A2 English Language and Literature - Template Recasting Task Commentary

TEMPLATE RECASTING TASK COMMENTARY

INTRODUCTION - summary

In my [genre] I used [key terms] to communicate [my purpose] to my [audience]
A secondary purpose is to [secondary purpose]. I used [key term] to establish this purpose.

The main audience for my text is [audience] and I used [key terms] to specifically address them.

I used conventional features of the genre [name genre] including [key features]

MAIN BODY - detail

POINT 1

I used [term] to communicate my [purpose] for example [quotation] with the intention of creating [effect] in my audience.

I also used [term] to communicate my [purpose] for example [quotation] with the intention of creating [effect] in my audience.

POINT 2

I used [term] to communicate to my [audience] for example [quotation] with the intention of creating [effect] in my audience.

I also used [term] to communicate to my [audience] for example [quotation] with the intention of creating [effect] in my audience.

POINT 3

I used [term] to communicate my [genre] for example [quotation] with the intention of creating [effect] in my audience.

I also used [term] to communicate my [genre] for example [quotation] with the intention of creating [effect] in my audience.

AS LL tHINGS FALL APART QUESTIONS

TASK: How does Achebe present the relationship between Ekwefi and Ezinma?
DEADLINE: 8 March 2012

Read this post in connection with this previous post

1 Identify key words that describe the relationship between Ekwefi and Ezinma

2 Identify three episodes in the novel that illustrate these features of the relationship

3 Choose a quotation for each of the features of the relationship

4 Comment on the language and there effects on readers on each of the quotations - draw on language and literary features

5 Select the four or five most important points you want to make

6 You are now ready to write the essay

7 Write a two or three sentence introduction

8 Write the main body of the essay

9 Edit and revise your work

10 Make a concluding point

AS LL Structure of an Ella 1 Essay - Things Fall Apart

AS ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

ELLA 1 INTEGRATED ANALYSIS AND TEXT PRODUCTION

THINGS FALL APART – INTEGRATED ANALYSIS TASK

A01        15 MARKS           You need to show you can choose relevant linguistic and literary concepts and terminology to analyse the text.

A02        15 MARKS           You need to show in detail that you understand and can analyse the ways in which form (the play form), structure (the organisation of events for effect), and language (used in dialogue and stage directions) are used to create effects / impact.

Identify precisely the key elements of the task:

1.       Which character / relationship / theme are you being asked to comment upon – highlight / underline key words

2.       Note that all the analytical questions use the words HOW does the writer – you must make sure you can comment on the literary and linguistic techniques used.

Select relevant material from the text:

1.       In your revision make sure you have learned a clear timeline of events – you must be able to find the key passages you need to refer to for evidence very quickly in the exam.

2.       Select only 3 key episodes / incidents to refer to in your answer – this will ensure that you write in good depth and detail about the writer’s techniques (rather than a more general description of a character / behaviours across the whole novel)

3.       Jot down page references for quotations the point they illustrate and language / literature feature used by the writer.  i.e. several  PEEs.  Aim for a good range of different techniques – make sure you have the terminology to identify them precisely.

Write a sequenced plan:

1.       A  1 – 2 sentence introduction to focus the essay on the key topic of the question

2.       A sequence of paragraphs to explore the character / relationship / theme as directed by the question – it is most straightforward to take a chronological approach.

3.       Make sure every paragraph opens with a topic sentence to direct the examiner to the new point you are about to explore / explain. Make sure this new point is explored by close analysis of techniques – lots of quotes plus analytical comment (technique used and the effect)

Integrated Analytical Text Frameworks

Language features – such as

·         Grammar

·         Lexis

·         Syntax

·         Register

Literary features

·         Imagery

·         Phonology

·         Rhetorical techniques

IB ENG SL YR 1 - Key Questions

Here are a list of guide questions to help you prepare for each lesson on Tales from Ovid.

• What happens in the story?

• How can the story be structured?

• Comment on the narrative voice

•  What different genres of writing can you identify?

• Comment on the setting

• Comment on the presentation of main characters

• Comment on the presentation of humanity

• Comment on the presentation of the Gods

• Comment on the theme of change and transformation

• Comment on the writing style - poetic, rhetorical, linguistic

• What co you notice specifically Roman in the story?

