Here is the thing promised in the last piece published. It is just an example. Please note where the paragraphs begin and how. If you want a C grade, do it like this. No lines missed! Typing = lines missed. AQA and WJEC [Welsh Board] Mark Schemes specify this for the C grade.

How Is Discrimination Presented In Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men?

Discrimination can be found in several forms in the novella, Of Mice and Men. It is a story set at the heart of the Twentieth Century Great Depression in America and tells the story of two men, George and Lennie, as they travel from ranch to ranch, to work towards their version of the American Dream.
     Firstly, there is one person on the ranch who is discriminated against by the rest of the people who live and work there. Described as having “full, rouged lips and wide spaced eyes, heavily made up,” she is Curley’s wife. In this novella, she is given no name because Steinbeck wants the reader to feel the plight she finds herself in. By not naming her, he makes the reader more sympathetic towards her. She is the young woman of the ranch, who is ‘owned’ by Curley, her husband, who is described as being “at once, calculating and pugnacious.” Ever the fighter, he is the sort of person who feels as if the place for the woman is in the home, or the kitchen and so, he forces her to a life of loneliness and servitude.
     It is in this loneliness that she reaches out to some of the men on the ranch. By befriending Lennie for example, she encourages the wrath of her husband and her father in Law, the boss and owner of the ranch. “She says that she “ain’t used to livin like this” and that she could have “made somethin” of her life by being an actress in the movies but when her chance came, she was forced into the life she inhabits. She is kept in her place by social expectations and social discrimination at the hands of all around her.
     She in turn, is able to share her discriminatory language and ideas towards another character who is alienated and kept lonely on this typical ranch in Salinas, California. His name is Crooks and he is the Stable Buck. Curley’s wife says to him, “Listen, Nigger…. You know what I can do to you if you open your trap?” This linguistic racism was so prevalent at the time in America and the word was used widely as a term of insult from white to black Americans across their land, but it also shows how Curley’s wife is able to discriminate downwards towards the one person who is seen by all as being lower than she is; the Stable Buck [blacksmith].
     He in turn is able to share his discriminatory thoughts towards others. He claims that “a coloured man got to have some rights even if he don’t like them.” This is his way of showing just how stuck he is in his lifestyle. His only option is to live and work where he does and take the attitudes of the people around him. But he is equally cruel in his thoughts too, showing that racism, along with sexism and other forms of discrimination, can go hand in hand to create the antithesis [look this one up please] of the American Dream.
     Furthermore, the way that Lennie is treated by all except Carlson and George, except to a certain extent, Curley’s wife, shows how much people with academic delay will always be the butt end of someone’s joke. Lennie is described as “a huge man, shapeless of face” and he walks with the gait of someone with special needs. He travels with George from ranch to ranch and at each turn there is someone who tries to be bombastic  and nasty with him, picking on him because of his size and needs.
     Such discrimination is inherently nasty in any context but the bully in question, Curley, chooses to treat Lennie like he does because of his size and strength. His attitude is one of “the bigger they are, the harder they fall” and he goes out of his way to prove his worth with Lennie, to his own pained experience. When his wife is accidentally killed by Lennie, it is Curley who stresses that he is “gonna shoot the guts out of that big bastard,” showing his hatred and loathing of the man in question.
     In conclusion, it is possible to stress how so many people can be so discriminatory towards each other. Largely, this is due to jealousy of person, location of the ranch, the way that one person is expected to stay where they are all their life or simply because one person thinks they are better than the next. The concept of The American Dream is one that is therefore, flawed in every possible way, due in fact to the idea that the notion itself is not achievable!

RJ 04/2016

I was asked into a school recently for a trial day to see if I wanted to teach in there and whilst I was there, I observed a lesson with a Year 11 group, who were just being shown how to answer such a question as this: How is discrimination presented in Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men? It was sub-labelled as the WJEC ‘Longer Question’ which suggests one thing and one thing only; the writing of one long, detailed essay on the subject matter.

Now before I go one step further, I think I need to say a few things before I show you how to answer it, as I have with other previous styles of question/task on this site. The first is that to give this to a Y11 group in March of the academic year is tantamount to failure on the school’s part. This sort of thing should be covered in Years 9 and 10 so that the students have the ability and practice to be able to use their skills properly and wisely as they attempt such a tricky answer.

Next, from what I saw of the group, it was quite ‘mixed’ in its ability and so this title needed rethinking a little. Perhaps they could have gone for the theme of ‘The American Dream,’ or some such other theme than this? Discrimination is something we think we know about, but when it comes to writing about how it is presented, or the effects on the reader, is very difficult indeed, especially if someone wants a C grade or higher, even for the ‘easier’ Welsh Board [itself a fallacy of an ideal].

Now, imagine having this one given and you think to yourself, okay I know what a PEE Chain is [the school had never taught this apparently!!!] and you know from my input here to add a D section, for Development [of ideas] into deeper understanding, but then imagine getting that question or task and then you will imagine what I saw on the faces of the students there.

So, how do we apply ourselves to the necessary quotes needed for this task? Well, the teacher and staff threw a single sheet of A4 paper the way of the students and expected them to know what to do with it. Here below, for your perusal now, are the two sides of one A4 page.

Working across the top, you see headers like ‘Dreams’ and ‘Sexism’ or ‘Life of a ranch hand.’ The going down the page, below the word ‘Discrimination’ in this one, you get some quotes you can use. Now this is a good idea for any teacher to do, but please, if you are a teacher, find another, easier way to present this information, for not everyone is good at reading grids like this. Think, for God’s sake, about your ‘variety’ of students for once. So page 1 has 5 quotes, which to me suggests at least 5 PEED chain paragraphs, but to get the real depth in there, I would ask and want 10 paragraphs. The problem that then comes is this is a timed exercise, so 5 may only just be realistic in the long run.

