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Being prophetic before exams
Had one of my regular pupils for English yesterday. He had a GCSE English lit exam today which would include some poems. They have 14 poems for the examiners to choose from and he'd only studied two of them in depth. I therefore picked a different two and we went over them in detail, discussing the structure of the poems; the poets' use of language both in structure and in their use of alliteration and rhyme, etc; their emotional content and the different ways in which the poets related to nature. ('Patrolling Barnegat' by Walt Whitman and 'Sonnet' by John Clare) I also went over some of the unfamiliar language - eg. 'flag' is a kind of wild flower, white combs is a reference to wave crests.
What came up in the exam today? Compare the way the two poets describe weather. Yeah!
I think I definitely earned my money for that lesson and I hear my pupil is a happy bunny as well. And, as an added bonus, we both enjoyed looking at the poems. As he said himself, a superficial glance at a poem shows you very little. When you study it in detail and get inside the poet's mind, it's like finding a jewel hidden inside it.
I'm getting to hate the way some forms of English lit are taught, though. The set text this year is 'Of Mice and Men'. The kids are given so much in the way of revision notes and films, etc. that there seems little necessity to read the actual book! (though my pupil has read it a couple of times and enjoyed it)
What came up in the exam today? Compare the way the two poets describe weather. Yeah!
I think I definitely earned my money for that lesson and I hear my pupil is a happy bunny as well. And, as an added bonus, we both enjoyed looking at the poems. As he said himself, a superficial glance at a poem shows you very little. When you study it in detail and get inside the poet's mind, it's like finding a jewel hidden inside it.
I'm getting to hate the way some forms of English lit are taught, though. The set text this year is 'Of Mice and Men'. The kids are given so much in the way of revision notes and films, etc. that there seems little necessity to read the actual book! (though my pupil has read it a couple of times and enjoyed it)