Diet poetry and the problems with the poetry anthology

 I enjoy teaching poetry but I do find the idea of an anthology of fifteen poems for GCSE such an overwhelming prospect for students. I have been around long enough to seen how the various poetry anthologies are used. Rather than have students engage with poetry and exploring how language is used, we end up, largely, having poetry translation and memorisation of random facts in the hope they can be strung together.

The obsession becomes about ‘knowing the poem’. What ever ‘knowing the poem’ means? Single poems are studied over several lessons until the teacher feels the students know the poem, which usually means the teacher has informed student about everything in the poem. We aren’t happy unless the student has an highlight annotated copy of the poem in their book and twenty spurious facts about the poem, like Duffy has an aversion to the colour red, in their brains.

The cognitive load of the anthology is massive and it is a worrying aspect for us as practitioner. For novels and plays, you have narrative framework which holds knowledge together or at least structures it in some way. Fifteen poems loosely linked together by a theme lacks this structure and this natural cohesion that plays and novels naturally have. Then, let’s look at the poems themselves. Densely packed texts with a multitude of ideas, messages, themes and techniques. The richness of poetry for some is the cognitive overload for others.

When you marks essays based on the anthologies, you get a clear divide. Those that can remember everything a teacher said about a poem. Those that can form their own opinion on the poems. Those that just repeat parts of the text. Sadly, even after spending weeks looking at the poems, some students are not able to form their own opinions. Part of the beauty of poetry is that anybody should be able to offer an opinion on a poem, spot some interesting things about the poem and offer some reasons about why they think a poet wrote it. Poetry should be the one thing students should be able to do easily without understanding  Shakespeare’s language or without knowing the plot of a 350 paged Victorian novel.  The way the anthologies are taught I’d argue add to the cognitive load of students. We are adding to the load rather than supporting and helping with the load. We have a large number of our students who are overburdened with poetry that when it comes to assessment that freeze-up and write waffle.

We need to look at the process of how we teach these poems. We need to be aware of the cognitive load related to the learning the poems. Students think they need to know everything about the poems. That in itself if problematic but it is something we need hit head on. We need to aim for confidence about a poem and not complete knowledge of the poem. Now, don’t you go thinking this is  knowledge rant; it isn’t. But, I feel that the relationship between knowledge and confidence needs exploring. Knowledge does give you confidence, but confidence in poetry can come from very little knowledge and from the personal knowledge of the student. Ideally, we want confident and knowledgeable students, but at the moment we do have students who lack confidence because the knowledge is overwhelming. They need the knowledge is a way that helps them build their confidence. We need to address the extraneous load so that students get more confident.

So, where is this going? Well, we, like others, had a problem with lockdowns and students isolating. We had studied several of the poems during lockdown, but when it came to revisiting them the students struggled to recall or discuss the poems they had previously studied with confidence. Therefore, we needed to revisit the poems in a way that ensured knowledge retention and confidence, so I did something a bit controversial. For this, I know I am going to visited by the ghosts of Blake, Plath and Tennyson begging me to change my ways. Bah, humbug! I presented a diet version of the poems in the anthology. This is how we started ‘War Photographer’.

 

In his darkroom he is finally alone

With spools of suffering set out in ordered rows.

 

Home again

To ordinary pain which simple weather can dispel,

To fields which don’t explode beneath the feet

Of running children in a nightmare heat.

 

He remembers the cries

Of this man’s wife, how he sought approval

Without words to do what someone must

 

From the aeroplane he stares impassively at where

He earns his living and they do not care. 

 

Students copied the diet version in their books and then together we explored the meaning behind the poem. Students spotted patterns in the language and together we explored their ideas about the poem and the poet’s message. The great thing was that students felt they knew the poem and they readily offered ideas about the meaning of lines and phrases. All annotated on their handwritten copy of the poem. The beauty of writing is down was that spotted things in the writing which are largely hidden from sight unless you write things down. Word order. Structure.

But, you’ve taken some of the best bits of the poem out? Yes. I had. On purpose. The problem often with poetry – and the beauty of it – is that you have lots of images that add to the overall mood and tone, but detract from the overall meaning. We get it, because we are attuned to dealing with a collection of images, yet students don’t. They overload the student. Why is it a Mass in a dark room? The concept of the darkroom isn’t clear in the student’s head when another image is thrown into the mix. That’s why a lot of poetry teaching is working through the poem line by line. Decluttering.

We hadn’t even read the whole poem yet students had a confident grasp of what the poem was about, the choices made relating to language and structure and some understanding of the poet’s message. Confidently, they could talk about the poem. We did this repeatedly with five of the other poems and their confidence increased. They had a grounded understanding of the poem which was a mixture of exploration and discussion, rather than us go line by line through the poem.

Then, when we looked at the poem, we were able to look at how other components worked.

The only light is red and softly glows,
as though this were a church and he
a priest preparing to intone a Mass.

 

This next bit became incredibly fruitful in terms of discussion. We were able to look at what this sentence added to the meaning of the poem. What was the effect now of comparing it to a church and a Mass? How did the mood change? Why at this point? We did this repeatedly with the poem. Seeing how each element missing from the diet version slots in. Building their knowledge when they were confident to start with at the beginning.

All too often we look at the whole and zoom in on a word or a line, but this changed things for us. We were looking at the cohesion between parts of the poem. How things fitted together? Exploring the reasons and the ideas. Bringing new elements to the poem helped increase their knowledge of the poem, but with a real sense of confidence. We could even throw Yygotsky in there and say that I was working on the concrete and building up to the abstract elements.

