TY Extended Essay: Stockett, Oyeyemi, Martin

Here is the first of the Extended Essays written last term by Transition Year pupils, this excellent one being by Alex Owens. She writes:-

"The theme which I have chosen for my extended essay is Racism and Relationships.  The three books that I choose for the essay are The Help by Kathryn Stockett, Jupiter Williams by S.I Martin and The Icarus Girl by Helen Oyeyemi.  I have chosen racism as my theme purely because of one book I read over the summer which was To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. I loved this book because of the way the author herself wrote it and the plot behind it. How these young boys see their father defending a black man for alleged rape towards a white women. You see their views on it and what they think of it even as young boys.  The way in which black people were associated back then interests me a lot. It is the first book which I really got a taste of what life was like for coloured people and how they really were treated. I decided to build my essay around the theme of racism because I enjoyed To Kill a Mockingbird so much and I want to explore other books like it."

Read Alex's full essay here.

Genres in story-telling

Plot Device from Red Giant on Vimeo.

This 10-minute video by Red Giant should prompt good discussions in class about genres. It's also witty and just good fun.

(Spotted on Twitter by Tom Barrett)

Noel Coldrick's book selection

Open publication - Free publishing - More books

Our Library continues to highlight favourite book selections by members of staff, and is currently featuring one from Mathematics teacher Mr Noel Coldrick, which can be seen above via Issuu (click once for closer view, again for full view). 

Challengingly he recommends Joyce's Finnegans Wake (the borrowing statistics for this from the Library are probably fairly low), and other novels such as Pat Barker's Border Crossing and D.M. Thomas's The White Hotel.

Visual Writing Prompts

For English teachers: here is a list (it will be updated every now and then) of fine photographs and images which could be used fruitfully for writing prompts. Any more ideas? Do put them in the Comments section, or tweet them to @sccenglish.

(Above, 'Entertainers on the Aran Islands' from Imagebank, copyright Maxwell Photograph)

1. The Writing Prompts Tumblr blog by Luke Neff is an excellent source of ideas for writing, with lots of striking visual material, and well-designed text.  
2. Amazing, entertaining and often beautiful black and white photographs, collated by Matt Stopera. 
3. World Press Photo: press photos are often dynamic, interesting, and really good prompts. This is the best site of all (warning: some such photos can also be disturbing - check them out first).
4. Some of history's most famous photographs, in both original black and white, and colour.
5. The Guardian site is particularly strong in terms of photographs. If you have an iPad, download the superb free Eyewitness app, and project the images onto the board.
6. Library of Congress photographs of the Great Depression. Memorable if often depressing images.
7. The National Geographic photo of the day. The standard here is of course very high. Here's the Best of 2011.
8. The Wikimedia list of images of public domain images on the Web.

Writing Prompts

The Writing Prompts Tumblr blog by Luke Neff is an excellent source of ideas for writing, with lots of striking visual material, and well-designed text. One example here : this might work well for a teenager - describe an 'inward event'.

Check out our full list of sites for English teaching here.

'Teaching English' magazine, Winter 2011

Open publication - Free publishing - More english

The Winter 2011 edition of Teaching English magazine, from the English Support Service, is out, and can be seen above via Issuu (click for a closer view, again for the closest, and use the arrows to scroll).

This edition includes the winners from the annual poetry competition run by the magazine, a piece by JMG of this Department written on the eve of the rescheduled English Literature paper in the Leaving Certificate in 2009, a brief view of the texts prescribed for the 2013 Leaving Certificate (we are doing Translations, How Many Miles to Babylon and The Great Gatsby), and a piece from the English Teachers' Association of New South Wales in Australia on 'The Relationship between English and Literacy Education.'

English Prizes, 2011-12

Congratulations to the winners of this year's English Prizes, Opeline Kellett (senior) and John Clarke (junior). Book tokens have also been given for good entries to Jasmine Blenkins O'Callaghan (V), Hollie Canning (II) and Callum Pery-Knox-Gore (I).

The Senior and Junior Poetry Prizes, and the Shakespeare Prize, are later this term.

