Hamlet quotations, Act 2

Quizlet tests for retrieval practice on quotations from Hamlet. Here, Act 2.

Think of what should replace 'blank' in each case, then click to see the answer. Now write down (or, better still, discuss with a friend): how could this quotation be used? how is it helpful/interesting? how does it connect with others? 

Hamlet quotations: Act 1

The first of a series of Quizlet tests for retrieval practice on quotations from Hamlet. Here, Act 1. 

Think of what should replace 'blank' in each case, then click to see the answer. Now write down (or, better still, discuss with a friend): how could this quotation be used? how is it helpful/interesting? how does it connect with others?
 

TY House Speech Competition

Maxim Meddah gives an account of the annual TY House Speech Competition:

On Sunday 29th September, the annual Transition Year House Speeches took place once again in St Columba’s College. Each house was represented by two pupils. The topic the pupils could choose was up to them. Some were serious and some were humorous. The contestants were marked out of ten points for delivery and content and five points on lack of reliance on notes. They each spoke for three to five minutes.  

Glen was represented by Antoine Dulauroy who spoke about how Astrophysics can change your view on the world and Akin Babajide who spoke about why the idea of world peace is naive. Gwynn was represented by Tom Casey who spoke about why the earth is flat and Peter Taylor who spoke about anxiety. Stackallan was represented by Marcus O’Connor speaking about the profound message of Kung Fu Panda and Andrew Maguire on the importance of team sports. Edna Johnston spoke about being a twin and Amalia Falkenhayn speaking about being tall represented Iona. Representing Hollypark were Emma Hinde talking about ‘the power of words’ and Caroline Hager speaking about Flying.  

The event started with the announcement of the first speaker Edna Johnston by the evening’s MC, Guy Fitzgibbon. Edna then commenced with her speech which was about being a twin. She talked about her least favourite response to people finding out she has a twin which was “Oh I know a set of twins” and her favourite response being when people look in shock with their mouths wide open. In retrospect, her speech was really about being her own person and that she and her sister are not one and the same person but two individuals that merely look alike. The next speech was by Antoine Dulauroy. He talked about the two different ways someone's view of the world could be affected by astrophysics, showing us how big the universe really is. The first point was that you feel tiny in such a huge world and that nothing matters. The second being seizing that feeling of feeling small and meaningless and use it as a pretext to trying scary and challenging new things. In the end, he mentioned his dream, or rather his objective of becoming an astrophysicist.

The third speech, a humorous one, was given by Tom Casey and he talked about the earth being flat with the example of a grapefruit. His first reason was that if the earth was round an aeroplane which flies from the northern hemisphere to the southern one should arrive upside down, which quite evidently does not. He also reasoned that all the water would pour down the face of the earth if it were round. His speech entertained the audience well and by the end of his speech the whole room was filled with laughter. 

INOTE 2019

Some reactions and resources from the annual conference of the Irish National Organisation for Teachers of English.

INOTE Conference 2019

Notes and links from the keynote at the annual conference of the Irish National Organisation of Teachers of English in Portlaoise on Saturday 12th October 2019.

Link to presentation. 

Collection of tweets and resources.

The SCC Fortnightly newsletter: subscribe here. 

researchED

• Irish site
• Home site
• Video of Saturday 5th October 2019

 Books

• Daniel Willingham: The Reading Mind & Why Don't Students Like School? | @DTWillingham
• Oliver Caviglioli: Dual Coding for Teachers | @olicav
• Tom Sherrington: The Learning Rainforest, Rosenshine's Principles in Action, The Learning Rainforest Fieldbook | @teacherhead.
• Yana Weinstein & Megan Sumeracki: Understanding How We Learn: a visual guide. Learning Scientists | @AceThatTest.
• Pooja K. Agarwal and Patrice M. Bain: Powerful Teaching: unleash the science of learning. www.retrievalpractice.org
• Daniel Kahneman: Thinking, Fast and Slow.
• Thomas Newkirk: Minds Made for Stories & The Art of Slow Reading | @Tom_Newkirk.
• Some recent books for English teachers: suggestions. 
• Donalyn Miller: The Book Whisperer | @donalynbooks
• Kenny Pieper: Reading for Pleasure | @kennypieper
• Maryanne Wolf: Reader, Come Home - the reading brain in a digital world 
• Meghan Cox Gurdon: The Enchanted House - the miraculous power of reading aloud in the age of distraction | @MeghanGurdon
• Kelly Gallagher: Readicide & Write Like This | Article of the Week | @KellyGToGo
• Carl Hendrick and Robin Macpherson: What Does this Look Like in the Classroom? bridging the gap between research and practice. |
  @C_Hendrick

