ENGLISH AQA P000 i

56 Pages·2004·14.09 MB·English

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ENGLISH AQA P000 i- vi.FILM 23/09/04 1:00 PM Page iii
RevisionGuide
GCSE
ENGLISH
AQA A
Specification
Keith Brindle
Series Editor: Jayne de Courcy
ENGLISH AQA P030-57 FILM 24/09/04 7:28 AM Page 30
P D C
OETRY FROM IFFERENT ULTURES
T
AND RADITIONS
What you will be assessed on
Paper 2, Section A, will expect you to compare two poems from
different cultures and traditions. The poems will be taken from your
Anthology.
There will be two questions, but you will only have to answer one of
them.
In both questions, you will be asked about a named poem, and asked
to compare it with another of your choice.
One question will target the first cluster of poems in the Anthology,
the other question will target the second cluster.
You will be expected to spend 45 minutes on your response. This will
count for 15% of your total mark for the exam.
cResponding to Poetry from Different Cultures
and Traditions
(cid:1) In both questions, you will be expected to write about elements in the
poems which show clearly that the poems come from different cultures.
(cid:1) You might, for example, be asked about the setting of the poems, or the
situation of the individuals in the poems, or about poverty in the poems,
or something similar. In each of these examples, you will automatically
end up writing about the culture from which the poem comes, or which
it concerns. You will, therefore, have fulfilled the ‘different culture’
requirement.
UNIT 2 30 READING POETRY
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cThe questions you will be asked
(cid:1) The questions that are set will be based upon the assessment criteria for
Reading. Examiners will be assessing your ability to:
1. Read,with insight and engagement,making appropriate references to
texts and developing and sustaining interpretations of them
You will be expected to understand what the poets are saying,
hopefully moving beyond the obvious meaning and examining the
deeper messagesthe poets offer. In other words, you will range
across the poems and deal with whythey have been written. You
should support your ideas with reference toand quotation from
the poems.
- See Sessions 1-5
2. Select material appropriate to your purpose,collate material from
different sources and make cross-references
References to the poems need to be relevant, so you need to focus
on the question that is asked, avoid irrelevancies and select ideas
and quotations that are apt. It is not enough simply to write about
two poems; for top grades, you need to make clear comparisons
of messages, poetic techniques or whatever is required by the
question.
- See Sessions 2-5
3. Understand and evaluate how writers use linguistic,structural and
presentational devices to achieve their effects,and comment on ways
language varies and changes
You will be expected to show howthe poets have used language,
what effectit has and whythe poets have used it in particular
ways and for particular purposes. You will be writing about how
the language is used appropriately to convey a particular message.
If you can evaluate the usage– say how successful it is – you will
be rewarded with a high mark. You will also need to consider
other presentational elements such as the structure, including
how it begins, develops and ends, as well as the way it is set out
on the page.
- See Sessions 3-5
READING POETRY 31 UNIT 2
ENGLISH AQA P030-57 FILM 24/09/04 7:29 AM Page 32
REVISION 1
Cultures and traditions
SESSION
cLanguage
The questions on Paper 2
(cid:1) In some of the Anthology poems, language plays a significant role in
Section A will focus, in
setting the poem within a particular culture.
part, on the different
cultures or traditions • It can show how people speak:
identifiable in the poems.
munay hutoo kay aakhee jeebh aakhee bhasha
In some instances these (fromSearch For My Tongueby Sujata Bhatt)
will be suggested by the
Explain yuself
specific language that
wha yu mean
has been used, but the
(Half-Casteby John Agard)
question could also ask
about: • Elsewhere, it gives us names: Oya, Shango and Hattie (Hurricane Hits
• people England); or introduces items unfamiliar to many in Britain: yams in
• settings Not My Businessand a salwar kameez in Presents from my Aunts in
• situations Pakistan.
• problems.
• There are also very different situations:
When peaceful clouds were reflected in the paddies
and the water buffalo stepped surely along the terraces
(What Were They Like?by Denise Levertov)
thi reason
‘Paddies’ and ‘terraces’ give a clear sense of the different culture.
a talk wia
(cid:1) It is very important to show that you understand both howthe poets
BBC accent use language, and why.
iz coz yi Look at this extract from a student’s answer about the
language used in from Unrelated Incidents.
widny wahnt
mi ti talk
In from Unrelated Incidents, Tom Leonard uses a regional
aboot thi
voice to criticise BBC English and all it represents. We
trooth wia appreciate his accent and the pronunciation because it
seems ordinary – and, arguably, more honest than the
voice lik
manufactured television version of ‘trooth’. When the
wanna yoo newsreader says we would not want him to talk ‘lik wanna
yoo scruff’, we are presented with an image of Glasgow,
scruff…
peopled by ordinary folk; but we are left to wonder
yooz doant no
whether they are people that we would trust more than
✓✓
thi trooth someone who uses ‘received pronunciation’.
yirsellz cawz
yi canny talk GOOD POINTS:
right. • The focus is upon how and why
the language is used.