A Whin Bush Backwards

Our colleague Ronan Swift is launching his second album, A Whin Bush Backwards, on Thursday 26th January at Bewley's (doors open 8.15pm, entry €12 including a copy of the CD - can't say fairer - and all proceeds go to continued relief in Haiti). An interview with Ronan about his first album, Farewell Future Wives, was our first podcast almost three years ago. 

The new collection features a fine set of musicians (also performing at the gig) highlighting Ronan's vocals and guitar, and his trademark excellent lyrics. Let's pick out 'My Bookcase', a journey through the author's reading over many years, including Laurie Lee, Dickens and Primo Levi, about which Ronan talked in Chapel a while ago. And there's lots more to enjoy in a top-class production.

Transition Year Work Portfolio 2011-12

TY pupils can click this link to see the Work Portfolio titles for this year. This document will continue to be accessible via 'Department Documents' to the right.

Junior Play 2012

Auditions for the 2012 Junior Play, John B. Keane's The Field, are being held in the BSR at 1.15pm today. Have a go!

A Guest at the Feast

Colm Tóibín's latest book, A Guest at the Feast: a memoir, is part of a new venture from the most famous of all paperback publishers, called Penguin Shorts. These books are only available in e-form, with others by authors such as Helen Dunmore and Anita Brookner, and cost £1.99 sterling. E-readers such as the Kindle make this kind of publishing both possible and promising. On the iTunes model, it's easy and tempting to download a short book for a modest cost.

Certainly Tóibín's contribution is a very attractive one. The richness of the material makes it feel like a much longer book than it would no doubt seem in paper form. Tóibín ranges over his childhood in Enniscorthy, Co Wexford, with great skill and affection. There are fine passageson his mother and her hunger for literature, on the memorable arrival of the Fleadh Cheoil to Enniscorthy in 1967 (the night before the author's father was hit by a fatal stroke), on discovering Dublin as a university student, on the last sad days of the composer Frederick May, and on Tóibín's peripheral brush with the child abuse scandals of the Roman Catholic Church. About all these he writes with delicacy and sympathy. His prose seems a little loosened up from some of his fiction, and far less depressing than it can be there.

As he writes, "All of us have a landscape of the soul, places whose contours and resonances are etched into us and haunt us. If we ever became ghosts, these are the places to which we would return."  His returnings in this e-text make it well worth the modest outlay.

Books of the Year 2011

Last year we put together our 'delicious list' of books of the year (including Christmas gift lists) from a myriad of different publications and websites and it was very popular. So here we go again. This post will be regularly updated over the next month, as more lists come out.

