Mauve Analysis

Recently, there’s been a lot of discussion of vocabulary on Twitter and blogs and helping students to develop with the GCSEs. Some of it has been heated. Some of it has been needed. Some of it superfluous. The problem with all new trends is that they drown out a lot of good practices. There always needs to be a balance. My fear is that there has been an imbalance in terms of vocabulary and we have swung too far one way. I have seen supposedly Grade 9 examples with the language that is impenetrable to the human brain. It sounds clever, but it doesn’t really amount to much. We’ve, in some cases, swung too far with analysis.  We have the next generation of purple prose. I like to call it mauve analysis.

When you look at published critical essays (the style of writing that is at the top of the pile in sophistication in literary analysis), they read nothing like this mauve analysis. F.R.Leavis, for example. The problems we have had with creative writing for years has now infected literary analysis in the classroom. There’s become a checklist for analysing a text. We’ve reduced interesting discussion of a text in to a list of features. Have you mentioned context? Have you included an alternative viewpoint? Have you mentioned structure? Have you mentioned that the writer had a mole on his nose and this affected how he viewed society? Look at any critical essay and you’d be pushed to find any of these in one paragraph. Yes, you will find them somewhere across a twenty page essay, but I can guarantee you will not find them all in one paragraph, which is what some teachers are expecting students to do. We are creating these bizarre paragraphs which list things rather than develop and discuss ideas.

When you look at the best literature students, they don’t follow a formula. They tend to be very precise and spot subtle things and make interesting connections across a text. The ‘what’ isn’t the big thing for literature. However, ‘the what’ has become an obsession for some.  It is the explanation and that’s what we have as a department worked on: developing the meaningful discussion of a text. We’ve used the ‘what / how / why’ structure as a starting point.

Dickens presents  - the ideas

Dickens uses – the techniques (words / techniques / characters / patterns / structure)

Dickens teaches us – the reason for doing this – feeling / context / message

We stress to students that these can be placed in order, but presents and teaches tend to be best at the start. We give students them written like this:

Dickens presents education as something that will solve problems in society.

Dickens uses the visit of three ghost to teach Scrooge of the benefits of changing his attitude.

Dickens teaches the Victorian audience why they must care for others in society.

On a sheet of paper, students add to these three sentences and develop the explanation. This term we’ve been doing this regularly. The emphasis is on development and extending thinking. We wanted to avoid the listing of aspects and promote the development of ideas. This has become a bit of a planning tool for us. Presents/ Uses/Teaches.

The problem with the literature text is the extract, if I am honest. The tiny extract is seen as the source of answers and it becomes an obsession for students. I tell students to use the extract for language analysis and use the whole text to answer the question. The answers to the question are not in the extract and sadly students think that is the case. They’ll warp their thinking by obsessing on the extract, so essays will be constant reference to the extract. Also, using three sentences like this has been really useful for me as it promotes developing the existing idea rather than searching for a new idea. All too often in literature analysis students are stumped because they can’t think of something new or original. This approach allowed them to build on what is existing and extend it.

Another model used is this one. This one is about using multiple elements and forcing students not to fixate on one sole thing.

Shakespeare presents love as dangerous and deadly.

Shakespeare uses

character                             contrast of characters                                   foreshadowing

Imagery                               setting                                  event                     structure

word                     repetition             juxtaposition   symbol

Shakespeare teaches us

Love      hate       family   fate/ destiny     freewill   light/darkness   conflict

                                …. because ….

                                …so….

                                …as…

The problem we find is the obsession of one technique to rule them all. More advanced students talk about combinations of techniques. Or, they’d develop the idea by referring to several different aspects in the text. By forcing students to think of several aspects in the ‘use’ element, we have seen some interesting combinations of things. And, if I am honest, it is a bit source of enjoyment, because you are asking students to be creative and not spot the most obvious thing. The development of an idea through three techniques is interesting and has lots of scope for lessons.

Finally, to extend the development of think we get students to see that themes are not viewed in isolation and an idea can cover several themes. This allows for extension of the point and make more meaningful connections. So when talking about love, students feel they can link hate and family in their discussion. Students, like us, compartmentalise things and it is all too easy to narrow the focus. The writer uses X to show the theme of love.