On page 2, overleaf, we then see 7 character names; Lennie, George, Candy, Slim etc. Under Slim;s for example, we see that there is a quote saying that ‘Slim’s opinions were law.’ [p72] Again, a good idea to do this kind of thing, but in my opinion, the students should have, through Y10 and Y11, been able to secure 3 quotes for each character that show us something of the man himself and his thoughts/actions. Again, how to present such information is something that you as a teacher need to think about very closely. The success and lifestyle of the students in your care are vitally important; screw this up at this time in their lives and you mess up their chances of being who and what they want.

So, now imagine that you as a student get this, in March and you are told to have a go at this in class. I for one would be looking at the clock immediately but this is how I think you should answer it.

1. You HAVE to use PEED Chains throughout.
2. Your first sentence should mirror the question [Discrimination is presented in a number of ways in the novella, Of Mice and Men [yes teachers, it is a novella, not a novel, as was being taught in that school; I could not get my breath that day]!
3. Once the first sentence is down, use a DISCOURSE MARKER to begin the first detailed paragraph. Do it as I have taught on here before now. Maybe get 2 paragraphs down for your first point and do 2 for each of the points.
4. Choose 3 ideas to write about so that the 5 point plan of INTRO, POINT 1, POINT 2, POINT 3 and CONCLUSION can be adopted.
5. Stick to them like glue as well.
6. Indent your HAND WRITTEN paragraphs as well. If you miss a line, like you are typing it, like I have had to here, you will NOT get the C grade, because the Mark Scheme [the thing the marker uses to award points and grades] says so. No lines missed.
7. Once you have maybe 6 paragraphs, after the first bit, write your conclusion and ANSWER THE QUESTION or you stand the chance of it all not making sense. God forbid that should happen. Your B or C grade may just have become a D grade overall.
8. At the end, check through your work and cross out WITH ONE SINGLE RULER LINE any words that are wrong and amend as necessary. Tipex is not allowed and crossings out should be avoided at all costs.

Now that you have the thing done, along with all other answers and tasks, you should get at least a C grade, if not higher. Whether or not you will, of course, will be up to your skills used on the day.

Have a look now, at the 2 sheets of A4. Download them and print them if necessary. Choose 3 ideas or ways someone is discriminated against and list them. Then find 3 quotes to support your ideas. Highlight them. With that done, have a go at answering the question.

I will take some time now to write you an answer to this question and post it later in the month, to give you a chance to have a go at this task for writing practice.

Happy Hunting!

Have a look at the following picture. It is taken from the Edexcel GCSE English course currently running in schools and colleges throughout the country, or indeed the world.

There are several things there to wrestle with, especially the written and spoken language components, but what about the reading section, the AO2?

AO2 says “students must  explain, comment on and analyse how writers use language and structure to achieve effects and influence readers, using relevant subject terminology to support their views.” That sounds a right mouth full at first glance, but if you split it up, you get something that leads the student towards their final 2 exams where they will have to write in this style. Now remember, in this syllabus, one exam involves 19th Century literature and the other 20th Century non-lit studies. Therefore, I see the need to split these two ideas when covering these aspects in class. One half of the lesson may be lit based, with the rest being non-lit, or one lesson on each. It all depends on how many hours you have each week.

Let me try to explain further what I mean. This is how I would plan it all, at first glance. Two strands of work. One based on the 19th Century Lit requirement and the other on 20th Century non-lit. Through both, I would expect to see students broadening their skills in things like transactional writing; letters, diaries etc, as well as writing to analyse. The saying ‘practice makes perfect’ rings true every time. But the emphasis for me, would have to be on how to actually cover AO2.

Now, if we split up the AO2 comment, we see the following:

STUDENTS MUST EXPLAIN

STUDENTS MUST COMMENT ON

STUDENTS MUST ANALYSE

With these things in mind, you have to think about how these three things will be covered, taught and acted upon. Explanation of something needs to be clear and to the point. If a teacher brings in a copy of the “I Have A Dream” speech by Martin Luther King Jr, asking for an analysis on it, then the first thing to do is explain its context. When I was in training, the key thing being taught was “social and historical context” of a text. Therefore, I would expect to see a student writing about the struggles in America that brought about this speech.

Then the students need to make comment on the thing itself. The first section is explaining context. This section is all about personal thought, but please remember those PEE [D] chains again. They have not gone away and never will. If you make a comment, then follow it up, or embed into it, a quote from the text, before going into any further explanation.

Then, with those two sections covered, the student needs to actually analyse the text. Now, if it was the Dream Speech, my analysis would involve the use of Americanisms, of local language, or repetition, of style and emotive language, to name but just a few. So with these three elements included in a written analysis, one would expect a student to pass well in this reading section.

But, consider this; AO2 is only 15% of the final GCSE programme. This is where points could be won or lost in the exam, leading to an expected C grade becoming a D grade and a very emotional student [let alone the teacher].

So, the student needs to write these three things, in these three ways, upon reading a text. When I did my GCSE in 1991-2, my teacher, Steve P, gave us work to do in class so we could apply those three strands mentioned above. He gave us newspaper reports, journals, medical posters, adverts, really anything he could find. We would then be taught how to write using the three strands mentioned and each week, we would have a homework to complete. He would mark them out of 20. My first one was a 13, based on a poem. I then wanted a 15 and got one. He then encouraged us all to go a point higher. I got the 16, then the 17, then the 18, the 19 and I remember sitting there, thinking what the hell do I have to do to get a 20?

