Exploring Texts through the Frameworks

Hamlet Task - you need to do this if you will be writing about Hamlet in your coursework

Hamlet's second major soliloquy comes at the end of Act 2. He is responding to an actor's presntation of grief on the stage and compares it to how he is dealing with his own grief. He compares how he is showing and acting on his grief to how the actor would show it if he were in Hamlet's situation.

We see a troubled Hamlet in this speech and he presents us with a range of emotions about himself, his father and Claudius. He is isolated from eveyone again, both physically, emotionally and in his inability to say anything to anyone about the murder of his father. There is focus on himself throughout - he is introspective, depressed, angry and full of self-loathing.

You need to explore how the langauge and structure convey the strength of Hamlet's feelings. You can write a framework analysis (see here for framework prompts) of the piece or respond to the questions on the sheet.

Once you have done that - continue your research using the resources from massolit


Other Poems

If you are not writing about Hamlet in your coursework, then you need to choose another poem that could help your understanding of the theme of death, isolation, family, motherhood other than the ones we have studied (see your booklet for suggestions or I can suggest one).

As practice for your exam (unseen texts), you need to make notes on the key ideas, attitudes and themes of the poem and pick out a range of supporting language features. Use the framework prompt sheet for help. You can use a film from the massolit website to help you - watch one of them and make notes.


This lesson or at home (in preparation for Monday's lesson), you need to start thinking about which poems / extracts you are going to comment on and what you are going to focus on in terms of theme and what the key ideas and attitudes are in that theme. Use this framework to help you.

Let me know if you are interested in gender - we can do some separate group work depending on numbers.

Focusing in on Language in The History Boys

Hello

Our main focus in this lesson, is making sure you comment on language throughout your responses. You show understanding of the relationships and key themes presented by Bennett but you all need to make the links between the structure of the conversation, the stage directions, the type of sentences and lexis used and the meaning of the dialogue.

In the exam the question is in two parts: the first part is the close analysis of an extract (which is what we are focusing on) and the second part is a wider themes and ideas questions, where you can make connections with other parts of the play.

Task One:

Look through the mark scheme for the extract analysis question. Where do you think you fit in with your level of terminology and analysis at the moment. How are you going to make it to the next band up? This does link in to the work you did yesterday in the lesson.


Task Two:

Look through this paragraph. How is it structured? What terminology is used? How is character explained or relationships commented on?

The audience does not know at this stage who the Man is and Bennett creates a sense of mystery and intrigue. Irwin, however, clearly recognises him, yet doesn't acknowledge him by name or indeed in a friendly manner. Irwin uses the interrogative 'familiar?' asking the Man to respond to his talk being recorded for a television history programme and this abrupt, elliptical style suggests that Irwin is not particularly pleased to see the person. The audience senses the anxiety between the two characters through the beginning of the exchange, as the conversation that ensues is rather awkward and stilted, both  characters using an elliptical style .Questions are raised for the audience as we develop an understanding that the Man is an ex-pupil, as he refers to Irwin as being a 'good teacher'. He uses the past tense 'were' so we know that this is taking place in a place after the events at school but we don't know why Irwin is no longer teaching and why he is in a wheelchair.

Task Three:

Look through this attached sheet and focus on finding the language features identified. Download the document and make notes on what you find and what you can say about the characters and their relationship.


Task Four:

Now write some effective PEE paragraphs, making sure you use terminology correctly, give at least one example of the point you are making and make a comment on the character or their relationship.

Remember the focus is on the relationship between Posner and Irwin.

Email them to me!!

Thanks

Isolation and Place in Plath and Larkin - A2 Work

Afternoon!

We need to finish looking at the key imagery Plath uses in 'Tulips'. You have 5-10 minutes to review the poem and then we will complete our discussion of it.

Read 'The Importance of Elsewhere' by Philip Larkin.

This poem explores how difference and isolation can be a postive experience. The poet explores a period of living in Ireland where he is separate from England and all the traditions and expectations that you have to adhere and conform to when you are part of a society.Being somewhere different he has an excuse to be different and to be separate. When in England, there is no excuse for behaving and thinking differently - he has to conform. He feels the pressure 'at home' of being an isolated voice in society.

Context of The Importance of Elsewhere This is an article which will give you a bit of context on the poem.

You can go through the questions below to help annotate your poem OR you can go straight on to the comparison task. Whether or not you are doing Plath or Larkin, this is about developing an analytical comparative approach - needed for the exam as well as your coursework.

‘The Importance of Elsewhere’ by Philip Larkin

1.     Where is the poem set? Why are two places mentioned? What opinion does the writer have of difference and isolation?

2.     What does “strangeness made sense” mean?

3.     What lexis is juxtaposed in stanza 1? Why? What is Larkin trying to say about being different and speaking differently?

4.     What is the effect of the first person singular and first person plural in stanza 1?

5.     How is the place described in stanza 2? What type of lexis is used? What image is created? What are the connotations with the place? How is the description built up? Does the narrator enjoy being separate?

