The All New English Lit Poetry Blog!

We have started analysing poems for the English Literature exam that you will take in Yr11.  The 'Conflict' cluster poems are all connected, thematically and sometimes stylistically and in the exam you will have to write an essay that compares one named poem with another one from the cluster.

Key Question:
What is CONFLICT?  Write your own definition in the comments box.


We discussed what kinds of conflict there are; it isn't just about war and fighting, there can be conflict within a family or even an individual.

The Poems
So far we have looked at:

• 'Flag'  by John Agard
• 'Out of the Blue' by Simon Armitage
• 'The Right Word' by Imtiaz Dharker
• 'The Falling Leaves' by Margaret Postgate Cole

What types of conflict do these poems explore?  Do you think they have a similar message?  Write your answer in the comments box. 

Still having trouble with your essay plan?

Consider the following things:

What do we mean by ‘settings’? Some suggestions from our lessons were:

• The era (Elizabethan and Victorian e.g. who has power)
• The houses (Capulet’s mansion; Satis House)
• The rooms (the street; Capulet’s room; Juliet’s room; Juliet’s tomb)

How do these different settings influence Capulet and Miss Havisham in how they treat others? You could think about:

• Why both characters treat their daughters as possessions
• What each of them think about relationships and love
• Whether either of them ‘learn’ anything from what they have done

Remember that EVERY paragraph must have a quotation as EVIDENCE and you must analyse the language in the EXPLANATION (say how the words or language technique suggests something about the characters.

PEEC PARAGRAPHS:

• POINT
• EVIDENCE
• EXPLANATION
• CONTEXT

Mrs Roberts

Eng Lit CA: Romeo and Juliet and Great Expections

Yes, we are nearly there! The culmination of 6 weeks' worth of analysis and PEEC paragraph writing will be assessed after half term (week beginning 20th Feb).

If you have missed any lessons the ppt for the WHOLE unit is on this blog; read through it so that you can catch up with anything missed.

The booklets for both R&J and Great Expectations are also on here; download them to find quotations for your plan if you have lost your copy!

Half term HW: FINISH YOUR ESSAY PLAN

Essay title:

How do the settings of Romeo & Juliet and Great Expectations influence the choices made and behaviour of Capulet and Miss Havisham?

Compare their:

• Roles within the narratives
• Relationships with others
• The language they use when speaking to others; the language used to describe them
• Settings/context (i.e. the times in which they were living)

Refer to Chapters 8, 11, 38 and 49

AND

Act 1, Sc 2; Act, 1, Sc 5; Act 3, Sc 4; Act 3, Sc 5, Act 4, Sc 5 and Act 5, Sc 3

Good luck and remember to email me if you're having trouble!

Mrs Roberts

This week's lessons

We explored the differences between spoken language and written language and how some forms of written language (such as online conversations) shared more characteristics (features) with spoken language.

For example informal chats with friends on MSM or similar online forums shared many features of spoken language: shortened (abbreviated language, like text-language) and use of informal language (slang). This is all connected with the CONTEXT: most online conversations are INFORMAL and between friends, therefore the language used is less formal.

We also considered what we meant by Standard English (and how this is different from accent and dialect).

We watched examples of Spontaneous Speech and Scripted Speech (Emma Watson being interviewed by David Letterman and a clip from Twilight) and identified the differences between them (lots of false starts, overlaps and fillers in spontaneous speech; lots of dramatic pauses in the scripted speech).

HW: to have a conversation online, annotate it and write a PEE (Point, Evidence, Explanation) paragraph, explaining some of the language features, the context of the conversation and what the language used tells us about the relationship between the people having the conversation. Due in: Tues 27th September

New year, new course!

Dear 10z2b,

Welcome back to school; I hope that you've enjoyed the summer holidays. GCSE will be hard - we have a lot of work to do, but I'm also hoping that it will also be fun! Remember that I'm here to help and that you should speak to me if you are having any difficulty with the work.

I'm aiming to update this blog on a weekly basis. It will consist of some of the activities that we've done in lessons (handy if you miss one), HW tasks, useful webpages etc.

Lesson 1:

We discussed the course outline (see the sidebar for information) and had a brief introduction to your first Controlled Assessment task: The Spoken Language Study.

HW: 2 pieces of HW today I'm afraid! Not very hard, but I do want you to complete them both.

1. Answer the question below and put into the comments box.


2. Write a letter telling me about yourself - handwritten or typed but ON PAPER please.

Due in: Friday 16th September

HW task 1:

Everyday you are placed in a variety of situations that require you to:

• use spoken language e.g. talking to your English teacher about your HW being late


• respond to spoken language e.g. answering a question, asked by a teacher, in front of the class during a lesson


• listen to spoken language e.g. listening to the radio whilst having breakfast

THINK ABOUT YOUR DAY SO FAR AND WRITE DOWN AS MANY DIFFERENT EXAMPLES AS YOU CAN OF THE SPOKEN LANGUAGE THAT YOU HAVE EXPERIENCED.



I look forward to reading your responses! See you tomorrow,

Mrs Roberts