So I asked him. My spelling mistakes [at the time] were repetitively annoying so I brushed up on them using f7 on the computer for words like SEP -A – RATE and finally, I got the 20. Now these were elements to my coursework, so I ended up with 45% before I sat an exam. 50% was a C grade so I was fortunate. In the same way, I would set work like Steve did, with homework, to be marked out of 20 [just for personal and student use] so that a student can see their progression, as I did. Encouraging that element of competitiveness is important!

Now you are thinking I have forgotten something. No I haven’t. The AO2 goes on to say that this writing, explaining, commenting and analysing, needs to look at “how writers use language and structure to achieve effects and influence readers, using relevant subject terminology to support their views.”

Here is where the teacher’s creativity comes into play. How do you use language to influence someone? How do you structure what you say to someone? What effect are you wanting to achieve? If you go on social media and write something derogatory about an actor, then what effect are you wanting to achieve? Think like this and writing about such things, such texts, is suddenly very easy.

The last bit, about “using relevant subject terminology,” is all about those wonderful technical elements that are to be found in my Glossary of Terms, found here on this site. Search for it and see. If Martin Luther King Jr says something three times, then he is using rule of three, repetition, possibly alliteration and an emotive style of language. There are four points there, to followed with four short quotes and then, as you are writing, you get the chance to extend yourself, stretching your thoughts, ideas and analysis of a text.

It does not matter what the text is. Each one is written and created for a reason, so remember again those three words mentioned elsewhere: AUDIENCE, FORM & PURPOSE. When you remember those, suddenly you have a focus to your writing.

Now, a little task for you is to select your own text, from a non-lit perspective. Then, write an analysis of it and post it back onto the Facebook page attached to this website. Let us all share in how we make the changes needed as we begin to study [and teach] this new linear style of GCSE.

God bless.

RJ

There have been times in the past, especially as a new teacher and even in training, where I have been asked to teach something like a lesson on ‘Similes and Metaphors.’ Those lessons still haunt me to this day because similes are easy. Most of you know and understand them well, but when it comes to understanding and locating a metaphor in writing, more or less nine out of ten students will scratch their heads, give that bemused look and say “Huh” when asked to do so. As a teacher, you walk away thinking “try again.”

So, here is a little pictorial idea for you to help you memorize it.

Think about what is written on this soldier’s helmet. 3 little words to describe war. 3 short words that are so accurate as well, I am sure. 3 words that are a metaphor.

If they were a simile it would say something like, “war is like a version of hell.” The words “like a” make it a simile.

But “War is Hell” merges the two ideas together to create one, rather than comparing them. The “War is hell” one is easy to spot though, so maybe we need to stretch you a little here?

Another example therefore, might be “the traffic was murder this morning.” Clearly, this is the same principle as before with the war one. There are two images, of a city full of cars trying to get to work and a murder scene. Mix the two together [rather than comparing them] and you get a metaphor. Easy.

Now, things get more stranger. Try this one for size.

Capital isn’t in the stock market–it’s in what we stock for ourselves. No one’s going to throw us a line until they see how good of a boat we can or could build.

Where is the metaphor there? It is a harder one to spot for sure. For a start the first sentence begins with a negative up to the hyphen [-] and then adds to itself for detail. Has the metaphor been seen yet?

No.

If you then read the next sentence you notice two images again that are being brought together. There are no references to “like a” so no similes here. But two images that are being merged in a way, those of being thrown “a line” and “a boat we can … build.”

The trick is to see the two images in your head. Do not worry if this seems hard. It is hard. This is one of the hardest things in GCSE English, but get this right and the rest is a cake walk. [Did you see what I did there even without intent?]

2 images, a line being thrown and a boat being built. Look back to the sentence again that they came from and you will see “No one’s going to throw us a line until they see how good of a boat we can or could build.” 

So now, you are ready to write about the metaphor. How do you do that? Well, you use your PEE [D] chains mentioned before and mention the effect it has on the reader. Beware though, for there may be more than one effect for we all see things differently. Throwing a line can be a fishing term as well, for example. Below is how I view the metaphor mentioned:

Capital isn’t in the stock market–it’s in what we stock for ourselves. No one’s going to throw us a line until they see how good of a boat we can or could build.

The writer uses a metaphor here [point made] to compare the difference between a banker’s attitude to giving help to a client [further point made] and their offer of help itself. In using the term “throw us a line” [evidence used] the writer paints an initial picture in the mind of the reader of a line being hauled from a ship, but the desired effect is that the reader should respond positively because this is a term for giving someone financial help when they are in need. . By then using the term “until they see how good a boat” [further evidence used – second part of metaphor] a person can build, they are making the reader merge the two images to create an immediate and direct meaning. [further point made]. In doing this, [development to follow] this allows the reader to see not only the fact that one has to speculate to accumulate, but also that lenders will assist where prudent finances exist. [end of PEE chain]. 

Now, with all those brackets, that is not an easy paragraph to read, but I added them to help you see what the marker/teacher has to look for. Without all these elements in, you are not hitting the C grade mark, let alone a higher mark.

Now you have a go at writing a PEE [D] chain for this metaphor. It is a statement by the artist, Pablo Picasso. Add it to our Facebook page.

Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.