• What do you notice specifically modern and English in the story?

A2 ENGLISH LITERATURE - AN INTRODUCTION EXAMPLE AND COMMENT

I’m going to use the three poems on horses that I’ve already used to show how to plan and write an analytical comparative paragraph. It may be worth reading the poems again quickly just to get an idea of how they can be used.  You can read the poems here.

Remember that this example uses only one genre – poetry so bare this in mind.

So imagine I’m writing an essay under the title 

‘Horses embody an elemental force of nature in the English Literary tradition’. To what extent do you agree with this statement with reference to Hughes’s The Horses, MacNeice’s The Horses and Muir’s Horses.

FEATURES	TEXT
Firstly respond directly to the key words in the essay title - such as 'outsiders', 'bleak view of the human condition', 'love' and 'suffering'. These will be broad and abstract concepts. Try and define these concepts using your own words. Why not use a dictionary and a thesaurus to help you do this. What do you think they mean?	Horses are traditionally seen in literature as powerful elemental forces, life- long companions in the service to humans and objects of love and emotions.  Hughes’s The Horses, MacNeice’s The Horses and Muir’s Horses all present elements of these conventional views of horses but bring a fresh and dynamic perspective.
Then show how these concepts can be applied to the three texts. In general what does text a, b and c say about the key theme. This will involve you naming each text and the writer as well as a brief summary of the text - no more than a sentence. What do your writers say specifically about these concepts? Then go on to make general comparative and or contrasting points with the texts.  I expect there will be similarities and differences between the three texts.   You may find especially with Betjeman differences between poems. Although Larkin's poetry has a consistent and sustained vision of the world.	Despite the static portrait of the horses in Hughes's presentation in his free verse poem, Hughes presents the horses as raw, elemental, of the earth and quite indifferent the the human world. In contrast MacNeice's poem presents them totally dominated by human society. Where the relationship between horses and humans is one of master and servant or slave. Muir however combines both the natural and wild elements of the horses along with their desire for companionship and service to people.
Follow this up by identifying briefly broad contextual features of their writing. Avoid writing specific biographical facts about the life of [Larkin] or [Betjeman], Hartley and Miller.	These different presentations of horses are in part influenced by the different cultural contexts of each poet. For example MacNeice wrote his poem during the decade of the depression of the 1930's. In it he offers his target audience of children a comforting and highly structured vision of a society full of human order and control. And yet in the circus setting he offers a brief escape from the difficulties of life. On the other hand Hughes - writing in the late 1950's writes a poem celebrating the natural world and the force of nature. Hughes was a conservationist. Writing at a time of urban expansion he reminds the public of the value of the countryside and the beauty of nature. Muir's poem was written during the cold war. In it he imagines the results and the effects on human communities after a world war.
Also make a comment about how each of the three writers and their work have been received by society or specific critics either at the time they were written or in the present time.	Hughes's poetry has been described as being 'plugged in to the very soul of England'. Whereas Muir has been described as 'observing Europe's political and cultural landscape'. And MacNeice offers 'close detailed social observations.'
Finally you should identify some of the important  literary features from each of the texts. You should focus on the dominant literary features and make comparative and or contrasting points. You can make specific references to the different genres here. Perhaps emphasise the dramatic conflict of the drama, the poetic techniques of the poetry like rhyme and rhythm and the first person narrator of the prose text.	MacNeice's strong use of rhythm and rhyme helps emphasise a regular and ordered society. Hughes elemental and sensory language helps create a strong evocation of the wild countryside. Finally Muir's poem is embedded in fable and story-telling. This is emphasised by the dramatic monologue and narrative style of the poem.

A2 English Literature Coursework Introductions

Below are four main features of an introduction you could use for the 3000 word comparative essay.

This post is designed for the two groups I teach. One group is writing about Philip Larkin and the other group is writing about Betjeman.

• Firstly respond directly to the key words in the essay title - such as 'outsiders', 'bleak view of the human condition', 'love'  and 'suffering'. These will be broad and abstract concepts. Try and define these concepts using your own words. Why not use a dictionary and a thesaurus to help you do this. What do you think they mean?