In the end, students have a plan for a paragraph where they are looking at multiple elements and multiple ideas and they have extended their thinking and ideas. I have taught students that the ‘presents / uses / teaches’ are different threads and they all should be interwoven together rather than written as threads rather than discrete sentences. 

We can easily obsess over the words and the techniques but students need to develop explanations and ideas. We need to put explanation at the front of teaching analysis. We need to get students better at explaining and developing their thoughts. There needs to be a balance.  

Thanks for reading,

Xris

Learning to love the humble multiple-choice question

There is something that is very frustrating in English lessons. It isn’t something that, we, English teachers talk about, but we do have to deal with it day in and day out. It is the student with the ‘scientific brain’. Or, maybe that should be the ‘logical brain’. It is something that all English teachers have to deal with in their lessons at some point. You can’t be a ‘proper’ English teacher until you have had a student state that they cannot see the deeper meaning of a poem. It might be prefixed with the following comments:

‘How do I know what the writer means? I didn’t write it.’

‘I don’t get it. I just don’t get it.’

‘How did you get that from the poem? I don’t see it.’

They just don’t get it. Often, in English lessons or in parents’ evenings, I have had to justify the complexity of my subject. You see, Mr Curtis, our Cuthbert prefers Science. He finds things tough in English. I think this all boils down to the fact there are no right or wrong answers in English lessons. Well, there are blatant wrong answers: I think the poem ‘Futility’ is about aliens. Wrong. The rest are just shades of grey.

I used to think that this ‘right or wrong’ mindset was a gender characteristic. It makes sense that girls enjoy multiple meanings in a text because they are attuned to looking for meaning and emotions in how people speak and act. Therefore, it makes sense that boys prefer facts, clear answers and things devoid of ambiguity. But, over the years, this has proven to be all ‘a pile of pants’. These ‘logical brains’ are everywhere and they can be either male or female. I am also separating this from autism and the autism spectrum. Yes, most people can fit on the spectrum of autism and demonstrate autistic tendencies, but I see this as a phenomenon separate to autism.

Anyway, these ‘logical brains’ struggle when faced with a poem or text and they have to hunt for meaning. Moving from literal meaning to figurative meaning, is a rocky road for them. Why? Well, it could mean anything. These students could probably tell you what a metaphor is, but explore the meaning of one and they start to go all sweaty and start breathing heavily. I suppose, English is full of abstract concepts. Other subjects, apart from RE, deal with quite concrete aspects and you could say that knowledge plays a part in this. They have something tangible to prove its existence in the real world. Look, here are two chemicals and this is what happens when we put them together. Let’s measure them. I’d probably go so far to say that if a subjects used measuring equipment, then it is probably a ‘concrete’ subject. There might be some ‘abstract’ thinking, but generally the learning focuses on clear, concrete knowledge. 

Take these two questions:

What is faith?

What is the effect of the simile in the poem?

They are difficult questions. There could be a number of different answers and the teacher, when marking a response, will use their knowledge and understanding to decide on the appropriateness of a response. Reading mark schemes in English are hilarious. They tend to focus on skills and any possible answers are provided, but there will usually be a little comment: other similar answers can be accepted. Across the different exam boards, there are lots of variations of this one sentence. Open an English textbook and you see how publishers have tried to make English a concrete subject. There seems to be a clear right answer and no opportunities for different possible interpretations or meanings.

Recently, I have been working with developing students’ memory of key texts for exams. Over the last few weeks, I have been making it a habit to make a multiple-choice quiz for each chapter in a book studied. This is partly inspired by the great Joe Kirby and his team at the Michaela School. It was while I was producing one set of multiple-choice questions that I had an idea. Usually, my questions focused on plot, character’s thoughts and key quotes. Students had to select the correct ones. Then, I thought about how this could be adapted for other parts of English and, in particular, the analysis of texts.

My Year 8s are currently reading ‘Great Expectations’ and they are analysing extracts from the novel. Recently, they completed a comprehension style task on Pip’s second meeting with Magwitch. Their answers were pretty weak. They are an able group, but something about their answers was lacking. They wrote short, superficial answers. When feeding back answers, they saw the error of their ways, but still they struggled with the next tasks. There seemed to be a gulf between their verbal responses and their written responses. They can insightful and detailed explanations when talking, but put pen to paper and they struggled to even answer the question. Step forward, Miss Havisham.