Confidence in talking about poetry is something we need to actively work on. Yes, there’s a lot of poems to get through and so little time, but if we can get students more confident about talking about a poem in their first lesson with the poem, then that will only add to their confidence when they write about the poems later down the line. All it too was a little unburdening of the cognitive load when faced with the poem for the first time.

Thanks for reading,

Xris

The first read is the deepest – moving away from spotting and pushing the thinking

 We are currently working with our Year 11s to help them prepare for an assessment on unseen poetry and for me it has, yet again, made me think about how we teach poetry or texts of any kind.

When we first introduce a text to a class, we often don’t let them sniff the wine. We don’t let them experience the bouquet. The aromas. The experience. The flavours. The hints. Instead we attack it. It is red wine. It is from France. It is a Shiraz. There’s much more to the things we enjoy. There is beauty in knowledge, but there is beauty in the experience. That chocolate egg you devoured slowly in front of the telly happened because you enjoyed the experience. It isn’t because you liked the pattern on the egg. It was the experience that gave you pleasure.

I don’t think we put the pleasure in texts enough in lessons. Now, I don’t want to come across as some Children TV presenter and suggest we make everything fun: no, I mean we put pleasure in the driving seat for once and we put what the text does to a person first. All too often, techniques are in the driving seat and lead things in lessons. That’s why Tim can spot seventeen examples of alliteration yet can’t tell you a single thing about what the poet is saying about a beach. Tim, what is the poem saying about the beach? ‘It is saying that alliteration is a really effective way to describe a beach, sir.’

When I read, I enjoy the experience. And, contrary to popular belief, I am not analysing as a I read. I am not. Instead, I am relishing the flavours, the bouquet, the hints, the aromas. I might even like it much that I want me more of it.

Okay, Xris. Cut to the chase. What does this actually mean in the classroom? Well, first of all, it does not mean you have to put a cravat on and start lighting scented candles to create the right ambience to ensure feelings happen. It means putting the impact on the reader at the front of discussions and analysis. Instead of making it an after thought. We’ve all stood there when we’ve asked a student about the effect something has in the poem. They look at you blankly as they search their internal memory cabinet so they can bluff their way through. Ummm – make the reader want to read on.  

To be honest, I have been conditioned to focus on analysis first and then explore the impact. I am not saying that analysis is bad, but I think how we structure the analysis in a lesson is problematic. What came first: the chicken or the egg? In English lessons, what comes first: the impact or the technique? For students, and most readers, it is the impact and not the technique. For English teachers, it is largely the technique and not the impact. This structure is problematic. I hate alliteration for this thing alone. How blooming hard is it to explain the effect of alliteration after you have spotted it? Pretty hard. That’s why students tend to default to an explanation of alliteration. It is much easier after you have spotted the effect to attach the mood to alliteration and a number of different techniques.

That links to another issue we have with this internalised structure of poetry teaching. Writers don’t use one thing to create a particular effect. A poet will use several methods to convey a mood. Yet, when isolating methods and linking to the impact, students miss out the connections and the interconnectivity of things in a poem. Moods are spider webs in poems. They have delicate silken threads to a number of things. Seeing those webs are what good students do. They gentle lift a thread and see all the different ways it is attached to things.

Therefore, we need to put impact in a higher position in the English lesson. Yes, there will be time for analysis and ensuring comprehension, but let’s not neglect our first reaction to any text. The feelings. The thoughts. The connections. The recollections. The questions.  

 As we work through unseen poetry, I start each lesson with me reading the poem and then they underline the bits they like. Yes, a simple question: what bits do you like in the poem?

Here’s a poem we have recently looked at:

Hard Frost

 

Frost called to the water Halt 
And crusted the moist snow with sparkling salt;
Brooks, their one bridges, stop, 
And icicles in long stalactites drop. 
And tench in water-holes 
Lurk under gluey glass like fish in bowls. 

In the hard-rutted lane 
At every footstep breaks a brittle pane, 
And tinkling trees ice-bound, 
Changed into weeping willows, sweep the ground; 
Dead boughs take root in ponds 
And ferns on windows shoot their ghostly fronds. 

But vainly the fierce frost 
Interns poor fish, ranks trees in an armed host, 
Hangs daggers from house-eaves 
And on the windows ferny ambush weaves; 
In the long war grown warmer 
The sun will strike him dead and strip his armour.

 

                                                                                                     Andrew John Young

 

It is interesting to see what students like. I get students to tell me what they like and we annotate a copy of the poem together with those bits. If students are confident enough, they might explain why they like it. I have highlighted on the poem some things students have liked. Unanimously, they all liked the last line. The fact that it was the last line straightaway addresses a structural point. We offered ideas why we all liked it. Some suggested it was the pace. Others suggested it was the fact that it was the sun appearing and how we prefer the sun to the frost. We then analysed the poem in more depth.  Students had a grounded understanding of the personal impact the poem had on them.  They knew how they felt and their reaction to the text at certain points. They pick up on the sounds, effects, patterns and structural things without going near a darn technique. The first reading is always the deepest!