1. The Daily Telegraph : Books of the Year from authors such as Andrew Motion (poet Alice Oswald's Memorial, her take on the Iliad) and Ali Smith (Down the Rabbit Hole by the Mexican writer Juan Pablo Villalobos) with Part II here; also, Biographies rounded up by Nicholas Shakespeare (including Ann Wroe's "lovely and original" book on Orpheus and Gordon Bowker's biography of James Joyce), Fiction (Julian Barnes's Booker-winner The Sense of an Ending, Cedilla by Adam Mars-Jones). Another Books of the Year from reviewers.
2. The Scotsman: Books of the Year from Scots contributors, including Sally Magnusson (Claire Tomalin's new biography of Dickens).
3. The Irish Times : Favourite Books of 2011 from many, including Belinda McKeon (Richard Beard's Lazarus is Dead), Stuart Neville (Declan Burke's Absolute Zero Cool), and Patrick Ness (yet another vote for Ali Smith's There But For The). Eileen Battersby's Books of the Year starts with Hisham Matar's The Anatomy of a Disappearance.
4. The New Statesman : a long list of contributors, including John Lanchester (Nicola Shulman's Graven with Diamonds: the many lives of Thomas Wyatt, courtier, poet, assassin, spy) and Julie Myerson (Jeanette Winterston's Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?).
5. The New York Times : 100 Notable Books of 2011, including The Keats Brothers by Denise Gigante, and 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami, as well as the 10 Best Books of 2011 (including Téa Obreht's The Tiger's Wife) and Michiko Kakutani's Picks for 2011 (Obreht again, and Don DeLillo's short story collection The Angel Esmerelda). Editors and critics pick their books of the year as well, including Executive Editor Jill Abramson who chose Edmund de Waal's The Hare with the Amber Eyes (now available in a new illustrated edition).
6. Marginal Revolution: Tyler Cowan's lists include Best non-fiction (including John Sutherland's The Lives of the Novelists) Best Fiction (Audur Ava Olafsdottir's The Greenhouse) [via @iamreddave]
7. The Atlantic: 5 Books of the Year (including Philip Larkin's Letters to Monica), and  Runners-up (including David Lodge's novel about H.G. Wells, A Man of Parts).
8. The Guardian: Books of the Year from many, including Chimamanda Adichie (Sebastian Barry's On Canaan's Side), Julia Donaldson (Patrick Ness and Siobhan Dowd's A Monster Calls) and Helen Dunmore (Sean O'Brien's new collection of poems November). The newspaper's Best Books of 2011 articles include poetry, fiction, economics and children's books. And here is Nicholas Lezard's Pick of Paperbacks in 2011, starting with Diego Marani's New Finnish Grammar. Also, Guardian readers choose their favourites.
9. The Sunday Times (no link - subscription needed): Part I in the Culture section included Fiction from Peter Kemp and Eithne Shorthall (including Edward Aubyn's conclusion to the brilliant Melrose series, At Last, Kevin Barry's City of Bohane and Jonathan Buckley's intriguing Telescope), History from Dominic Sandbrook, Memoirs from Robert Collins, Poetry from Alan Brownjohn (Michael Longley's A Hundred Doors) and much more. In Crime Fiction, Declan Burke's Absolute Zero Cool, 'among the most memorable books of the year, of any genre... evokes the best of Flann O'Brien and Bret Easton Ellis'). David Maybury on his blog links to Amanda Craig's selection of children's books of 2011, her 13+ novel of the year being Moira Young’s Blood Red Road, "an exuberant thriller set in a post-apocalyptic landscape."
10. The Observer: Books as Christmas gifts - which would you give, which would you like to get? -  from Diana Athill (Claire Tomalin's Charles Dickens: a life), Julie Myerson (Jacqueline Yallop's novel Obedience) and many more. And also sub-sections, such as Thrillers (including two novels about memory loss, S.J. Watson's Before I Go to Sleep and Alice LaPlante's Turn of Mind).
11. Amazon.co.uk: Best Books of 2011 starts with Elizabeth Haynes's debut thriller, Into the Darkest Corner, a real page-turner, and includes Jennifer Egan's widely-praised A Visit from the Goon Squad. Click further for the rest of 50 choices, including at no. 19 The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides.
12. Susan Thomsen at Chicken Spaghetti has a tremendous round-up of children's literature lists of 2011.
