Ulysses.

A lot of the work in this lesson wasn't writing, so this is going to be a short blog.

The first thing we did was read a bit of text which gave us background information on Alfred Tennyson's poem Ulysses.

After that we split in to groups of 3/4 and had to pick a part from the text that would be a good freeze frame. My group was going to do a freeze frame of a section which described a "6 headed sea monster" but we figured we didn't have enough heads. So eventually we done a freeze frame on a section that told us "At first he (Ulysses) refused to go to Troy, pretending to be mad by sowing his fields with salt, but the Greeks put his son Telemachus in front of his plow to test his sanity and Ulysses was forced to reveal his pretence." So I sat on what was supposed to be a plough (it looked more like I was driving a car) whilst the other people in my group cowered in fear." Other groups acted out freeze frames that resembled death, fear and anger.

Next we read Tennyson's poem, Ulysses. On the board a quote said the poem was about "the need of going forward and braving the struggle of life". Much of the poem emphasised this, despite the fact we found the narrative to reflect on the speaker as slightly big headed sometimes ("Myself not least, but honour'd of them all").

Homework:
-Analyse more of the poem.
- Answer "How does Tennyson tell the story in Ulysses?"

My bad for posting this late!

Daniel.

Tension in "Enduring Love"...

Hello y'all, welcome to my blog post for the lesson that took place on the 26.01.2011 :)

During this lesson the class looked at how Ian Mc Ewan creates tension in the book. To begin with Mr Chatterly asked us to write down the tools a writer uses to a manipulate a reader's response, here is the list we came up with:
Setting
Descriptions
Language (word choice)
Figurative language
Characters
Dialogue
Balance between plit/description
Amount of information given
Punctuation
Narrative voice

We then re-capped chapters 19 and 20 (Restaurant scene and Police Station) and wrote down how McEwan has hinted and foreshadowed that something major will occur, looking at pages 162-167 in particular.
Next we answered question on Jed, focusing on our opinions about him before and after the shooting and how that affects our views about him.
We also looked at how Joe's state of mind is changing during chapter 20, as this part of the book can be seen as a "turning point" for him as at the end of the chapter he comes to the decision that he must rely on himself and take action.

Mr Chatterly then asked to spend 20 minutes on answering a Part A exam question which was "How does the writer create a sense of tension in chapter 19?".

To finish of the lesson we read most of chapter 21.

Now, the IMPORTANT stuff - homework.
1. Finish of reading the whole book.
2. Complete another section A question in 20 minutes - "How does McEwan build humour in chapter 21?"
3. This is quoted word for word - "Cherish you 'Aspects of Narrative' sheets. Get to know it like you do an old family friend." Mr Chatterly even adviced us to speak to sheet.

Hope this was helpful. Much love people,
Aleksandra.

How can you tell what a person is like?

Last lesson we looked at how one can tell what a person is like. The lesson began with an interesting starter, we were asked to write all the things that we looked at, in order to reach a conclusion about someone before we me them, for example: what the person is wearing, their facial expression, weight (don’t ask, it’s in my book) and even skin colour, which was controversial but nevertheless unfortunately true.

Then we moved on to reviewing chapter 12 and 14. In this we said, usually chapters are established for us at the beginning of the novel, Joe, Clarissa and Jed are all established in the opening three chapters, we are clear about their appearance and have an idea as to their personalities and motivations.

Jean Logan is a minor, yet important character in enduring love. We then read the description in the story of jean Logan and her house on page 108 to 110 and noted the detail McEwen uses to introduce the character and the setting.

After reading the extract, we had to find quotes and derive meaning and implications from them here is a few I made earlier lool

“The smell of dump coal and soap” – contrast between dirty, dark and obscure things with much more positive clean things

“Of course, of course” – impatience, expectant, anxious

“Her nose was sharpened and bloomed pink at the tip” – (i thought it was pink because she was cold, only to be embarrassed by the whole class) shows curiosity, sharp faced, beautiful.


Yahaya :D

We started the lesson by writing Mariana's facebook status. We then finished off annotating the poem, then moved to another Tennyson poem, called Godiva.It is based on the story of Godiva, a lady who, according to the myth, rode naked through the streets of Coventry in England after her husband promised that he would remove oppressive taxes on his people if she agreed to do so.

