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 ;)