Sonnets

This week we've started looking at the Sonnet form. We're mostly looking at Shakespeare's sonnets (since we'll be studying a Shakespearean play next term) and we've been concentrating on the structure so we can identify sonnets easily.

For this evening's homework, we're looking at this poem:

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;

Coral is far more red than her lips' red ;

If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;

If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

I have seen roses damask, red and white,

But no such roses see I in her cheeks;

And in some perfumes is there more delight

Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know

That music hath a far more pleasing sound;

I grant I never saw a goddess go;

My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:

And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare

As any she belied with false compare.

Your Learning Objective is to write a critical analysis of this poem.

That means I'd like you to explain what kind of poem it is (ballad, haiku, limerick, sonnet, epic) and how you know that; I'd like you to explain what the poem is about, and talk about how the poet uses language (think about his use of rhyme and rhythm, and his use of metaphor). Then explain what YOU think of it, and why.

The poem we looked at today was an example of the sort of sonnets that were popular at the time - please explain how Sonnet 130 is different from the mainstream poetic conventions of poems like the one we looked at today.

I have no problem with you using the internet to help you with researching your work, especially since there may be words you don't understand. But I do want whatever you write to reflect YOUR feelings about the poem. Please don't just copy somebody else's ideas with your brain switched off - I don't think any of you would, but I feel I have to say it, just to be on the safe side.

(Copying somebody else's work and passing it off as your own is called plagiarism - you get in ENORMOUS trouble for this in academia. If you do read something somebody else has written, and agree with it, OR DISAGREE WITH IT, that's absolutely fine - you just need to provide a reference or a link and quote them, then explain why you agree (or disagree) with them.

When I read your work, I want to know that you have understood the meaning of the poem. I also want to know what you thought of the poem - whether or not you liked it, and why. Please make comparisons to Sonnet 18 ("Shall I compare thee to a summer's day") and to the poem we looked at today. Please remember to back up your points by quoting from the text. I'm expecting about a page of work.

Homework

Good afternoon!

Well, colour me impressed by some of the ideas and performances this morning - great job with the monologues, people! As you know, I'd initially intended to make a book of poetry when we were looking at the Roald Dahl poem; unfortunately the quality of poems was a bit uneven, with some people finding consistent use of rhyme and rhythm pretty hard to master. But I've been delighted by the work you guys put into this challenge, and I think we could easily put these pieces together, and illustrate them, to make a really nice book for the younger children to enjoy in the library.

Your homework is therefore twofold:

(1) Copy the sentences below, and correct all the mistakes. They may be spelling, punctuation or grammatical errors. Look carefully!

(2) If you are an artistic type, and would like to create an illustration to accompany your story in the book (for extra credit), please have a crack at making a professional-looking illustration. You can use any medium, including computer packages, to create the artwork to go with your monologue.

SENTENCES TO CORRECT FOR HOMEWORK

1) Aashis PowerPoint presentation was fascinating but unfotunitly she could not show anyone because the coputer was broken

2) Miss Nichola couldnt believe her bad luck she had forgotten to bring an umbrella on the rainest day of the year

3) I need to buy lettuce tomatos cucumber cheese apple's and walnut's to make the perfect salad for the party

4) The Commonwelth games will be starting very soon in delhi but they're are lot's of problems because the buildings are not reddy for the visiting athletes yet

5) the trailers for the movie harry potter and the dethly hollows make it look like the darkest Potter movie yet

6) miss nichola really like's iced coffy but shes started to prefer a mango smoothie in the morning

7) Unlike lots of languages english does not have a simple logical set of spelling rule's. This make's your life difficult if you are lurning it.

8) book weeks always busy at st andrews sathorn as the younger children compeet in lots of different competitions like desyning posters designing bookmarks decorating their doors and dressing up in fancy dress costume's.

9) Goldilocks eat all the bares porridge and break they're chairs and slept on there bed too.

10) the book is called twilight and i like it because of bellas romance with edward and because its full of exciting dispriptions

YOU HAVE TO HAND THIS IN ON WEDNESDAY.

Meanwhile, I can tell you that Wednesday's homework will involve reading comprehension based on this website:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/default.stm

Helpful links for your homework!

In case you need some inspiration for your monologue, here are links to the text and a performance of a short story called 'The True Story of The 3 Little Pigs.'

http://www.shol.com/agita/wolfside.htm

If you have had an attack of memory loss and forgotten what the homework involves (despite all the repeated explanations since last Friday, and having written it in your homework book on Tuesday and on Wednesday) there is a more detailed explanation on the post before this one.

