Here’s what you could have won! Feeding back Literature

I find how people approach feedback really interesting. I have known one school to release one marked exam question at a time when feeding back. I have known of others who rely on codes and extra sheets.  There’s no right or wrong of going about it. However, the complexity of English Literature doesn’t alway fit into the ways of feeding back we’d normally use for English Language exams. In Literature, there’s so many ways and ideas to come up with for one simple exam question. Feeding back from a Literature exam needs to factor in that idea. There’s more than one way to crack the question. 

For every Literature question in mocks I produce the following document. I, generally, have a word document open as I mark. 

The feedback then focuses on the answers given. We highlight which ideas sound better than others. We then look at links between them. What choice would you use to support idea A?  How does that link to the context and the society at that time? 

The plurality of ideas is key for students. When we trot out a really good example, there’s a good chance that students will miss out that there are several different routes to that one answer. Sadly, placing the emphasis on that one good example turns Literature into a binary exam right and wrong. This piece,here, is right. My writing is wrong because I didn’t get the same mark. Next time, I need to include the things the student mentioned in the good example. 

An insistence on formulaic writing and tick boxes has meant that the breadth of ideas and choices is never explored or revealed to students. The texts are so rich with ideas and choices that students need constant reminding that they can mention them. They need to hear ideas constantly in the classroom so they can absorb them. They need to see numerous choices made by various writers so they can see how they link to ideas. 

Why start everything with a blank slate?  The great thing is that over time I have amassed a number of these so that when we look at the text, when teaching, I am able to use them as a starting point. Look at all the different things you can say about death in the text. Which do you agree with?

Students need the building blocks for writing essays and largely everything is treated as an unseen test. There's only one real time things should be unseen and that's the final exam. Everything until then should be supporting that one moment and not a repetition of it. We told our students that the mock exam would be one of three characters or one of three themes.  

Thanks for reading, 

Xris

Standing centre stage

Watching the national updates of our current crisis, I cannot help but think of what is being foregrounded and what is being placed in the background. Nothing hit me harder than the way that the number of deaths in care homes had been hidden and placed in the national background.

The relationship between the foreground and the background is an important thing. Putting something at the front makes you forget what’s at the back. It is a statement of importance. Just think of where you are sat in a wedding party. Sorry to say this but the level of proximity to the bride and groom marks you level of value to them.


I love looking at Shakespeare from the view of choices. I like exploring why Shakespeare made one choice over another. Now, one choice I think is more challenging and conceptually perceptive is the choice between putting something in the foreground or in the background. What’s pushed to the back is interesting too? Poor Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Or, is it Guildenstern and Rosencrantz?


In the world of storytelling and sometimes things are pushed to the sides so another part of the story can be told. In some cases, the men are in the background and the women are in the foreground. In others, the young are in the foreground and the old are in the background.


I think looking at Shakespeare’s work in terms in what is and isn’t in the foreground is really interesting. I find ‘Macbeth’ interesting because it shoves King Duncan to the background largely in the plot. He even suffers the indignity of dying off stage. How unimportant must you be to die off stage? Yes, King Duncan features in scenes and talks, but if I got the part of King Duncan I’d be asking for more lines.  Go on – let me be the Porter too.


So why is King Duncan relegated to the background? Well, it could be because Shakespeare wanted to foreground the characters of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. It could be because Shakespeare wanted to protect the divine nature of the true king and not treat him in human terms. It could also be because Shakespeare was placed on a table as far as way as possible from the actor and his bride at their wedding.


Looking at the relationship between the foreground and the background is an untapped seem of ideas and thinking we neglect. Foregrounding occurs all the time in stories and we can mine them more in lessons. Foregrounding is happening with characters, events, relationships, feelings, language. We know that foregrounding is just emphasising, but talking about ‘emphasis’ is a hard thing to articulate for students because in some students’ eyes everything is emphasis. Looking at foregrounding allows students to see the bigger picture. They are comparing one element to another.



I study ‘Romeo and Juliet’ with Year 10 so here are some possible choices. I am aware of the clunky sentence – but I wanted to show the foreground and background element. Of course, you only need to use one in writing, but students to know both.



Shakespeare places the Capulets in the foreground and places the Montagues in the background.

Interestingly, the Capulets are at the foreground of the story which could largely indicate the role parents have in a daughter’s life. They control her and dominate her life. It could also show males aren’t really controlled by their parents and are largely independent and have freewill.