Vocabulary

• Alex Quigley: Closing the Vocabulary Gap | @huntingenglish
• Haggard Hawks | @Haggard Hawks
• Robert Macfarlane - Word of the Day | @RobGMacfarlane
• Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris: The Lost Words
• Susie Dent | @susie_dent
• T.P. Dolan: A Dictionary of Hiberno-English

Online

• www.quizlet.com 
• Comparative judgment: No More Marking (Daisy Christodoulou) | @daisychristo
• Geoff Barton: 12 Things Great English Teachers Do | @RealGeoffBarton
• www.retrievalpractice.org | @PoojaAgarwal
• Self-publishing: Lulu.com. 
• Helen Zaltzman's The Allusionist podcast
•  SCC English: Article of the Week

Some more recommended books

• Sinead Gleeson: Constellations
• Emily Pine: Notes to Self
• Tim Winton: The Boy Behind the Curtain
• Rachel Cusk: Kudos, Transit and Outline, as well as Coventry (essays)
• Robert Macfarlane: The Old Ways, Landmarks, Underland.
• Joseph O'Connor: Shadowplay
• David Park: Travelling in a Strange Land
• Melatu Uche Okorie: This Hostel Life

researchED Dublin

On Saturday 5th October, the first-ever researchED event in Ireland took place at SCC. Below, a video of impressions (credit to Ian O'Herlihy) and plenty of Twitter reaction.

English teachers, current and former, were strong on the ground, including Alex Quigley, Daisy Christodoulou, Carl Hendrick, David Didau, Leona Forde, Kate Barry, Rebecca Foster, Conor Murphy and Edmond Behan. 

The Submarine, June 2019

The latest edition of the pupil magazine The Submarine, or rather, given the time of the year, The Summerine, has just been published in school in paper form, and now can be read here electronically, above, via Issuu (click for closer view and navigation, click on the arrows to move through the pages). Below, Noah Leach's composition (see the back page of the magazine).

In this issue, plenty of interesting writing, and lots of pupil art work. Thanks to this year's Editor Tania Stokes as she hands over to Avi and Edna Johnston, next year's Editors, and Emma Hinde, sub-editor.

Leaving Certificate Paper 2

Right now our candidates are deep into the marathon that is Paper 2 (Literature), but since the SEC has started to put papers online before the end of each exam, we can already assess it.

Almost all our candidates sit Higher Level, and everyone has studied Macbeth as the single text. No character question this year (character options are relatively limited in a play with such a small cast of important characters). Instead, there are questions on the ways 'horrific, bizarre and unbelievable elements' do or do not 'heighten the tragic intensity' of the play - pretty straightforward, allowing candidates to examine elements such as the witches and the murders of Duncan, Banquo and the Macduffs. The other option is on Shakespeare's use of language, including imagery, and this should be approached with caution (only if a candidate is fully prepared for quite a technical matter).

The comparative section asks on Literary Genre and Vision and Viewpoint, with the first question on the latter opening up possible sidetracking on the matter of 'our personal beliefs' and the second asking candidates to be fully au fait with just what 'personal integrity' is. The first Genre question, on techniques showing characters' mindsets, is straightforward, as is the second, on mood and atmosphere in texts.

The unseen poem is Carol Ann Duffy's 'The Wound in Time', commissioned by Danny Boyle for the centenary of the end of the First World War (odd, then, that it should appear here in 2019 rather than 2018). It is dense and quite knotty, and may well challenge a lot of candidates.

The infamous Poetry Stakes see in the frame Kennelly, Yeats, Bishop and Plath. The Kennelly question has a lot in it (let's hope all understand 'intrinsic'), while the Yeats and Plath questions seem a retreat to the more pared down questions of the past.