• Then show how these concepts can be applied to the three texts. In general what does text a, b and c say about the key theme. This will involve you naming each text and the writer as well as a brief summary of the text - no more than a sentence. What do your writers say specifically about these concepts?

• Then go on to make general comparative and or contrasting points with the texts.  I expect there will be similarities and differences between the three texts.   You may find especially with Betjeman differences between poems. Although Larkin's poetry has a consistent and sustained vision of the world.

• Follow this up by identifying briefly broad contextual features of their writing. Avoid writing specific biographical facts about the life of [Larkin] or [Betjeman], Hartley and Miller.

• Also make a comment about how each of the three writers and their work have been received by society or specific critics either at the time they were written or in the present time.

• Finally you should identify some of the important  literary features from each of the texts. You should focus on the dominant literary features and make comparative and or contrasting points. You can make specific references to the different genres here. Perhaps emphasise the dramatic conflict of the drama, the poetic techniques of the poetry like rhyme and rhythm and the first person narrator of the prose text.

If you are able to incorporate all the above elements in an introduction - as well as write clearly, accurately and concisely you have begun to address the Assessment Objectives.

Deadline Amendment

This is to confirm that the World Literature Essay must be handed in no later than Friday 9 March 2012 in the class we have on that day. Sorry if there has been any confusion about this date. It is the date published in your IB handbook. Please pass this information on to other students in the class.

A2 English Literature 1:1 Feedback Appointments

Below is the list of interview appointments. Make every effort to be on time. Bring paper and pen with you. If you are late or miss the appointmemnt you must come to see me on Monday 19 March

All draft essays must be handed in to me by Friday 2 MARCH at the latest.

If you don't have an appointment with me you do not have to come to the lesson.

All lessons return to normal on 19 March - unless otherwise informed.

As I mark draft essays will be posting general and quite detailed feedback advise on the blog so you should continue to visit the blog regularly.

I will also be posting further relevant posts for you to use in your essay.

I thought I had posted a model three text comparative essay plan for you but it seems to have disappeared. So I have reposted the plan. You can find the plan here.

Date	Approx. Time	Student name	Missed Appointment
Monday 5 March	9	Charlie*	/
	9.15	Lucy*	/
	9.30	Charlotte*	moved to Wed 14 March @ 5.20
	9.45	Melissa*	/
Thursday 8 March	11.30	Victoria
	11.45	Tom*	/
	12.00	Alissia*	/
	12.15	Charly	moved to Thur 8 @ 4.10 or Fri 9 @ 12.30 rm1E1
Monday 12 March	9	Elisa*	/
	9.15	Priya*	/
	9.30	Rachel*	/
	9.45	Shanell*	/
	[9.45	Arif]
Wednesday 14 March	4.10	Kat
	4.25	Francesca*	moved to Monday 19 @ 9.00
	4.40	Hannah*	moved to Monday 19 @ 9.00
	4.55	Jessica	moved to Monday 19 @ 9.00
	5.10	Julia*	moved to Monday 19 @ 9.00
Thursday 15 March	11.30	Bliss
	11.45	Nika*
	12.00	Harley*
	12.15	Brendan*

* indicates I have received the draft essay

A2 English Literature Update

First draft essays must be handed in by Friday 2 March no later than 4.00

You can hand them in to me at 1D17. You can leave them in my tray in 1D17. You can email them to me as a word attachment at *mailto:*david.loffman@rutc.ac.uk

The essay should be complete - at least 3000 words and the best essay you can write. Students that benefit most from the drafting process are those who have really worked hard on the essay and written something they feel they could hand in to the examiner tomorrow.

Full lessons are suspended from 5 March - 15 March while I conduct one to one interviews with each of you. Normal lessons will resume on Monday 19 March. When we will prepare for the exam.

I will post details of 1:1 interviews soon.

If you have any problems before the draft deadline you can see me on Thursday's lesson or email me at the above email address.

* Make sure the word document is in an older version of word not the most current.

Philip Larkin Introductions

Below are a few comments on each of the Larkin Poems I've photocopied for you. I'll update this post over the next couple of weeks. You should read the entries on this post as an introduction or a starting point to the poems. They are not a substitute for coming to lessons. You should read the poems in conjunction with the post Reading Poetry - linked here.   I hope the introductions will help you read and engage with the poems on a personal and much deeper level.