I will have a sense of humour failure if anyone shows up to class without their homework tomorrow, and I'm afraid that you will be looking at detention in your immediate future at the very least, and possibly defenestration if I've not had a large cup of coffee.

(If you're not sure what defenestration is, Wikipedia can help you.)

News and Views: Book Week and Book Reports

THING ONE:

As I mentioned in the class, Book Week is coming up shortly, and the theme this year is going to be Fairy Tales. For the younger children, this is going to involve lots of activities built around reading fairy tales, and writing fairy tales, and various competitions to draw and paint and dress up. For us, it's going to involve a competition that requires reading, writing, speaking and listening skills: we're asking you to compose an original dramatic monologue based on a traditional story.

So, for example, you might decide to write your speech in the character of The Big Bad Wolf from the story of 'The Three Little Pigs' and explain that you are very misunderstood, and that it was all the pigs' fault. Or you might choose to write your speech in the character of Cinderella, and tell us all about what it's like being married to Prince Charming, and whether one romantic dance and the return of a lost shoe really is a great basis for a marriage.

Choose a story that you know well, and one that your audience will know too. (There are lots of books in the library you can refer to too, to help you.) Your monologue should convey the personality of the character very clearly, both through what they say and how they say it. Please think about this up front - we're not looking for a dry, boring retelling of the story. Think about the 'Shrek' movies, and the clever way they reinterpreted fairytale characters - if you're writing a monologue from the point of view of Prince Charming, you don't have to write him as perfect. You can make it funnier and more rewarding for the audience if you make him more complex - perhaps he comes across as being very vain, or a bit dim, or rather scary. Or perhaps he seems like a nice guy, who's genuinely in love with Cinderella - but from what he tells us, we can infer that she doesn't return his feelings, even though HE doesn't realise it.

We'll talk about this more in class, but I wanted you to have a bit more warning that this is coming up, as it's going to require quite a bit of time and effort to produce GOOD monologues. There will be a competition for the best monologue, taking into account both the cleverness of the writing and the performance itself - so start thinking!


THING TWO

People have been asking about Book Reviews. It's clear to me from the range of pieces handed in when I asked you guys to write a book review that you're not all entirely clear on what's involved, so I've written one as an example:

‘The Graveyard Book’ by Neil Gaiman.

‘The Graveyard Book’ is a children’s novel very loosely based on the structure of Rudyard Kipling’s classic ‘The Jungle Book’. Neil Gaiman is an author who is well known as a writer of adults' horror and fantasy fiction (such as 'Neverwhere', or 'American Gods'), and comics and graphic novels (such as the award-winning ‘Sandman’ series), but he has also made a name for himself in children’s literature. His picture book ‘The Wolves in the Walls’ has been made into a musical, whilst the creepy chapter book ‘Coraline’ was made into an animated movie a few years ago.

Gaiman is well known for working with his long-time friend, artist Dave McKean. McKean has collaborated with him on many projects over the years, from the ‘Sandman’ books to picture books like ‘The Wolves in the Walls’, and Gaiman scripted McKean’s recent animated movie ‘Mirrormask’. Once again, McKean joins Gaiman to provide the artwork for ‘The Graveyard Book’, giving it a signature creepiness.

‘The Graveyard Book’ begins with the rather shocking sight of a completely black double-page spread, featuring the image of an outstretched hand clasping a bloody knife. The blade draws our eyes towards the text, which is very minimal:

CHAPTER ONE

How Nobody Came to the Graveyard

There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife.

I defy anyone to read this without being compelled to turn the page and find out more. Turning the page gives us the rest of the man behind the out-stretched knife; he is mounting a staircase in somebody’s house, his face tilted upwards, and a clean white handkerchief is clutched in his other hand. The blade, we are told, has “a handle of polished black bone, and a blade finer and sharper than any razor.” Moreover, “both the blade and the handle are wet.”

