Year 8

The students continued to explore rhythm and rhyme in poetry and added, to their repertoire of poetic devices, a volta.  We approached a metaphorical poem with trepidation, but with discussion, understood the context.  We explored how metaphors bridge abstract concepts with concrete imagery, making complex ideas easier to understanding.  Additionally, the poems become more engaging and entertaining to read.

Year 9

To complete the groundwork for close reading, the Year 9 students learnt how to answer a question in the correct format.  They located evidence from a text and explained the effectiveness of the author’s choices using more sophisticated vocabulary.

Special mention needs to be made of the incredible writing Joseph produced.  He created this masterful piece of writing in an assessment, and I wanted to share this with you all.  Under testing conditions, Joseph presented me with an excellent understanding of literary devices.  

On the corner of a narrow, dusty street in a poor city, a homeless man with a family of two raggedy kids and his scrawny wife sat begging.  The day was dark and bad-tempered, thunderclaps roaring overhead like a pride of hungry lions starved by a cruel zookeeper.  The man cuddles his children closely, wishing in himself that he had but a piece of bread to feed his starving family.

 

In that poor, money-deprived city, lived a rich man named Garreth.  He was kind to who he wished, yet unsympathetic to the many malnourished families begging for their daily bread from whoever they could find; perhaps some wealthy passing tourist, or a slightly more well-off pedestrian.  He was the mayor of the city, him, along with his deputy mayor, Aunt Robbinson, an old obese relative with whom he lived.

 

One Monday morning, when the belly-bobbling woman was out for a walk, the homeless man, who was known as Tom Square to all who knew him, decided discreetly with his wife that he had a plan to help the family. When Aunt Robbinson, returning from her stroll, strode up to open the gate of the massive mansion in which she and her nephew abode, she was surprised by Tom Square jumping out from a juniper tree within the garden, and stripping her of wig (for she wore one) and her coat, and jumping nimbly into the mansion in which the mighty mayor lived.

 

Now, I’d have you know, Garreth was not a very smart man.  Most other people would instantly notice that the skinny, disguised man walking up the stairs to meet him was not Aunt Robbinson.  But Garreth knew no better.  Nodding to his ‘Aunt’ he pushed open the door of his office.