@beth
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Summary for Lesson 1
In our first writing lesson together, we focused on descriptive writing, thinking about the three fundamental building blocks: high level vocab, literary techniques and sensory language. The powerpoint with all of the resources is attached below, which should be used to help write the descriptive pieces assigned for homework. It also contains some really important and helpful links, the inspiration for the gorgeous work the class did in class describing various scenes and situations, and finally our discussions on sensory language, creating atmosphere, avoiding cliche and using unique and original literary techniques to grab the reader’s attention. The students were absolutely fantastic in today’s lesson, the students contributed some excellent ideas on writing, perspective and the use of techniques to pull the reader into a scene. Very good work everyone, well done and see you next week 🙂
Descriptive writing video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSoRzTtwgP4
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Summary for Lesson 5
In today’s class we continued our work on Animal Farm, considering elements within the story such as theme, foreshadowing and narrative. We began by thinking about the themes and semantic field of the story, brainstorming as a class, before we moved on to discussing symbolism and its importance in the novella. We analysed some quotations from the book that demonstrated foreshadowing and spoke about the irony behind Orwell’s use of this technique given the fact that readers who know about the Russian Revolution would already be aware of how the story was bound to end. Finally we looked at ‘village voice’, digging into the narrative perspective of the book and what it tells us about the nature of power and the truth. Incredible work everyone, you all came up with some amazingly in depth analyses of the way this story is constructed, very impressive! See you soon 🙂
Homework
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Summary for Lesson 5
In today’s lesson we began our work on The Wasteland, learning the context, philsophy and literary movements behind the poem. We began with discussing the poem before learning about modernism and connecting this to the way fragmentation and narrative is used within The Wasteland. We spoke about the work of other modernist artists, from Woolf to Picasso, and looked at elements such as the French symbolist movement. We then spoke about the birth of pyschological literature, discussed the homework article and finally researched and debated Eliot’s life and what it tells us about his writing. Amazing and attentive work everyone, you’ve been so great today in unpicking some strange and abstract topics. Keep it up and see you soon 🙂
Copy of the poem: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47311/the-waste-land
Allusions chart: https://bernytan.com/art/a-visual-guide-to-references-in-ts-eliots-the-waste-land-1922
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Summary for Lesson 4
In today’s class we continued our work on characterisation, thinking about some key tips to get inside our characters’ minds. We spoke about psychology and what it can help us think about as writers and we focused on the importance of motivation. The class completed a writing exercise taking their characters to dinner and then did some hot-seating in small groups, embodying their characters and being interview by their partner in order to more fully understand who they were. We thought about how asking yourself where your character goes from here is important and the class worked beautifully together to get a sense of how strong characters can push the plot forward. Amazing work everyone, very well done and see you next week 🙂
Homework
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Summary for Lesson 4
In today’s class we focused tightly on metaphorical language, analysing the concept of literary techniques, figurative language and the effect on the reader. We began by deeply analysing metaphor and how it functions, unpacking examples of our own, before thinking about the importance of trying to work out why the author has used a technique and what their desired effect may be. We thought about this week’s paper and analysed it deeply, pausing on questions that centre around metaphorical language, and the class finally looked at lots of different kinds of techniques and their impact. Well done everyone, really great analytical work today. Keep up the hard work and I’ll see you next week 🙂
Summing Up
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Summary for Lesson 1
In today’s lesson we began our new course on the elements of writing, thinking in this class about character development. We began with a discussion of what character development required, debating whether characters act as the most important element of a story. We spoke about static vs. dynamic characters and came up with ideas about our favourite characters from literature in reference to this dichotomy, discussing why an author may choose to have a static character and what message that may achieve. We also touched upon elements of character creation such as motivation, goals & internal and external characteristics. Finally, the class dug into character creation of their own, thinking about how to build their characters into compelling, three-dimensional ones and how an understanding of a character’s past can help facilitate a deeper analytical reading of their role in a story. Really creative and brilliant work today class- I loved hearing your ideas about your character’s motivations and fears and thought your grasp of the static vs. dynamic character debate was excellent! Very well done and see you next week 🙂
Video on character development: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqKxLx3As28&feature=emb_logo
Homework
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Summary for Lesson 4
In today’s class we finished our work on War of the Worlds thinking about modernising the story as a play. We looked at the ways in which stagecraft functions, considering the visual aspect of playwrighting and what it can add. We spoke about the structure of the novel and how to translate it and the students came up with brilliant ideas for a modern re-telling of the story in their groups. Finally we completed some essay question planning and looked at the ‘exploded’ quotation method of analysis. Well done everyone, I loved hearing your play ideas in particular! Keep up the wonderful work 🙂
Stagecraft vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFDZzbWGfKI
Homework article: https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2018/feb/13/ts-eliot-the-waste-land-mental-illness
Homework
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Summary for Lesson 4
In today’s lesson we began studying Animal Farm by George Orwell. The lesson contained loads of information on the context of Animal Farm, focusing particularly on how the novel is an allegory for the 1917 Russian Revolution and the events that followed it. We learnt about the core ideas of Communism, and the main actors of the Russian Revolution (Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin), comparing each historical leader to their fictional counterpart in the novel. We also had a great discussion about our favourite and least favourite things about the book, in which students picked out some really important and enlightening features of the novel and its premises. I really enjoyed hearing the class’s idea on what different concepts and characters symbolise in Animal Farm (i.e. Sugar Candy Mountain, Mr Jones, the sheep) and thought that you all dealt with the complicated historical context fantastically. Really well done for your hard work everyone, today was a super information-packed lesson and you were all excellent in class. Well done 🙂
The homework slide show: https://slideplayer.com/slide/9157325/#google_vignette
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