With this chilling beginning, Gaiman very effectively grabs the reader’s attention and drags them along into the story of the baby who manages to evade this man and his knife (although the rest of his family have not been so lucky, as the wet blade demonstrates). The baby toddles out of the house and into the nearby cemetery, where he is very lucky to have the local ghosts take pity upon him and protect him from the man with the knife. The ghosts – and their friend Silas, whom we are never explicitly told is a vampire – adopt the child, give him a name, and raise him among the gravestones. But Bod (as the ghosts name him) is a living boy, and naturally over the years he grows and he grows, and so does his curiosity, until eventually he wants to make his way out into the world of the living. And out in the world of the living, the man with the knife still waits…

There is a rather grotesque and dreamlike quality to Gaiman’s writing, and yet at the same time it's very rooted in the little details of the everyday world. The parallels with Kipling's 'Jungle Book' are clear - in both books, we have a lost child being saved and raised by unlikely nonhuman creatures, and being given honourary citizenship of a world normally closed to humans. In 'The Jungle Book' this is the world of wild animals, whilst in 'The Graveyard Book' it's a world of ghosts and supernatural creatures. However, there are also echoes of JK Rowling's famous 'Harry Potter' books in this basic structure of a baby who survives the murder of his parents, and who grows up under magical protection from his enemies. There the similarities stop, though, for Gaiman is a very different kind of writer from Rowling, and this story is both more intimate and more universal than the 'Harry Potter' books. It has more of a timeless, fairytale quality, even though the setting is quite a lot more mundane and less whimsical than Rowling's wizarding world.

This is a story full of ideas and images that will stay with you long after you close the pages. Although it’s aimed at children, Gaiman doesn’t patronize his readers or spell everything out for them – he expects them to ask questions, and to read between the lines. We have to figure out for ourselves what Silas might be, who the Grey Lady is, and what exactly is strange about Mrs Lepescu.

The hero of the story - the baby who so narrowly escapes death in the opening chapter - is named Nobody Owens, also known as Bod. Essentially this is a story about rites of passage, a story about growing up and finding yourself - probably the oldest theme in literature, but one that remains fresh and relevant to every generation. Although Gaiman doesn't write in the first person, he still shows us the world mostly from Bod's point of view. Sometimes we can work things out that Bod doesn't know himself, because of clues that Gaiman gives us in the text. We get to know the various other inhabitants of the graveyard through Bod too. Mr and Mrs Owens, the childless ghosts who adopt him, are perhaps the most clearly described, along with the angry little witch ghost, and Silas, who is not a ghost, but Gaiman gives us a clear sense of many minor characters through his vivid descriptions and his use of distinctive dialogue. Unlikely as it seems, the graveyard (like the jungle, in Kipling's 'Jungle Book') comes across as a rather wonderful place to grow up: not without its dangers, to be sure, but still a warm, exciting, comforting place in many ways.

Gaiman doesn’t always take his stories where you think they might go – he’s a fiercely original writer, and he isn’t afraid of frightening his readers, or of breaking their hearts. I know this all too well from some of his other stories, and although ‘The Graveyard Book’ is much less gruesome than Gaiman’s adult literature, it successfully mixes joy and darkness in the same way that I’d expect. I was rather surprised by the ending, and a little saddened, but I still found it very satisfying.

‘The Graveyard Book’ won both the Hugo and the Newbery awards in 2009, as well as the 2010 Carnegie Medal and the Locus Award for YA novel. On the whole, I think that most of these were merited – although I confess that I do find it difficult to believe that it would have ever been considered for the Hugo (a prize awarded for the best SF or Fantasy achievement) had it not been written by well-known SF/Fantasy novelist Neil Gaiman. This is not my very favourite of Gaiman's works, because it would take an awful lot to top 'The Sandman' or 'American Gods' in my affections, and I'll always have a soft spot for 'The Wolves In The Walls'. Nevertheless, I think that this is an excellent book for younger readers - at least as good as 'Coraline' - and the images and language linger in one's memory long after the covers have been closed.

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(The only reason I coloured this in blue was to make it stand out from the rest of the blog - I know you guys are too smart to start writing all your assignments in blue, but I still feel like I should mention it, just to be on the safe side. Nothing personal.)

I'm not trying to set this out as The One True Way To Write A Book Review; there are lots of good ways to write a book review. However, I did take care to include an introduction, to give some background details about who the writer is and when the book was written, to outline the plot, introduce the characters and explain how I felt about the book and why. That's mostly what I'm expecting at this point - that you can give your reader an idea what the book is like, and whether you liked it or not, and WHY. You need to substantiate your points by referring to the text, rather than making general points. If you include quotations (which is always a good idea) please put them inside speech marks. Whenever you mention the title, remember to indicate that it's the title in one of the appropriate ways.

What I AM wanting to see: reports that mention who the author is; reports that consistently indicate the title (using inverted commas or underlining or italics); reports that refer to the author either by his/her full name, or else by their surname, but NOT by their first name alone; reports that give me an idea of what happened in the book; reports that give me an idea of what the characters are like; reports that give me an idea of whether you liked the book or not, and why.