Shakespeare places the developing relationship in the foreground and places the wedding in the background.

I love a good wedding, unless I am position furthest away from the bride and groom, but the wedding is absent from the play. We know it happens, but we don’t see it. Could this be a way to undermine the purpose of marriage? It is not important enough to see. Instead, what we see is the relationship and all its ups and downs. In fact, we could even suggest that this foregrounding negates marriage completely. The greatest love story of all and yet there’s no weddings on stage.



Shakespeare places the physical appearance of Juliet in the foreground when Romeo speaks about the dead Juliet and takes the poison.

I don’t know about you, but if I saw my loved one supposedly dead before me I wouldn’t be obsessing over her appearance. I’d probably thinking of things I never say or do with my loved one. Yet, her the emphasis is on her physical appearance. It could suggest how naïve the relationship is. It could suggest the love is physical, which contradict much of the imagery of the story. It could also show how young their relationship is that they cannot see beyond the physical.



When looking at whether something is in the foreground or in the background is some complex engagement with a text. It then leads to other discussions. If it isn’t in the background, then where is it? Where is it in the writer’s ideas and view of the world?



Thanks for reading,

Xris

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

Lord of the PowerPoints - Shakespeare

One PowerPoint slide to rule them all,

One PowerPoint slide to find them;

One PowerPoint slide to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.

There is one resource above all I constantly use. Each time I visit Shakespeare I go to this one little slide I made a few years ago. I use it with any year group and usually it is met with a lot of success and fruitful discussions. And, here, for your benefit, it is:

What choices has Shakespeare made for this scene?

•       Inside vs outside
•        day vs night
•        home vs away
•        public vs private
•        soliloquy  vs dialogue
•        action vs inaction
•        political vs social vs religious
•       men vs women vs men and women
•        positive vs negative
•        comic vs tragic vs serious
•        long vs short
•        plot-driven vs not plot-driven
•        family vs friends vs enemies vs lovers
•        blank verse vs prose vs both 

One small, simple PowerPoint slide and I have had students explore the structure of whole plays precisely and clearly. Recently, we have used it in the analysis of ‘Macbeth’ and the class’ fruitful discussion led us to the idea that Shakespeare keeps alternating between the private and public thoughts of the characters across the scenes. The public scenes tend to me friendly, civil scenes and those are punctuated by scenes of darkness and decay. There are daggers in men’s smiles sand there are daggers and smiles in the structure of Macbeth.

The great thing about this slide is that it needs very little teaching. It is a plug-in and go resource. You know that scene we just read, which of these can you tick off. Then, the important questions kick in:

How does this compare with the previous scene?

Why has Shakespeare made these choices? What is the benefit of this choice?

What choices do you think Shakespeare will make with his next scene?

Like all good PowerPoints, you tend to have another one just in case. Lord of the PowerPoints – Part 2. And here is another one, I use with top sets.

Which words can we use to describe the characters?

•       Catalyst
•       Foil
•       Contrast /juxtaposition 
•       Mirror 
•       Cipher
•       Protagonist
•       Antagonist
•       Tragic
•       Comic
•       Anti-hero
•       Minor / major
•       Symbolic
•       Stereotypical  

A large part of my degree was focused on drama and I relish the chance to teach Shakespeare every year. Yet, each year I use two PowerPoints. Simple, short and without any pictures – because that’s how I ‘rock ‘n’ roll’. Minimum work – I’ don’t even both with a background and go for black text on white slide – maximum output.

Thanks for reading,

Xris    

Planning for the UK’s exit from the …. Controlled Conditions Assessment.

Like most people, I am planning my contingency plan for when the UK leaves the EU. I am thinking of how it will affect the classroom. You can never be too careful. Okay, I’ll be honest, I am not planning anything to do with the EU exit. But what I am planning is teaching Shakespeare for a new exam. In a way, this is a whole new ball game for us. We have all taught the whole play in some form or manner. But, this time, it is about preparing for an exam, which could test a student on any scene in the play.

The assessment of Shakespeare in an exam isn’t a new phenomenon. In fact, several exam boards are just behind the times in changing to this approach in the exam.  Some people, for decades, have been teaching in this particular way. Here’s an extract. Answer a question about the language. Now, link the extract to its place in the whole text. Simple.

