HOMEWORK for 31st January

Class,

Attached are the questions for your homework. They are available as a Word document, or as a PDF.

These are important questions as they will help you develop really useful and comprehensive notes for study and revision.

I expect everyone to attempt them.

I’ll be watching the blog between 2 and 4 on Sunday should you wish to post any questions to me.

Thanks!

RnJ Act 1 Qs.pdf

RnJ Act 1 Qs.docx

Romeo: First Thoughts

So… you should be remembering that I’d asked you to do the following for today:

• Why do we not meet Romeo at the start of the play, and is there any significance in the language that Shakespeare uses when we do first meet Romeo?

I hope by the end of today’s lesson you’d all realised that Romeo is kept apart from the opening on a number of levels… linguistically, and physically.

I’ll say more in a minute, but here’s a really important thing for you to remember… and no marks for not saying this in class… Gregory and Sampson are CAPULETS, whilst Romeo is a MONTAGUE. This means there is an even greater differentiation than you first suspected.

The opening lines are filled with Shakespearean ‘humour’, namely lots of wordplay in the sense of puns (collier/choler/collar/and so forth), and also base and crude humour such as “…the heads of the maids?” “…their maidenheads” (I.i.21-22). You should compare this with Romeo’s first remarks which, while filled with wordplay, are more serious and reflective. Shakespeare appears to have chosen oxymorons as – while still clever wordplay – they are much more sophisticated than the puns of the opening.

Why, then, O brawling love, O loving hate,

O anything, of nothing first create! (I.i.168-169)

Romeo is effectively elevated by his more sophisticated language and turn of phrase. He is also concerned with love rather than the ‘sex’ that appears to preoccupy the base Capulet servants.

Physically, Romeo is not present in the opening in order to keep him out of the first ‘fight’ that we see between the Capulets and Montagues. This further advances the idea that he is different from the rest of his family, and that he appears to be (“O me! What fray was here?” – I.i.165) fed up with the constant fighting between the two families.

As a final point, you should have been considering the different attitude to love shown by Romeo… but I’ll leave it up to you to use the comments to say more about that!

For Wednesday

Why do we not meet Romeo at the very start of R&J, and is there any significance in the language Shakespeare uses when we do meet Romeo?

At least one side of A4 complete with quotations to support!

Enjoy!

SQA Links

Just a quick update to remind you about the SQA ‘Understanding Standards’ site that I have been using. If you visit the SQA page for Higher English (http://www.sqa.org.uk/sqa/38944.html) you can find the link to the Understanding Standards sub-site at the bottom of the page. (Direct Link: http://www.understandingstandards.org.uk/)

You are actually better following the link on the SQA Higher English page as this will take you directly to the English part of the site.

Have a click round, and you should find some Close Reading exemplars and also some Critical Essay exemplars complete with marker’s comments. These are invaluable resources for you and highly recommended (as I have been saying in class and in the after school study support sessions… Wednesday, 3:30ish till 4:30ish… come along!)

As ever, use the comments for questions and clarification! Enjoy…

A Rose By Any Other Name…

If you’re anything like me, you’ve probably eaten all your toys and played with all your sweets by now, and so will be looking for a welcome diversion. I’ve been checking out some resources that will help you get to grips with Romeo and Juliet and so, given you need to have read the play by the time we get back, thought I’d punt them your way.

As you will recall from the introduction I delivered at the end of term, the real beauty of Shakespeare is his acute observation of the human condition, coupled with his ability to write some of the most beautiful language ever. It will be your ability to understand the language that will make the difference. Don’t be put off by the ‘archaic’ expression, a little work on your part will pay massive dividends, and will — I hope — lead to you beginning to appreciate just how great a writer Shakespeare is. (Incidentally, you should try doing a little research into how widespread Shakespeare’s influence has spread, for example, you may be surprised to learn that Hamlet has been translated into Klingon!)

There are countless study guides and sites available online, and you are welcome to ignore those I’m about to suggest, however, I recommend you make some effort to engage with the text if you are chasing a good pass, and these sites may help you in this.

The first one I want to mention is LitCharts™. This is a relatively new site for study guides, and offers clear, concise (look it up) guides to a number of texts. They can be accessed online, they are available as a PDF you can download, and they also make a couple of nifty iPhone/iPad Apps (priced 69p) that would allow you to access the text/notes any time you like. Highly recommended for our use as, though limited, the notes do give a great overview and do touch on the key points.

Next up is EnglishBiz and a guide on how to write about R&J. This has some really useful and approachable advice on remembering that R&J is, first and foremost, a play. It was written to be performed and we need to remember this as we study it…

One more just now… from the University of Massachusetts theater (sic) course. They have produced a PDF guide to staging a production of the play. Some interesting insights, and for the more inquisitive amongst you, plenty of links and ideas to follow up. Enjoy!