Homework:

• Finish notes on Godiva
• Write two 30 minute essays; one answering the question "how does Tennyson tell the story in Godiva?" and the other "Discuus Tennyson's narrative method in Mariana"

The Role Of Woman

At the beginning of the lesson there was a picture of the Spice Girls on the board and we had to discuss what girl power is which is a term often used for empowerment, and linked with feminism. We then had a brief discussion on the equality of men and woman and what the stereotypical views of woman and men's roles were, thus producing two separate spheres. Men typically had all the power in the relationship with money, education power, politics and legal matters where as the woman was seen as the domestic housewife, charming, selfless and so on. We then discussed whether the Lady of Shalott was fitted any of these traits, and the fact that she left her home in pursuit of Sir Lancelot, for him to only establish "she has a lovely face" proves that she was foolishly selfless to die for a man who took no interest. It also highlights the plite of woman and how power in distributed in the poem for we learn more about Sir Lancelot in those two stanzas than we do about Lady Shalott in the rest of the poem.

The next poem we looked at was "The Angel in the house" by Coventry Patmore in which he wrote about his wife, Emily.

Man must be pleased; but him to please

Is woman's pleasure; down the gulf

Of his condoled necessities

She casts her best, she flings herself.

How often flings for nought, and yokes

Her heart to an icicle or whim,

Whose each impatient word provokes

Another, not from her, but him;

While she, too gentle even to force

His penitence by kind replies,

Waits by, expecting his remorse,

With pardon in her pitying eyes;

And if he once, by shame oppress'd,

A comfortable word confers,

She leans and weeps against his breast,

And seems to think the sin was hers;

Or any eye to see her charms,

At any time, she's still his wife,

Dearly devoted to his arms;

She loves with love that cannot tire;

And when, ah woe, she loves alone,

Through passionate duty love springs higher,

As grass grows taller round a stone.

Although written about his wife it still highlights the stereotypical views of woman, that for his sin she must weep?

We continued to look at the role of woman in the poem "Mariana" in which Mariana is betrothed to Angelo who later broke off the engagement and Mariana lives outside Venetian society in a secluded country grange visited by hardly anyone. Sir then put an extract on the board in which we had to annotate and find out what the extract suggests.

"With blackest moss the flower-plots

Were thickly crusted, one and all"

The extract uses dark imagery, with the antithesis of moss and flower, and suggests that hope has died, as well as creating a sense of abandonment, may be a metaphor for her feelings. Also with the contrast between one and all, indicating a individuals society. We then continued to read the rest of the poem and the overall impression was that time is passing her by, and that she takes pleasure in being depressed.

Lastly, we worked in groups of two's or three's and annotated a stanza of the poem, focusing on AO2 in which we will share next lesson.

Homework:

Read and highlight the sheet Sir gave us about Tennyson's narrative method in The Lady of Shalott.

Complete annotating the rest of Mariana.

Lucy

Enduring Love Narrative

In Mr. Chatterley's lesson on Friday we didn't read any of the book but we studied narrative. Much of it was about how things were said when reading text. One of the quotes used at the start was from a Charles Dickens book, Great Expectations. "Hold your noise!" cried a terrible voice, as a man started up from among the graves at the side of the Church porch. "Keep still, you little devil, or I'll cut your throat!"

After that we split in to groups and analysed quotes. We identified what type of narrative they were, and in what way they were being said, such as:

"Mum, can I have a dog for my birthday."
"No."
"Christmas?"
"No."
Birthday and Christmas?"
"No."

We also studied 3 critical extracts in our groups. Such as "Fictional conversation is a literary skill, rather than a hearing of voices.", John Mullan. After this, we looked in to "How do writers dialogue?" There were 3 examples given:

1- Direct Speech: Using the words of the speakers. For instance: "well", says Judge Gurie "well, well, well". She then turned to me.
2- Reported Speech: Example: Judge Gurie sarcastically indicates her suprise.
3- Free Direct Speech: Uses the words of the characters, but without any speech tags. Example: Well. Vernon, I'm not going to turn you down this time.

Then, more analysation of 'How writers use dialogue.', and we discussed the use of idioms - i.e. "Over the moon." On the sheet, it said there are many ways in which writers convey voices and develop characters in a range of ways; such as "the length of character utterances", "the use of idioms", "standard English or recieved pronunciation". Writers also use dialogue to "establish contrasts between chracters, move the plot along, explore key ideas in narrative and create moments of tension."

We established Enduring Love uses Direct Speech. The last thing we had to do was find a quote and show how it sums up a character. I chose Joe's line of "It was nothing. Wrong number, go back to sleep" as I thought it summed up his attempt to dominate everthing and everyone. He likes to be in control of everything (doesn't believe in things that aren't proved by science, i.e. religion) and is a bit of a control freak.

Homework:
Comment on this.
Read pages 99-161 of Enduring Love. I think it's 161, I wrote it on my hand but it rubbed off!!!!

Daniel.

Poem: The Lady of Shallot

We began the lesson looking at a picture and commentating on it. In this picture there were shadows. We then started a discussion talking about what it would be like to live in a cave and the only thing that you’ll see is showdowns moving past. We this we watched a video that showed just this.