For over a year, I have been really interesting in how we teach impact and effect in texts in the English classroom. For years, I have always been a big believer of teaching effect first in writing (Sexy Sprouts), but more so now am I seeing its relevance to literature. It boosts confidence in students and it enables discussion in lessons far more than narrow questions on techniques or big questions about life. Everybody can tell you whether they like or dislike something. In fact, that is where passion stems a lot of the time. Take Marmite. People can tell me with passion or aggression why they like or dislike Marmite. Why don’t we channel this ability to be passionate with texts we study?

 

Here are some approaches to being more focused on effect / impact in lessons.

[1] Getting students to ground their understanding with a connection to their personal world

What does this remind you of?

What does this make you think about?

[2] Getting students to identify themselves in the text

Whose side am I on?

Who represents me in the text?

Where are you in this situation?

Who is the victim? Who is the villain?

[3] Getting students explore things in terms of positive and negative

Students identify whether the text is positive or negative. Then explore why it is negative or positive. Often texts present different parties in the text differently. They might present a boat positively and the sea negatively. Looking at the relationship between positive and negative elements is really meaningful.

[4] Getting students to how positive or negative something becomes

This is particularly important for AQA Paper 1. Often, the texts start negatively and get even more negative as the text goes on. We look at how the negative effect is amplified through the text. What structural choices add to this negativity?

[5] Getting students to explore what the like and dislike about characters

It’s easy to see texts with a pantomime googles: people are either victims or villains. Seeing that characters have relatable aspects is really key. Students might not like Mrs Birling but they could at least identify with her determination to do what is right for her family. Seeing characters are complex things are relatable is important.

[6] Getting students to articulate their first impression, reaction or feelings

What do you like?

What don’t you like?

What is your opinion of…?

What would you do if it was you?

 

We all like shared experiences. How many of us chat about shared experiences of books, films or TV? Every text we study is a ‘Line of Duty’ watercooler moment. It is a shared experience and not just shared analysis. The two go hand in hand. One is made even better by the other. We enjoy the experience so we analyse it more.   

Let’s help students feel and experience the brilliant literature we study and not just know them. It doesn’t take a lot to do this. No fancy costumes. No special effects. No props. No special guest.

Get your nose in a poem. Swirl it around. Savour it. Spit it out. What do you notice?  

Thanks for reading. I am now off to get myself drunk on poetry. Hiccup. Hiccup.

Xris

What a teacher wants, what a writer needs

Like others, I have been working on getting students to balance ideas, discussion on language choices and the writer’s message or intent. For some, this comes easily and for others no so. The one thing that is quite elusive, for most, is the writer’s intent.  

A lot of the time, when we are talking about intent, we use stock statements. Dickens was challenging the status quo. Shakespeare is highlighting the different types if love. Those statements are handy and helpful in terms of joining the dots. But, I find the jump to the end point and conclusion. We force feed students these writer’s messages. We teach texts around these messages. We even punctuate lessons with socialism and equality when discussing texts like ‘An Inspector Calls’. We force this end point in terms of discussing the writer’s intent. We even add words around this to help jumpstart the process. The writer is either challenging, highlighting, questioning, or some other suitable verb, the idea.  We might even give them little titbits like ‘inequality’, ‘differences’ or ‘the relationship between x and y’ to help them form sentences that sound impressive but at the same time they are hollow and meaningless.

Student become obsessed with this kind of benign writer’s intent statements. They pepper their writing with them and rarely move beyond the superficial level of understanding. We see this when they struggled with the GCSE English Language papers. Exam papers where the focus is clearly on the intent. Yes, it does look at meaning and choices, but largely it is about the writer’s intent. Paper 2 has even got the word ‘perspectives’ in its title. Umm. That just means the writer’s intent. It’s just dressed up in a fancy word.  This where the problem lies. Because we have a simplistic approach to intent with literature, we then have this process fed across other elements. That’s why we get crazy statements from students when they look at the texts. The writer presents the boat in the way he does because he wants to challenge the inequality in society and the patriarchal superiority of the existing social structures. It is a boat. A thing that sits in the water. A big boaty thing. The poor thing just wants to be a boat. And play like the other boats in the wild.

The problem is counterfeit intellectualism. We saw something similar with wow words and vocabulary. They were the trappings of good writing, but that’s all they were…trappings. The idea that showing a few clever words and ideas in a paragraph is the instant key to successful writing. Added to this is the notion that there’s a set structure or even a check list that all Grade 9 students to is damaging to what we teach and how we teach it. We see this counterfeit intellectualism played again and again in English and I think it is largely damaging. Look at the obscure use of terminology in analysis. Some, if we are honest, that didn’t even appear in any of our undergraduate courses. There is a good argument for teaching some of these techniques, but it is the way that they are used that I have a problem with. I’d rather have a student who can tell me a detailed why Shakespeare did something rather than the student who can fit catharsis, hamartia, hubris, anagnorisis and peripeteia in one sentence and spell it correctly. For me it is the depth of understanding and I think we have to challenge this counterfeit intellectualism for what it is. Counterfeit intellectualism is about quick fixes, easy answers, quickly recalled things and shiny bauble things that looks good to a complete stranger. The more the better with counterfeit intellectualism.

This counterfeit intellectualism has a drawback. Engagement. We are not teaching students to engage with a writer’s ideas. We are not allowing that level of depth to grow naturally and in an explorative way. Students need to engage with texts on a number of levels and even more importantly on a personal level. I don’t think the new (can I still call them new?) GCSE have created the situation, but I think people have created this situation around the new GCSE. They’ve created elements of counterfeit intellectualism around what they perceive the examiner wants to see.