Mr Bleaney

Summary - the narrative voice is a prospective tenant being shown a rented room by the landlady. Mr Bleaney was the last tenant. Perhaps he has died. The narrator observes little details of the room and concludes that Mr Bleaney lived a little, unremarkable and undistinguished life. Twice his narrative is interrupted by the landlady's comments about Mr Bleaney. The narrator accepts the room but also seems to accept that he and Mr Bleaney share a similar kind of life.

Form - traditional form, seven four line stanzas [quatrains] made up largely of iambic pentameters [five pairs of stressed and unstressed syllables] and a rigid abab rhyme scheme.

Difficult words

• the Bodies - local slang for a car manufacturing factory where Mr Bleaney worked.
• the four aways - a reference to the football pools in which he hopes to win and escape his mundane repetitive and boring life.

Theme - Life without meaning, suffering, presentation of a diminished life

Writing Style - dramatic monologue - could be autobiographical, use of direct speech, descriptive writing, nouns, premodifiers, last quatrain abstract nouns, symbols


Other Voices -

"Mr Bleaney is effectively a neutral, objective documentary on an ordinary, unabitious, unimaginative, unadventurous, low keyed existence of a modern middle-class individual, a victim of alienation."

Sisir Kumar Chatterjee from Philip Larkin: Poetry That Builds Bridges, Atlantic Publishers and Distributers 2006. 

Love Songs in Age

Before we go any further with this poem watch and listen to this love song. I have a story to tell you about the song - remind me to tell it.

Summary - a widow rediscovers neglected  love songs she used to play [probably a piano] and sing when she was young. Relearning the songs rekindles the feelings of being young again - a youthful energy, passion, the promise of the future. However the songs make her realise that she never experienced the strong emotions and feelings evoked by the songs; despite being married and having a daughter. She also painfully realises that she will never experience them.

Difficult words - incipience meaning: just starting to be or happen; beginning; only partly in existence; imperfectly formed

Form - three eight line stanzas - called octaves, various line lengths, but dominated by iambic pentameters, in dispersed by four to seven live syllables. Rhyme scheme in each stanza is abacbcdd. Emjambment is an important feature. Formality of the poem creates an elegiac tone to the poem.

Themes - Appearance and reality, sense of loss and unfulfilled expectations,                                  
Whitsun used to fall                                                                                                                            

Writing Style - third person narrative. The poem begins descriptive focussing on details of concrete nouns in the first stanza - the "covers". Then the second and third stanzas are dominated by abstract nouns. These stanzas introduce imagery specifically simile "spring woken tree" and metaphorical language - love"sailing above".

Now have a listen to this version of the same song. This time sung and played by the woman it was written for - to sing to the husband who wrote the song. 

Faith Healing


Meaning - Faith healing is healing through spiritual means. Believers assert that the healing of a person can be brought about by religious faith through prayer and/or rituals that, according to adherents, stimulate a divine presence and power toward correcting disease and disability.


Summary - describes a group of women coming forward at a Christian Faith Healing service. Each woman meets the faith healer for a few seconds and he prays for them. Then he moves on to the next woman. Some women are moved powerfully by the experience and cry uncontrollably. This brief expression of care and concern touches them and releases in them long buried pent up emotions of unfulfilled love.


In the third stanza Larkin reflects on this experience. He seems to be saying that the healing experience for most - enables people to see their lives in relation to the amount of love they have received. It enables them to imagine how much more they could have been and done had they been loved fully. Meeting the faith healer has released their emotions. Larkin asserts that nothing can cure this pain. The voice of the faith healer - echoes the voice of God. This voice is a lie.


Form - Three ten line stanzas. Each line consists of an iambic pentameter. Eight sentences. A complex rhyme scheme consisting of abcabdabcabd. Poem uses enjambment extensively.


Theme - dominated by hope and expectation but ends with disappointment, unfulfilled longing. There is only the physical world. 


