OIB with MrsC

  My Grandmother My grandmother is like a Scottish pine , tall, straight-backed, proud and plentiful, a fine head of hair, greying now tied up in a loose bun . Her face is ploughed land . Her eyes shine rough as amethysts . She wears a plaid shawl of our clan with the zeal of an Amazon . She is one of those women burnt in her croft rather than moved off the land. She comes from them, her snake’s skin. She speaks Gaelic mostly , English only when she has to, then it’s blasphemy . My grandmother sits by the fire and swears There’ll be no darkie baby in this house My grandmother is a Scottish pine, tall, straight-backed proud and plentiful, her hair tied with pins in a ball of steel wool. Her face is tight as ice and her eyes are amethysts. Copyright © Jackie Kay, Bloodaxe Books, www.bloodaxebooks.com Here is an introductory article , which leads you onto a text about her use of metaphors and similes .  A good poem to go with "My Grandmother" is " My Grandmother's H...

Potential Essay Questions: 1.A.     Explore how Jackie Kay explores one or more of the following themes in her collection Other Lovers (1993) : Time Belonging Family Searching for Oneself Slavery The power of jazz music Slavery   2.   B.   Re act to the following quote :    « In Other Lovers , Kay explores the qualities of love in a variety of relationships, moving from the familiar—parent, child, lover—to the extraordinary, including a sequence on Bessie Smith." Goodreads.com   Key points: No computers, only hand-written work. Open book exam. Write a response with an offset introduction, conclusion and series of paragraphs. You have two hours. If you finish early, hand your paper in. Then you can rest or do homework for another class.

 Keeping Orchids With this poem, I want you to develop your ability to annotate a poem. See this annotated version of Keeping Orchids. Now see the BBC Bitesize file on the poem - it's very useful.

  Task 1: 1. Prepare for one-hour written paper on Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray : Sibyl Gray, theatre scenes, Dorian Gray's family tree.  Task 2: Choose one of the following Jackie Kay three poems (or two poems, if necessary) see photocopy package:  1. Even the Trees (hint: look at /listen to " Strange Fruit " .. but also  the car crash that killed Bessie Smith . 2. The Right Season hint: look at  slavery as business ) 3. The Red Graveyard (hint: look  here ) Hint: Research  Bessie Smith Research the blues, and the slave-trade, and American racism and create a 3 minute presentation  explaining what your poem says to you . What can you see/hear/feel/taste as you are reading? What kind of world are you transported into and what is Kay's speaker saying about that world. Comment on the poetic techniques you feel are interesting. We will project the poem onto the board as you speak.  Be ready to present your three minutes worth of...

Other Lovers and Bessie Smith Here is an  interview with Jackie Kay , from March 2016: "Opening one of Jackie Kay’s books is like walking into a busy metropolitan bar that has accommodated within its walls the deep past, character and charm of a country pub. You know you will encounter stories comic and sad, that you will never leave thirsty, and that the mind will feel renewed with the spirit, musicality and colour of life. Kay’s output is too prolific to give but a précis. Her second poetry book, Other Lovers (1993), explored the impact of colonialism and slavery on black culture, and it was a topic she returned to in her play The Lamplighter (2008). She has a written a sequence of poems about Bessie Smith, and she also wrote a biographical portrait of the great blues singer, which was published in 1997.  ----------- A key message from the article is that "Jazz and blues have been a lifelong love" of Jackie Kay. This is a good starting point to the collection...which ...

  Dorian Gray’s Family Tree After re-reading Chapter 3, answer the following questions and prepare a dialogue summarizing the information? Dorian’s Grandfather : What does Queen’s questions reveal about his grandfather: Dorian’s Mother : Describe her with quotes:  Dorian’s Father: Describe him with quotes: Life and death: How did the father die? How was the grandfather involved? How did his mother have to do after his death and how did she react? What happened to the mother in the end? Who is Selby? Society: Is Dorian rich or poor? Explain… Perfect… Why does Lord Henry Wotton describe “Dorian Gray’s parentage… as an almost modern romance” and why does it make Dorian “more perfect”? Task: Complete ONE of the following TWO tasks: 1. Create and record a dialogue between Lord Henry and Basil Hallward wherein Henry explains to Basil why he believes Dorian’s parentage makes him ‘perfect.’ Record your conversation as an audio file. or 2. Create and record the thoughts/interviews of a...

Blog Homework. https://oibwithmrsc.blogspot.com/ Answer the 10 following questions in sentence form. If you want to type your answers, I would advise you to 'copy and paste' the following information into a Word document (save it immediately) and then start work :-) Key Issue 1 1. A challenge, follow the “History of Vampires” link to find out why the following mention is so important:  1748 Der Vampir , Heinrich August Ossenfelder.  2. Complete the blanks: It makes us wonder about our place as humans in society. We can question, how long until we ___________ to what we have always __________? Key Issue 2 1. What is the difference between a female victim and a heroine in Gothic literature? 2. Are children in gothic literature given stereotypical gender roles?` Key Issue 3 1. Fill in the blanks:     This fits with the general feeling of the ___________Victorian period: in a mechanical life, men and women are losing their roles and feeling ____________. Gothic...