I spent a night in a local hospital recently and was distracted by a wonderful, elderly lady who had the Doctors and the Nurses running around. It was an interesting experience and it made me write this….

Can you note the error I have made, on purpose?

The Rambler!

Edith was always the adventurous child! Precocious in every way, she was the darling of the afternoon tea party, the belle of the ball; the pearl of great value for so many admiring young men, as well as a few older ones to boot. Whatever she turned her hand to, it became an instant success!
  She was admired and revered by all who met her, most notably her family, apart, that is, from her father! He was the one exception to the rule, the one man in her life who she had not allowed to break her, no matter how hard he tried. The first time he had tried was when she was four! He believed in sparing the rod instead of spoiling the child, so the young Edith, with her firm grasp on the hierarchy of their family, knew to fight him at every turn.
  There were times when he won, or more likely, she let him win and others, where she had been the victor and in her triumph, had let him know about it. He was never able to master her defiance and even after his passing, she had taken particular delight in organising the funeral.
  When he died, she was in her forties and in her prime of life; vibrant, assured and determined to live a single life in a good manner that is best described as care free, but careful to help others where necessary but then came a day that would change her life forever, a day so momentous that from that moment on, life was bound to change and for the better, for up to that point she felt as if she was happy but from that day, she would find true joy. The day was her birthday, the 22nd of November and she was asked by a work colleague at the office where she worked, to go to the local football stadium to listen to an American evangelistic preacher, called Billy Graham.
  She had gone out of pure intrigue. Her friend, Veronica, had asked her because she enjoyed going to church. Veronica was in her late forties herself, a similar age to Edith but there was a major difference between the two. Veronica was the one who exhibited all the joy in the office, even though she was on the bottom rung of the ladder when it came to being seen as important. Edith had asked herself on several occasions what it was that Veronica had in her life, which she did not have. What caused it? What was the reason, her raison d’etre? There had to be an answer! Veronica had hinted that at this event, she would most likely find out.
  As soon as that tall American man had called people forward, she felt her legs moving without being told to. It was as if they gained a life of their own, as if something was drawing her forward onto that pitch, a need to be there in the mix of change and decay, death and life! From that point on her life was different. It made a difference in the lives of others less fortunate than herself. She was the epitome of the middle class, middle aged woman of God who grew in faith and whose works were seen as commonplace and effective.
  She had been working in the office for some time when she met Charles. He was in another team and occasionally placed his head around the corner of her section of the office when the need arose. His was always a welcome visit, for it took her from the mundane of her work and gave her something different to do, a problem to solve. She took to these challenges with gusto and revelled in them, in the chance to make a difference once more. This, for her, was an extension of her home life, where she had lived in her two bedroomed flat until Charles had proposed and then lived with him, married in a blissful relationship with him.
  They lived happily until his death at the age of eighty four. She was two years behind him in age so the loss and the grief was too much for her and her mental capacity began to suffer. That is when the Doctors saw her in her confused state and decided to give her more care in her house, the home she had made for herself and her family; two sons and one daughter. The level of care grew until she was at the point where they were thinking of placing her into a care home near to where she lived. Her little family had grown up, married, each with children and had left the area, each living a distance away from her in her old age. It was something that ate at her brain, something that made her feel lonely and something that in the end, turned her once functioning mind into a mire of thoughts and emotions. One minute she could be fully lucid and working the crossword. At other times, she was confused and would most likely be seen doing the gardening in her night dress at three in the afternoon.
  The last straw for the social workers and her family was her walk to her daughter’s house! This happened just before Christmas 2015 and was to be the means to the end in choosing her final residential setting, for she set off at 3am in the morning, dressed only in her slippers, a night gown and a dressing gown. The walk was five miles in total to someone who knew where she was going, but her daughter, Kathryn, had moved house some time before this, leaving Edith confused and alone. This night, she was all alone, back lit by the moon and the stars around her and obliviously happy, until the rain came. She walked for about two miles and was well on her way to her daughter’s house when her good Samaritan stepped in to assist.
  As she got to the end of a street that intersected with another, a driver in a car saw her, pulled over and asked her where she was going. She was only able to say that she was going to see Kathryn, so the driver said he would take her there and as soon as she was safely in his car, the young man phoned for the Police, who rushed to meet him before driving her to the nearest hospital, where the Accident and Emergency teams were able to treat her now severely problematic needs. She was hypothermic, shivering, filthy and wet through as she entered the hospital.
  Safely ensconced in her hospital bed, she warmed up and became more lucid but at this point, the only person who knew who she was was Edith herself. This was to be the first problem that the Doctors and Nurses had to overcome. The other five members of the ward that she was on were treated to a series of hilarious encounters between Edith and the nursing team. She was able to give them her name and the fact she lived in a nearby town, but for four hours, there was a search on to find out who she was and only in the early hours of the morning did they finally locate where on earth Edith had come from.
A neighbour had seen her leave her home, wondered just what on earth was happening and decided to investigate. When she realised that Edith had given her the slip, she returned home and rang the local Police. They in turn, sent out officers to search and eventually the right kind of connections were made and Edith’s family were contacted.
  Seeing them arrive one by one into the ward made me chuckle. It made a night when I had a suspected heart attack a night to remember but not for the reasons one would normally assume when it comes to heart failure. Each time someone came to her bed, Edith would answer them with a comment and a chuckle, trying to laugh it off. She was such a darling, a reassuring and comical distraction in a time when fear was foremost and thoughts of death made one think of all the bad things that can invade the mind. I can only describe her as the Grandma that I lost so long ago come back to life, or the memory aid in my life, sent to show me that there is more to life than I thought.
  So, this story is written to secure Edith’s name and memory in the annals of time as she departs this mortal coil some day, for she showed in one unforgettable night this English teacher just how important life really is. I have changed her name for obvious reasons, but the memory of all those people around her bed, some whom were strangers and others not, who were looking after her, made me think. To me, they represented how we should always look out for each other. Then, when her family were found and they flew to her bedside, they showed me the importance of family and the love that exists in the world to make the world a better place.
  And finally, there were five others in the story, who can never be forgotten, all listening from their beds, representing the people Edith may have never met and said hello to, but who take an interest in her situation that she is in. Perhaps as you read this story, you too may look out onto the streets of your life, considering those out there who are new to you, those out there who are family and then try and find a way of sharing that love. Only then will we make a better stab at making this world of ours a better place to live.