Extract: fromUnrelated
• The use of language is explained
Incidents
(‘we are presented with…’).
• There is a personal reaction to
the language (‘We appreciate his
accent…’).
UNIT 2 32 READING POETRY
ENGLISH AQA P030-57 FILM 24/09/04 7:29 AM Page 33
cPeople and settings
(cid:1) In most of the poems, the people and the places where they live are h
A* EXTRA
different from those we would find in Britain.
• In What Were They Like?by Denise Levertov, we have: (cid:2)Since people and their
environments are likely to be
peasants; their life
central to questions on this
was in rice and bamboo.
paper, revision of these
• In Two Scavengers in a Truck, Two Beautiful People in a Mercedesby features is particularly
Lawrence Ferlinghetti, the American situation is closer to our own important.
(cid:2)You might be presented with
world, but still different:
questions which begin:
a bright yellow garbage truck What impression of society
with two garbagemen in red plastic blazers is given in…
standing on the back stoop… or
What problems does the poet
cSituations and problems highlight in… and how do
the people react? Compare
(cid:1) The sense of coming from or being in a different cultural situation, and this situation with another
the problems which arise, are common themesrunning through the from a poem of your choice.
clusters. Thorough preparation for
such tasks leads to more
For example, in Island Manby Grace Nichols, the central character finds
detailed responses and
himself in a relatively alien environment. He has left his home, with its
higher grades.
surf, seabirds and fishermen, and is now coping with life in a huge city.
He has to drag himself out of bed to face its challenges:
island man heaves himself
Another London day
The final line, separated, shows the significance of ‘another London day’,
which seems heavy and depressing.
Other poems show problems. In Limboby Kamau Braithwaite, we are
presented with the world of slavery and the suffering of the Africans.
The plight of the slaves is desperate:
stick is the whip
and the dark deck is slavery
though the ending suggests there might be salvation of some kind:
and the music is saving me.
Often, though, there seem no solutions, so we are faced with ‘the
perpetuity of evil’ (Vulturesby Chinua Achebe) and told in Tatamkhula
Afrika’s poem that Nothing’s Changed.
In many instances, people just have to struggle on. In Night of the
Scorpion, Nissim Ezekiel details her mother’s suffering, then reveals her
mother’s reaction, which indicates that her only thoughts were for her
children and, perhaps, makes us think that her whole life in the
village has been a struggle and that she has become used to pains:
My mother only said
Thank God the scorpion picked on me
And spared my children.
READING POETRY 33 UNIT 2
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At other times, there are some flashes of hope for the future, such as
when Imtiaz Dharker conjures a positive vision and excitement:
This is the time and place
to be alive. (This Room)
Also, Derek Walcott demonstrates how we can come to a peace within
ourselves and how our lives will be richer because of our understanding:
(cid:1) You will love again the stranger who was yourself. (Love After
Love)
C Y Q
HECK OURSELF UESTION
Q It always helps to revise poems in pairs,since you will have to compare
two poems in the exam itself.Consider the lists below.Decide which
poems you would use to respond to the given themes,and why.
Cluster 1
Themes Poems
Suffering Nothing’s Changed
Poverty Limbo
Inequality Island Man
Man and Nature Night of the Scorpion
Contrasting cultures What Were They Like?
Two Scavengers in a Truck
Blessing
Vultures
Cluster 2
Themes Poems
Love After Love
Living between cultures
from Unrelated Incidents
Language problems
Presents from my Aunts in Pakistan
Changes
Hurricane Hits England
Dealing with the unacceptable
Half-Caste
A positive outlook
Not My Business
from Search For My Tongue
This Room
Answer is on page 150.
UNIT 2 34 READING POETRY
ENGLISH AQA P030-57 FILM 28/09/04 4:34 PM Page 35
REVISION2
Content, attitude and message
SESSION
When you write about cWhat the poem is saying
poems from different
(cid:1) For each of the poems you are studying, you need to understand
cultures and traditions,
exactly what the poem is saying. Without this basic knowledge,
the content of the poems
you cannot hope to write effectively in your exam.
may be a central feature
of the question you are Look at these sample annotations on the opening of Vulturesby
asked. Chinua Achebe:
You may have to comment
on:
In the greyness
• the content of the
and drizzle of one despondent depressing scene to link with topic
poems
• the poets’ attitudes dawn unstirred by harbingers
to the subject
of sunbreak a vulture vulture unaffected by daylight
• the messages in the
perching high on broken linked to images of deadness
poems.
bone of a dead tree
nestled close to his affectionate with mate
mate his smooth
bashed-in head, a pebble
on a stem rooted in described in terms from nature
a dump of gross
feathers, inclined affectionately
to hers. Yesterday they picked
the eyes of a swollen gruesome details
corpse in a water-logged
trench and ate the
things in its bowel. Full full, they roost
gorged they chose their roost
keeping the hallowed remnant corpse considered of religious
importance
in easy range of cold
vultures’ eyes unfeeling and sharp
telescopic eyes…
Strange
indeed how love in other
generalisation about love and how
ways so particular
creatures behave when in love
will pick a corner
in that charnel-house
tidy it and coil up there, perhaps
love makes us ignore what
even fall asleep – her face
might otherwise appal us
turned to the wall!
