Welcome class of 07-08!

A big hello to my new Higher class!

This will be a place for you to:

*Share questions and ideas
*Access homework reminders and resources
*Find custom-picked links for your course
*Contact me!

First blog-related task....

Leave a comment (remember, they will all be moderated!) with your first name and initial only, by Monday 10th of September, so I can check you are able to access the blog.

Ms B

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Model Answer

Evening All,

Here (behind the link) is the Glass Menagerie Model Essay, in case you lose the paper copy. Hope it's useful.

Ms B


Choose a play whose main theme is made clear early in the action.
Show how the dramatist introduces the theme and discuss how successfully he or she goes on to develop it.

‘The Glass Menagerie’ by Tennessee Williams is an unusual play for many reasons. For one, it is semi-biographical, which lends an urgency and poignancy to the action. In addition, as the narrator himself suggests, this is a play drawn from memory, and which is not designed to be realistic – events are often shrouded in symbolism and overstated depending on their importance in the narrator Tom’s memory. I will be addressing how the author introduces the theme of ‘the unrelenting power of memory’ and showing how he successfully develops it through the play.

We are made aware of the theme from the start of the play. The opening stage directions of scene one instruct the reader, actor or director that:

‘The scene is memory and is therefore non-realistic. Memory takes a
lot of poetic licence. It omits some details; others are exaggerated,
according to the emotional value of the articles it touches’

This lets us know from the start of the play that we should expect an unconventional experience from ‘The Glass Menagerie’. Memory will clearly be a powerful force in the play, as the author intends that his story be shaped and influenced by it. When we meet Tom, the narrator and alter-ego of the playwright, he further emphasises that is play is a creation from memory – his memory in fact:

“The play is memory.
Being a memory play, it is dimly lighted, it is sentimental,
it is not realistic.
In memory everything seems to happen to music. That explains
the fiddle in the wings.”

We begin to see that, for Tom, memory is something tangible yet fluid, with what we see on stage depending on what Tom remembers as important. Even Tom’s physical appearance is warped by memory at this stage of the play, as he is wearing the uniform of a merchant sailor, when in fact at the start of the actual action Tom is still a humble warehouse worker. This helps the audience to understand that Tom is relating his earlier experiences, which will be at times incongruous and unexpected.

The power of memory is introduced by Tom as he informs us of the nature of the play, but it is intensified through the character of Amanda, Tom’s mother, who at times becomes lost in memories of her childhood. Her constant reminiscences and inability to accept her current reality show how powerful a hold memory can have on a person:

“My callers were gentlemen – all! Among my callers were some of the most prominent young planters of the Mississipi Delta – planters and sons of planters!”

Tom and his sister Laura have been subjected to this speech more times than they care to remember. Memory’s hold on Amanda is clear through the breathless punctuation, indicating the power and significance that these memories have for Amanda. This characterisation of Amanda as a woman trapped in her past is effective in showing how Tom inherited the trait of living in the past from his mother.

Just as her mother seems trapped in a rose-tinted past, Laura too has a rich fantasy life, at the centre of which are her memories of a boy, Jim, she knew from school. In scene two, when Amanda realises that her daughter will never make a businesswoman, she falls back on the idea that Laura should be married, and we are made aware of Laura’s enduring crush on Jim:

“Screen image: Jim as a high-school hero, brandishing a silver cup.”

The images on screen always indicate the key ideas and emotions being expressed in each scene, and this image, and the following image of ‘Blue Roses’ (Jim’s nickname for Laura) show that the memory of Jim is still fresh, perhaps painfully so for the girl. The images intensify the effect of Laura’s memories on the audience, and show that she too is pinned to a point of pleasure in the past. The playwright successfully shows how both of the Wingfield women are in some way trapped by their own memories, and in the following scenes he looks at how Tom’s memories hold sway over him.

The opening of scene three continues to develop the theme of the unrelenting power of memory. Tom, speaking from the fire escape, introduces the scene, narrating the events from his own past. The tone of his speech is that of someone telling a story, convincing us further that this play is drawn from memory:

“It became an obsession. Like some archetype of the universal unconscious, the image of the gentleman caller haunted our small apartment…
[IMAGE:YOUNG MAN AT DOOR WITH FLOWERS.]”

The choice of the word ‘haunted’ suggests that this memory for Tom, perhaps subconsciously, has never died and still troubles him. His memories have the power to affect him, even in his ‘new’ life years later.

In scene five, Tom puts events into context, by referring to the bombing of Guernica in Spain, and Neville Chamberlain’s meeting with Hitler in Berchtesgaden, and juxtaposes the turmoil and change in Europe with the Youth of America’s desire for adventure and escape from the depression through:

“Hot swing music and liquor, dance halls , bars and movies,
and sex that hung in the gloom like chandeliers and flooded the
world with brief, deceptive rainbows.”

I believe that Williams, through Tom, uses his memories of this delirious and expectant era to excuse his later behaviour. If “all the world was waiting for bombardments!”, for release of tension, for escape, then how can Tom be blamed for wishing to be liberated from his suffocating and claustrophobic situation? Tom is using one of the main powers of memory, the ability to revise and make sense of events in the past in order to remove or assuage feelings of guilt, which would otherwise be unbearable.