Rob Johnson

January 2016

Catch Me If You Can – Creative Writing Task

Okay, imagine once again that you get this, or something like it, based on a film. It is a creative writing assessment. We as teachers, or those who are as ancient as me, will know this sort of task as a piece of ‘Original Writing.’ It is a [600-word] diary extract, or monologue [see my other blog piece on this website, called ‘Monologues and how to write them’] and is one of the most enjoyable assessments you are likely to have to do simply because you can be creative, cheeky and humorous.

One would think, as a teacher, that the group of students have seen the film before getting this task. If someone had not seen the film before the assessment then said students would not know what to do or how to write this task.

The task

Apologies for the cut-off of one word. This is how I received it.

Notes on the film

• Catch Me If You Can stars Tom Hanks and Leo DiCaprio
• It tells the tale of Frank Abagnale Jr [true story – Google it]
• Young Frank sees his Mum and Dad divorce in the 60s [I think]
• He runs away and forges a cheque [it was a lot easier then to do that than now]
• He does this again and again and again and for over a decade is chased by the FBI
• His attitude is one of CATCH ME IF YOU CAN
• In the end, he is caught and serves a lot of time in jail in America
• The anti-fraud department who caught him use him to develop their skills
• Eventually, he is freed on licence and has to serve his time working for the FBI
• If he flees the country, he will be caught and serve his time in jail
• Eventually, his time served, he comes to work for the FBI and is a major cause of the things that banks now have in place to stop fraud. Those things you take for granted each day were put in place by him
• This is a TRUE STORY and is widely available on the Internet

The Task

You now have to prepare a 600-word diary account about a new scam/fraud he has dreamed up. Now on face value, that sounds okay, but what is the ‘scam’ to be? That is the hard part. If you are honest, law abiding, then you will not have a clue. So what kind of frauds are there [considering this is set in the 1960s]? This is where Mr Google comes in.

If you type “cheque fraud in the 1960s” into Google, you are likely to get the first link appear as a pdf. If not, then use the link below…

http://www.chequeandcredit.co.uk/files/candc/press/04_cheques_&_cheque_clearing_-_an_historical_perspective_v11_(may11).pdf

I advise you to download this. It will tell you of some of the things you may then be able to use, in your own words of course. For heaven’s sake, do not copy bits of this word for word. Rehash the ideas and use them.

You simply HAVE to try to be as cheeky as Frank Abagnale Jr in your writing. This is where seeing the film is a good thing so if you have Netflix or Now TV, then get the thing watched before you do this writing, or even before preparing it.

So, let us now say that you have watched the film and that you have seen the task and have prepared some ideas about frauds that did happen. You find on the Internet, the ‘pdf’ mentioned below and you use an idea from it. Which one do you use? The answer is up to you but if this was me preparing for this assessment, then I would see the picture below on page 13 of 50 of the pdf I mentioned and jump for joy…

The reason is that there is a reference to a machine there and Frank used machines he bought from the money he stole by cashing cheques to write new cheques. I would see the picture above and see that there was a Recordak Microfilm Apparatus used in the UK by banks for cheques that had been lost.

This is the way my brain works….

1. If Frank bought machines then he would buy one of these
2. So he goes and buys one when a bank closes and sells off its stuff [see the film for a scene where this happens]
3. He then uses it to create cheques that are supposed to be ones lost but have not even been written yet
4. He tries it out and it is successful but he does it in banks that are in different parts of the USA
5. He manages to steal $50,000 as a result
6. And then he writes it down [this is where the task fails because he wouldn’t do this for fear of being caught]

Your task, should you choose to accept it, is to write the thing.

Now go and have a go. Be as creative as possible. Write it in PAST TENSE because it has already happened. But please note this: there will be other things in that pdf that you could use so if your teacher sees 32 of these all mentioning a Recordak device, then she will know 31 of you have cheated and disqualify the lot of you if you write something that is simply copying.

Do not forget that this task, when you come to write it, should take 80 minutes. I would prepare it so that it took me 60 minutes; to make sure I can get this done. 600 words of type is one page. 600 words of handwriting is more like 2-3 pages. Planning is vital for your success.

As the Balkan man says in the film ‘Taken,’ “good luck!”

Spoken English Component

Sometimes, we teachers can over think something when it comes to assessments.

When it comes to the spoken language component here is an example, that I was handed today by a former student of mine, who has a friend from Kurdistan, who is doing GCSE English language this year.

This is the controlled assessment he received recently.

[I would complain if I was a student and got this as a Controlled Assessment].

Here it is.

The key words in the initial title are “language features” which need to be discussed in detail by anyone writing an answer to this one. So what does that mean? Well, it means how language features, such as ellipsis and fillers are used. There is usually a transcript given at this point.