And finally…
Have a Christmas challenge. Here is a paper model of the Globe Theatre for you to download and try to make. Fame, fortune, and a better life await anyone able to turn a sheet of A4 paper into a 3D model of the Globe! (Here’s what it should look like!)

Literal vs Metaphorical

I thought you’d appreciate  link to the clip I used in class today… and then I realised, you’d probably really appreciate the slides as well, so…

And the video is here:

As ever, thoughts welcome in the comments.

BTW: I’m not kidding that there are loads of possible creative writing ideas that could be generated from the Guardian advert. Feel free to develop one (or two or three…) and pass them to me!

Little Brother Key Incidents

So… there’s lots to cover so I thought the best thing to do would be to post the pictures and see what you come up with.

The first picture I used in class was this one:

CC: Richard Wilkinson - http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

As a number of you pointed out, it is Marcus looking up at (presumably) a CCTV camera. The questions you need to consider are:

1. How successful is this image as a representation of the novel’s main theme(s)?
2. What does the angle of the picture (looking down on Marcus) suggest about the relationship between Marcus and the ‘camera’ — and by extension, those who installed the camera?

Next picture was of this bridge:

CC: WMA - http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/

It is, of course, the Bay Area Bridge in San Francisco:

View Larger Map

Here’re a couple of questions to consider:

1. Why might the Bay Area Bridge be a target?
2. What impact would such an attack have? (NB: ignore the obvious financial impact!)

Next up was this:

CC: Richard Wilkinson - http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

With this picture, you should try the following:

1. Can you identify any of the characters?
2. Who are they, and what sort of people are they? (I mean individually as well as collectively)
3. Why are they on the streets, and what aspect of their culture (or counter-culture) is illustrated?
4. What impact does the explosion have on them individually and as a group?

That’s probably enough to keep you very busy for the time being. We’ll move on to constitutional and human rights next…

Be ready to share your thoughts on all of these on Thursday afternoon. Not doing this is not an option!

Sometimes It’s Meant To Be Fun…

Thanks for the list of topics for your discursive essays. There are some really interesting ideas in there, and I’ll speak to each of you tomorrow to give pointers and/or advice.

So… why did we look at those film trailers today? Well, if you were paying attention, you’ll have realised that in order to gain an audience’s attention, the trailer has to hint at the main themes and ideas of the film. There is also, quite often, some indication of the characters… there may be some dialogue… there may even be enough information to highlight the genre of the film…

You aren’t daft, so you’ve probably already worked out that, by making a quick trailer for Little Brother, you are going to have to show some understanding of plot/character/theme/setting/etc/etc/etc… It need not be particularly flash… I am looking for a clear sense of the main points of the story and the main characters… and you’d be foolish not to bring out the main themes of the novel… but it’s going to be up to you.

FWIW, here’s a very quick (and not particularly good) trailer I threw together using Animoto:

Now… you will need to plan yours out, think of suitable images, think of what video you might use, identify key scenes from the novel that might look good in a trailer if filmed… in short, approach this seriously, but with a sense of fun!

There is NO shortage of resources you can tap into to put this together… and you DON’T NEED TO ACTUALLY MAKE A FILM/TRAILER… but you DO need to PLAN a trailer… ideally with a STORYBOARD! So, no pressure, then.

Now… this will take you a couple of weeks, so, the deadline for the grand premiere of your work will be Thursday 22nd December. Will we have a red carpet? Celebrities? Should we invite the press? Or do we just persuade everyone to bring in some sweets and fizzy pop?

And finally… if you don’t already ‘get’ Mark Kermode, you need to check him out. Clever, funny, always honest, he is (for my money) the best film critic around at the moment. You need to start listening to the Kermode and Mayo film reviews from 5Live every Friday (available to download from iTunes). They WILL improve your English, and ability to sound intelligent when you tak about a film… or philosophy… or skiffle. Here’s a sample… this is what happened when Mark Kermode was asked to review Sex and the City 2 (seriously, keep watching… after about 6 minutes or so, he starts to really get into his stride!):

Comments through the usual channels!

Discursive

If you are still struggling to think of a topic for your discursive or report, you may find inspiration in this Opinion piece from the Guardian.

Youth unemployment: aspirational talk? All the young hear is a sick joke

No comment from me. Make your own minds up.

Little Brother Is Coming Closer

This is just a quick interim post to make you aware of an article I picked up from Twitter. Philip Henscher’s ‘Opinion’ piece from today is called: The state wants to know what you’re up to. But why do we let it?

It is chilling in its own right, but I thought you’d pick up on the resonances it has with Little Brother. As a bit of a bonus, it’s also a good example of a piece of argumentative writing… in other words, a good model for you to study to improve your own writing!