I gave students a series of quotes about Miss Havisham. Under each quote, there were four possible different interpretations. Of course, I started with a silly one to get the ball rolling.

The students then discussed for a lengthy time each one. As a class, we decided which one was the most likely interpretation of the line. The great thing about this was that students were using evidence from other parts of the whole extract or novel to justify their point and their ideas.

The next part of the process involved students working on creating their own multiple-choice interpretations. I gave students a blank grid and they had a go at producing their own set of interpretations. This made for some interesting discussions. One pair looked at the possible meaning behind Miss Havisham’s prayer book:

[a] She was raised a Catholic.   

[b] She is constantly praying for something.

[c] She feels she has done something bad so she wants to pray for forgiveness.

[d] Faith is a strong part of her life now.

It did take a long time for students to make their own interpretations.  It wasn’t that it was too hard, but more a case of students wanting to discuss at length. To make students feel at ease, I did say that if they couldn’t think of four interpretations, they could invent a silly one. Often, this wasn’t necessary. The class engaged with the ideas and discussed things at length.

The potential for this, I think, is endless. Getting students to explore, the different meanings of a line, effect of a word, thought / feeling of a character or writer’s purpose. It opened up the dialogue. We were not limited by a right or wrong answer. We were focused on a more likely or least likely answer. A slight difference in interpretation.

While the students were creating their multiple-choice sheet, I asked them about the process. They said that it helped them to think. We discussed what the next step would be and one lad suggested that for comprehension the teacher should set it as multiple-choice answers, meaning that there are four possible answers to the question set. So, finally, I set students the following task for homework:

I crossed the staircase landing, and entered the room she indicated. From that room,

too, the daylight was completely excluded, and it had an airless smell that was oppressive. A

fire had been lately kindled in the damp old-fashioned grate, and it was more disposed to go

out than to burn up, and the reluctant smoke which hung in the room seemed colder than the

clearer air--like our own marsh mist. Certain wintry branches of candles on the high chimneypiece

faintly lighted the chamber; or it would be more expressive to say, faintly troubled its

darkness. It was spacious, and I dare say had once been handsome, but every discernible thing

in it was covered with dust and mold, and dropping to pieces. The most prominent object was

a long table with a tablecloth spread on it, as if a feast had been in preparation when the house

and the clocks all stopped together. An épergne or centre-piece of some kind was in the middle

of this cloth; it was so heavily overhung with cobwebs that its form was quite

undistinguishable; and, as I looked along the yellow expanse out of which I remember its

seeming to grow, like a black fungus, I saw speckled-legged spiders with blotchy bodies

running home to it, and running out from it, as if some circumstance of the greatest public

importance has just transpired in the spider community.

I heard the mice too, rattling behind the panels, as if the same occurrence were

important to their interests. But the black beetles took no notice of the agitation, and groped

about the hearth in a ponderous elderly way, as if they were short-sighted and hard of hearing,

and not on terms with one another.

These crawling things had fascinated my attention, and I was watching them from a

distance, when Miss Havisham laid a hand upon my shoulder. In her other hand she had a

crutch-headed stick on which she leaned, and she looked like the Witch of the place.

“This,” said she, pointing to the long table with her stick, “is where I will be laid when I

am dead. They shall come and look at me here.”

With some vague misgiving that she might get upon the table then and there and die at

once, the complete realization of the ghastly waxwork at the Fair, I shrank under her touch.

“What do you think that is?” she asked me, again pointing with her stick; “that, where

those cobwebs are?”

“I can’t guess what it is, ma’am.”

“It’s a great cake. A bride-cake. Mine!”

For each question, give four possible answers.