Here it is below.

The man speaking is the actor Ray Winston. For those who have no clue, here is a picture.

Now he has been around the block in terms of acting, usually playing the thug, or the killer. He is known for playing the hard man roles and has made a living doing so, becoming famous as a result. He is a Cockney, one who is born under the geography of the Bow bells in East London and conventionally is known to be “a bit of a geezer” when it comes to his style of speaking and living. He is one of my favourite actors mainly because he brings an honesty and the use of real language to films. When he swears, it seems natural and not convoluted in any way.

Back to the assessment. Here are some notes the student received. Have a look at them and check out the way the teacher expects the student to answer the questions or complete the task set.

Are you confused yet? I was when I looked at these items. The first look is sometimes where confusion comes. It can be a time when you scratch your head and wonder what is happening, as if you have been given something in a different language. For this student, who is from Kurdistan, who will speak another Mother Tongue, other than English, this would be a terrible assessment to choose.

Imagine how hard learning another language would be and then try to add in this assessment. I would have no clue if I was a student in Kurdistan doing this in his Mother Tongue.

Bravo that man!

So, how do you write an answer to this one? With all this information, there seems to be one thing missing; the context. What the hell is “Luke’s English Podcast?” Is it radio because of the word “audio?” Is it television because of the words “chat show?” Because there is not enough information given, it is impossible to determine the full social context, so I am assuming it is a television chat show. This would explain Winston’s use of profanity [swear words]. It would also suggest how comfortable he feels when speaking. Here, he is much at ease with himself, leading to the use of the swear word.

So, with context, one can begin.

One of these sheets gives us a chance to write some detailed stuff about Ray Winston. I would avoid that in any detail. I would do it, but only in passing. I would want to get my PEE [D] chains going as soon as possible into the essay. Quotes prove what you are saying is true. If they can be ‘proven’ from the text, your answer is correct. So go for it, big time, to answer the question or complete the task. The trick is to write this and add key words in from the transcript. They are your “Evidence” required in the essay to gain full marks.

Then there is a short section about the ‘language features’ such as ‘fillers’ and the effect they have on the speaker and the audience; this is where I would write in detail for this is where the points are to be had. That is where you can really go to town on the use of pauses (.) and explain how he is thinking the words before he is saying them, how he is being careful so as not to wander off the track of the story. It could also suggest that in the Green Room, the room where the television crew prepare the guests, there is usually a lot of alcohol and Mr Winston may have had a few, so the pauses may be commensurate with drunkenness.

The word counts given are a guesstimate for the writer, but they are also useful. If you was to go for the throat of number 1 on these sheets, you could avoid numbers 2, 3 and 4, or write a lot on 1, but then try to squeeze 2, 3 and 4 in at the end. Each one needs to be of roughly equal length. The suggestion is a 1200 word assessment that has to be hand written in controlled style in a period of 80 minutes.

Good luck with that one!

The Moment

The moment when, after many years
of hard work and a long voyage
you stand in the centre of your room,
house, half-acre, square mile, island, country,
knowing at last how you got there,
and say, I own this,

is the same moment when the trees unloose
their soft arms from around you,
the birds take back their language,
the cliffs fissure and collapse,
the air moves back from you like a wave
and you can’t breathe.

No, they whisper. You own nothing.
You were a visitor, time after time
climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming.
We never belonged to you.
You never found us.
It was always the other way round.

Analysis

Have you ever questioned your own perceptions?

If so then you will read this poem in a certain way. That is the joy of poetry for me, that three different people can say “this poem is about…” and each one be correct in their assumptions because of their life experience. Poetry is a living thing and should always be treated as such. This is why we write about a poem as if it is still living, in the present tense, using words like “this poem IS about” rather than “this poem WAS about…” If you want to get the A grade or higher, learn this one fact.

Back to the perceptions.

Our thoughts are important. They are important to our life. They shape who we are and how we act and react to different stimuli. So when something happens that shakes us to the core, we have to rethink our thoughts and perceptions about life. To me, that is what this poem is about, a “moment” in life when “after so many years,” we come to a blinding realisation that what we thought about this or that, was in fact, a lie.

If we go verse by verse, as usual, then we will see this, but take specific note about the tenses used in the poem as we do. The first line begins without tense, misleading as ever and very cleverly laid down. The word “after” denotes a possible tense that is coming, like looking back over so many years. Is this an example of future tense? I doubt it. Line three is in fact, the first example of a tense, when we see the word “stand.” This is present tense. [stood = past tense etc]

So, after a long voyage, or a lifetime of living, one comes to a realisation, standing there in your room, that what you thought was right and good is in fact a false realisation. You stand there, “in the centre of your own room” or “house,” in other words wherever you call home, thinking and “knowing at last how you got there.” This is the moment in time when you know fully how and why you are where you are. In essence, this existential knowledge comes only by experience. As you stand there you think you “own this,” moment in your life and that you alone have been in control all your life.

You feel good about it. You feel as if you have been successful in life, that your efforts have been worth it, but then, as you think this, you begin to realise just what a load of rubbish this really is. Now for a 16 year old student, who has little experience in life and has little experience in studying, this poem will be too much like hard work. One needs a few years under the belt for this one to hit home, or some really tough experiences as a child. Realising in that “moment” that life is not all it is “cracked up to be” is something that comes with time.