Not great that 'skilful' is misspelt in a Leaving Certificate English paper (the question on Bishop), replaced by the Americanism with two 'll's...

A handful of our pupils are sitting the exam at Ordinary Level: Macbeth is straightforward, the comparative questions were fair (on relationships or a theme), Elaine Feeney's 'Jack' is the unseen poem, and our candidates will be happy with writing on either Kennelly's 'Begin' or Bishop's 'The Fish' (skilfully or not).

Leaving Certificate Paper 1, 2019

Good timing today for Paper 1 at Higher Level English, with one of the texts being David Park's brilliant short novel Travelling in a Strange Land, our own Book of the Year in 2018, and just last week named the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year at the Listowel Writers' Week. The extract was mostly disconnected from the narrative of the book (about a father driving across England to collect his snow-bound student son).

Though there are many complaints about teachers about the quality of new Junior Cycle material, at this level there was consistently good writing, since the other two comprehension extracts were by the novelist Jeanette Winterson and the columnist Caitlin Moran. The former's piece 'What is Art For?' was quite dense and may have proven challenging to some candidates. Moran's essay in support of public libraries was characteristically lively (plenty of good material for the style question).

As initiated last year, one question on each comprehension text sent candidate back into their Literature course, something we welcome as an exploration of content which certainly should be deeply embedded, and thus comfortable for candidates. The B short essays were in the forms of argument, a reflective essay (look at the photograph of the earth from space and 'imagine you are fleeing Earth on the last spaceship evacuating the planet have made our world uninhabitable' - hmm, not sure anyone would be writing a reflective essay in those circumstances...) and an introduction to a collection of essays. Again there is a lot in the instructions to such essays to grapple with.

The main Composition essay were well-judged, with topics such as 'a self-obsessed generation', the values of young people today, the places which shaped you and 'what feeds your imagination' attractive to all. Again short stories may have proven trickier, with one contorted choice for a collection of spy stories (a librarian, a photograph and a chair to be central to the narrative) to be treated warily by all by but the most confident - it would be easy to fall flat on your face.

Unsurprisingly the Ordinary Level paper (we have a handful of candidates) will have frightened no-one. The third piece was of the moment: addressing waste at a festival (Electric Picnic), and the compositions straightforward.

Now onto Literature. Lots of resources here to freshen up your understanding of Macbeth, and do some self-testing or pair up with a friend (best practice: don't merely reread notes, which wastes precious time and is largely useless).

Transition Year English Evening 2019

Tuesday evening saw the 26th annual TY English Evening, the longest-established Transition Year event in the school's calendar. It was presented by the Head of Department, the Sub-Warden, who welcomed his predecessor, Mr John Fanagan, as the guest speaker. He also remembered with fondness Professor Terry Dolan, who died recently, and who for so long was an established visitor at the Evening.

A variety of writing was heard, and afterwards Mr Fanagan commented on the pieces: Aiyuni O'Grady's personal piece looked back at holiday experiences on Lough Corrib ('a vivid sense of place'), Maybelle Rainey read 'The Silver Night' (with 'excellent pace and strong voice'), Éile Ní Chianáin's 'Learning to Dance' about a young puffin was 'a beautiful observation of nature', Gioia Doenhoff's 'Being Underwater' 'got across a sense of tension in a very creative way', Oscar Yan's 'The Wells of Silence' from the eco-fiction module was 'very thoughtful and philosophical', Ellen Homan's entertaining 'Day in the Life of the Person Beside You' achieved humorous effects with 'a light touch', Raphaela Ihuoma's 'A Casket with John and Me' was 'very different and very controlled', Eva Dillenberger's 'Perfect' on images of the female body was a strong piece, and finally Sinéad Cleary's piece on Ted Bundy and 'murder-chic' was 'really effective, and very hard-hitting.'

Finally, Mr Fanagan announced winners of the Premier awards: Imogen Casey, Éile Ní Chianáin, Sinéad Cleary, Gioia Doenhoff, Raphaela Ihumoma, Charlotte Moffitt, Oscar Yan.
 