As the play nears its climax, the sense of memory is mingled with imagination, as the action focuses on Laura and Jim’s encounter, which Tom himself did not witness. This part of the play is not memory, as such, but a reconstruction of events, inspired by both memory and assumptions. The theme is always present, however, as the entire play is woven from the fabric of Tom’s past experiences. Scenes six and seven seem even more stylised and exaggerated in their detail than the rest of the play, as if Williams has tried to make the idea of memory more and more obvious as the play progresses. In stage directions in scene seven Laura’s appearance is explicitly derived from Tom’s memory:

“The dress is coloured and designed by memory…a fragile, unearthly prettiness has come out in Laura: she is like a piece of translucent glass,
touched by light.”

This description of Laura seems mystical and slightly unreal, like the quality of memory. The reference to light is significant, as this motif, which has surfaced regularly through the play, becomes more and more frequent through the final scenes Each reference to light, from the cutting off of the electricity representing Jim’s impending separation from his family, to the evocative description of the lightning-struck candelabra, seem to reinforce the importance of each event in Tom’s memory. Even the yearbook, over which Laura and Jim reminisce about the ‘good old days’ is symbolically named ‘The Torch’. The many references to light perhaps show that Jim’s visit and its catastrophic ending is the clearest and most important event among Tom’s memories of his family. This assumption is reinforced by the end of the play, as Tom, and indeed Williams, ‘close the book’ on this painful time. Tom continues to be haunted by the memory of his family, and by his sister in particular.

“I was pursued by something. . . . Then all at once my sister touches
my shoulder. I turn around and look into her eyes. Oh, Laura, Laura,
I tried to leave you behind me, but I am more faithful than I intended
to be! I reach for a cigarette, I cross the street, I run into the movies or
a bar, I buy a drink, I speak to the nearest stranger...anything that can
blow your candles out. For nowadays the world is lit by lightning!
Blow out your candles, Laura – and so good-bye…”

These concluding lines of the play leave us with the image of an extinguished light, as Tom once again tried to black out the memory of abandoning his family. The references to light grew more and more frequent towards the end as Tom related the most intense and painful memories, those just before he left home. The blowing out of the candles may show that, at least for a time, Tom has purged his painful memories through reliving them, and can now leave the memory of his past shame and return to his present life.

As a self-confessed memory play, the theme of the power of memory was obvious throughout ‘The Glass Menagerie’. Williams clearly showed how events in the past, whether clear as day or half remembered, (and thus embellished), have the power to influence us throughout our lives, if we allow them to. Tom’s life is tainted by the memory of abandoning his family, and the guilt of following in his wayward father’s footsteps. Through his skilful use of dramatic conventions, including characterisation, staging devices and symbolism, Williams developed the theme of the power of memory throughout the play to the haunting, moving climax, gaining sympathy from the audience for both his own and Tom’s circumstances.

Words: 1570 Times memory/remember etc used: 50 (approx)

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Long time no post

Hey everyone,

It's been a while - I can just about see the tumbleweed rolling over the pages of the blog!

Anyway, we'll be up to date from now on. Here's a quick summary of current work and homework:

28th November - Glass Menagerie 2 Essay due
29th November - Personal Study due

Next focus of work will be the Close Reading NAB, so make sure you bring your close reading jotters next week!

Any questions, there's the email link ----->

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Happy Holidays

Hi Everyone,

I'm writing this at a course on Computing in English, and I've found some really useful sites for close reading and just brushing up on your general English skills. The links are on the bar at the right of the screen. LILT will go over some techniques useful in close reading, ARIES helps you revise general rules for punctuation and spelling, and the Metre page will be really useful when we start looking at poetry.

Hope you all have a great holiday, remember your Glass Menagerie Essay for Wednesday the 25th, and I'll have your personal studies ready to hand back then!

Ms B

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Welcome to a new week.

Hi All,

Hope you had a refreshing September Weekend. Here's the lowdown for the coming week:

Tues: Glass Menagerie - Scene 7 - reading and questions.
Wed: Personal Study
Thurs: Personal Study and (da-da-dah!) Close Reading! Arrrggh! No, really, it's not that bad!

Those who handed in their writing piece will receive it back on Tuesday. Those still to furnish me with the fruits of your creativity had better get it in PDQ.

Close reading tests will be marked as soon as I can, but bear with me as they will take a while. Same thing goes for the Glass Menagerie work for scenes 3-6, so thanking you in advance for your patience.

Happy New Week,

Ms B

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Reminders...

Writing piece is due on Monday 18th September - feel free to email it to me if you prefer.

Monday will be a Close Reading Session

Tuesday is, as always, Glass Menagerie.

Wednesday this week is also Glass Menagerie (I will be out of school)

Thursday will be a Close Reading techniques test. Make sure you hand the test in at the end of the double period. Bring your personal study book to work on this once you have finished your test. (Again, I will be out of school).

Remember the Writing Piece!!!!