A really good answer sings in the ears of a teacher or examiner. There is a level of subtly and depth that you cannot mimic, copy or even bottle up. The melody comes from years of teaching and not just a simple ingredient added to the mix.  

Right, back to the writer’s intent. We have over complicated the writer’s intent to such an extend it is hard for students to engage in texts. That’s why this term I have, in my COVID regulation lessons, been focusing on building and securing my Year 10s knowledge and skills with poetry. Two simple questions have really helped and supported students when looking at the texts:

What does the writer want?

What does the writer need the reader to think / feel /question?  

They are rubbish questions, Chris! My ferret can produce much better questions than that when it sits on my laptop and does a dance blindfolded whilst listening to the Vengaboys!

In fact, I be bold to say that technical students only need the words ‘want’ and ‘need’. Why?

‘Want’ is a pure and simple way of addressing the writer’s purpose. It is a way of putting it simply to the students. What does the writer want? Dickens wants the poor and rich to work together.

‘Need’ is a something that students get easily. If you want something, you need something else to happen for this to occur. Dickens wants the poor and rich to work together so he needs the reader to understand that world where the rich and poor work together is much better than a world with them working against each other.

‘Need’ can incorporate feelings or thoughts or even questions. Dickens wants the public to understand the difficulties the poor face so he needs them to care for Oliver Twist and feel genuine concern for his plight.

I have been using ‘want’ and ‘need’ with my Year 10s and it has made a marked difference in how they explain poetry. Instead of trying to recall what the bloke at the front of the class, they are now forming more of their own ideas about the texts. They are talking about what Tennyson wants and want he needs the reader to think or feel. They have a much better understanding of the writer than they have done before. Plus, they are writing much better about it by just using the words ‘want’ and ‘need’. The interrogation of the want and needs allows for the depth, but they have a way in to exploring the writer’s intent without the need of those silly triplets (to argue, to advise, blah, blah) or prepared comments from the statement bank.

If we can get students to think about the want and needs in literature texts, then when it comes to non-fiction and boats they can discuss the writer’s purpose easily. They can say the writer presents the boat in the way because he wants to show how prepared they were as he needs the reader to understand they were delusional and overly confident.  The same applies to Paper 1 and the creative writer. The writer starts the opening this way because she wants… and so she needs the reader to feel…

So, let’s work on depth in English by working on how students interact with texts. Let’s make them interact with them. Let’s make them connect with them. After all, we all have wants and needs. Seeing a text from a want and a need perspective, makes the texts relatable. Students have wants and needs too. Those wants and needs unite us.

Thanks for reading,

Xris

Keep calm and keep teaching ideas (A01)

Teaching is a strange thing and it is hard to define what makes things stick in a student’s head when other ideas leave the brain as quickly as someone drinking Sambuca shots - or the even faster way that vomit leaves the body after drinking all of those Sambuca shots.  What do we do with those ideas that really stick?

You can always guarantee that there is one student who tries to crowbar something you taught them once into everything they study. There are students who will direct every lesson discussion to oxymorons or relate everything studied to pathetic fallacy. It is like they cannot let go of that idea. You might be debating Brexit and still the student would pipe up and describe the Brexit as an oxymoron and cite that the change in weather is clearly pathetic fallacy suggesting out changeable nature.

It just so happened that I had one student who obsessed on an idea I had taught them. But, the idea carried on into every single text we taught at GCSE with quite a lot of success. She had developed an interpretation to all of the texts using this idea.

So, what was the seed? Well, the seed was the stiff upper lip. As a class, we were exploring Wilfred Owen’s ‘Exposure’ and I was exploring how the way soldiers were supposed to be stoic and not let events affect them emotionally and mentally. We were discussing the title and how it referred to the soldier’s exposure to the elements, but also the exposing of the reality of fighting in war, revealing what is behind the stiff upper lip. We explored as a class how the stiff upper lip has ingrained itself in our culture and how we compare with other countries. This in turn led to a discussion of Facebook and how we are more open to spill our emotions and feelings to others and how this contrasts to the Victorian attitude that was still ingrained in the soldiers fighting in WW1. We ended the lesson by exploring the significance of the war poets: they weren’t just attacking war, but attacking how society approaches dealing with things. They challenged and attacked the lies.

The lesson ended and so had, I thought, the idea. Then, we started to look at ‘A Christmas Carol’ and within the first lesson a student made a link to Scrooge and the stiff upper lip. She made the point that the imagery associated with Scrooge embodies the Victorian attitude to emotion: hard, sharp, closed and cold. The ‘solitary as an oyster’ got some battering by the symbolism bus too. The oyster’s shells are like the lips of the Victorian person: closed and hard to open. The student then went on to explore the significance of the ending. The cold Scrooge thaws and becomes a warmer, emotional character man. He transforms from businessman to friend. Work represents the place where we see the stiff upper lip regularly. The work and the money is more important than feelings and emotions. That’s why Dickens juxtaposes Scrooge’s business with the home of the Cratchits. Scrooge highlights what happens when we are stoical all the time. It isolates us. It makes us miserable. In fact, the whole story is about making Scrooge’s lips do something.     