13. The Globe and Mail (Canada): The Globe 100: the very best books of 2011, including Elizabeth Hay's novel Alone in the Classroom, Colm Tóibín's short story collection The Empty Family and Anne Enright's The Forgotten Waltz.
14. NPR Radio: Five 2011 That Stay With You by Heller McAlpin includes the ubiquitous Booker Prize winner, The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes, and Joan Didion's Blue Nights.  Also independent booksellers from around America have their own choice - Unpacking My Library: writers and their books by Leah Price looks good. Maureen Corrigan's pick includes Swamplandia! by Karen Russell, which sounds Hiassen-like.
15. The Daily Mail: Columnists choose their favourites, including Sandra Parsons (Jeanette Winterston's memoir Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal.
16. Reading Matters : this blog has four posts on other bloggers' choices as books of the year, with lots of books not appearing in other lists, including Ida Hattemer-Higgins's The History of History: a novel of Berlin.
17. Shelf Unbound: Top 10 Books of 2011 include the widely-praised Leaving the Atocha Station by Ben Lerner, and Damascus by Joshua Mohr. 
18. Brain Pickings from Maria Popova : several lists, including 11 Best Illustrated Children's and Picture Books of 2011, including some gorgeous illustrations. Also, 11 Best Biographies and Memoirs, starting with the very successful Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson.
19. The Kansas City Star: Top 100 Books of 2011 including The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka.
20. The Seattle Times: 22 Gift Books for Ardent Readers by Mary Ann Gwinn, including Ex Libris: the art of bookplates by Martin Hopkinson. 
21. St Louis Post Despatch: Favourite books of 2011 points out that several fascinating novels seemed to take place outside of cities and deep inside dark woods including Charles Frazier's Nightwoods. Lots of snappily-introduced books in this one.
22. The Millions: lots of A Year in Reading articles, such as Michael Schaub on Seth Fried's promising The Great Frustration. 
23. Goodreads: the readers' social network has the results of a Best Books of 2011 poll, including in Non-Fiction The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth by Alexandra Robbins and in Fiction 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami.
24. Time magazine: 10 Best Fiction Books of 2011 includes Kate Atkinson's Started Early, Took My Dog - "a kind of seedy hard-boiled modern epic." 
25. Huffington Post: Best Books 2011.
26. Slate: Books for the Discerning Stocking includes two classic thrillers, Conrad's The Secret Agent and Graham Greene's A Confidential Agent. 
27. Salon: over 50 writers choose their favourite books of the year, including Sebastian Barry, who went for The Emperor of Lies by Steve Sem-Sandberg, set in the Lodz ghetto, and Paula McCain, who chose Ann Patchett's State of Wonder. Also, there is Laura Miller's Best Fiction selection (Patchett gets in again), and her Non-Fiction choices, including James Gleick's The Information.
28. Evening Standard (London): lots of lists, including Crime (the great Carl Hiassen's Star Island) and Older Children (Gill Lewis's Skyhawk). Also a round-up of Most Chosen Books of the Year.
29. Washington Post: Jonathan Yardley's selection of Year-End Picks mentioned that nothing lived up to older fiction such as J.G. Farrell's Empire trilogy, or P.G. Wodehouse. However, he did pick Edna O'Brien's Saints and Sinners and The Cut by George Pelecanos.
30. Vancouver Sun: 2011's Top 10 Books by Tracy Sherlock - again Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad and Patrick Dewitt's The Sisters Brothers.
31. Brainpickings: lists include Best Photography Books of 2011 and 11 Best Science Books.
32. London Independent: Children's Books of 2011,  Book of the Year ('the one you wouldn't lend'), Susan Elkin's Teenage Books of the Year (such as Jennifer Donnelly's Revolution and Catherine Erskine's Mockingbird, based on the Virginia Tech shootings). History books in 'the year of tyrannies overturned' features the Wyatt biography also mentioned in the New Statesman list above). Also, Digital Literature recommendations include some interesting innovative apps and short 'plain-text' works.