1.      What four thoughts / feelings are going through Pip’s mind / heart here?

A

B

C

D

2.      Why has Charles Dickens used the beetle image here? Give four ideas. 

A

B

C

D

3.      Why does Miss Havisham want her body to rest in this room when she dies?

A

B

C

D

4.      What is the purpose of the extract?

A

B

C

D

5.      What four things here link to the theme of death?  

A

B

C

D

6.      How does this extract link to other events / things in the novel?

A

B

C

D

7.      Create your own question and give the possible answers to it.

Question:

A

B

C

D

We are indirectly narrowing our students’ understanding of texts. Look at all comprehension tasks. They are based on having one clear answer. When we look at essays analysing a text, we are happy to accept a variety of ideas. We aren’t joining the two approaches together. On one, we are promoting a limited view of responses and interpretations; and, with the other insisting on having multiple interpretations.  

If we want students to explore layers of meaning, then we, as teachers, have to build that explicitly into our teaching. We need to show students in all things we do that there are often several meanings behind a text, line or word.

What is the purpose of the blog?

Old Style: To inform.

New style: [a] inform [b] describe [c] entertain [d] persuade.

Thanks for reading,

Xris          

A lesson on character – most roads lead to Dickens

I love Dickens and I am embarrassed to say that I never studied his work at university. I even did a whole unit on the Victorians and yet I never glanced at a page of his work.  Furthermore, I never read any of his work at school when I was a student. Yes, I was Bill Sykes (that is quite hard to carry off – you’ll know what I mean when you have met me or meet me) and I did a lot of method acting for that part. Just drinking! However, it was my PGCE course that led me to his work. We were due to have several sessions on ‘Great Expectations’ and we were instructed to read the book. As I wasn’t busy, I read and read and read the novel. I read it solidly for about two or three days and loved every word and line.

There was a barrier I had built up around Dickens. It was complex, difficult, troublesome and so slow to read. Yet, as soon as I read one I enjoyed the experience that I read another. And another. And another. I traipsed through ‘Hard Times’, ‘A Tale of Two Cities’, ‘David Copperfield’, ‘Oliver Twist’ and ‘Our Mutual Friend’ and I am making my way through ‘Nicholas Nickelby’. I have devoured his short stories like ‘Captain Muderer’ and ‘ Sid and Nancy’. Sat patiently on my shelf are another two of his novels. Like most people, I like a balance in my reading, but every year I visit a Dickens in some kind of way.

As an English teacher, I read. I read and then I read some more. I read everything and anything I can get my hands on. Last week, I read a Darren Shan book and next week I will try and read ‘The Snow Angel’.  My favourite opening to a conversation is: ‘What are you reading?’ I love hearing what people have read.  There is a proportion (I am not judging) of English teachers that have never even sniffed a book by Dickens.  Yet, each novel is rife with lessons on description, character, setting, rhetoric, facts, opinions, structure and other aspects of English. I see endless resources on TES about extracts from ‘The Hunger Games’, ‘Harry Potter’ and other contemporary novels, but few cover Dickens. In fact, I received very few views on this blog when I put Dickens in the title of a post. I don’t intend to be elitist about books, but within seconds of opening a novel written by Dickens I can find a description of a character; however, I have to search bit harder in some teen fiction.   

Shut up, Chris – what do you know? Well, I think I have proof of the benefit of Dickens. Every year our Year 8s read ‘Great Expectation’ (all sets – yes, even that set) and they also read a modern novel. In Year 10 or 11, I show them the poem ‘Havisham’.  All students remember the character and recall key facts about the story.  I then ask them what novel they studied. Nothing. I then shout out some names. Nothing. I then mention some key plot details. Nothing. I then show them a cover. A slight glimmer. The class novel seems to disappear in the memory but Dickens lasts longer like it is etched in their brain.  

Anyway, below is a series of activities that I always do with ‘Great Expectation’ and it goes down a storm.  I did it with a set 5 and they enjoyed it.

Step 1: The Context

There are three things that students need to get their head round when studying Dickens:

·         He was paid by the word to write.

·         His work was serialised.

·         His readers would probably forget things quickly from chapter to chapter.

Yep, they are huge generalisations, but they help students to understand the context that Charles Dickens wrote in. This all opens the dialogue up about what would they do in this particular situation.

What would they do if they were being paid a pound per word?

What would you do to stop people forgetting what happened in the story?

Step 2: The Names

I give students a selection of names and descriptions of characters which they have to matchup.