The question I am concerned about is: how do you teach a Shakespeare effectively over two years for the extract based question? Not a short question, but a question nonetheless that teachers and heads of department are thinking at the moment. How do I fit in Shakespeare in the plans? A Shakespeare play isn’t a nice discreet unit of work.  It is a titan! A gorgon. In fact, it is probably closer to Medusa. It fixes people to stone. It is massive. Sometimes, it is akin to being snowed-in for six months of the year. Don’t get me wrong: the experience is enjoyable, but it takes so long. Just set aside two or more months for it to be done.

I am thinking of how to plan for the new GCSEs and the role that Shakespeare will take over the next few years. But in my planning, I want to make it effective and designed to increase understanding and secure knowledge, so I am looking at possible ways to teach it, and, in particular, ‘Romeo and Juliet’.

The format for the Shakespeare question follows this pattern:

[1] Close analysis of the extract

[2] Link extract to the rest of the play

[3] Explore how the writer has presented things (a character, a theme or an emotion) across the whole text.

Simply put: the students zoom out at each stage. They need to be able to explore aspects across the whole text. Step one can be easily drilled into students. They are taught to spot typical features of the language, but the next stages are probably a little more complex. The teaching of the whole play and not segments is what I am interested in today. So, how can we teach these aspects?  

Approach 1:  - The Traditional

Description: Teach the play from start to finish.

We could teach the play scene by scene. It works at A-Level so why not in Year 10 and Year 11. Scene by scene you build up the knowledge and understanding. Students get to see the whole text as it was intended, including the padding and minor scenes.   

The benefit of this approach is the guarantee that the whole text is covered and no stone or character is left unturned. Once taught there shouldn’t be any need, hopefully, or re-teaching of certain aspects.  

The problem with this method is the pace. Able student can handle the slow methodical pace, but less able students tend to struggle with constant ‘translation’ in their eyes.

Approach 2:  - Main plot followed by subplot  

Description: Teach the main plot and then revisit the play later and focus on the subplots.

The beauty of a Shakespeare play is its complexity. The main plot drives the story, but the subplot often adds texture and another layer to the original story. The love story between Romeo and Juliet is in the foreground of the family feud. What if we separated the two when teaching? Obviously, you cannot completely separate the two aspects. You would have to acknowledge the existence of the other. Things don’t happen in a vacuum. However, you could build the knowledge of the play in layers.

First, you analyse the story between Romeo and Juliet. Focus on their scenes and analyse those in detail. Then, after a period of time, you return to the play and then focus on the warring families. Focus on how Shakespeare presents those scenes. The whole is treated as a jigsaw.

Ask students to recall the plot of a Shakespeare plot and students will struggle. It is hard for an English teacher, because there are numerous threads and strands of the plot. However, breaking the story down into plots helps develop the whole understanding of the play. Ask students to explain the purpose of a plot and subplot when studying a play is hard. The problem often being that the student is too close to the text and the story telling. It is hard to see the machinations and working of the subplot when you just see it as a linear plot.

This way would hopefully keep a level of freshness to the story. The second time of reading allows for a deeper level of understanding as students start to see what the links are. Revising the play becomes a little bit easier as you are not repeating the same experience, but adding to the existing one.  Plus, it helps to move the students from the personal / character driven story to the social  story / context and how it drives the events.

Approach 3:  - Following a character’s journey

Description: Teach the play through a character, focusing on the scenes only that character features in

This is probably more of a variation on a theme, but it is an interesting one. If I wanted to explore a play in great depth, this would be the way I’d choose. The play ‘Romeo and Juliet’ is structurally different to plays like ‘An Inspector Calls’ because there isn’t one story for the characters. Shakespeare shows us several stories linking all the character’s together. We see it on stage. Priestly has all his character’s stories occur off stage. Everything about the play ‘An Inspector Calls’ is about learning and putting together the information to build the final story. Shakespeare takes all his characters on a journey. We see them start at one point and end on a totally different one.  The play shows us what happens between the two points.

Imagine reading ‘Othello’ from mainly Othello’s perspective. Miss out Iago’s soliloquys in a first reading of the play and you have an interesting story. Yes, you miss out a key part of the whole, but you understand the character better. It is like ‘Big Brother’ you only get to know the characters well when they are whittled down to a number you can count on one hand. (I don’t watch ‘Big Brother’; I have just heard of it in passing.)

When studying ‘Romeo and Juliet’, you could look at so many different stories. Romeo’s. Juliet’s. The parent’s.  Reading the play that way would give you three readings of the play. Spaced over the years, this could help build up the layers of the play quickly and easily.