33. Seattle Times: 32 of the Year's Best Books - 21 of which are fiction, including Lost Memory of Skin by Russell Banks and Alan Hollinghurst's The Stranger's Child.
34. The Economist: Page-turners from 2011, including Jason Burke's The 9/11 Wars and Janine di Giovanni's autobiography Ghosts by Daylight: a memoir of love, war and redemption.
35. Newsweek/The Daily Beast: contributors and writers give their choices of favourite books of the year - including an intereresting sounding story, Deborah Baker's The Convert, and the versatile Geoff Dyer's essay collection Otherwise Known as the Human Condition.
36. Irish Independent: Celia Keenan's choice of Young Adult books includes Siobhan Parkinson's Bruised and Roddy Doyle's A Greyhound of a Girl.
37. John Self: The Asylum blog always provides an interesting selection - Twelve from the Shelves 2011 includes several short novels, and foreign fiction in translation like The Loft by Marlen Haushofer and Italo Calvino's Mr Palomar.
38. Vanity Fair: The Best Books of 2011 You Haven't Read by Elissa Schapell looks at books which aren't getting enough attention on other lists, such as Someday This Will Be Funny by Lynn Tillmann.
39. Los Angeles Times: Holiday Books sets out the lists nicely as book covers - hover over them for more. For instance, the Fiction and Poetry list. David Ulin's review of the year is here, and includes James Gleick's The Information : a history, a theory, a flood.
40. The Boston Globe (limited access without subscription): Crime best books of the year include The Cut by George Pelecanos - also, poetry, fiction, non-fiction, science, chldren's books available.
41. Austin Statesman: round-up by Joe Gross, with his own favourites, including Joan Didion's Blue Nights.
42. School Library Journal: their excellent Best of 2011 round-up includes Apps, Graphic Novels, Technology, Fiction, Non-Fiction and more.
43. Book Trust: Books of the Year by Nikesh Shukla : "Zone One by Colson Whitehead (Harvill Secker) is my favourite book of the year ...  It is subtly political, it is overtly honest about humanity, it is textured and still and tense and all the parameters you want to give it. But it is also funny."
44. Wall Street Journal: Twelve Months of Reading from 50 people, including Lee Child (Before I Go to Sleep by S.J. Watson) and Michael Ignatieff (Tony Judt's The Memory Chalet, also recommended by us here). 
45. Publishers' Weekly: Staff Picks include Hitch-22 by the late Christopher Hitchens, and The Anatomy of a Moment by Javier Cercas. The official lists are many, including all the standard categories, such as fiction.
46. Library Journal: Best Books  - the Top 10, including the always interesting Steven Pinker's The Better Angels of our Nature - why violence has declined, and several other lists.  
47. Egypt Independent: in this year of all others, it's good to get a different angle on books of the year from this publication - 11 Egyptian authors choose their favourite books of the year, one in which for obvious reasons publishing was disrupted. 
48. San Francisco Chronicle: 100 recommended books from 2011 in many categories, including in fiction Chris Adrian's retelling of A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Great Night. A shorter selection is the Top 10 books of the year.
49. Chicago Sun-Times: selections by book reviewers from the paper. Roger K. Miller selects Ian Kershaw's final book on Hitler, The End. 
50. Houston Chronicle: Maggie Galehouse includes in her selection Roddy Doyle's new book of short stories, Bullfighting. 
51. ABC Online: Louise Maher's Top 11 Books of 2011 includes John Larkin's The Shadow Girl.
52. The Poetry Foundation: their staff choose their favourite books from 2011, such as Negro League Baseball by Harmony Holiday. 
53. Time Magazine: Lev Grossman's Top 10 Moments in Reading in 2011, including Lars Kepler's The Hypnotist and Top 10 Fiction (doesn't go down well with many in the comments section).
54. Best of Arabic Literature in English 2011: a different angle to most of the other lists.
55. PBS (audio and transcript): Ron Charles of the Washington Post includes Ann Patchett's State of Wonder. 
56. LA Weekly writers give their selections, such as The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman. 
57. January Magazine: lots of lists, including two on crime fiction, such as Alan Glynn's Bloodland.