Voices of Poetry 2019

That lovely late-season annual event, Voices of Poetry, took place on Sunday evening in the Big Schoolroom. It is a fine pause in the maelstrom of the ending of the school year, just before examinations start: listening to great verse in many languages is balm for the soul.

Again Mr Swift co-ordinated with his characteristic skill and lightness of touch. Helen Crampton started with a reading of the first poem she had learned as a child, Wordsworth's 'I wandered lonely as a cloud' (aka 'Daffodils'), followed by Mr Finn's strong recital of D.H. Lawrence's evocative 'Piano' ('Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me'). He was followed by Iona Chavasse's 'Wild Like the Sea That Raised Her', composed in the Poetry Slam in March, a haunting incantatory piece.

Then it was on to other languages, including Spanish (Anna Laurenceau with Neruda), French (David White with Baudelaire), Sicilian dialect (for the first time, from Ms Pirrone), Latin (Tania Stokes with Horace), Turkish (Liz Kolat), Mexican dialect (Camilla Garcia), Ukrainian (Dmytro Kasienenko), Dutch (Cato Oldenburg), German (Tatiana Hopkins), Igbo (Sarah Maduwuba), Irish (Naoise Murray), Cantonese (Sinéad Cleary) and Mandarin (Zong Yuan Kou).

In English we also heard Stella Jacobs with Whitman's 'O Captain, My Captain!' and Ms Morley with Liz Lochhead's thought-provoking 'The Choosing'. The Warden recited Newbolt's 'Vitaï Lampada', and Mr Swift paid tribute to his late brother in his reading of John Updike's 'Perfection Wasted' (here read by Garrison Keillor). Senior Prefect Harry Oke-Osanyintolu gave us Brendan Kennelly's optimistic 'Begin' from the Leaving Certificate poetry course.

Two highlights were readings by this year's winners of the poetry prizes, Emma Hinde (junior, with 'Tree-maker') and Tania Stokes (senior, with her sonnet 'Seeing Tunnels').

No better way to finish it all off than with William Carlos Williams's 'This Is Just to Say', read by Daniel Murray:

I have eaten

the plums

that were in

the icebox

and which

you were probably

saving

for breakfast

Forgive me

they were delicious

so sweet

and so cold

Senior Poetry Prize 2019

Last night at Voices of Poetry (a report comes shortly), Tania Stokes was named as the winner of this year's Peter Dix Memorial Prize for Poetry, and she read out 'Seeing Tunnels', a sonnet. Also here are two other poems in her winning portfolio, 'Friend in Waiting' and 'The Edge of the Woods'.


Seeing Tunnels
I hear it whispered love can make you soar
On ruby wings or diamonds of delight.
What I have found must be the rough-hewn ore –
It glitters crudely, underground – at night.
And should I toil away within the mines,
With instruments in stubborn mettle bound?
I pry my gems from rock in these confines,
No surface trace of slaving to be found.
But just how fine a cut can I perfect
When tunnels, low and dim, are all I see?
Will he, when I present the jewels, reject
My imitation of identity?
  So maybe love’s not solely in the mined.
  It shines with Sun and grit of hearts combined.



The Edge of the Woods

We stretched ourselves upon the grass,
Backs dappled with cautious shadows;
Beech and horse chestnut trees restless
And snickering, wind winnowing
Soft through the blades of forest glades.
The stand seemed to bow and recede –
The recoiling of a snail’s eye.
Stalks of wild rye murmured below.

Right then, at the edge of the woods,
The gate lodge of the wilderness,
Time stopped. We both waited, bodies
Against the earth, the warmth and weight
Of soil beneath us as we breathed.
We may never have been worthy.
But nature offered us a glimpse,
A fleeting glimmer of forgiveness:

A rabbit, winking in the grass.
The sun sparkled between two clouds
And golden light licked the whiskers
On the twitching head. A white tail
Arced silently over the ground,
Ears swivelled, catching heaven’s glow
And blushing like fugitive gems.
We were close enough to see veins.



Friend in Waiting

A daily face, pale and interesting –
Introspective when its gaze is resting.
His features, white and frail,
Are veiled, celestial:

There's a delicate wisdom – about
The downturned corners of his frozen mouth –
And downy wisps of hair
Fall roundabout.