What I'm NOT wanting to see: reports that don't mention who the author is; reports that don't bother to distinguish the title of the book (either by using inverted commas, or underlining, or italics); reports that reveal you don't know the book very well; reports that might as well just have been copied down from the blurb on the back of the book; reports that show you didn't understand what happened in the book.

Week beginning 13/09/10

This week we're concentrating on Edwin Morgan's poem The First Men on Mercury and using it as a jumping-off point for composing our own bilingual poetry.

http://www.edwinmorgan.spl.org.uk/poems/first_men_on_mercury.html

Last week we worked on performing the poem, and physically representing the gradual shift in the power balance between the two speakers, which Morgan conveys through their shifting use of language.

Our first homework activity this week is this punctuation exercise, revising the correct use of the apostrophe. (Check previous post for Miss Nichola's Guide To The Apostrophe in case you're feeling a bit wobbly on this.)

Please copy the following sentences into your writing books in your neatest handwriting, inserting apostrophes in the appropriate places. This work needs to be completed by Wednesday, as usual.

(...I don't need to remind you to write the date and title, do I? I'm sure I don't.)

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Using the Apostrophe

1) After shed marked all the homework, Miss Nichola got on with planning next weeks lessons.

2) Wouldnt you rather eat a piece of his birthday cake?

3) It was Panns moment of glory, as he beat all the others in the race.

4) Well do better next time because theres no way we can make the same mistakes again!

5) Id love to give you a day off, but unfortunately your educations too important for us to neglect it like that!

6) Dont forget to check your work for any mistakes youve accidentally made!

7) He blamed his sisters because they wouldnt help him. He insisted it was all his sisters fault.

8) One of these days Miss Nicholas cat is going to figure out the way to open the door and itll escape into the apartment building, leaving havoc in its wake.

9) Its true that this is Jouns neatest piece of work! Hes been working very hard to keep it tidy!

10) The cat is so flexible it can lick its own back. Its an amazingly flexible cat!

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Guys, once you've written your correct sentences once, PLEASE go back and check them. Every place you've added an apostrophe, ask yourself which of the two jobs it is doing - is it (1) indicating where some letters have been knocked out when two words got squashed together, or (2) indicating possession? Just make absolutely sure that it's not just hanging around fluttering its eyelashes and looking pointlessly pretty near a random letter S.

AND DON'T FORGET THE PESKY ITS/IT'S RULE!

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BONUS FEATURE:

You might like this cartoon version of 'The First Men On Mercury'

http://www.metaphrog.com/mercury/

Punctuation: How The Apostrophe is like Batman

The apostrophe, as you know, is a hard-working and much-abused piece of punctuation. People who have not had the benefit of Miss Nichola’s teaching are often clueless about what to do with the poor thing, and throw it haphazardly at any word involving an s. You, however, know better! For the apostrophe has TWO (count them!) important jobs. Neither of these jobs involves sitting around looking pointlessly pretty – the apostrophe is not the bimbo of the punctuation world. Instead it works tirelessly to either:

INDICATE WHERE SOME LETTERS ARE MISSING or

INDICATE OWNERSHIP.

And that’s it. It’s actually pretty simple, if you manage not to panic and just pay attention.

1) MISSING LETTERS (aka “Contractions”)

Now, what you need to remember is that the English are lazy speakers. We’d rather squash our words together than say each individual word. Thus “We would” becomes contracted down to “We’d”. And the apostrophe hangs in the air above the letters, pointing down at the space where all those other letters used to be. Here are some examples:

She + will = She’ll

I + would = I’d

We + have = we’ve
They would + have = They would’ve

Does + not = doesn’t

Can + not = can’t

You know this stuff already, really. If you’re not sure, ask yourself whether the word you’re writing used to be two words. That should help you with spotting the difference between things that sound the same, but are actually quite different, like your and you’re, or there and they’re. Ask yourself whether the word is actually two words squashed together, needing an apostrophe in the middle.

2)INDICATING OWNERSHIP

This is a completely different job that the apostrophe also does in its spare time. It’s kind of a Bruce Wayne/Batman deal – yes, okay, it’s still the apostrophe, but now it’s put on a mask and a cape and some tights and gone out to fight crime busy sorting out who owns what. Because it’s just THAT awesome at multi-tasking. When it indicates ownership, it usually brings along the letter s as a sidekick (kind of like Robin is Batman's sidekick).

In various other languages, when you want to indicate that something belongs to someone else, you have to use quite a lot of words:

That is the rant of Miss Nichola.

But, see, the English haven’t the patience for all those words. Instead, we take the short cut of saying

That is Miss Nichola’s rant.