Writing Style - detailed descriptive writing of the famous American evangelist/faith healer Billy Graham who visited the UK in the 1954. We read the voice of Billy Graham in the first stanza. This is echoed by Larkin in the third. Metaphorical language is used in the poem. Comparisons are also used - but not similes. There is some alliteration.

The Whitsun Weddings


Meaning - Whitsun is the name used in the UK for the Christian festival which commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit upon Christ's disciples. This usually takes place in early June a popular time for people to get married because it often falls on a Bank Holiday.


I don't think Larkin considered any religious symbolism or significance in his poem.


Summary - The narrator probably Larkin recounts the events of a train journey he took from Lincolnshire to London during Whitsun. He watches various wedding parties sending married couples off to London to begin their married life.

Form - ten lines in all eight stanzas. Dominated by iambic pentameter. The second line of each stanza is made up of four syllables. There are some variations. The rhyme scheme in each stanza is ababcdecde. A complex and regular rhyme scheme. Emjamberment between stanzas 4-5, 5-6 and 6-7.


There are eight ten line stanzas.


Regularity of line and stanza structure as well as rhyme and emjamberment helps create a sense of movement.   


Themes - social observation, promise and expectation followed by disillusion.


Writing Style - anecdotal, first person narrative, descriptive and detailed social observation, use of lists helps create snapshots of England, rural, suburban and urban. Selective use of simile. An extended metaphor that begins with 'curve', picked up with 'aimed' and the simile 'like a arrow shower.' A bow and arrow image. Other features include sensory language - including sound, smell and touch.


Comment - I think this is my favourite Larkin poem. It is a great poem. Larkin sits alone and remote in the train. At first he is preoccupied by the heat and what he can see out of the train window. There is a sense of uncomfortable confinement in the train carriage and the heat. He seems to accept the journey despite being late and hot and enclosed. The passing views out of the window offer an escape or at least a distraction from the journey.


But then in an understated and informal way he mentions the weddings at the start of the third stanza. They appear on the margins of his consciousness at first but quickly become the centre of his attention. At each station he passes he watches wedding parties. Family and friends wave goodbye to the newly wed couple as they embark on their married life. First stop - the big city - London. He watches the same scene re-enacted again and again at each station.


The descriptions of the people are remote, detached, unsympathetic - perhaps even cruel and judgemental. He comments on  the weddings taking place and the significance of the rite of passage. His comments are judgemental. He is a snob looking down at them all - a different class - engaging in a ritual that he will never experience himself - within a religious context in which he thinks there is no meaning. He recognises that the public and social identity of these couples has changed. But for Larkin the marriages carry no genuine meaning or purpose. They seem a curiosity to him.




The train is a thread that has brought these people together. Embedded in the poem is an extended metaphor that builds through the poem and the poem concludes with it.

“Larkin stands back and looks.”

“In a sense the poet’s involvement is greater than theirs [the wedding couples]; he sees and understands just what it is that each participant feels, and then puts them together to form one complete experience, felt in its directness by no one, yet present in the atmosphere and available to that imaginative contemplation that makes ‘art’.”

John Wain ‘Engagement or Withdrawal: Some Notes on the Work of Philip Larkin’, Critical Quarterly, Summer 1964, quoted in Roger Day, Philip Larkin, OUP `1976

MCMXIV

Ambulances

Summary - The poem portrays the ambulances  which call upon the sick and the dying as also acting as reminders to the bystanders of their own mortality, even as they express their sympathy for the person they see being taken to hospital. The speaker sees the process of dying in terms of the unravelling of bonds which have cohered in life. The certainty of death casts a pall over all we do.

Difficult words - confessional refers to the Roman Catholic practice of confessing one's sins to a priest in the dark, enclosed space of the confessional, through which one would receive absolution and the opportunity to make a new start in one's relationship with God.

Form - Five sestets, stanzas of six lines each. Each line consists of eight syllables. Each stanza consits of an abcbca rhyme scheme.

Theme - The ambulances represent or symbolise the inevitability of death.

Quotes - 'The somewhat nihilistic vision... expressed in Ambulances'

The poem 'employs virtually no simile's or metaphors...death seems to defy figurative expressions.' David Timms, Philip Larkin

Dockery and Son

Wild Oats

An Arundel Tomb