So, that false realisation makes us realise that the “moment” we think of is in fact “the same moment when the trees unloose their soft arms” and we begin to see something else. Is this line about death? Could this poem be taken this way, to reflect that all this is happening at death? Possibly, but as stated earlier, three different readings can give three different responses. The whole second verse seems to be leading towards the demise of the protagonist because of words like “the air moves back from you like a wave,” offering a simile and metaphor to reflect death in pure beauty. Air moves back from you, in a way, when you die.

Words like “collapse” are also indicative of death and decay. Coupled with “you can’t breathe” such words bring the reader to the point where they see that in life, whatever this person has thought has now been set in place by death, or by the very thought of it. What is then left is the thought of what is actually the truth behind the greatest adventure we face; life itself. These cliffs and waves that are mentioned “whisper” to us saying “you own nothing.” That is a very definite statement indeed, for we are only here on this earth for a short time. If the earth has been here for millions of years and we only live on average for “three score and ten,” then seventy years is nothing in comparison.

So now the reader is left with a feeling that they “own nothing,” being made to see that whatever they did in life was just their way of saying it was theirs, but what is the truth of the matter is that they [we] were “just a visitor” in this life. Everything that we hold dear will not last. Everything comes to an end. We never “found” things because things find us. That is what the poem is saying.

Notice now the use of the tense in the word “were.”

The poet says “you were a visitor.” This for me, is important because it makes us as readers think back over our life [in my case 54 years of life, marriage, children, career, joyous times, sad times etc] and see that what we think we owned was in fact given to us on loan for a brief span. We do not own the land. We do not own each other. We do not even own life itself, for it is given to us [by whoever or whatever] and we take what we can from it for the betterment of humanity.

So, as the poet suggests, we may go about “planting the flag,” making our mark in the soil of earth [or even the moon], we may proclaim that we have lived a life that has been full of things we have owned, but in the end, the message is simple; life speaks back and says “it was always the other way around.”

Does this suggest that we humans have got something wrong? If so, then what? Is it that we need to stop hating, coveting [look it up], lusting for power and that we need to be more loving towards each other? Is this poem saying that we need to be more careful with the world’s resources? We own nothing so be more careful with what we have got? Possibly so. In the end, what comes from reading this poem has to be that what we consider to be the truth, to be real, and factual and accurate is in fact, a false realisation, so we should consider our perceptions when we consider the life we live.

Spellbound – EJ Bronte

The night is darkening round me,
The wild winds coldly blow;
But a tyrant spell has bound me,
And I cannot, cannot go.

The giant trees are bending
Their bare boughs weighed with snow;
The storm is fast descending,
And yet I cannot go.

Clouds beyond clouds above me,
Wastes beyond wastes below;
But nothing drear can move me:
I will not, cannot go.

Analysis

Let me ask you a little bit of a rhetorical question and let you decide what the answer will be; if this poem was about you, what would it be about?

The answer to that question will dictate just how you write about this short little poem. If you are of a spiritual nature, then you may write about death. If you are interested in the way nature enfolds around us, how it enables us to love and to live, then you may write about something entirely different, but at the end of the day, the true meaning of this poem rests on something that I was taught in my studies, about how as readers we need to consider the social and historical context of this poem.

Social and historical context? To what does this refer? Well, it is the social and historical context of the day when written, but the joy of literature is that over time, meaning can change as society changes and as beliefs change. Thus it may be the case with this poem as well.

Bronte was born in 1818 and died in 1848 aged just 30, when mortality rates were lower; in other words, when people died younger than they do now. She wrote in a time when it is perceived that people in society were more religious and the UK was more solely Christian than it is now. Now I am not too sure if that is an accurate depiction of life at that time because the history books are littered with lies and falsehoods, where the victor writes down what will then be considered to be the truth about those times. Who are we to know if people went to church or prayed more back then, than they do now? Yes, records show that to be the truth, but records can be distorted to show a ‘better age,’ a ‘bygone era’ that is somehow considered to be better than today.

So, we need to consider what it may have meant to a reader back then, over 200 years ago, and then consider just what it might mean for us reading it today. As we unpack this little gem, we do so with bifocals on, crossing the boundaries of time as we read on.

So, line 1 says that “the night is darkening round me,” which may suggest that either night has come where day once was, or if read as metaphor, then it reflects that the light is beginning to extinguish itself from her body as the point of death approaches. When we die, there is that sense that we are drifting off into something quite ethereal. Those of us who have been brought back from the brink of death by paramedics, will say that the time just before one loses consciousness is one that is spellbinding in every manner, at times too beautiful to contemplate. It certainly was for this writer!

So as the night is darkening we then read on into the next line and see a bit more, another snippet of information for us to work out, where we read “the wild winds coldly blow.” This use of alliteration helps the reader to feel the emotion being expressed here, the sense of cold as we shiver out our final breath. The sense of wildness about all of this suggests someone who is unsure in her faith, for one who was confident in going to heaven would anticipate the bright lights and warmth of heaven rather than coldness.

The next two lines however, show us why the person feels as if she is “spellbound,” or bound by a spell that keeps her here for she “cannot go” to where she believes she is going next. The word “tyrant” is a strong one indeed, one that denotes or even implies the Devil being the one who has cast the spell in the first place. A worse or deeper understanding might be that someone here on earth has cast the woman in a spell keeping her here on earth. If this is your thought too then the suggestion of witchcraft at play has to be adopted.

I however, take the approach that the “tyrant spell” is one that has been set there by the one person who Bronte would have undoubtedly believed in; Satan himself. It is something that is avoided in modern understanding of ancient poetry but one that has to be taken on board, even if not believed. I did say there was the ‘then’ approach and the ‘now’ approach when reading these old poems.