Christmas Past 2011, 6

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12.

I wake, my eyes still dim from sleep. The first thing I see is my breath rising slowly from my mouth. I pull my covers up a little higher. It is freezing. I can see frost on the window glistening, small shapes from the sunlight streaming in. 

I see slight flakes of snow falling from the sky like the sugar you put on cakes. I feel a ping of delight move quickly through my whole body. I smile. It's Christmas.

I sit up and feel the cold hit me properly once the warmth and safety of the sheets have fallen off my body, no longer protecting me from the harsh winter cold. I step out of bed and begin to smile. I think about what the day has to offer - cheer, merriment, a fantastic Christmas turkey stuffed to the brim, gravy sliding off it, a platter of roast potatoes. My mouth begins to water.  Then I think of the most obvious thing that comes to any child's thoughts at this time: presents! I feel excitement gorw as I think about tearing into the delicately wrapped boxes of pure joy. I say out loud to myself "This is going to be a good day." 

 
13.
One of the most memorable Christmases of my life was in 2004. I was at the coast in Kenya with friends for the holiday. Our house was right on the beach; the sound of waves crashing at night was deafening. Christmas Day itself was relatively normal. I don't remember any details from it.


It was the day after, Boxing Day, that was incredibly eventful. We were all sitting around the breakfast table when my Mum's friend got a text. It was from his friend in Sri Lanka. It read: There is a 200-ft tsunami coming yr way at 300 ks per hour. Get to high ground. This should have scattered us in panic, but I think the surreal nature of it caused us to stay sitting, and start a conversation on the topic "If you had to choose three things to pick up and run with from the tsunami, what would they be?" There were plenty of silly answers, including my brother's: "I'd take a fridge that is always full of food. And my stocking." 


Eventually, one of the adults brought us back to reality by saying, "I think we's better get a move on, then." We did, and grabbed more sensible items such as passports and money. We got into three cars and drove up to the hills, telling everyone we passed to get their families and do the same. 


We got to the top of a ridge and sat there for about half an hour with binoculars aimed at the seashore, trying to spy the incoming tidal wave. For some mad reason, then we decided we didn't want to miss it, and proceeded to drive right back down to our house. This was certainly not the most intelligent thing to do, and could have earned us all Darwin Awards.


We waited until the end of the day in expectation, but the wave never came. Later, it turned out that the tsunami had actually hit us during our pre-breakfast swim, but the reef out at sea had prevented it from making any impact. 

I support you could say we were just incredibly lucky.

Christmas Past 2011, 5

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 9.

My memory of Christmas is when my younger cousin, Aidan, said that he wanted to leave a mince pie and a glasis boy was tws of milk out for Santa Claus. Bear in mind that this boy was twelve. Twleve. I giggled nervously and hoped that he was just joking. I turned around to see him looking at me inquisitively, wondering why I was laughing. I said to him sceptically, "Aid, you do know Santa's not real, yeah?"

At that moment, Aidan's face drained of all colour, his eyes filled with tears and his shoulders slumped forward as though he was carrying a heavy schoolbag, and he ran out of the room crying so hard. He sounded as though he was in real pain. The guilt I felt may have been the worst feeling I've had in my life.

10.

The drawing room. The place where it all happens, the room that has that Christmas smell,'t

the room that is Christmas.

I can't describe that smell. That foresty smell you get from the tree. The smell of burning logs, the smell of crisp paper. And the strong smell of my Granny's Chanel perfume.

The sound of the crackling sparks on the fire. The sound of my grandparents talking to Mum about something she has no interest in. The sound of my Dad hysterically laughing about something, having had a few too many glasses of wine. The sound of my brother blabbering on about the latest rugby match, and the sound of my sisters gossiping about celebrities. The sound of paper being torn in desperation to see what surprises await them. The sound of my dogs playing with each other and their claws scraping on the carpet.

This is Christmas to me.

11.

Old toys you once craved

Now lie still in the attic,

White dolls, grinning faces,

Matte with dust.

Boxes of lights

Green, white, now left for nothing,

Not used since times past.

Get them out if you must

And hang them downstairs

So the neighbours will think that

This year, you'll pretend that

This Christmas

You'll care.

Christmas Past 2011, 4

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Many thanks to @irasocol for this contribution:-

8.
I'll never forget when I learned that Santa Claus wasn't real. I was in the fourth grade eating lunch when a classmate stated quite emphatically that there was no such thing as Santa. He wasn't real. It was just a man dressed in a Santa's suit. I wasn't especially fond of this red-haired girl, so using my indignant fourth-grade voice, I spouted back that she was wrong because last year Santa walked by our house on Christmas morning. She continued to insist that it was someone dressed in a Santa costume When I demanded to know who put our presents under the tree, she promptly informed me that our parents did.

As I walked home from school, I thought about what she told me and knew I could find the truth about Santa from my mother. I knew that she would definitely agree with me. However,  after listening to her answer, I realized  that Christmas would never be the same for me. It lost a little bit of magic and the hardest part was I had to pretend he was real because I had two younger brothers!
 

I'm just glad the magic lasted until the fourth grade.

Christmas Past 2011, 3

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7. 
I remember the snowfall. Particularly the depth, and wondering if it was possible for anything to keep growing underneath the frosty white blanket. The last Christmas to be spent with her. I remember the fire blazing and the early darkness of winter days. I remember her house on top of a hill, and the heart of it spilling onto the frosty lake a few metres below.