Ms B

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Homework Sheet 2

Second close reading sheet...Click below!


Higher Close Reading Homework – Sheet 2

Subordination, Minor Sentences, Parts of Speech, Prepositional Phrases and Punctuation.

Copy into jotters!

Subordination – circle the main clauses and underline the subordinate clauses.

1. When I get home, I will make your dinner.
2. I fell into the puddle.
3. The book is on the table under the newspaper,
4. The bus stops here on a Wednesday but not on a Friday.
5. If you miss the bus, you will have to walk.

Minor Sentences – write out the minor sentences from this paragraph

Help! I’ve fallen into a trap. Again. How could this happen to me? I didn’t deserve this type of treatment. Not me. Someone else-yes. I’ll just have to deal with it and try my best. What next?

Label EVERY word in each sentence with their part of speech.

1. I slept soundly last night, but the wind kept Jane up.
2. The tree grew an enormous peach on the end of its branch.
3. On hearing the news, I ran rapidly to tell the others.

Prepositional Phrases – Move the prepositional phrase in the sentence, and comment on the effect of the change.

1. On the X-Factor, tomorrow, Simon Cowell will get a surprise.
2. I went to the shops without my purse.
3. Between you and I, I don’t really like him.
4. Frankie felt sick looking at the picture.

Punctuation – Say what the punctuation marks in bold are doing in each sentence

1. The dog’s coat wasn’t very warm.
2. Andrew – the boy you met earlier – lives in Glasgow.
3. I had so much to do: make the dinner; pay all the bills feed the dog, the cat and the canary; iron the clothes.
4. In the evening, I shall sit in the back garden.
5. We saw ‘Romeo and Juliet’ last night.
6. It could be wrong, it could be right, it could be neither…
7. I waited for ever - or so it seemed.
8. I can’t meet you tomorrow night: I have a prior appointment.

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Close Reading Homework Sheet 1

Click the link to access the first Close Reading sheet - Sentence Structure

Higher Homework - Clauses and Phrases

A clause is a group of words containing one main verb. If the group of words can stand alone and make sense, then the clause is a main clause. A sentence (usually) contains at least one main clause.

A clause that can’t stand alone and make sense, is called a subordinate clause. It depends on the main clause in order for it to make sense.

Copy these out into your jotter. Circle the main clause and underline the subordinate clause in these sentences. No word will be left out.

Here main clauses are in red, subordinate in blue.

1. I am going to the cinema tomorrow.
2. I went to sleep because I was tired.
3. After I watched the game, I had my dinner.
4. The computer rebooted as I made my tea.
5. I cried for hours and hours until my eyes were red raw.
6. If you don’t do your homework, you will not pass your exams.
7. Although he is a better player than me, I have occasionally beaten him.

Now answer/complete the following in your jotter:

1. Which style of writing can be indicated by the use of subordination? - formal
2. What is the effect of placing the subordinate clause at the beginning of a sentence? - makes it seem particularly formal
3. Write 3 sentences in your jotter:
a) 1 with only a main clause.
b)1 with a main clause followed by a subordinate clause.
c)1 where the subordinate clause comes before the main clause (remember the comma).

Label the parts of speech in these sentences (copy into your jotters.)

1. He lifted the jotter which he opened to a fresh page.

He - Pronoun lifted - verb the - definite article jotter - noun which - relative pronoun Opened - verb to - preposition a - indefinite article fresh - adjective page - noun

2. Amelia smiled sweetly at the handsome man and fluttered her eyelashes.

Amelia - Proper noun smiled - verb sweetly - adverb at - preposition the - definite article handsome - adjective man - noun and - conjunction fluttered - verb her - possessive pronoun eyelashes - plural noun

3. With the bone in his mouth, Rover ran across the road.

With - preposition the - definite article bone - noun in - preposition his - pronoun mouth - noun Rover - proper noun ran - verb across - preposition the - definite article road - noun

A phrase is a group of words that does not contain a verb. When an adjectival phrase comes before the word they describe or modify, we call this ‘pre -modification’. When they come after, we call them ‘post-modification.’ Pre-modification is less formal (as in a tabloid newspaper), whereas post-modification is more formal (as in a quality newspaper.)

Identify if pre or post modification is being used in these examples:
1. Young Celtic Star, Shaun Maloney, writes for us today. pre - tabloid
2. Three-times Miss UK Doris Little collapsed on a plane yesterday. pre - tabloid
3. Tony Blair, Prime Minister of Britain, flew into the USA. post - quality
4. Happy-go-lucky songster Freddie wrote his own material. pre - tabloid
5. Neil Gaiman, world-renowned fantasy author, is signing books in New York. post - quality

Now write two examples of your own – one using pre-modification and one using post –modification.

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Weclome class of 2006-7

I now extend a warm welcome to my Higher Class for the coming year.

On this page, you will find links to resources to help you with Higher English, contact details for me, and frequent updates with regards to homework, NABs and classwork, so try to stop by as often as you can to check you're all up to date.

Coming soon... the first two close reading homework sheets for your own revision purposes (answers will be added in due course).

I hope you find this useful,

Ms B.

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