We then as a class read The Lady of Shallot. We discussed all of the auditory imagery that the poem contains. It is seen that in the outside world there is plenty but in her castle there is nothing but silence. After this we began to link the video to the poem. This was done by comparing the ladies life to the people that lived in the cage that only saw shadows with her only seeing peoples reflection.

Sir then asked us to write all the activities that happened in the “real” world and the inactivity’s in Shallot.

Here are some of mine:

Camelot:

· “up and down the people go”

· “only reapers, reaping early”

· “the knits came riding two by two”

Whilst Shallot:

· “ four grey walls, and four grey towers”

· “shadows of the world appear”

· “hangs before her all the year”

We then all began to annotate the poem; we came up with things such as there is a Dichotomy between Shallot and Camelot. We further stated that the enjambment in the poem helps it flow.

HOMEWORK: Read “The Victorian Age” and make notes on it; also finish annotating the poem.

Esmeralda ;)

Narrative Voice

In the lesson we had to look over 3 chapters of the book were learning Enduring Love. At the start we had to think about what Narrative Voice ment. We have come to a conclusion that Narrative Voice means telling the story in your own point of view and also be interpreted to the Third Person.

We looked upon chapter 8 and did a summary on it. We also looked at what type of narration is used in the chapter and the effect us readers get form the narration.
In chapter 8 its reaveld that Joe is the narrative voice in the chapter. In the chapter what happens is that Joe dismisses Jed because he thinks hes crazy, insane and calls the police. Joe sees himself as a scientist however Jed is bothering him, aggrovating him. It made him realise that hes not such a big scientist. Joe is a paracite of others people work.

We also had to do a review on chapter 9 we had to think of the following:

• What is interesting about the narrative perspective here?
• Why do you think that McEwam writes the section this way?
• What does it contribute?
• the readers response to Joe
• the readers to Clarissa
• key ideas of storytelling and interpretation

What is intersting about the narrative is that the perspective is from third person/ominscent, but were not sure why joe is the main narrator. Joe interprets Clarissas point of view as he thinks in third person.

We think that McEwan writes in this way becasue it makes us raeders question what Joe thinks of Clarissas mind set, trying to precieve as Joe being the main character . Its trying to show off Joes intelligensts.We think that Joe is quite mad and rude. We think that McEwan is letting us add our own interpretation and perspective.

Chapter 11 review

We had to answer the following:

• What was intersting about the narrative voice?
• Why dose Mcewan do this?
• What do we learn about Jeds background?

The intersts of this narrative in this chapter is that its told as a letter. McEwan wabts to make us feel usure , to show that hes carzy and really obessive. What we learn about his background is that.

• Hes out on his own
• Hes realy close to God
• Hes got no family
• He enhirted is aunties money
• He use to be poor
• He exludes people
• He has a special relationship with God
• Wants Joe to Be closer to God

The last task of the lesson we had to get into pairs and was each given a chapter to review on. We had to write about lexis, structure, narrative and the focaliser.

Chapter 8

• Narrative Joes perspective
• Starting to become paranoid and confused
• Lexis: confusion, paracite
• Sentence Structure: uncertain with himself and explantory sentences.

Chapter 9

• Joes point of view of how he proceeds of Clarissas point of view. Gives us an insight what Joe thinks and feels about Clarissa.
• Gives the reader an insight of their mind of who was right and who was wrong.
• Structure:lot more broken down, compared to chapter 8 he was arguing with himself.
• Lexis:constud.

Chapter 11

• `Jeds letter written for Joe
• Joe is the focaliser
• Lexis: Biblical, romantic, expressive
• Structure: malliflous, complex sentences.

Rosie Yagien

Debate about the previous sausage roll incident

Sausage Rolls :)

The lesson began with Mr.Sadgrove 's review of some of the pieces of coursework he briefly read. Overall he evaluated that the small sample he had read did not go into enough detail to get high marks. In order to help us improve our essays he then gave everyone a piece of coursework that was written 2 years ago that had received 26/30 marks. The class then analysed this essay and discussed what made it so good.

After this, we then went onto the second lesson of our new unit (narrative) and discussed the difference between poetry and prose. To help us with this discussion we looked at a quote from Sylvia Plath:

“If a poem is concentrated, a closed fist, then a novel is relaxed and expansive, an open hand: it has roads, detours, destinations; a heart line, a head line; morals and money come into it. Where the fist excludes and stuns, the open hand can touch and encompass a great deal in its travels.”

Following this, various members of the class gave their views on this statement and overall there was a mixed response as some agreed whereas others disagreed. We then went onto a slightly different discussion and debated "Why would a writer tell a story in poetry rather than prose?" Overall it was concluded that when writing poetry, writers had much more "tools in their toolkit" to use opposed to the limited options of prose.