I've never seen him whisper or confide.
He has a depth that silence kept provides;
Whatever rests unsaid
Matures inside.

Yet when I spy him drifting on his way
I wonder if appearances betray
The person underneath
This soft array.

Like those who yearn on Keats’s Grecian Urn,
I hope his ghostly image is eternal.
We can't be friends
For fear of what I'd learn.

Junior Poetry Prize 2

Another fine entry for the recent Junior Poetry Prize comes from Iona Chavasse:

All We Could See for Miles

The large waves bashed against us,

As we rose up,

And dropped down,

Sending cold white spray over us.

All we could see for miles was the sea,

Deep blue, shining. 

Was the shining blue a mask?

A mask that hid its cold dark depths,

A mask that hid its cold stone heart,

A mask that hid the power to swallow us at any second.

Dragging us down, 

Pulling at our arms,

Our legs,

Our souls. 

Pulling the air out of our lungs,

The life out of our bodies,

Love out of our hearts.

Junior Poetry Prize 2018

Congratulations to Emma Hinde, Third Form, who has been awarded this year's Junior Poetry Prize. Here are three of her winning poems:-

Tree-maker

One day a billion years ago,

An old mage said to me

“I have created a new word.”

And I think that word was Tree. 

“Tree?” I asked. “Now what’s a tree?”

Said he: “I was hoping you’d tell me.”

So after ten days deep in thought

To him a finished tree I brought. 

It grew up from a little seed,

I went a bit mad with the leaves,

And twigs to let the song-birds nest;

They put the trunk-strength to the test.

The roots dug deep and moisture found

Beneath the barren, rocky ground 

And when the snow fell down in patches,

All the leaves fell off the branches.

Soon with these trees obsessed I came

And filled the world with different names:

Birch and maple; oak and elm,

They slowly crowded all the realm.

And in the mornings out did come

A chorus of the greatest song;

For all the birds that there did sleep

Came out into the forest deep. 

Springtime 

When the clouds look like a painting,

And the light streams through the trees,

All the little song-birds sit there;

Chirping in the breeze.

When the daffodils are blooming

You hear the buzzing of the bees

And the little boy with hay fever

Lets out a great big sneeze.

When the water’s so inviting 

That the masses flock to seas

The general feeling in the air

Is that it’s almost a disease.

When the snow has finished melting

And you’ve put away your skis

It’s like Spring’s pulled the lever;

Winter’s falling to his knees.  

When the Vikings ruled the Seas

When the Vikings ruled the Seas

Horns blowed

And fires glowed

When the Vikings ruled the seas.

Cockerels crowed

And mead flowed

When the Vikings ruled the seas.

But beware;

For as the gods watch over you

They may choose you for their games. 

One day a man went sailing;

Sailing out to meat his fate,

And when he saw the dragon

He looked down at his bait.

“Not big enough.” He said.

“I’ll have to sit and wait.

“I’m sure that Thor’ll come quite soon

“With a bigger piece of bait.”

So wait he did, with baited breath

For Thor to turn up to his test

But where he was he didn’t know;

He’d gone to watch another show.

A tribute to the late Terry Dolan

A great man, and great friend both of this Department and our school, left us recently. Professor T.P. Dolan of the English Department of University College Dublin, more commonly known as 'Terry', visited us for over 35 years until recent times. His funeral was earlier today in Kingscourt, County Cavan, where he was buried alongside his mother, and we were represented by the current and former Heads of English.

In his homily, the priest appositely quoted Goldsmith:
"And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew
That one small head could carry all he knew."

Terry's particular talent was a humorous lightness of touch, in discussing language and literature, that belied the deep scholarship on which that knowledge rested. This talent became known nationally-recognised due to his weekly slot on the Sean Moncrieff show on Newstalk FM, in which he explained the etymology of a bewildering range of words. This was also his party piece for so many Literary Society meetings here over the years: no pupil could catch him out (though at times he stretched things: he would look you in the eye and insist after some rather unlikely explanation "It's true", while a twinkle in his eye suggested otherwise). Regular subjects for his talks included American English, Geoffrey Chaucer (see below) and of course Hiberno-English: his masterpiece is his book A Dictionary of Hiberno-English, regularly updated, the definitive collection of English as it is used all over Ireland. He also particularly enjoyed talking about 'bad' language, his Queen's College Oxford voice articulating the origins of the 'f' word to startled pupils. The photograph at the top of this post shows him lecturing in the Lower Argyle on a Saturday evening.