Because it’s quicker, and, basically, we’re lazy.

(This laziness is the key to understanding how the language changes over time. Well, that and the fact that we’ve been invaded by nearly everybody capable of picking up a sword, getting in a boat and crossing the channel to conquer us. Every time that happened, once the screaming and bleeding was over we had to learn their language, and so our own language is now a chaotic and flexible sort of word soup full of broken rules. Eventually we got wise to this, built our own boats, picked up our own swords and flags, and went off to impose our crazy mixed-up language on lots of other people. Such, alas, is the way of the world.)

So, anyway, if I’m talking about what my cat eats, I could say:

the food of my cat.

But it’s quicker to just slap an apostrophe and an s after the owner, and say:

my cat’s food.

Easy as that. Just put an apostrophe and then an s after the owner (or owners), and you don't have to do this whole "The something of the something" business.

So far so good? Okay. Here’s where it gets SLIGHTLY more complicated. But only slightly. Pay attention and keep your brain switched on and you should be fine, really.

Ready? Right…

INDICATING OWNERSHIP WHEN THERE IS MORE THAN ONE OWNER.

Right, this is where we get to that whole thing of putting an apostrophe after an s that is already there instead of adding an s and then an apostrophe.

It’s not as complicated as you think.

Promise.

So, suppose I have more than one cat. (God forbid.) Following the rule I’ve just given you above, we should logically be able to say:

That is the food of my cats

Or, to be quicker:

That is my cats’s food.

But we don’t bother with an s after the apostrophe this time, even though logically we should. Because, remember – we’re lazy. (Also, it makes you sound like you just swallowed a snake if you try saying CATS’S.) So instead of adding an apostrophe and an s after the word CATS (which already has a perfectly good S sitting right there at the end) we just add an apostrophe and leave it at that, making the word CATS’. Because it’s quicker. And that way we know that something belonged to some CATS, rather than to one CAT. So instead of "That is the food of my cats" we have:

That is my cats' food.

Read that through again, if you’re feeling a bit uncertain.

Remember: the apostrophe isn't flying over to the word just because it's spotted a letter s and wants a bit of a cuddle. The apostrophe is still busy doing its job of showing that something belongs to something else. If there's already a perfectly good letter s sitting there at the end of the word when the apostrophe flies in to do its job, there's no need to put another letter s there.

It’s actually not all that tricky – and that’s really the only tricky bit!

...

...

...

...OKAY, I LIED ABOUT THERE ONLY BEING ONE TRICKY BIT.

D:

No, no, don't run away! This next bit IS a bit annoying, but I know that you can handle it. I have faith in you!

So, to recap: The Humble Apostrophe is an unsung hero who slaves away at two thankless jobs: making sure that owners keep possession of things that are important to them ( Jack’s guitar, Pann’s brain, Miss Nichola’s patience etc etc), and ALSO making our lives easier by pointing to the places where letters have fallen out when two words are squashed together (wouldn’t, I’d, there’s, he’ll, we’ve etc etc).

Still with me?

Right. So, all of that is perfectly true, and if you remember it you’ll almost never go wrong.

...EXCEPT (and I don’t know which genius came up with this – I’m guessing one of those eighteenth or nineteenth century scholars back in the UK who decided to while away the long hours by imposing lots of whacky rules on the English language for the lulz. This is what happens when people don’t have television yet, or Facebook, or World of Warcraft) there is one exception to the rule…

It’s and Its

IT’S is always and only short for IT IS.

You can’t use IT'S for something belonging to IT.

For something belonging to IT, you say ITS instead, without the apostrophe.

Yes, it’s crazy. Yes, Captain Logic is not steering the bus on this one. And, really, I’m sorry – but that’s what we’re stuck with. Some old dead guy in a dusty wig decided to make this into a rule a couple of hundred years ago, and unfortunately it’s stuck. Just accept it and move on. It’s only quite a small rule, really. It’s easier than learning your 8 times table. I know it’s stupid, but we’re stuck with it. Sorry about that.

(If it helps, there are other stupid rules invented by those old dead guys in wigs that we can TOTALLY ignore, like “don’t split the infinitive” and “don’t end a sentence with a preposition”. These rules were made up by crazy people who were pretending English is Latin, and that it had to work the way Latin does, because Latin was seen as more high class. But English works perfectly well, and doesn’t need to pretend to be Latin, or borrow Latin rules, so I’m not going to ask you to learn those ones. Just the it’s/its rule. Go on. Please. It’s good for you. You’ll thank me one day, honestly. And if you don’t, I’ll mock you mercilessly.)