Final week!

Morning everyone,

The time has come - we've reached our final week of your AS Lang Lit course! It's been a long and very fast-paced year with a very difficult course, so I would just like to commend you all on your hard work. Now is the time to put everything you have learned, both in class and outside through your wider study, into practice. Your first exam, Poetry and Creative Writing, will take place a week on Friday and paper 2, Drama and Non-literary Texts will be the following Thursday.

Today is our last lesson on Paper 2 before your exam, so I have devised some revision questions for you. Depending on where you feel your weaknesses are, you can either work on The History Boys or AHWOSG.

Reminders:

• You need to interpret the texts - this is what the exam is asking you to do. Don't be afraid of this; as long as you support your sensible points with well-selected evidence from the text, you are on the right track.
• Make sure you analyse language. You will get low marks if you don't. The best way to do this is to simply follow the framework approach we have been working on.
• Make sensible comments about context. Don't make outlandish claims that are incorrect.
• Follow the PEE structure for your analysis.
• Make close references to the text.

AHWOSG

Using integrated linguistic and literary approaches, consider how Eggers draws on society’s attitudes to death in his presentation of death in A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius.

The History Boys

         i.           Remind yourself of Act 1 from page 18 “Dull….” to page 20 “….possibly”. Using integrated literary and linguistic approaches, explore the presentation of the Irwin as a teacher in this extract.

       ii.          Consider how Bennett presents differing attitudes to education and teaching in the play. In your response, you should refer to at least two other episodes.

A

Poetry Revision Lesson

Morning all,

We have almost covered all of the poems we need, there are 2 sonnets left, which we will cover next week. Since we have been analysing a poem per lesson, today it may be time for a break to catch up with all the annotations and to apply what you have learned to your writing.

Yesterday I told you to make sure that you had full, in depth annotations for all of the 20 poems you need to know for the AS exam. To help keep you organised, below is a link to a document which has a gird for your notes for each poem you need to know. For those of you who will be attending the workshop, this is what you will be using to record your revision. The workshop this afternoon at 2:30 in B18 will cover the following poems, so I would suggest you don't focus on these 4 today if you are attending the workshop:

THURSDAY 5th MAY: 2.30-3.30
THE PASSIONATE SHEPHERD TO HIS LOVE
THERE IS A GARDEN IN HER FACE
LEISURE
THE COLLAR

Today, I'd like you to start working your way through this document and making notes for the poems. Choose one today, make some notes and then write a few paragraphs of analysis for the poem. Start with a poem we haven't covered for a long time, like Composed on Westminster Bridge.

Link: AS Lang Lit Poetry Revision Grid

Secondly, look at this terminology grid for some key poetry related terms:

Link: Key Poetry Terms

And finally, start writing some analysis for the poem. Write this analysis on paper, and hand it in at the end of the lesson.at least 4 paragraphs of analysis on your poem. For your analysis, you need to use a framework approach to ensure you're getting as much language analysis in as possible.
Use this grid to help you organise your response:

Link: Poetry Revision Framework Grid

So to summarise:

1. Choose a poem
2. Analyse it using the grid and the poetry terminology sheet
3. Explore it using the framework approach
4. Write at least 4 paragraphs of analysis on paper to hand in at the end of the lesson.

Enjoy!

God's Grandeur and Writing a Voiceover

God's Grandeur by Gerald Manley Hopkins

God's Grandeur is a poem a written in sonnet form (Italian - 8 lines then 6 lines) exploring the relationship people have with nature and God. It is an extremely dense and complicated poem, with lots of interesting use of language and it is not very positive about people! The speaker seems quite distant from others around him (or her).

The speaker of the poem is very critical of the way people treat the earth and the world around them, and aims to remind the reader about the glory of God and his role in creating and managing the world, at a time when Man seemed intent on destroying it (think about the massive growth in industry over the course of the nineteenth century. The speaker believes the earth is heading for destruction and is essentially temporary. However, nature does seem to have a capacity for continuation, night turns into day, because God is there to protect.

1. What type of sentence is the opening line? What mood does it create? What is the effect of the verb 'charged'? What are its connotations?
2. What does the speaker suggest will happen to the world in lines 2 & 3? What is the effect of the imagery used?
3. What type of sentence is used in line 4? Why? What are the connotations of the noun 'rod'? What word does 'reck' make you think of that could also be relevant in the context?
4. Why has Hopkins repeated 'have trod' in line 5?
5. How does Hopkins show the reader how critical he is of how people are living in lines 6 & 7? What are the key lexical choices? How does he use sound to capture this too? How does he show his distaste for Man?
6. How does he demonstrate how he feels about our destruction of the earth and how relationship with nature in line 8?
7. What is the shift in line 9? What conjunction does he use? What does 'spent' mean? Does it link to any other words in the poem?
8. What type of word is 'dearest'? What does he mean by 'deep down things'? What does this suggest about how he thinks people normally live their lives?
9. He use 'and' to start the line again (line 11). Why does he do this?
10. How does he describe the cycle of night and day in lines 11 & 12? What effect does the dynamic verb have?
11. Why is there a cycle of day and night? How does he present God as a protector of Earth (despite the fact that it is 'bent' what does this suggest?) and make God sound like someone who nurtures?

Nature Documentary Voiceover: Creative Writing

Watch two examples from the series of nature documentaries called 'The Hunt' narrated by David Attenborough. You need to watch 'The Silent Assassin' and 'Fast Food.' Read the scripts and answer the questions about the stylistic and linguistic features of the text.

Nature Voiceover Script and Questions

Nature Documentaries