OIB with MrsC

1. Read through Jackie Kay's collection Gale Force 8. Decide poem do you find the most interesting, and why.  Be ready to explain your choice in front of the class. This article gives you good background information 2. Reread Adoption Papers Choose one of the 3 characters. Be ready to be interviewed by the class, as if you were that person. For example, where were you living when the baby was born?  How did you feel at that time of you life? How did you feel when you met your birth mother? 3. Dorian Gray In your Key Point groups, be ready to give a 5 minute presentation on your KP + Dorian Gray

Key Points on Gothic Literature Blog Entry number two Complete your original blog entry by explaining the link between your Key Issue and Picture of Dorian Gray . Your work will be posted on the blog.  You can use bullet points/ include quotes/ give your opinion/include links to outside research....  The idea is to create a blog entry that ALL students in the class can use to revise later (you know, for the final exams this time next year !!).  As we are at the end of the semester, no grades will be rewarded for this work... but still do it to a high standard ! Email me at gmail when your work is done.

Work to replace class on May 5th 2022: First of all, I am so sorry for being absent today. I do hope that you understand that, as we do not have class next Thursday (as the Terminale students have their exams), it is important for you to do this work at home. Work for Jackie Kay’s Adoption Papers collection.  1. Page by page, extract the key quotes which tell us the story behind each of the 3 speakers: the daughter, the adoptive mother and the birth mother. Advice: Copy and paste this information onto a Word document and continue the work I have started. Only write down the quotes which helps us construct the biographies/motivations of each character. Sometimes, you will only need one or two quotes per page. Note the page numbers. You can also paraphrase sections. The point - for you to have revision material which is easy to use and to access. Adoptive mother: “always wanted to give birth” (15) “in the early sixties there was / something scandalous about adopting” (15) She feel...

  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...