Different types of narrative:

Narrative: The recounting of an event or collection of events. Narrative technique is the method/ways in which a story is told

Narrative poetry: The telling of a story in poetry. In the case of narrative poetry, the writer has available many of the techniques of the narrative prose writer (voice, structure, manipulation of time, lexis & imagery) + all the techniques available to a poet

Forms of poetry:

Dramatic Monologue: Imaginary speaker addressing an imaginary audience, usually imitates natural speech (often iambic pentameter)

Lyrics: Having the form and musical quality of a song, can involve an out pouring of emotions of poets/characters own thoughts and feelings in a personal manner

Narrative / Ballad: A longer poem that tells a story usually with dialogue , often tragic and can be lyrical.

^ (If you don't have those definitions copied, it would be a good idea to copy now) ^

Next, Mr Sadgrove revealed some background information about the poem which was essential to understand it. We discussed the myth of King Arthur and Camelot. After this, Sir told us to draw a picture in our book of a long river, a castle, a island, a road & many more. When reading the poem (The Lady of Shallot) the activity of drawing the picture became clear, it aided us in understanding the poem.

Background information & the actual poem can be found here: http://www.pathguy.com/shalott.htm

After reading the poem we discussed what form the narrative was in and briefly analysed the language structure and form of the poem.

Homework:

Mark the coursework essay we were given at the beginning of the lesson using colour codes to highlight the different AO's e.g. blue for AO1, green for AO2, red for AO3, yellow for AO4. Evaluate what made it a good essay (success) and also how it could be improved (target).

Look at your own essay and see how it could be improved by completing the success/target sheet

Research: King Artur, Camelot, Sir Lancelot

Research: Role of women in Victorian society

Also if you haven't already, research Alfred, Lord Tennyson write 10 bullet points about his life.

Comment on this post

Homework due next lesson (11/1/12)

'Sonny.

Narrative

Tuesday 4th January 2011

In the lesson we had to look on the idea on what Narrative is about. At the start of the lesson we had to look at a painting of man or a woman ( we had to choose one or the other) lying on a bed. Our teacher asked us what we thought about the painting. We had to say How and Why the man or woman was lying on the bed.
My idea was that it was a painting of a woman lying bed by being strangled to death because shes been caught by her husband of having an affair.

Our teacher gave us a task to write our own narrative. We had to do the following

• What happened?
• Do flow chart of the narration step by step
• Write in How and Why the our stories lead the way it did.
• Discussed the effect of How and Why brings the the stories

This is an example of my flow chart

At night the woman snuck out of the house (How: came out of her room, creeped down the stairs as quietly as she could.) Why: (the woman is fustrated of her husband and wants to be free.)

Her Husband looked out the window( How: the husband woke up as he heard the door slam and he peekd out the window to see where she lead of to.) Why: hes controlling over his wife and is curious of where shes running to.

The Husband followed her to where she was going (How: he rushed down the stairs very eager and desperate, took his horse and pounded down the round) Why: he really wants his wifes secrets of running off at night times.

The Husband saw enetering the palace and out came the prince (How: husband stopped and got off the horse from across the bridge) Why: trying to not be seen.

The Prince kissed her on the lips (How: kissed with a passion) Why: the love each other.

The Husband rushed back home went into their bedroom and trashed the womans belongings out of anger (How: stormed in the bedroom, ripped up her pictures, threw her clothes out the window and sobbing) Why: feeling hurt, betrayed, anger and rage.

The husband sat on the bed and waited till dawn for his wifes return (How: he slowly sat on the bed crying to himself clenched his thists together. Why:ready give her wife her punishment.

At the crack of dawn the woman walked in the room (How: looked astonished ) Why: Realised that her husband knows what shes been up to.

Her Husbad rised form the bed, punched her and strangled her to death. he left her lieng on the bed. he jumped out the window. (Why: killed her out of anger and jealousy.)

I said that the effect of How and Why gives an in depth and a better understanding of the charcters and the storyline. Also becomes more imaginitve and creative.

The next task was to Write our own Narrative

We had to write an opening paragrapth of the narrative of the painting and decide how we would tell the story. we had to think of the following.

• Genre
• Voice and point of view
• Structure and the time schme (going to start at the beginning and tell in chronological order or use of flash backs/ Jumbled up time)
• Prose style- sentence structure and length, vocabulary, dialogue, narration and description. Would you use poetic, converstaional, informal and formal.

For my opening paragrapth i used Voice and point of view. Members of our class got to read out their narratives. The rest of us had to point out what criteria the person used and discussed what was good about the narratives.

At the end of the lesson our mission was to complete a statement on what we think narrative is about. I said that a narrative can be used in different forms to tell a story and is used in everyday life.

Homework

• 10 hand written bullet points about Alfred Tennyson

Rosie Yagien