READING POETRY 35 UNIT 2
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This is how one student began to analyse Achebe’s message…
The vultures of the title are described in some detail by the poet. They are a couple, part of nature (‘a
pebble on a stem’) but unpleasant to look at, the male with a ‘bashed-in head’. The ‘cold telescopic’ eyes
are frightening and the atmosphere around them is similarly depressing. There is drizzle, no appreciation
of sunbreak, and the situation is compared to a ‘charnel house’.
This is because death is part of the description, for although the birds are lovers (he has his head ‘inclined
affectionately to hers’), they have gorged on a corpse, eating its eyes and what was in the bowel – grim
details about a quite frightening pair.
The final section of the extract comments on how those in love can overlook unpleasantness in their proximity,
metaphorically turning their face to the wall. They can live and cope in what is, in truth, a vile situ✓a✓tion.
cThe poet’s attitude and message
GOOD POINTS:
1. VULTURES BY CHINUA ACHEBE
• The extract is
(cid:1) When poets describe situations, they present them in such a way that
considered in its
the reader is led to consider an underlying message. So, for example,
entirety.
in Vultureswe are led to consider how acceptable it is both to feed • All the ideas are
on death and to love. The gruesome detail and the inclusion of the
supported with
Commandant of Belsen might lead us to suppose the poet finds such
precise textual detail.
behaviour extremely unpleasant. • There are three clear
(cid:1) The poet does, though, point out that even the worst offenders can sections:the birds,
their behaviour and
show some ‘tenderness’. In this case, the man in charge of the death
the general point to
camp is also a loving ‘Daddy’ who lavishes treats on his doting child.
conclude.
... Thus the Commandant at Belsen man in charge of
Camp going home for concentration camp:
the day with fumes of the worst of humanity?
human roast clinging
rebelliously to his hairy
vivid, unpleasant image
nostrils will stop
at the wayside sweet-shop
and pick up a chocolate
for his tender offspring
waiting at home for Daddy's
contrasting impression
return...
Praise bounteous
providence if you will
that grants even an ogre
evil and affection brought
a tiny glow-worm
together
tenderness encapsulated
in icy caverns of a cruel
tenderness balanced
heart or else despair
against coldness
for in the very germ
there is love, but the love
of that kindred love is
leads to a continuation
lodged the perpetuity
of the evil
of evil.
UNIT 2 36 READING POETRY
ENGLISH AQA P030-57 FILM 24/09/04 7:30 AM Page 37
2. NOT MY BUSINESS BY NIYI OSUNDARE
(cid:1) In some poems, such as this one, there is no doubt about the poet’s
attitude, because it is obvious from the start. We are shown what is
happening in the society and how people react to it. They ignore the
suffering of others and think only of themselves. The poet’s feelings are
revealed by:
• the languageused
• how the situationis described. They picked Akanni up one morning
Beat him soft like clay
And stuffed him down the belly
The simile makes Akanni appear
Of a waiting jeep.
powerless and beaten to a pulp.
What business of mine is it
‘stuffed’ suggests
So long they don’t take the yam
inhuman treatment.
From my savouring mouth?
We hear exactly what the man says
who does not want to be involved.
They came one night
He is presented as insensitive Booted the whole house awake
and concerned only with the
And dragged Danladi out,
delights of eating: a contrast
and link with the jeep that has Then off to a lengthy absence.
others in its belly. The man’s What business of mine is it
lack of concern is made to
So long they don’t take the yam
seem morally unacceptable.
From my savouring mouth?
Chinwe went to work one day
Only to find her job was gone:
No query, no warning, no probe –
Just one neat sack for a stainless record.
What business of mine is it
So long they don’t take the yam
From my savouring mouth?
(cid:1) Ironically, the fact that the speaker has tried not to get involved
does not save him. His turn comes too:
He was more interested In his yams
than in his neighbours’ problems.
And then one evening
His eating stops. He is
As I sat down to eat my yam
metaphorically frozen with fear.
A knock on the door froze my hungry hand.
He was silent when others were The jeep was waiting on my bewildered lawn
taken, so it is fitting there is
Waiting, waiting in its usual silence.
silence when they come for
him: silence represents the
lack of opposition.
READING POETRY 37 UNIT 2