We love a connection in English and this connection of ideas between ‘Exposure’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’ was incredibly fruitful. But, we didn’t stop there. The student would pipe up during the teaching of these texts:

The Charge of the Light Brigade  - typifies the stiff upper lip

Remains – the damaging effect of the stiff upper lip on us and how it is still a way of thinking today

War Photographer – how we struggle to feel emotions for others because of our obsession on our own lives

Poppies – how it is more acceptable for a woman to express emotion

Kamikaze – how stoicism is part of other cultures

Bayonet Charge -  how we aren’t certain what to think and feel because we just follow orders or the common majority

London – the blind acceptance of a way of thinking

Ozymandias – how the ability to empathise and connect with people caused self-destruction

My Last Duchess – the fear of looking bad and presenting positive outlook on something bad

But, it wouldn’t stop there. When reading ‘Rosabel’ paper, the student would highlight how Rosabel’s behaviour at the start of the extract reflects her following the stiff upper lip attitude. Her journey on the bus with people reflects the common mind-set of the population. KBO. Yet, her desire to throw the hat at the red-haired woman is about her stiff upper lip wobbling. Her emotions are coming to the surface. She can’t repress what she is feeling any more.

We’d then got to ‘Romeo and Juliet’ and then there it was again. The way the young people behave in the play reflect that the stiff upper lip is something that is learnt and we are conditioned to think that way. The young people are so spontaneous and forthcoming with their emotions – they gush over everything. This compares to the adults who tend to be a bit measured with their emotion. In fact, Lady Montague is so British she dies off stage. Talk about stiff upper lip. Every part of her body becomes stiff and she politely does it off stage. She doesn’t show emotion. Lady Capulet is another example of this. The men are slightly more different, suggesting that men could show emotion but women couldn’t.

Finally, we got on to ‘An Inspector Calls’. A play which is a whole metaphor for the stiff upper lip. It is telling that the play is set in the dining room. A place that is private and not visible. They can show their secrets, lies, true feelings and thoughts in that room, but they cannot show them outside the house. They must put on a façade that everything is good – great – superb. They must show a stiff upper lip and present a façade to the rest of the world. It is interesting to note that the most emotional characters in the play are Eric and Shelia. Two of the youngest characters. In fact, Eric is struggling to keep the façade up he is resorting to alcohol (Remains).  A connection with ‘Romeo and Juliet’. Young people struggle to be stoical, suggesting age and experience teaches people to control emotions, yet this is seen as a negative in the texts.

Through serendipity we discovered a thread through the majority of texts and, more interestingly, we had a readymade interpretation of the texts. Yes, there is a danger of a student crowbarring the idea in every text, but this made quite an interesting starting point when discussing ideas about the text. There are obvious themes across the GCSE texts we study, but what are the concepts that would help lift up their understanding of the texts. Some are obvious like ‘The American Dream’ for American texts but maybe there are some that we are not so clear and explicit when teaching a text. The stiff upper lip was just something I thought that would be a one lesson idea. However, it spiralled and thanks to a plucky student it kept coming back. It makes me think what concepts that aren’t so obvious that would help a student’s understanding of a text.  

I give it 5 minutes before the student mentions the stiff upper lip in a Year 11 lesson this week.

Thanks for reading,

Xris

Taking Tennyson and Owen to the pub for a pint

This week I have been working with Year 10 and helping them start writing poetry comparisons. As a class, we created the following opening comparison paragraph.

Both ‘Exposure’ and ‘Charge of the Light Brigade’ show us that the reality of war is death. Both show us that death is inevitable and a part of the life of war. However, ‘COLB’ celebrates death and glorifies the sacrifice the soldiers gave in dying and ‘Exposure’ shows us that death is a process that should be pitied and thought about. As Owen fought in the war and protested about war, it shows a personal and bitter point of view challenging the mentality of Tennyson is his poem. 

Tennyson doesn’t shy away from death in his poem. His constant reference to the ‘noble 600’ and how they are left as ‘not the 600’ is a constant reminder of death. He doesn’t want the death to be forgotten and ‘fade’ away, which is why he constantly refers to the ‘600’ and uses endless repetition. Tennyson doesn’t want them to be forgotten. Although he repeats ‘the death’, he does hide the actual violence and uses onomatopoeias and alliteration to give the sense of chaos surrounding the situation. It is as if the action is so hard to define, as it is here. It is hard to separate one from the other. The reality of war for Tennyson is confusion, chaos and death.  In contrast, Owen’s ‘Exposure’ refers to explicitly death at the end of the poem. However, the whole poem echoes the dying process: a cold, slow, long process of war. A common thought is that war is about action and whilst ‘COLB’ shows us that with ‘cannons to the right’ and ‘sabres’, ‘Exposure’ challenges this idea and gives us the idea that war is about ‘waiting’ for death. The use of long sentences and repetition of ‘nothing’ gives us the sense that not much happens and that soldiers are waiting for death and they’d rather it happened quickly. The wait is a metaphoric death.  ‘Exposure’ is the process before the ‘Charge of the Light Brigade’. It shows us why the soldiers rush into the ‘Jaws of Hell’ because they have had to wait for ages for nothing. They’d rather do something than wait, even if it means dying. They want to be ‘exposed’ to the danger and rather not wait for it.  

Along the way, I noticed that I didn’t use the words ‘poet’ or ‘writer’ in the writing and it got me thinking.  Instead, the emphasis was actually on the writer’s surname.

Tennyson doesn’t shy away from death in his poem.

Tennyson doesn’t want them to be forgotten.