Terry's Hiberno-English website can still be accessed via the Web Archive here.

In February 2008 Terry suffered a shock stroke that confined him to Tallaght Hospital for a long time. Visiting him there was to witness again his ease with everyone, particularly the nurses and doctors who looked after him, and his fellow patients. In these distressing circumstances, he never faltered from his inner core: kindness and cheerfulness. Almost a year later he returned to the Sean Moncrieff Show to public delight, and in February 2010 he gave an interview to Marian Finucane on surviving his stroke. Indeed, he became a prominent advocate of stroke awareness.

He was in great form when I interviewed him for a podcast on his beloved Geoffrey Chaucer. So here's a 30-minute treat from ten years ago (also at the bottom of this post).

He was also a stalwart of our annual Transition Year English evenings in May as a guest speaker, always commenting on pupils' work with great sensitivity. He never patronised 16 year-olds but found the best in what they wrote. His imprimatur always gave such pleasure to them.

Terry Dolan was a wonderful man. May he rest in peace.

JMG

Macbeth resources

Here is a summary of some resources for study and revision of Macbeth, starting with our own.  

(Updated April 2019)

• Seven revision podcasts, including:-
  
  • The crucial moment : the soliloquy in Act I scene vii before the murder.
  • The real Lady Macbeth.
  • King Macbeth - law and order in Scotland.
  • Malcolm the hero?
  • The Witches and the Supernatural.
  • A quotation auto-test.
  • Macbeth's tragic end - 'Tomorrow, and tomorrow ...'
  • And all seven are also on Soundcloud here.  
• 6 Quizlet quotation tests for retrieval practice (the 6th one combines all five Acts). 
• A series of 20 ShowMe analyses of key moments in the play, using video and audio annotation. 
• A quotation auto-test [written] to prompt some thoughts. 
• The Swiss Army Knife technique for embedding quotations.
• The whole text of the play in a variety of formats - put it on your computer/tablet/e-reader for easy access.
• Notes from a thought-provoking talk on the play given by the playwright Frank McGuinness at the Abbey Theatre.
• BBC Bitesize microsite for revision (level - GCSE).
• Shakespeare Searched: a 'Google for Shakespeare' - terrific resource for looking up quotations, self-testing and so on.
• Royal Shakespeare Company Learning Zone on Macbeth, with resources at different levels.
• 'Macbeth in Monaghan' series on RTÉ radio [podcasts].

Swiss Army Knife quotations: 'Macbeth'

To embed quotations and use them effectively in your revision, consider the Swiss Army Knife technique: choose a quotation which can be used flexibly in many ways, for several characters, for different themes. Firstly, make sure you know the quotation (use flashcards, ask a friend to test you). Then write it down and think about it: let your ideas spring out of it like a SAK. Below is an example from Lady Macbeth. Later, ask that friend to test you on the notes you wrote.

(mindmap: drag it around to see it all, and use the - and + buttons for sizing)
 

The Submarine, March 2019

The latest edition of 'The Submarine', the pupil-edited and -written magazine, has now been published in school (in paper form) and below in flippable form via Issuu (use the arrows to navigate, and click again for a close look).

In this edition, there are pieces by Avi Johnston (On Journalism), Vivian Tuite (A College Diary, on her first days at the school), Sveva Ciofani (The Earthquake in Italy that No-one Talks About), Sinead Cleary (Ted Bundy), Poppy Gleeson (The Jump), Calvin She (on sharks), Noah Leach (Analog), Thando Khumalo (Mortality), Wolfgang Romanowski (on the visit by Emma Brown of Barnardo's), and art work by Edna Johnston, Avi Johnston, Estelle Yu, Denis Cully, Thea Walsh and Camila Garcia Herrera.