She reminds me of more winters and Christmas and memories, and how carols and lights and the beautiful season always ignite your soul.

8.

The night before Christmas in the year 2002. I woke up in the middle of the night. Finding it hard to sleep because of the excitements about presents. Since I was up I went to check the tree to see if there were any presents. But there were none. So I went to my parents' bedroom. As I opened the door I could hear paper crumpling and people talking. I opened the door and there I saw my parents wrapping presens. We stood standing for seconds.

And I just left.

Christmas Past 2011, 2

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4.

Last Christmas I didn't have 'Christmas'... We were snowed in for a week and a half leading up to the day, so my Dad was unable to get the turkey. My brother and I robbed a tree from a nearby plantation, and not a single present was exchanged. And spaghetti bolognese followed by icecream replaced Christmas dinner. And although we missed out usual Christmas traditions, like going to church and then on to my grandparents' house, the day still felt special. Just in a different way.

5.

Glimmering, twinkling, rocking, candles set the centrepiece like little stars. Eggs, little obscure moons, sit sprinked with sweet herbs. Green, ugly, peeling sprouts lie like monsters within the shimmering bowl. Hot, steaming, brown gravy is at the top of the table, its smell intense, rich, warm and loving. The vegetables lies upon their magnificent platter, an array of wonderful colours - oranges, reds, yellows, browns. All warming, all rich.

The most fantastic, colossal beast of a bird sits stuffed, golden brown, crisp, juicy, wonderful. It lies on its golden platter, lemons where its head would have been. Succulent rivers of juice ooze from its flesh. Oh, what a magnificent feast this is!

6.

It's not always been pleasant: the bitter and touch Geordie weather and people saw to that. I remember our car got broken into in the town centre while my mother did the Christmas shopping with me in tow. It was snowing at the time, so it was unlikely we could drive with smashed windows, and being the 24th of December it was even more unlikely that we could find anyone to fix them. However, your luck doesn't stay sour for ever, and we managed to find a mechanic, and we were on our way.

I think back now and realise why the smash and grab must have taken place. My mother had left a wrapped brown parcel in the footwell of the passenger seat. The area we were parked in wasn't the nicest either, so when this man saw a brown parcel in a type of car normally used by drug dealers, his heart must have leapt. I only wish I could have seen his face when he opened the parcel to find knitted baby clothes.

Christmas Past 2011 1

Last Friday we had our third Everybody Writes day on the theme 'Christmas Past': every pupil in the school wrote for 10/15 minutes on this theme, mostly anonymously. Over the next week we'll be posting some of these. They could be by anyone from VI formers to Primary.

Click here if you'd like to join in...

1.

There are certain smells I can only associate with Christmas, just as there are a few emotions that are only shown at Christmas. That happens at my house every year when I kiss my granny's cheek and take her coat. This particular smell fills in the house, and everywhere you go you know Granny's here.

We turn on the Christmas tree lights and the candles, and we're all ready to begin. The fireplace is lit and all of us sit around it. I love to observe my family. I look at them and all I can see are smiles and laughs. All the rest that seems to be present throughout the rest of the year is forgotten on Christmas Day, and I wonder why don't we all make this effort for the rest of the days of the year?

2.

Our Christmas tree is always massive. It reaches the ceiling in our hall. It isn't colour-coded or anything like that, but instead is full of things we have collected through the years. We have the star made out of uncooked pasta that my sister made when she was in primary school, the bauble that my brother got for his christening with his name on it, and loads of different-coloured tinsel and lights.

To be honest it looks like a bit of a shambles, but that is why I love it. My favourite thing is what goes on top: when my parents had no money, my Dad made a Santa  out of a can, with red fabric for his clothes and cotton wool for his beard with two eyes drawn in black marker. The reason I like it so much is because of the way my parents look at each other every year when it is taken out of the decorations box.

3.