So, the woman feels that even in the throes of death, she cannot go, cannot depart this earth, or as Shakespeare might add, cannot “shuffle off this mortal coil.” But what then follows? Where we have seen the darkness of night approaching, we now see “the giant trees [that] are bending” in the night as the wild winds sway but these “bare boughs [are] weighed with snow.” There is more than a coldness being shared here, for if the natural elements are not cold enough, the introduction of snow compounds the deep seated feeling of despair at the person about to lose their life. Indeed, the use of the words “the storm is fast descending” show us that there is trouble brewing, where the passing of a person from this life to the next can be seen in terms of storms, but still this person “cannot go.” At this point as I am reading this, I am thinking to myself does the person actually want to go? Does the person want to die? Or is there a sensation that there is still work to do here on earth?

If my interpretation is correct then one then has to ask have I got something special I should be doing still in my life? Now if my answer to this is yes, then I am left with a dilemma where my body wants life to end, but my mind and my spirit do not. Now that would be a true dilemma, a spellbinding problem that needs fixing.

Finally, notice before now it has been a case of the night, the wind, the trees and the boughs that have been over her? Now it is the “clouds beyond [and] clouds above [her]” that make for the final stanza of the poem. Clouds are generally wispy when there is wind. Clouds are ethereal and spooky so to feel that clouds are “wastes beyond [and] wastes below” does show us a person who sees the oncoming storm, the prospect of death as something that for most people would be all consuming, all engulfing, but that for this person, “nothing drear can move” her forward.

Let me ask one last question and your answer will dictate how you read the last line of the poem; do we have control over death? In the poem, Bronte says she “will not, cannot go.” This suggests that we have a control over death but when our time comes, we do not. Yes we can fight it. And yes, we can breathe in our last breath and accept what is coming. But total control? No, we do not go in for that do we any more?

So, what is your take on this one? Do you agree with the 1848 rendition of this and other poems of the same ilk or does your modern mind say no to some of these thoughts? As there is no real wrong answer when it comes to literature, especially with poetry, your answer can be a good one.

Enjoy!

A Vision

The future was a beautiful place, once.
Remember the full-blown balsa-wood town
on public display in the Civic Hall.
The ring-bound sketches, artists’ impressions,
blueprints of smoked glass and tubular steel,
board-game suburbs, modes of transportation
like fairground rides or executive toys.
Cities like dreams, cantilevered by light.
And people like us at the bottle-bank
next to the cycle-path, or dog-walking
over tended strips of fuzzy-felt grass,
or motoring home in electric cars,
model drivers. Or after the late show –
strolling the boulevard. They were the plans,
all underwritten in the neat left-hand
of architects – a true, legible script.
I pulled that future out of the north wind
at the landfill site, stamped with today’s date,
riding the air with other such futures,
all unlived in and now fully extinct.

Analysis

Whenever there is a title like this I am led to wonder just what is going on, especially when it comes to my old friend Mr Armitage here. I feel as if I know this man well, after all the years of teaching his poems at GCSE and below and feel that there is a closeness to him for me. I see the words “A Vision,” in bold at the top and think okay, just what does he mean by that? Does he mean the sort of vision that one has of something beautiful, or does he mean that what follows is about somewhere or someone that is simply a vision?

But when I read on, I begin to see just what is happening in the poem. His first line gives us a time frame to work from. He writes that “the future was a beautiful place, once.” When we look back like this we are doing so from the benefit of hindsight [Google to the rescue again?] and so he is possibly being romantic or even sarcastic in his words.

It is as if he is addressing these opening words to someone who is close to him, for he asks the person to “remember the full-blown balsa-wood town” that was “on public display in the Civic Hall.” This would suggest that he is talking about some form of plans that were made up in 3D, alongside a series of “ring-bound sketches, artists’ impressions” and “blueprints of smoked glass and tubular steel.” What is being painted here in the mind is the image of an architect’s plans that are on show.

Alongside such things are “board-game suburbs, modes of transportation like fairground rides or executive toys.” These are the images and the ideas that are being shown here, a sense of something special being viewed, something that would make an improvement to the life of the town or city that they are living in. As such, what becomes true is that cities are “like dreams,” images and metaphors for something brighter and more glorious in the future.

So far so good, with the image of the city of the future, but then the reader sees that there are people involved in this poem, people who are important to that someone who has created this vision of a glorious future for the place he lives in. There are images of people, miniatures who are “dog-walking over tended strips of fuzzy-felt grass.” They portray a sense of the contentedness that living in this utopia can bring and as such, bring hope where there was once despair. They are, in both senses of the word, “model drivers” in someone else’s mind.

But where there is hope, there is also despair because as much as we see someone “strolling the boulevard,” we also see that these plans have been found at the “landfill site,” a scene of decay and decomposition, where all the rubbish that gets scrapped is sent to in order to decompose into compost or some other material. The neatness of the “legible script” is balanced with the image of the landfill as the poet relates how he “pulled that future out of the north wind at the landfill site.”

In essence, this is a poem of two halves, two sides to how we view our hopes and our futures. We can have all the plans in the world but if they are not acted upon, then what are we left with but decay? In the end, says the poet, there are only two choices, invest in the future and make the right decisions, or end up like these plans; “unlived in and now fully extinct.”

How many times have you had a situation where you have had a choice to make? How many times have you created plans for something? Perhaps those plans have come to fruition and you have been successful? But equally so, perhaps they lie on the waste land of our hopes and dreams; that is the nature and the meaning in this poem.