck with revision – any questions, leave a comment or ask next week.
Miss Jarvis
One of the areas you can talk about in ‘Parade’s End’ is the use of the car as a symbol for the family, their aspirations in life and potentially the area as a whole. These notes below are taken from 11×7 and 11y8’s interpretation and analysis of the poem.
Information from the British Council of Literature:
She has published poetry and fiction for both adults and children, and has written for a number of publications, including Spare Rib magazine. She was joint winner of the Boardman Tasker Memorial Prize for her novel Mer de Glace (1991), and holds a Royal Literary Fund Fellowship for 2002-3 based at University College London.
She also co-wrote Mapping the Edge, a site-specific theatre piece, with Amanda Dalton and Bernardine Evaristo, first staged at the Sheffield Crucible in September 2001 and subsequently adapted for BBC Radio 3.
Her last novel, The Mistress of Lilliput (1999), is a re-working of Gulliver’s Travels in which Gulliver is followed on his journeys by his wife. Her most recent novel, Tricks of the Light (2003), is a powerful portrayal of love in middle age.”
In her poetry, Alison Fell returns to many of the same themes. Some of these can be seen within August 6, 1945.
How are these themes seen in ‘August 6 1945’ and what effect do they have? Are they important? Do they add anything else to our understanding of the poem and the poet’s ideas within it?
Ladybirds ladybirds
11×7 and 11y8 have completed the first lesson looking at August 6, 1945.
Powerpoint can be downloaded here:
How did we feel about the poem? First reactions to the ideas of the poem?
What has Marilyn Monroe got to do with it?
Key Questions to think about:
Later he will say
that the whole blooming sky
went up like an apricot ice.
In the poem, ‘August 6, 1945’ the cryptic quote ‘apricot ice’ could mean several things. This picture above – found by Mrs Cannon – shows a wonderfully visual aspect to the phrase. The catcus itself has the following description: “Soft spines, flower colour changes from orange to a beautiful apricot shade, flowering over many weeks”.
Answer in the comment box, how could this relate to the image of the atomic bomb and what it produces? The best comment will win a small prize in class next week.
Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967)
Part of your controlled assessment will be to explore the poet’s message in each of the poems. This will be a much easier task if you know something about them! This weekend, spend some time researching Siegfried Sassoon. The links below will get you started:
Siegfried Sassoon
Concentrate on what Sassoon may have been trying to achieve in his poems – what message did he want to deliver to his readers? Why write the poems he did?
The other two poets you will be studying poetry by are: Alison Fell and Daljit Nagra. It may be worth spending some time looking up information about them too.
Today, our class looked at how to analyse one word quotes in detail, using a ‘graphic organiser’ like this:
This allowed us to ‘pull apart’ the quote and really think of some insightful and perceptive comments to say about it:
Example 1: ‘Toddle’
The word ‘toddle’ could have several meanings. Firstly, the poet could be using it to show what he thinks of the major’s role in the war, as that he sees the majors are treated like children; they stay behind safe away from the war while the ‘men’ are fighting. Secondly, it could suggest the major acts like a child, as he doesn’t seem to care what’s going on and doesn’t take it seriously – sees it as a game, showing his childish behaviour. Furthermore, it seems as if the poet is mocking the major, again linking him to being like a child; he still needs to be taken care of and that is why he is behind the scene of the fight and doesn’t really do anything but ‘toddle to bed’.
Example 2: ‘Scrap’
In the poem, the poet uses the word ‘scrap’ to describe a battle. This tells us many things about the poet and the soldiers in the battle. Firstly, it tells us that the soldiers are viewed by the major as scrap materials, to be discarded on the battle field (the scrap yard) along with other pieces of scrap (other soldiers). Secondly, the poet hints at the idea of the major trading in the soldiers to earn his wage, sort of selling used and scrap metal in the yard. Furthermore, it could suggest that the soldiers are just spare parts and are easily replaced. On the other hand, it could be used to describe a fight, similar to two kids in a playground, and not a big combat battle where many lives are lost. Overall, it gives the impression that the major sees the battle as unimportant and pointless, whilst the soldiers’ lives are meaningless.
Both of these examples explore alternative interpretations and ideas – using only one word. It is far more effective to explore ALL of the ideas a one-word quote can give, rather than write one sentence about many quotes.
TIPS:
If you missed this lesson, the powerpoint can be downloaded here:
Collection B: Clashes and Collisions 