Okay LIT freaks..I hope you are all keeping well and looking after the people you love and caring for vulnerable people in your community. The Director General of the WORLD HEALTH ORGANISATION stated in a speech on March 20th 2020 that 'COMPASSION IS A MEDICINE' and that is a righteous sentiment. A sentiment worthy of Mr Dickens and the other texts [Hosseini/Tony Harrison] that we will be confronting on our journey through A LEVEL LITERATURE.
THE PLAN FOR THE REMAINDER OF Y12 STUDY...
OBVIOUSLY this situation is unique but social-isolation/social-distancing will allow us to indulge in some serious READING. WE should all be spending more time than usual on our own so this weird global pandemic provides an opportunity for some SERIOUS READING.
Our THREE exam texts for the SOCIAL AND POLITICAL PROTEST WRITING section of the A Level course are HARD TIMES/THE KITE RUNNER/ and the poetry of TONY HARRISON. Below is a link to a TONY HARRISON PODCAST that I created last year to assist student understanding of his poems. The Harrison poems we will be exploring are:
- NATIONAL TRUST
- WORKING
- MARKED WITH D
- THEM and [UZ]
- V
- DIVISIONS
https://soundcloud.com/fishymedia/tony-harrisonthis-pen-is-all-i-have-of-magic-wand
I also made an Othello podcast in 2018 that may help with your understanding of the text.
Click on link below:
https://soundcloud.com/fishymedia/othello-pod
We will also be creating our POETRY COURSEWORK when we return. This is 10% of your final mark. You will be creating Prose coursework at BHS so coursework is 20% of your final grade. BGS coursework consists of a 1500 word critical essay that allows students to discuss three poems from the work of a poet that you LOVE! In the last two years students have explored the work of...
- MAYA ANGELOU
- TED HUGHES
- SYLVIA PLATH
- RUPI KAUR
- AMANDA LOVELACE
- WILFRED OWEN
- LEONARD COHEN
- PERCY SHELLEY
- WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
- T.S ELIOT
- PHILIP LARKIN
- CHARLES BUKOWSKI
- JOHN COOPER CLARKE
- ANDREW MARVELL
- IMTIAZ DHARKER
- Students are encouraged to consider 'song lyrics' as poetry.
Imtiaz Dharker [possibly my favourite contemporary poet]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1To-F0xJjgM
Rupi Kaur..She is often described as an INSTAPOET..these poets divide critical opinion!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHkFFA5iGlc
Hollie McNish
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2z-Cd3luqA&t=22s
Charles Bukowski
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEbIuDuW7l8
Vicki Foster [brilliant Hull Poet]
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p072jjdg
https://vickyfoster.co.uk/
https://vickyfoster.co.uk/writing.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=184&v=-EKl6luIWGg&feature=emb_logo
John Cooper Clarke...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4qN9pduox0
Simon Armitage...Our Poet Laureate discusses the importance of poetry...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFcsS7RrWXs
I would advise students to read any Anthology of poetry published by BLOODAXE BOOKS. They are fantastic. Dip In..Dip out. There are some wonderful contemporary poets so indulge in a spot of research and find an author you would like to explore within your coursework.
FEED YOUR MIND
I think the BIG CHALLENGE for a lot of people in this time of isolation is to keep their minds in a decent state of health. AS STUDENTS OF LITERATURE, WE SHOULD TAKE THIS OPPORTUNITY TO READ SOME CLASSIC TEXTS AND DEVELOP A BROADER KNOWLEDGE OF OUR LITERARY HERITAGE.
TWO TEXTS THAT I WOULD ENCOURAGE STUDENTS TO READ ARE...
GEORGE ORWELL'S 'ANIMAL FARM' and CHARLES DICKENS' 'A CHRISTMAS CAROL'.
Both texts will allow students to develop a more sophisticated inderstanding of SOCIAL AND POLITICAL PROTEST WRITING. Dickens' 'A Christmas Carol' has so many similarities with HARD TIMES and is a very short text that should reinforce student understanding of Dickens' philosophical and political motivation. It was not published in an episodic format, unlike Hard Times in Household Words, so offers a much more fluent narrative and is, arguably, easier to read! It is a book that is central to our literary culture and I think every student of literature should read this 'SCROOGETASTIC' text. Orwell's 'Animal Farm' is a wonderful example of social and political protest writing. It is a fable full of anthropomorphic talking animals, in the tradition of Aesop's Fables, and in the epigraph, Orwell describes this narrative as a 'Fairy Story'! It is far from being a Fairy Story...or is it??? YOU DECIDE! It is a classic narrative and was the last book Orwell published before his classic 1984. Both A Christmas Carol/Animal Farm are currently GCSE texts but I believe that every student of Literature should feed on the nutrients provided by these two wonderful books. Both are sophisticated and challenging works of art. I also recently created two PODCASTS covering these texts for my Y11 students so read the books then listen to me talking shite! It will allow you to develop a more informed understanding of the heritage of social and political protest writing.
Links below to the PODCASTS.
Animal Farm:
https://soundcloud.com/fishymedia/animal-farm-podcast
A Christmas Carol:
https://soundcloud.com/fishymedia/a-christmas-carol-podcastmarch-2020
Here are FIFTEEN more CLASSIC texts that I think every student of Literature, and every human being, should read. FEED YOUR MIND WITH SOME BRAINFOOD..GO ON..INDULGE:
- MARY SHELLEY......Frankenstein
- HARPER LEE....To Kill A Mocking Bird
- JACK KEROUAC....On The Road
- KEN KESEY....One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
- MARGARET ATWOOD....The Handmaid's Tale
- EMILY BRONTE...Wuthering Heights
- F.SCOTT FITZGERALD...The Great Gatsby
- RUSS LITTEN...Kingdom [A recent novel from Hull's finest writer]
- HG WELLS..The War of the Worlds [or The Time Machine]
- OSCAR WILDE...The Picture of Dorian Gray [or The Canterville Ghost..his stories for children are absolutey fantastic]
- ANDREA LEVY..Small Island
- CHINUA ACHEBE...Things Fall Apart
- CHUCK PALAHNIUK..Fight Club
- JEANETTE WINTERSON..Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit
- IRVINE WELSH...Trainspotting
JG BALLARD...The complete short stories Volume One
STEPHEN FRY...Moab is my Washpot
STUART MACONIE...Long Road From Jarrow
ALBERT CAMUS...The Plague
That should get me through the first week.
TAKE CARE. STAY SAFE. BE KIND TO EACH OTHER.
ALL THE READING/WORK HERE IS OPTIONAL FOLKS. It is not compulsory. I just thought I would provide some potential Brainfood for my fine A Level students. If you dip in to some of the material here you will develop a more informed perspective of literary culture.
FORWARD ON.
WISHING YOU ALL PEACE, HEALTH, AND HAPPINESS.
YOU ARE A FANTASTIC BUNCH. SEE YOU WHEN I SEE YOU.
mrR x
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