The questions on the exam papers often focus on the presentation of a character. What better way to build the understanding of presentation is exploring precisely the presentation of things across the whole play from the start? Shakespeare’s plays are cluttered. Cluttered with characters. Cluttered with plot. Cluttered with ideas. We love them for the different levels of lots of disparate things, but the presentation of one aspect is drowned out because of the abundance of so many other things.  Look at the presentation of Shylock in the play. First you have to screen out the Portia stuff and a lot of the men’s scenes at the start of the play to see Shylock.

Approach 4:  - Start with the drama

Description: Every Shakespeare play has a killer scene. Start with that and then go to the beginning

The killing of Julius Caesar. The trial scene in ‘The Merchant of Venice’. The death of Juliet and Romeo. The first wedding of Hero and Claudio. There is a scene in all Shakespeare plays where the machinations of the plot build and lead to. It is the main cog by which everything else revolves. The opening of ‘The Merchant of Venice’ is especially slow and takes a bit of time to…. ummm…get going. Knowing the end point can be helpful to students so that they can see things fitting together. The complexity of the story can be daunting to students without an anchor. Starting with a dramatic moment helps to ground the plot. Oh, this links to this and that links to that. All too often, you have had a student who is on the back row of the train in terms of plot. Who is that? What just happened? Providing students  with an end or middle point gives a narrative direction. Shakespeare plays, as a genre for students, are enigmatic things. They don’t know what to expect because their frame of reference is poor. I wouldn’t have a Scooby Doo of could happen in the plot if I watched a Peruvian love story, because I haven’t experience a Peruvian love story.

The problem with this approach is that you take away the dramatic mystery of the plot. You are simply giving an ultimate spoiler and hoping that keeps them going. Recently, a colleague handed me a copy of ‘Of Mice and Men’. It said on the front page in a scribble: George kills his best friend Lennie. Thankfully, the spoiler was prevented from spoiling a person’s enjoyment. But, the killer scene doesn’t always happen at the end. Plus, the audience of Shakespeare’s plays would know what usually is going to happen in a story. What Julius Caesar dies? Really? He even tells us in the opening of ‘Romeo and Juliet’ that they die. He wanted us to experience the inevitable. Fate is written and we are inactive observers. True drama comes from our inability to stop things unfold. There is sense of inevitability in storytelling; we know the general events, we just want to enjoy the experience of getting to those events.   

 

There is no one way to do things. Like most teachers out there, I like exploring the different avenues for teaching something. Aside from the mugs of coffee, free pens and teaching aspect, the planning process is one I enjoy with relish. I just know there are different ways of doing things. Some better. Some worse. Like all of us, I want to do it well and do it justice.

We are preparing for a new exam and GCSE structure and we are intrigued to see what others do. Let me know if there is an approach I have missed out.

 

Thanks for reading,

 

Xris

Predicting - the Macbeth way

Wouldn’t it be nice to have a crystal ball?

Wouldn’t it be nice to see whether the education system improves or not?

Wouldn’t it be nice to see if the workload for teachers reduces in the future?  

Wouldn’t it be nice to see the outcome of the next General Election now?

A lovely crystal ball would certainly be handy. Then again, the problem with knowing the future is that it influences some of the choices leading up to it. You become conscious of the choices you make and the implications of each choice. Listen to me, I sound like the ardent time traveller. Only, yesterday, I transported myself back a thousand years and spent a good hour stomping on butterflies. Nothing happened.  

One of the ‘great’ things about some of the recent changes to the English curriculum is the addition of more Shakespeare in the curriculum.  As a result of this, our Year 8s are now studying Macbeth. Interestingly, a play about predictions and choices. Oh, and, a whole load of other things.

Now, in the past I have always used prediction in a number of ‘predictable’ ways.

Based on the title, what do you predict the play is about?

Look at the names of the characters. What do you predict the story will be?

Here are some lines from the play. What is the story?

 Let’s watch this scene. What happens next?

Here are some objects. Predict how they could be used in a story.

In fact, all I have done there is copy and paste from a work sheet I use – only joking. But, generally, that’s what I tend to do. I might spice things up and start with some contextual background or some key words, but the prediction usually centres on the plot.’ Predict the plot’ tends to be the staple tool of an English teacher. I bet you were naturally predicting the content of this blog when you first saw the title ‘Predicting – the Macbeth way’.