The reality of war for Tennyson is confusion, chaos and death.

For years, I have been correcting the students who use a poet’s first name. Unless you have shared a pint (an impossibility) with Tennyson, it isn’t polite to use their first name. But, interestingly I haven’t really given the choice between writer and surname much thought. Yet, the above example made me see things differently and think of things differently. 

In the example above, I have mentioned Tennyson as numerous times and I haven’t equally given Owen the same coverage. What could I say if I looked Owen? 

Tennyson doesn’t shy away from death in his poem.

Owen challenges the glory of dying for one’s country.  

Tennyson doesn’t want them to be forgotten.

Owen thinks they are forgotten and the trapped between life and death.

The reality of war for Tennyson is confusion, chaos and death.

The reality of war for Owen is endless waiting and emptiness. 

The problem with using ‘writer’ and ‘poet’ is one of emotional detachment. Being academic in writing is not about being emotionless. Put things down to a faceless, emotionless and genderless noun (the poet) makes everything perfunctory. Tennyson was a living, thinking person made of wobbly flesh and bones. He thought, felt and probably drank tea.

One of the things I am noticing with the new literature is the importance in language precision. Long gone are the days of including X, Y and X and you’ll pass the GCSE. Students need to be able to express things fluently and precise. You can’t rely on bolt on statements or sentence openings. That’s why I think a shift in the subject of the sentences makes a shift in understanding and perspective. It’s more personal.

Owen wanted …

Owen thought …

Owen felt …

Getting students to explore the intent is quite hard, but an emphasis on the surname can help students to do this. We are exploring his (or her, depending on the poem) personal perspective on the idea. How he sees things? 

We can then include emotions and add to the student’s understanding of the intent further.

Owen felt bitter.

Owen felt frustrated.

Owen felt detached.

In fact, I’d be bold enough and say we are that blooming obsessed with the reader and their feelings so much that we neglect the poet and their feelings. We are obsessed with how we feel and forget that the poem has been writing with emotion. 

Then, we can add something specific about what the writer is doing: 

Hiding

Uncovering

Shying away

Disguising

Humanising

Admitting

Revelling

Highlighting

Foregrounding

Dehumanising

Alienating

Owen is uncovering the reality of war.

Owen is dehumanising soldiers.

Owen is alienating the reader.  

Then, we can just add some adverbs to suggest how Owen is feeling.

Owen is quietly uncovering the reality of war.

Owen is subtly dehumanising soldiers.

Owen is controversially alienating the reader.  

  

The best students don’t plonk ‘writer’, ‘alliteration’ and ‘mood’ in a sentence and magically create great responses. We need to craft how poetry is written about. We need to teach poetry analysis just as much as we do other skills. It will help too with all forms of analysis. 

So when I sat down for a pint with Tennyson and Owen a conversation started. Tennyson angrily mocked and ridiculed the atmosphere of the pub. For he hated, gastropubs. Owen, on the other hand, respectfully disagreed and boasted that it was one of his favourites.

We need work hard on getting students to think of writers as real people with feelings and thoughts. A01 is one that some students struggle with when writing about poetry. That’s because they are obsessed with the language. The starting point should be the writer’s ideas. Their thoughts. Their feelings. Their perspective. I am seriously considering getting rid of the 'writer’. Not in a hitman sort of way. Just the word. 

Thanks for reading,

Xris  

Revision Cards

Yesterday, I blogged about marketing revision is school. You can find the blog here. In it, I described the revision cards I give to students. They are pretty simple really; I just print all the points on A4 card papers and students cut them up. 

Thanks for reading, 

Xris 

An Inspector Calls

Mr Birling 

•             Represents power and money – he can get what he wants because he has money

•             Shows how the rich feared the poor and was suspicious of their actions

•             The rich are protective of their own and their money and fear losing it

•             Earned his money through hard work so expects people to work hard in life – represents new money

•             Represents the old class system – money made you powerful and important

•             Shows how old people will refuse to change their mind

•             Represents a capitalist’s view of the world – only interested in money.

Mrs Birling

•             Highlights how women didn’t always sympathise with other women

•             Shows how people only care for their family and their reputation

•             Shows how people are only kind and charitable when it suits them

•             Shows how women abused their power too

•             Gives the audience an ideas of what Sheila could become

•             Shows how that the inequalities was caused by both genders – not just men treating women badly

Eva Smith

•             A symbol of the poor and how the rich mistreated them

•             Shows how resourceful the poor had to be to survive

•             She was a victim of all parts of society – together they indirectly killed her

•             She represented an ‘everyman’ figure – she could be replaced by any type of person as she has very little individual personality

•             The only control she had was in her death

•             She is a foil – she is used to make the other characters look bad in comparison

Gerald Croft

•             Highlights how the men treated relationships with women – quick to start or end a relationship

•             Shows how men are only concerned with their desires – no sense of concern or care for a woman’s well-being

•             Shows the rich peoples’ carefree attitude towards the poor – not his concern – they served a function

•             Represents ‘old money’ – money that has been passed down through a family. He will inherit his parents’ money.

•             He shows how the rich had nothing to fear. He is the complete opposite of Eva Smith. She does things to survive. He will survive no matter what he does.

Sheila Birling

•             Represents the childish behaviour of the young and their arrogance – think they know best.

•             A symbol of a possible future – both Sheila and Eric are the characters that want to learn from the events in the play and improve.

