Friday, 24 September 2010
Lesson 24/9
The most interesting thing for me about today's lesson was probably when we looked at the extract from 'Birdsong', which read 'Prologue. 1948. Before'.... I learned that tension can be created at the very beginning of the book through the simplest of methods- foreshadowing. It made me want to go and find 'Birdsong' and find out what the plot was leading to... :)
Wednesday, 22 September 2010
The Scrumpled Paper Ball- 5 reasons it could be significant in a novel
I've thought of 5storylines that give the piece of paper a significance. (I think that's what we were supposed to do!?)
The piece of paper could be......
1. A discarded paper aeroplane that the teacher has crumpled up and thrown over their shoulder in disgust after being hit in the face by it. The entire (imaginary) novel is about a boy who longs for independence and freedom. The paper aeroplane is symbolism of his freedom, and how it is crushed by people more powerful than him.
2. A list titled 'The Hate List' written by the main character (a boy)'s sister. The story begins with the siblings arguing in the corridor at school- things get heated and the boy shouts 'well, at least it's not my fault Mum's dead'. the girl runs into an empty classroom crying, and writes the list, which is actually just the boy's name over and over again. A strict teacher walks into the room and snaps that the girl shouldn't be inside at break. As the girl walks out of the room, she scrumples up the list and throws it into a corner.
3. A printed out picture of the Queen. The novel is about a schizophrenic English teacher who is fired at the beginning of the story for bringing in darts and getting children to aim for the picture of the Queen that was pinned to his noticeboard. The heated debate between himself and the headmistress ends in the headmistress screaming at him to leave the premises and never return, and before he leaves he tears down the picture and throws it at the headmistress. The novel is about how he is recruited by an extremist group to assassinate the Queen- his schizophrenia means that half the time he worships the royal family and half the time he detests them.
4. A paper 'bullet' leftover from an alien invasion. The aliens come from Planet Paper, and aim to take over the world by paper cutting every human being to death. Unfortunately the aliens were not aware that humans had invented the paper shredder, and after not very long, the few remaining ships fled. One 'bombing' had taken place at a school, and one of the 'bullets' from the ships had entered the classroom through an open window.
5. A piece of paper ripped from a child's exercise book. The novel could be about a cleaner at a school who had aspirations to become an author, but didn't do very well at school, and with no A-levels, no publishers will even consider reading her work. The cleaner enjoys cleaning out the English classrooms, because when no-one else is around she gets out the childrens' exercise books and reads the stories they've made up. Every now and then she writes little comments in the books pretending to be the teacher, in order to help the children to improve. In this particular scene, she reads a story titled 'Failure', the plot being an exact recount of her life. She rips out the page, scrumples it up and throws it on the floor, then runs out of the room home to her computer, determined to write a letter of persuasion to make the publishers read her work (which ends up being a best-seller at the end of the novel).
The piece of paper could be......
1. A discarded paper aeroplane that the teacher has crumpled up and thrown over their shoulder in disgust after being hit in the face by it. The entire (imaginary) novel is about a boy who longs for independence and freedom. The paper aeroplane is symbolism of his freedom, and how it is crushed by people more powerful than him.
2. A list titled 'The Hate List' written by the main character (a boy)'s sister. The story begins with the siblings arguing in the corridor at school- things get heated and the boy shouts 'well, at least it's not my fault Mum's dead'. the girl runs into an empty classroom crying, and writes the list, which is actually just the boy's name over and over again. A strict teacher walks into the room and snaps that the girl shouldn't be inside at break. As the girl walks out of the room, she scrumples up the list and throws it into a corner.
3. A printed out picture of the Queen. The novel is about a schizophrenic English teacher who is fired at the beginning of the story for bringing in darts and getting children to aim for the picture of the Queen that was pinned to his noticeboard. The heated debate between himself and the headmistress ends in the headmistress screaming at him to leave the premises and never return, and before he leaves he tears down the picture and throws it at the headmistress. The novel is about how he is recruited by an extremist group to assassinate the Queen- his schizophrenia means that half the time he worships the royal family and half the time he detests them.
4. A paper 'bullet' leftover from an alien invasion. The aliens come from Planet Paper, and aim to take over the world by paper cutting every human being to death. Unfortunately the aliens were not aware that humans had invented the paper shredder, and after not very long, the few remaining ships fled. One 'bombing' had taken place at a school, and one of the 'bullets' from the ships had entered the classroom through an open window.
5. A piece of paper ripped from a child's exercise book. The novel could be about a cleaner at a school who had aspirations to become an author, but didn't do very well at school, and with no A-levels, no publishers will even consider reading her work. The cleaner enjoys cleaning out the English classrooms, because when no-one else is around she gets out the childrens' exercise books and reads the stories they've made up. Every now and then she writes little comments in the books pretending to be the teacher, in order to help the children to improve. In this particular scene, she reads a story titled 'Failure', the plot being an exact recount of her life. She rips out the page, scrumples it up and throws it on the floor, then runs out of the room home to her computer, determined to write a letter of persuasion to make the publishers read her work (which ends up being a best-seller at the end of the novel).
Lesson 22/9
So today's lesson was all about structure....
I thought the best part of the lesson was probably when we did the comic strip story thing- it was interesting because I understood the idea that a big factor in writing a successful novel is deciding what order to tell the story in- authors need to think through the entire story in chronological order, and then mix up the order in the best way for the audience to stay interested and for the plot to unravel.
I thought the best part of the lesson was probably when we did the comic strip story thing- it was interesting because I understood the idea that a big factor in writing a successful novel is deciding what order to tell the story in- authors need to think through the entire story in chronological order, and then mix up the order in the best way for the audience to stay interested and for the plot to unravel.
Sunday, 19 September 2010
More About The Pipe
I just researched the picture, and found out that it was created by a French artist who wanted to show that although it WAS a painting of a pipe, it wasn't actually a pipe- to explain this he said 'could you stuff my pipe? No, it's just a representation'. I think the link this has to the Kite Runner could be that the book isn't actually what it first appears to be- you have to research into it's background to fully understand what it's about.
Friday, 17 September 2010
Ceci n'est pas une pipe
Ok so Mr Francis has told us that the phrase 'Ceci n'est pas une pipe' and the picture of a pipe is something to do with what we're going to be doing next lesson... He also said that next lesson we'll be starting work on the Kite Runner. The phrase is French for 'this is not a pipe'. I reckon that the pipe represents the Kite Runner, or any piece of literature, because in the subject English Lit you can say your opinion and not be wrong- so long as you justify your answer. So it isn't wrong to say 'this is not a pipe' because if you justify it with thoughtful enough reasons, you'll get the marks in the exam. And there are so many possible interpretations of everything (which we'll hopefully discover whilst studying the Kite Runner).
That hopefully made some sense.
That hopefully made some sense.
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