I am allergic to working through a text in a logical and chronological way. In the age of spoilers and sneaky boys that read the last page and tell everyone on the bus, I like to be creative in how we, as a class, explore a story. Yes, there’s a time and a place for being genuinely surprised when reading a story, but the hard thing, often for students, is the plot of Shakespeare’s plays. This week I found a great little script on TES. It’s called ‘Macbeth for beginners’.

We read the script as a class. Then, I separated the story into twelve episodes. Students were given the task of scripting a scene in pairs. The only rules I gave them were:

[1] It must be tense and dramatic through the language choices and stage directions. Not by adding gore or violence.

[2]It must be close to Shakespeare’s style of writing, using the kind of imagery and techniques Shakespeare usually employs.

[3] It must be two minutes long.

[4] It must all be written in iambic pentameter. Okay, maybe not that rule.

They were predicting the dramatic choices rather than the plot, which in my book is a lot more stretching than: It has witches in it – what do you think will happen?

For a lesson, the students worked busily on their scripts, making some interesting choices. I had to snigger with a pair of boys writing the scene after the murder of King Duncan. The only description for the scene they had was: Lady Macbeth waits for Macbeth to return from murdering King Duncan. This is a rough approximation of the conversation I overheard:

Student 1: We can’t have her talking to herself for too long. What about a noise?

Student 2: Yeah, and she can react to it. What kind of noise? A bang.

Student 1: Nah, how about a cat?

Student 2: Yeah, a cat.

Student 1: Or, what about an owl?

Student 2:  Yeah, an owl would be better. You would know it was a cat straightaway, but if it was bird, it might make other noises.

The great thing about this for me was the discussion on dramatic choices. The students, from the start, were thinking of the play in terms of dramatic context. What would make things dramatic? What choices are important for creating tension?

I have always had the frustration of students focusing on the plot more than the linguistic / dramatic choices, but this approach seemed to change things for me. Teaching Shakespeare can be endless decoding or translating for students. This allowed students to engage in the dramatic choices pretty soon in the reading process.

The next step for me is to get students to write a commentary on the choices they made as playwrights. Then, as we read through the play, we can compare the student version with the original Shakespeare version and compare and contrast them. From the start, the focus is on the construction of the play, rather than the story.

But what is the implication for other aspects of English? Take this scenario:

Tell students that they are going to read an article criticising Jamie Oliver. In the article, the writer cites the following reasons for not liking him:

[1] He pretends to be like ‘Joe Public’ when he is very rich.

[2] Has endless supply of famous friends.

[3] Uses ingredients that most of us would never use.

[4] Rarely gives precise ingredients.  

 

The article is humorous. Write one of the paragraphs, thinking how you could make it humorous.

Then, compare with the original article.

 

As a teacher, I spend a lot of time analysing extracts. Put a sheet in a student’s face and then get them to search for things. However, this predicting the writing hold more weight for me. A lot of activities are based post reading and this approach allows us to focus on the writing pre-reading. Predicting how things are written makes things far more interesting than predicting what is written.  

Thanks for reading. I am off to check the tea leaves at the bottom of my mug. Or, I might go back and squash a few more butterflies.  

Xris  

 

Exploring the presentation of a character in a play

I have been working on exploring the presentation of a character in 'The Merchant of Venice' and 'Othello' with a group and I thought I'd share a resource.

The students are comparing the texts and looking at how the characters are presented in the plays. There were 4 slides in total. On each slide there are six questions. . Each student ( in a group of 6) has to take responsibility for their question and then at the end of the 10 minutes they have to, as a group, feedback link ideas to the coursework question.

Slide 1 - Presentation: Staging

1.When are they seen in the play?

2.Is there a pattern in the way they appear in the play?

3.Are they in the opening and closing scenes?

4.Are they part of the main plot? Or are they part of the subplot?

5.Who usually features in the scenes with them?

6.How does the character actually interact with characters?  Soliloquy / dialogue with one character / dialogue with many characters / speech to many characters

Slide 2 - Presentation - Character Development

1.Do they learn something by the end of the story? When?

2.Do they change over the course of the story? When? Why?

3.Does the character’s presentation differ at the start to the ending?

4.Does the character behave in a ‘predictable’ manner?

5.Does the character’s development in the story link to another character? The misfortune of one is highlighted by the fortune of another character.