•             Shows how women are changing – Mrs Birling is rigid in her thoughts but Sheila is willing to listen and change

•             Becomes an adult during the play – learns that actions have consequences

•             Sheila is the character that changes the most in the play – Why?

Eric Birling 

•             Contrasts with Sheila. Can’t cope with his actions. Sheila accepts her actions.

•             Copes with things by hiding things and stealing money.

•             Shows some guilt towards what has happened and, in some ways, he hates what he has become.

•             Eric’s behaviour before the play reflects that of the other men, but through the course of the story, has regrets and wants to be somebody different.

•             Shows a new way of dealing with relations with the poor – a relationship between rich and poor

Inspector Goole

•             Represents the rules and order of society – the police

•             Multiple roles – judge / conscience / god-like figure who sees all

•             He is the one figure that connects the poor and the rich together – he forces the links and connections – reveals what they want to keep hidden

•             Neither a rich nor a poor person – almost classless. It takes a classless character to make an unbiased opinion

•             Not a real person – suggesting that there is something else trying to fix things

Social Injustice

•             We see both rich and poor people living unhappy lives – suggesting that things are not working well now.

•             A change is needed to fix what happened and will happen to other Eva Smiths

•             The choices and decisions made by the rich affected Eva’s life. One small change and her life would be better.

•             The unfairness seems to be inherited from parents

•             Several types of injustice – rich/ poor, male/female, young/old, strong/weak

•             The young, poor females don’t have a voice in society.

Gender

•             The destruction of a young woman is at the heart of the play.

•             To survive, Eva Smith plays different female roles. As a woman she has to adapt to survive. The men don’t.

•             Very few female figures in the play – more men than women.

•             Eva Smith and Edna are the only two females with a job. What connects them?

•             Three main roles of women in the play – mother, wife and daughter. Men are more respectful to those roles.

•             A young female is dead at the end of the play and a young female has started to change – Sheila and Eva linked 

Responsibility

•             Priestly wanted the rich to be more responsible for the poor

•             Each is partly responsible for Eva Smith’s death – not one character is fully responsible – it is a shared responsibility

•             Eva Smith would be alive if everybody took some responsibility

•             Priestly didn’t just want one or two people to be responsible for others – that’s why he made all the characters almost equally responsible

•             The whole play is about questioning. Questioning who is responsible – the Inspector isn’t just questioning the death but questioning the responsibility of the weak in society 

Techniques

•             Dramatic irony – the audience knows something the characters on stage don’t

•             Photograph – used to slowly unpick the puzzle

•             Structure – each character’s connection is revealed at a time – shaped around the characters – each one more shocking than the others

•             Adverbs – how the characters speak is often more important than what they say

•             Exits and entrances – when the characters are off stage this creates tension as they don’t know the full story when they return

•             Secrets – each character has a secret and this is a cause of tension in the play

•             Politeness – the characters are usually polite, but it is telling when they aren’t polite

Different sides in the play

•             Young / Old

•             Male / Female

•             Family / Strangers

•             Capitalist / Communists

•             Upper class / Lower class

•             New money / Old money

•             Strong / Weak 

•             Boss / Workers

•             Rich / Poor

•             Optimistic / Pessimistic

A Christmas Carol

Ebenezer Scrooge  

•             Represents the greed and selfishness of people in society

•             Represents the people with the most power / money in society (old, white men) and the people with the power to make change

•             Represents a conservative view – doesn’t want to change and so wants to keep things as they are

•             Show how everybody has got the potential to change

•             Shows how people will live unhappy lives if they don’t make sacrifices for others

•             Opposite view to a Christian view of charity and kindness  

•             Represents a pessimistic and negative view of the world

Tiny Tim 

•             Represents the poor and poor children

•             Embodies how poverty affects the most vulnerable in society

•             Highlights how his fate is dependent on others in society

•             Represents an extreme contrast to Scrooge – both opposite ends of the scale. One can’t survive without the other

•             Symbolises a sympathetic view of the poor – a romantic view – innocent, undeserving person affected by poverty

•             Symbolises the high infant mortality of London and urban regions

•             Symbolises the future – if Tiny Tim and others like him die, then Scrooge and his kind will not have people to do his work for him

Bob Cratchit

•             Represents the idea of the poor being respectable – people often saw that the poor were vermin or a drain on society

•             Shows how the poor have dignity, respect and pride

•             Highlights the importance of family and caring for our families

•             A contrast with Scrooge – show us how to Scrooge should treat his family

•             A symbol of Christmas – caring for each other

•             Represents a positive and optimistic view of the world

Fezziwig 

•             Highlights how Scrooge’s past wasn’t negative

•             A foil to compare Scrooge against – a business man who treats his employee respectfully

•             A person who puts friends and family above his work

•             Shows how someone should enjoy Christmas

•             A symbol of the death of Scrooge’s happiness – Fezziwig died as did Scrooge’s happiness

•             Represents a positive and optimistic view of the world

•             A utopian view of the world – how inclusive society can be – all different types of people celebrating Christmas

•             Exaggerated inversion of Scrooge

Cratchit Family

•             Highlights the difficulty poor families faced in life

•             Shows how the poor accepted their situation and tried their best to survive

•             Symbolised how family was more important than money – a tough situation was bearable with loved ones around you

•             Shows the potential in life – Scrooge has money, but no family – if he wasn’t the way he was, he’d have a family

