YEAR 12 Mon 18th April 16

The penultimate 'official' session before the exam on Thursday 26th May involved the class considering the question:

TO WHAT EXTENT DOES THE WORLD OF THE NOVEL REPRESENT AMERICA AS THE LAND OF THE FREE?

Just as last week, class discussion moved into a 15 minute written paragraph. All paragraphs have since been marked and given back to students. LAST WEEK'S WRITTEN RESPONSE WAS SUPERB. You lot are really starting to produce some very perceptive and passionate responses. This is an angry and passionate novel and your writing is beginning to grasp the idea that Fitzgerald desperately wants America to address the issues that he believes are pushing America away from its founding ethos. The AMERICAN NATIONAL ANTHEM, The Star Spangled Banner, continues to reflect the ONE NATION philosophy enshrined within the Declaration of Independence so this lesson continued to consider to what extent this novel reflects the idea that America is THE LAND OF THE FREE.

Of course the novel offers a world of entrapment and social and economic inequality. THE AMERICAN DREAM is an aspirational narrative of HOPE but in this novel social mobility is impossible. I look forward to your essays.

HOMEWORK: Complete a two paragraph and conclusion response that clearly considers the novel through the filter of TRAGEDY. Use my comments on your last essay to inform your writing.

A few weeks ago Harry B made a reference to a band named the X-Ray Spex. This band were a MASSIVE influence on me when I was a young teenager. Poly Styrene, and a few other musicians of this period in our musical history, gave me a blast of energy that changed the whole way I looked at the world. They are probably one of the reasons I am a teacher. She woke me up.  Eat some proper musical culture from 1978 through the link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ue5jyj_nosc
RIP Poly Styrene.