6.How does the play show the changing of a character’s thoughts and feelings?

Slide 3 - Presentation - Construction

1.How does the writer portray the character through actions?

2.How does the writer portray the character through dialogue?

3.How does the writer portray the character through behaviour?

4.How do other characters interact with the character?

5.How do other characters make this character look better or worse?

6.How does this relate to the audience? Can they empathise with them?

 

Slide 4 - Presentation - Critical Views


1.How realistic is the portrayal of the character? When is / isn’t it realistic?

2.Is the character a stereotype? How? 

3.Is the writer consistent with his portrayal of the character?

4.What is the character’s function in the story?

5.What is the character’s symbolism in the story? Society?

6.What are the flaws in the way the character is presented on stage?

The nice thing about this approach was the results. The discussion my class had with these questions was very good. They were able to explore the presentation of a character really well.

Thanks

Xris

Diet Drama

Out of all the different texts studied in the English classroom, drama, I feel, is always the one that is undervalued. I have poetry coming out if my ears. I enthuse with passion about the novels we study. I continually shove articles I have found in newspapers under students’ noses. Yet, drama is one thing that I really struggle with.

Why do I struggle so much with drama? In theory, I shouldn’t have that much of a problem, given that my degree is an English and Drama degree. Yet, I do have a problem. The latest version of the New Curriculum has made this problem surface again. In the ‘lovely’ new curriculum, it states that students should study drama. That’s it. Nothing else. The previous curriculum stated some stipulations, but now we have nothing. Nada. Zilch. Just the word ‘drama’.

The problem I have is that KS3 drama texts are so insipid and boring. I have searched endlessly with colleagues for a text to study with Year 7, 8 and 9. I have read endless scripts and all have left me cold. There are hundreds of play adaptions of texts, which are simply a dumbing down of the original prose text with the hope of saving a student from actually reading some really difficult prose. I have taught them nonetheless and still have found no joy. The issue I think is that all the scripts I have read lack drama. I know, the irony of it all. The scripts have become a way for students to read a play with a plot but the drama has been sanitised. Diet drama plays.

 

GCSE is when drama gets interesting in English and the students love it. I have seen weak students engaged in ‘The Crucible’ by Arthur Miller and they are angry with the resolution. I have had classes curious over the ending of ‘An Inspector Calls’. Last year, I read Arthur Miller’s ‘A View from the Bridge’ with a set of students and they were transfixed for the whole time. The plot, the events, the ideas and the characters were all sparks to the students’ interest. Could we lift a chair up with one hand? What is Beatrice and Eddie’s relationship? It was a full sugar play. Photocopy one page and it is rich with ideas and techniques. Photocopy a page of a diet drama script and you’ll be left scratching your head.

One of the most powerful performances I saw in a theatre was ‘The Crucible’. It was performed in the round by a group of university students and it was brilliant. But, for me, the defining moment of it was the minute where I felt I needed to get out my chair and get involved in sorting out John Proctor at the end of the play. I was part of events and I was compelled to act. I was thoroughly engaged. Do students get this similar level of experience when they read drama at school? They might with some of the GCSE texts, but I would struggle to engage with some of the dross that exists out there.

This year I am studying William Shakespeare’s ‘Othello’ with a class and for the first time I am treating it like a play. We are studying it for GCSE and we are watching it like a play. I have found a stage version and we are experiencing the drama as a real audience. We are in the moment. So far so good.

The students have engaged in the plot and the discussion is mainly about the stagecraft rather than spotting language features. All too often when our students write about Shakespeare it is always about characterisation and language features, but rarely do they talk about the staging of the play or the decisions made to affect the audience’s feelings. Yes, they will mention dramatic irony because you taught to them and they feel, like something akin to guilt, they must mention it. However, I have noticed students making astute points about the staging of the play that you just don’t get from a mixture of easy Shakespeare version, original texts and scenes from a film version of the play. They are starting to see the tone changes, the shifts in pace and the manipulation of the audience’s thoughts and feelings.  

It goes without saying: to get students to talk about a play effectively they have to see it as a play. The analysis of a play is very different to the analysis of a novel. Sadly, all too often we treat them in the same way.  I am not one of those teachers that insists on acting all plays out. I don’t – I feel for the quiet and shy students in class. I think students should see it as a play, or the nearest equivalent, like a filmed version of a play and not a film version of the story.

Let’s bin the diet drama scripts!

Thanks for reading,

@Xris32