 

Oliver Twist

Edward Murdstone

Mrs Billickin

Mr Gardgrind

Uriah Heap

·         A person only concerned with their tenants paying their rent

·         A cruel stepfather

·         A boy whose luck keeps changing

·         A teacher who is only concerned with teacher boring facts

·         A person  who  is quite sneaky  

We usually discuss these character’s names and try to create our own.  My favourite this week was Mr Shat: a teacher who shouts a lot and wears a large hat.  I had to explain to the student that his could mean something else.

Step 3:  Caricatures

I show students a selection of caricatures of famous people. The first activity is name the celebrity. Then, students identify what the writer has done to make the picture of the celebrity funny or unique. Most artists pick two clear features.

Finally, I take the pictures away and ask students to describe how the people were painted. Usually, they all tell me all the things the writer has exaggerated.

We then discuss the terms exaggerated, caricatures and grotesque.

Step 4: Mr Bounderby

We guess the personality and appearance of Mr Bounderby from his name. Then we look at the following:

He was a ---- man: banker, merchant, manufacturer, and what not. A big, ----- man, with a stare and a metallic laugh. A man made out of a coarse material, which seemed to have been --------- to make so much of him. A man with a great puffed head and forehead, swelled veins in his temples, and such a --------- skin to his face that it seemed to hold his eyes open and lift his eyebrows up. A man with the pervading appearance on him of being an inflated -------, and ready to start. A man who could never sufficiently vaunt himself a self-made man. A man who was always proclaiming, through that brassy speaking-------- of a voice of his, his old ignorance and his old poverty. A man who was the Bully of humility.

We guess the words and then look at how it is like a caricature. Students make links to the pictures before and discus how Dickens has created this through the writing here.

Step 5: Having a go at being Dickens

Finally, I show students this example and ask them to write their own Dickensian character. 

To my amazement, a strange woman walked into my room with the most strangest of attire I had ever seen. She walked in with so many coats on that she looked like a clothes horse, and each item of clothing had holes in it, where a maggot or moth had eaten the material away. She walked in in a most peculiar fashion too with her head bent forward as if she was searching for something on the floor. She was looking, possibly, for her marbles, which I am sure she lost a long time ago, as she muttered something about a missing boy. She walked in barefoot as well, which suggested that she hadn't travelled far or that she had the toughest skin in the world that even a knife would struggle to penetrate.

 However, their description must have:

·         Exaggeration

·         Elements of a caricature

·         A grotesque element to it.

The results I get are hilarious and brilliant. Teachers, strangely, make great characters for activity. I had one student describe a mole on a character’s face being a spider poised to move any minute now. Some students go down the snot route but others go for a more subtle approach.

All this is from one description of a character and a few names. The beauty of Dickens’ writing is that each line is loaded with effective writing and a range of techniques. Open a page of his book today and I will guarantee you will find something you could use in lesson.

Thanks,

Xris   

Words, words, words

I love that bit in ‘Hamlet’ where Polonious asks Hamlet what he is reading. Hamlet replies, “words, words, words”. It has recently come to my attention the value of words in other subjects in secondary schools. Initially, I was a bit sceptical about the emphasis on words in departments. People, I originally thought, we barking up the wrong tree with their ‘key words’ and ‘spelling lists’. I was adamant that it was grammar. Grammar was the secret weapon they needed to develop literacy in a lesson.  In truth, it is both words and grammar, and a whole lot of other stuff. But, words play a huge part in the learning.

A colleague of mine has had an epiphany with words as an art teacher. Art is a practical subject and therefore has very little writing, but my colleague has found ways of using words to develop her teaching. She has created a word wall, but this word wall is amazing in what it does. It gives students the words to talk about art. It gives them the language of an artist. It gives them the tools to articulate their ideas in such a way that has transformed their understanding, and in time I am sure we will see the benefits in class. It probably contains lots of obscure words and technical terms? It doesn’t. One part is like a large Dulux chart with lots of names for different colours. Each colour is grouped according to the shade of colour they are. Another part of this display focuses on textures, lines, shapes and other aspects of art.

I am no expert on art. In fact, my only experience of art I can recall in school was when I painted a self-portrait. For ages, I struggled to get the colour right for my skin. It took me so long that each lesson I’d only paint a small section of my face. The end result was that I looked like I had a strange skin disease. To make things worse, my friend then laughed at it and, in a moment of artistic anger, I destroyed the whole thing with some red paint.  My teacher then appeared and told me off.  She sighed and remarked that a typical ruffian would take this lovely opportunity to make a monster.

