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Summary of Lesson 1
In this week’s lesson we began with an introduction and overview of the central ideas and historical context of War Horse. We also looked at author intent (why did Morpurgo choose to write the novel like he did) and, combining these ideas with the central themes identified, wrote questions we would ask him in an interview. The powerpoint with all of the resources is attached below, which should be used to help plan and write the mini-essays assigned for homework. The powerpoint contains our discussions of background of the novel, along with some historical facts and figures on the context of the First World War, and some comparative work involving a poem about horses in battle and a painting from 1914 of the battlefield. Well done for today’s lesson guys, I particularly enjoyed our conversation about wartime propaganda and why the context of any piece of art or literature is important. We also had a fantastic debate about the perspective the novel is written from, and how the fact that we see the story unfold through the eyes of a horse influences and changes our understanding of the novel. Good luck writing your homework paragraphs and I will see you all soon! 🙂
Homework
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War house taught me more about world war I and the history at that time. It taughts us the sadness and cruelness of wars. It hurt the countries economy, residents had nothing to eat, thousands and thousands soldiers sacrificed in the war for the victory of their country. Joey have to leave his owner to fight the war. Although he was strong and loved by many captains, but he still suffered a lot.
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Summary of Lesson 2
In this week’s lesson we dug deeper into War Horse, considering in particular the style and narrative voice of the novel. The powerpoint with all of the resources is attached below, which should be used to help plan and write the mini-essays assigned for homework. The powerpoint contains our discussions of the effect of the style of narration on how the book is told along with some textual analysis of a battle scene, work on literary techniques and how to identify them and some guidelines for writing P.E.E. paragraphs about the themes in Joey’s narration. This lesson was very debate centred and everyone did very well, offering lots of interesting and well-thought through contributions on the nature of war and how a first-person perspective told through the narrative voice of a horse amplifies Morpurgo’s message. I was very impressed by everyone’s work thinking about the different narrative voices that could be utilised within the book, particularly with reference to what would be gained and what would be lost. The class also completed some really excellent and quick paced work on literary techniques within the novel which was great and we had some fascinating conversations regarding figurative language in the book. Keep up the fab work everyone, I will see you tomorrow 🙂
Homework
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If it was told from a human person, it would be like a really different story. The story would be mostly on how soldiers think about the war and they might die at anytime. As a result, the story is difficult for readers to emphasize with the book characters. I think another character that can be the perspective view of the story. He can show us more of the farmers and residents life during war like how they solve hunger problems, how they feel during world war I. The story om Albert’s perspective view can record another life between Albert and another horse. I think that story is more easily for readers to emphasize with and it will not be as boring as the story from a soldier perspective view.
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Summary of Lesson 3
In this penultimate lesson on War Horse, we delved a bit deeper into close textual analysis and how to write about word choice and literary techniques in a literary context. The powerpoint with all of the resources is attached below, which should be used to help plan and write the mini-essays assigned for homework. The powerpoint contains our discussions of essay structure, guidelines for writing P.E.E. paragraphs on analysing quotations, and lots of important information in terms of what to include in the homework essays. We had a particularly good discussion about the concept of word choice, thinking about how to understand books as constructions and analyse the author’s language choices in that vein. Today’s lesson was really content-heavy with loads of ideas, debates and exercises packed into the hour and everyone did really well at keeping up with the new concepts, particularly ones such as close textual analysis. Really well done everyone, remember to practice using the P.E.E. structure to analyse literary techniques and word choice, and have a lovely Christmas! Keep up the good work 🙂
P.S. Remember my tip about using https://www.thesaurus.com/- it will improve your vocabulary like nothing else! You can use it alongside any piece of writing you have to do to ensure you are using as much high level vocab as possible.
Homework
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The moral of the story in War Horse is the horrid and pointless of war. From the sentence “How can one man kill another and not really know the reason why he does it, except that the other man wears a different color uniform and speaks a different language?” demonstrate the needless of war and present how foolish were the soldiers fighting with themselves.
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If WarHorse was written in another person’s perspective, it would greatly change.
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Firstly, if it was written by a human, there is a big possibility that the person would take sides. In the book, Joey didn’t take sides because he was on both sides; he was working for Britain, but was captured by the Germans, and was retrieved back to Britain.
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Secondly, all horses care is to stay alive, be treated well and stop being enslaved by humans. Horses don’t take sides, especially those like Joey who had been on both sides. But if a human wrote this story, the person would take sides. An author would make the reader empathize with his belief.
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Thirdly, if a human wrote it, it would be full of hatred. In a horse’s perspective, it sees war as people fighting just because they were in a different nation, and had different beliefs. A horse wants peace, not war. In contrast, humans are willing to fight just because of their nations and beliefs. Micheal Morpurgo wrote Warhorse not because he wanted to spread hatred of Germans, but because he wanted to stop the spread of violence, and wanted us to remember how terrible WW1 was.
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If a human wrote it, it would be full of facts. The book would be like: The calvary is advancing blah blah blah… It would be much more boring because of the boring trench life that soldiers had, and it would be much shorter because soldiers died at a fast rate.
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Warhorse would not be a children’s book if it was written by a soldier. It would be full of swears, hatred and violence. Shell shock and devastating things often exist in trenches. It would be full of devastating objects that are not fit for a children’s book.
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Summary for Lesson 4
In our final lesson on War Horse, we focused on thinking about how literary analysis can be utilised in exam and essay contexts. The powerpoint with all of the resources is attached below, which should be used to help plan and write the homework. The powerpoint contains work on three main styles of literary analysis: comprehension questions, thematic essay questions and directed writing. We had a great conversation about what literary analysis entails, recapped our work on word choice, and shared some final reflections on the message and moral of the novel. Well done for your work today everyone, and for all the lovely contributions you have made to our classes in the past few weeks! Have a lovely New Year and I hope to see you all again in the future 🙂
Homework
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