6.     Why does the beginning of stanza 3 echo the opening of the poem? Why is there a change in place?

7.     What is the effect of the possessive pronoun ‘my’ in stanza 3?

8.     What associations are made with the nouns “customs and establishments”? Why can the narrator not “refuse” them?

9.     In what ways is this a typical Larkin poem in terms of narrative voice and structure?

 

Comparison:  How do the writers use a sense of place to explore the theme of isolation in 'Tulips' and 'The Importance of Elsewhere'?

Exploring a Scene

Hi All

We will spend a bit of this lesson exploring the rest of the interview scene. When we have completed this, you need to write a full commentary on the scene you were given, ensuring that your writing is organised and accurate.

Remember you are exploring:

• how the characters are presented - what are their ideas and attitudes to education, gender, sexuality, history, arts etc 
• what their use of language suggests about them in general and in the extract e.g. the wider references, the imagery used, the type of lexis they use, 
• how relationships are presented - who is in control, how questions are used
• what  the spoken discourse suggest about the relationships 
• how the scene is presented through stage directions
• how the scene echoes / foreshadows other parts of the play

Aim to take a systematic approach to the extract and be methodical.

Please post on your blog or padlet page and post on this padlet page here.

The headmaster: We haven't really discussed the headmaster much so now I would like you to consider how the headmaster is presented. Find some evidence to support your ideas. Post your ideas on your blog or padlet page.

Enjoy!

Friday 6th November

Good Friday afternoon!

Task One:

Please write up the comparative paragraph from the last lesson. You need to email it to me. Aim to have a focussed comparative topic sentence and include examples from the poems (aim to think about patterns) asnd explore them linguistically and comment on their literary meaning - all the time keeping to the point you made in your opening sentence.

In Monday's lesson we will look at a range of examples and see how we can improve them so that they fit the criteria for a top mark! This will be done anonymously!

We will also explore how to write an opening paragraph in which you set up your thesis / argumment. Can be trickier than it seems!

Task Two:

Hamlet and Isolation - read the extract from Act 2 Scene 2 and complete the framework attached in as much detail as you can.

Act 2 Scene 2 Extract

The pictures below might help you with one of the key images from the section.

Task Three Extension work:

Some wider reading for Hamlet -

Hamlet's Melancholy

Yorick


Please make notes and think about how it could support ideas about death and isolation.

OR read and make notes on the Paris Review interview with Philip Larkin. Aim to comment on his ideas about language
Larkin Interview in The Paris Review This will be brilliant reading for anyone who will be writing about Larkin as he discussed his use of poetic form. This was set in a previous lesson but some of you might have missed it.

Mrs Lintott and The History Boys

Good afternoon you lot! Lots of work here today. The aim of the lesson is to create a series of notes on Padlet about the scene we looked at yesterday and develop our understanding of Mrs Lintott as a character.

TASK 1:

You will each be given a short extract from the scene we studied yesterday. Copy up the line(s) onto the following padlet page and explain why it is important linguistically and in terms of meaning. Padlet Page for Drummer Hodge Scene

Here is the framework just in case you would like to refer to it:

TASK 2:

Mrs Lintott is the only female character in The History Boys. Analyse the quotations below and comment on what they tell us about her views on being a woman and education. What impression do you get of her as a character? How does the language she uses help the audience to understand her as a character? Why do you think she is the only woman in the play? Post your work on your blog or your padlet page!

Quotation 1

Mrs Lintott: They know their stuff. Plainly stated and properly organised facts need no presentation, surely.

Headmaster: Oh, Dorothy. I think they do. 'The facts: serving suggestion.'

Mrs Lintott: A sprig of parsley you mean? Or an umbrella in the cocktail? Are dons so naive?

Quotation 2

Durham was very good for history, it's where I had my first pizza. Other things, too, of course, but it's the pizza that stands out.

Quotation 3

Mrs Lintott: The new man seems clever.

Hector: Depressingly so.

Mrs Lintott: Men are, at history, of course.

Hector: Why history particularly?

Mrs Lintott: Story-telling so much of it, which is what men do naturally.

My ex, for instance. He told stories.

Hector: Was he an historian?

Mrs Lintott: Lintott? No. A chartered accountant. Legged it to Dumfries.

Quotation 4

On Dakin: Actually I wouldn't have said he was sad. I would have said he was cunt-struck.

Quotation 5

Rudge: You've force fed us the facts; now we're in the process of running around acquiring flavour.

Quotation 6

One thing you will learn if you plan to stay in this benighted profession is that the chief enemy of culture in any school is the Headmaster.

Quotation 7

A nickname is an achievement...both in the sense of something won and also in its armorial sense of a badge, a blazon. Unsurprisingly, I am Tot or Totty. Some irony there one feels.

Quotation 8

I have not hitherto been allotted an inner voice, my role as a patient and not unamused sufferance of the predilections and preoccupations of men. They kick their particular stone along the street and I watch.

I am, it is true, confided in by all parties, my gender some sort of safeguard against the onward transmission...though that I should be assumed to be so discreet is in itself condescending. I'm what men would call a safe pair of hands.

Our headmaster is a twat. An impermissible word nowadays but the only one suited to my purpose. A twat. And to go further down the same proscribed path, a condescending cunt.