Anyway, I know that if I go into my colleague’s classroom, I can articulate my ideas about art in a much better way. I could describe a painting in a far more appropriate way. No longer can I just say that the painter has painted a blue vase. I could say it is a cobalt blue vase. That little difference shows skill and understanding.

For this week’s blog, I am going to look at words and how I refer to them in lessons.

  

Alternatives

Change one word in a sentence and ask students to decide which sentence is better and why.

It was a cold, dark night.

I was a dangerous, dark night.

Furthermore, I give students a list of alternatives a writer could have chosen for a word. The students then discuss why the writer didn’t choose any of the other possibilities.

I have done this recently with ‘Great Expectations’:

I came into Smithfield, and the shameful place, being all asmear with filth and fat and blood and foam, seemed to stick to me. So I rubbed it off with all possible speed by turning into a street where I saw the great black dome of St. Paul's  bulging at me from behind a grim stone building which a bystander said was Newgate Prison. Following the wall of the jail, I found the roadway covered with straw to deaden the noise of passing vehicles, and from this, and from the quantity of people standing about, smelling strongly of spirits and beer, I inferred that the trials were on.

 

Then, pairs are given a sheet with the following list on it. They explore the choice made by the writer.

Bulging /Lumping / Projecting / Swelling /Sticking out / Expanding

Great /Colossal / Huge /Large /Immense/Bulky

Shameful /Wicked / Disgraceful / Vile /Indecent /Mean

 

Word lists

The internet is brilliant. Type in some of the following phrases ‘beautiful words’, ‘adjectives to describe characters’ and ‘adverbs’ and you will have an instant resource. I found a list of adjectives to describe a character’s personality. That list has been laminated and is now a brilliant starter for a lesson: students find adjectives to describe a key character in a book we are studying.

 

Top 5 words
I love doing this. To put it simply, you write one to five on the board. Students are given a text and asked to find the most effective (change this to whatever words you are looking for – emotive / informal / descriptive) words. Then, set the timer for three minutes. They have to suggest words to go on the top 5.  These are the rules:

·         Words can only be replaced by a better word.

·         You cannot use a word that has already been replaced on the list.

·         The teacher decides if the word is better than the one being replaced.

·         Students must give a reason why their word is better than the other one.

After the three minutes, the students with words in the top 5 get prizes or some reward. The

discussions are brilliant and it is incredibly funny and tactical. Students really pour over the book

when they find their word knocked off the list. They become even more determined.

You end up with a lot of discussion on the writer’s choice of words without ever having to wait for a

response.

Dictionary Wars

This is simple. Turn the tables on their side and then lob dictionaries across the classroom. You score a point if you hit someone. I joke. No, this sounds worse than it is. Get students into pairs and give each pair a dictionary. Reveal a word on the board. The pair that finds the word and writes it down first in their exercise book is the winner. It is a fabulous energiser as students compete to find a word first. It can also be a great way to introduce ‘tractors’ in a text we read later in a lesson. As soon as they find the word, they have to say the definition as well. To make it even more challenging, I might get them to say the word in a sentence.

To make it even harder still, I say the word they have to find rather than show the word. That was a great suggestion from a TA and it worked really well.

Word table

I have found this table valuable when analysing poetry and non-fiction texts. Students are looking for patterns in the types of words used and the table helps them to recognise the patterns. Unfortunately, I have lost my original, but here is a rough approximate:

 

Bodily	Technical	Descriptive	Futuristic	Negative	Positive	Emotional
Emotive	Vivid	Movement	Temperature	Light	Aural	Anger
Visual	Scientific	Violent	Size	Age	Military	Romantic
Sensory	Places	Masculine	Power	Animals	Child-like	Jargon
Physical	Natural	Feminine	Touch	Music	Numbers	Clinical
Colours	Gentle	Sexual	Death	Texture	Time	Control

                                        

Thanks for reading. I am now going off to read a bit now. "What are you reading?" I hear you say. Words. Words. Words.  

Xris32