The room filled with laughing children and gossiping adults. The black sooty fireshield guarding the crackling fire going up the chimney. The carpet beside burnt with black stains from floating ashes. The large Christmas tree taking up one end of the room with an angel on top with its head touching the ceiling. The fairy lights wrapped around the tree glowing and shining on the hanging decorations. Beneath the tree are all of the gifts - wrapped in polka dots, stripes, with Santas or in plain colours, each tied neatly with a ribbon and a bow. Outside the decorated windows is the snowman that was built by the neighbourhood kids earlier today. But he is slowly shrinking due to the sunlight's warmth, his carrot-nose falling off, bending down beside his raisin mouth. The dogs in the kitchen glare up at the freshly-cooked and seasoned turkey sitting on the counter-top. Even from the hallway, you can smell the Yorkshire pudding, swimming with gravy and peas.

Christmas Past 2011

In December 2008 and 2009 we had an 'Everybody Writes' day, when all the pupils - and many of the staff - took 15 minutes in class to write a short piece on the topic 'Christmas Past'. Most were done anonymously, which seemed to liberate many writers in expressing all sorts of feelings about the theme. The best of these were then posted on this blog. Last year we took a rest, but are repeating the exercise across the whole school on this coming Friday.

This year, 2011, we are inviting visitors to SCC English to join in. Just spend between 5 and 15 minutes writing your memory, a poem, your wish, a fantasy, anything you like on 'Christmas Past' and we'll blog the most interesting/vivid/funny/moving responses. Now click here - enjoy!

'The Comedy of Errors' review

Konstantin Behr & Robin Fitzpatrick

Shannen Keogan reviews the recent Shakespeare Society production of The Comedy of Errors:-

On a dark wet evening on Saturday 19^th of November, in Saint Columba’s College, there really was no better place to be than sitting in the buzzing Big Schoolroom listening to the classic tunes of the 70’s and dancing in our seats whilst we all anticipated this year’s Senior Play, The Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare.

If we didn’t think the blaring 70s beats were good enough, suddenly we were graced with the presence of the one and only keyboard extraordinaire Lingfan Gao, looking as some would say “Elton John-esque” in what really was the sparkliest jacket of gold and silver sequins that I have ever seen. When the lights dimmed and the sweet and sombre sound of Lingfan’s keyboard began to play the mellifluous tones of Catie McGonagle's voiceover introduced the story.

                                                                                                                                                                                  

The story itself is a complex one and I thought that Patrick Tice who played Egeon did an excellent job of trying to explain the utterly chaotic plot in the first scene of the play. He informed the ruler of Ephesus (Kezia Wright) of how he and his wife had a pair of twin babies both called Antipholus who were separated on a sea journey in a storm. In the storm Egeon is separated from his wife and one of his sons. If that wasn’t confusing enough, on the exact same day another set of twins had been born to a local poor woman who Egeon bought to grow up as servants of his twins. These servant twins were both called Dromio. So the story begins with Antipholus of Syracuse (Zach Stephenson) and his loyal servant Dromio (William Maire) setting off to find their long-lost brother.

Now, a Shakespearean comedy really just wouldn’t be a comedy if it didn’t have a crazy over-dramatic and completely confused woman in it and this was Adriana who was played fantastically by Opeline Kellett. She, along with her sister Luciana (Bella Purcell) are baffled by the peculiar actions of her husband Antipholous (Robin Fitzpatrick) and their slave Dromio (Hamish Law). But the most confused characters of all were definitely the Antipholus twins (Robin and Zach) and the Dromio twins (Hamish and William). These four have to be commended on what really were flawless performances on their parts.

Not only was the acting of an incredibly high standard this year but so were the stage production and costumes. With the use of some new modern technology, a beautiful tower clock, very colourful garments (organised by Ms. Hennessey) and great music, the comedy sense of the play had without doubt been fulfilled in a most professional manner. And with some hilarious acting from the local police officer (Konstantin Behr) the local courtesan (Rachel Rogers) and many more, I never ceased to stop giggling throughout the performance. All of this of course was due to the 19 performers who put months of hard work and effort into preparing their roles under the direction and guidance of Mr. Girdham and Mr. Swift, who have yet again left us with another exceptional drama production, and for this they must all be congratulated.