•             Shows the significance of family at Christmas

•             Shows the significance of meals and eating as a family – coming together of people for one social event

•             Symbolise the social aspects of the family and importance of connecting with people – sit in a ring

Ghost of Christmas Past  

•             Shows things haven’t always been so bad

•             Show us what causes the changes in Scrooge

•             Demonstrates to us that Scrooge has the potential to be good

•             Shows us the importance of treating each Christmas as the last one – the loss of people cannot be recreated

•             Symbol of aging and growing up – and the shortness of life (candle)

•             Symbolises the impact our history has on our present

•             Shows the importance of childhood and family relationships

•             Shows us how we have a choice – follow love or follow money

Ghost of Christmas Present 

•             Symbolises how rich the present is – important and valuable

•             Contrasts with the past and future – both cold and sad

•             Shows how warm and friendly the present is – convincing us of the necessity to celebrate Christmas

•             Shows us a variety of Christmas experiences – highlighting how Christmas is an experience that all share – rich or poor; young or old

•             Links to the heat and cold – he brings warmth

•             Reveals what people are really experiencing at Christmas – uncovers the truth

Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come

•             Shows us the danger of Scrooge not changing his ways

•             Symbolises the unknown aspect of the future (faceless and voiceless) – we don’t know what will happen in the future

•             Traditional view of a ghost

•             Shows us a negative view of the world

•             Symbolises our fear of being forgotten and not leaving a legacy

•             Plays on our fear of dying – it is inevitable, but we don’t like to be reminded of it 

Poor / Rich

•             We see negative and positive rich/poor characters, showing us the different types of people in society

•             Dickens shows us how poor people survive – steal or work hard – very little choices

•             The gentlemen from the charity highlight the hypocrisy of Victorian society – people thought that charity was enough to solve the problems

•             Dickens show us through Tiny Tim’s fate how the rich and poor need each other – without they will fail / die

•             Industrialisation made the rich richer and the poor poorer – made the gap wider 

Ignorance and Want

•             Both are presented as children – showing us how the young are the most important aspect of society – they are neglected here

•             Ironic names – the rich focus on their ‘wants’ and our ‘ignorant’ to their influence, while the poor lack education and want things

•             Dickens believed in the power of education – he felt that education was the key to improving society. If children were educated properly, then they could succeed

•             Both characters are hidden from sight – the characters are hidden in under the clothes of Christmas Present symbolising how our focus on the present makes us forget those in need

Bella – fiancée 

•             Belle represents a time when Scrooge was happy

•             She symbolises a choice between money and happiness – she offered him a choice and he chose money

•             She represents rejection – and as she rejected him, he rejects all affection

•             Symbolises the start of Scrooge’s journey into loneliness

•             Two different versions of Bella – happy with Scrooge and happy not being with Scrooge

•             Highlights how happy she is without him

Fred

•             Shows how Scrooge’s cruelty is not a natural thing – it doesn’t run in the blood

•             Contrast with Scrooge – shows us how someone should behave at Christmas

•             Symbol of determination and positivity in the face of adversity

•             Represents Scrooge’s link to humanity – through him he can be a normal person again

•             Show us how family love in unconditional

•             Symbolises the importance of family

Isolation

•             Emotional – Scrooge

•             Physical – The Poor are separated from the poor – descriptions of the slums in Stave 4

•             Enforced – Workhouses and Prisons mentioned in Stave 1

•             Hot and cold used to highlight the different types of isolation – cold is usually associated with isolation

•             Scrooge’s home represent isolation – different types – bed, bedroom, large house, empty street

•             Family is often used in the story as the opposite of isolation

•             The ghosts make sure Scrooge is not that alone in the story – they break the pattern

Choices

•             Scrooge is responsible for the choices in the novella – he is in control of his world

•             Scrooge is responsible for his current unhappiness – if he made the right choices, he would be happy now

•             Scrooge has more choice than other characters because he has money – money gives you choice

•             The key choice in the book is the choice between material goods or people

•             Christian view of sacrifice and charity at the heart of the choices in the play

Family

•             Two clear contrasting families – Scrooge / Cratchit (rich / poor)

•             Happy events or positive moods occur when people are together as a family

•             Family is linked to heat

•             Family life is seen as healthy and good for you

•             When Scrooge becomes part of a family, he becomes happy

•             Scrooge cares more when he treats Bob and Tiny Tim as a family – an inclusive view of society – a responsibility to support one another

•             Family accepts mistakes and past errors – Fred welcomes Scrooge back 

Forgiveness / Compassion

•             Starts with a lack of compassion – refusal to help charities; ends with compassion and charity – reversal

•             Repeats the meeting with the men from the charities

•             Challenges the hypocrisy of Victorian society – supposed to be Christian society, but the poor suffered terrible conditions which they were supposed to be grateful

•             Story structured to understand and show compassion towards the poor – we are to understand that they don’t have themselves to blame for their circumstances

•             The poor’s treatment at the hands of the rich is fixed in the story – shown how they can help

Settings 

•             Marley and Scrooge’s work place – cold place obsessed with making money and work

•             Scrooge’s home – large, cold, rich empty

•             Scrooge’s school – empty, neglected

•             Fezziwig’s place – busy, warm, fun

•             Cratchit’s home – busy, warm, barren

•             Fred’s home – busy, warm, fun

•             Belle’s home – busy, warm, friendly

•             Pawnbrokers / Slum – dirty, cramped, cluttered