It's Up to You (2)

This is about poetry: specifically if you want to have some of the suggested-for-comparison list put together into a strange little photocopied book. My proposed list:

From Dead Sea Poems by Simon Armitage
On an Owd Piktcha - From the Middle Distance - CV - I Say I Say I Say - Give - Stray - A Sculpture of Christ with Swings and a Slide - A Week and a Fortnight - The Two of Us
From The Other Country by Carol Ann Duffy
In Mrs Tilscher's Class - The Way My Mother Speaks - Translating the English - Originally
From W H Auden
Here war is simple like a monument - Musee des Beaux Arts - O What is That Sound - Spain 1937
From Allen Ginsberg
Howl
From Dreaming Frankenstein by Liz Lochhead
The Beltane Bride - Something I'm Not - Poem on a Day Trip
From Life Mask by Jackie Kay
I Kin see Richt Thru My Mither - Old Tongue - Mid-Life Mask - Two Autumns - African Masks
From The Fat Black Woman's Poems by Grace Nichols
Beauty - The Assertion - The Fat Black Woman Goes Shopping - Invitation - Motto - Tropical Death

Of course, you may have all these individually photocopied already, or not want them anyway, in which case there is no point. So if you would like a strange little book tell me.

It's Up To You

COURSEWORK

DON'T FORGET YOUR TUESDAY DEADLINE. IF YOU HAVEN'T STARTED YOUR NEXT DRAFT, DO IT NOW.

• Pointless imho wasting the class time we have left on coursework, since you will all by this stage either be sailing or you will need individual input. Find me lesson 5 on Thursday or see me and sort out when we're both free. (Are your Wednesday afternoons now available or do they remain timetabled forever?)

MARKING

It is worth familiarising yourself with the marking criteria. If you want I can mock-grade your drafts on Tuesday. The criteria keywords are:

Sophisticated, perceptive and analytical 28-30 (Band 4)

Secure, detailed and systematic 24-27 (Band 4)

Appropriate and effective 20-23 (Band 3)

Relevant, clear 16-19 (Band 3)

I don't want any of you aiming for anything less than this, so I'm not going to encourage you by adding them.

George you should be revising to hit the top of Band 4, rather than middle of second band 4. Fliss: What about "glory" or "holy" for your keyword? Free? So it's more about the key part of the experience? Or "lay it down" cos that was what Baby Suggs said? I keep thinking of "let my people go" but it's been used. Emma: use Baby Suggs's feelings from the beginning of the account - she feels guilty, never blames Sethe; looking back she might talk about her own "pride" in making the feast first because she feels so guilty. And the shoes. Richard I think yours needs to tell a story more clearly. Make Paul D say that he's putting these things away in the tobacco tin. Is it that every time he rolls a cigarette and relaxes these things pop into his head and then he represses them? Also make sure it's laid out as prose, not poetry. Emily remember your structure - about 300 words for the conversation about the party, 300 for seeing the riders and deciding not to do anything about them, and about 300 for the aftermath (going to see / finding out what's happened). All of you - if you get stuck, put a note on here.

• Lesson Times: we may have as many as three, if you are attending classes on 8th May, which raises the question of what we want to do with the time left.
  
  OPTIONS FOR THE LAST THREE FRIDAYS

• You could all prepare revision notes on various themes and share them.
  
• We could go through January's examination paper - I would suggest as a class exercise; work through each section in twos and feed back to the class. Alternatively you could sit it as an exam, or you could take it home, prep. it and use a double to discuss what different people have done.
• We could use one of the interesting non-fiction extracts from the Anthology - I myself favour the particularly funny one about Darwinism, but it might be just too easy - and apply the context question to them.

OTHER STUFF


Do you want to do some extra poetry and/or drama?


We could do an extra class or two on either poetry or drama ie in order to discuss either Endgame or Our Country's Good, or some more poetry.


This requires you both to think and to let me know, as you all need to have read whatever we pick, and I need to set up extra lessons if you actually want them.

Dearly Beloved

Symbolism and Sexuality in Beloved

* If Beloved is symbolic of slavery and the suffering entailed in it, what is happening when the community expel / exorcise her? And why is she still there at the end of the book? Why does Morrison write that "This is not a story to pass on"?

* Sexuality is basically only who people have sex with and with what purpose. How is it represented in Beloved? Consider: Paul D, Sethe, Baby Suggs and Beloved, as well as Sixo and the 30 Mile Woman. Bonus points for anything you can make sense of concerning the turtles and calves. I find the representation of Beloved as reminding Paul D of a calf a bit startling. Any thoughts?

Off you go now and make your first mind map on sexuality; bring in wider reading and how it is represented in that also.

COURSEWORK
Most of you have caught the language and tone very well; ensure that you have something to say in your beautiful prose. Consider what you might be saying in an essay; also consider that any piece of writing has to say something. If it's a bit missed out of the book, it must say something that adds to it.