Lungu, Nemirovsky, Shan

Continuing recommendations from Transition Year Extended Essay reading :-

Fred Mann recommends Irene Nemirovsky's Suite Francaise, the widely acclaimed 'rescued' novel about France in the Second World War (see the Complete Review's page here) : 'The Germans are invading France, and the population of Paris is evacuating. In all the confusion every nerve will be tested. This book follows the lives of different families as they leave Paris, and also where they end up. It is a well-written book by an author who was there, and saw it all happening. I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in World War II history.'

Edward Teggin has been reading Out of the Black Shadows by Stephen Lungu (pictured, right): 'This is a powerful true story about a terrorist turned evangelist. It is very moving and shows that anything is possible if we believe ...'

Philip Kidd's books include the series The Demonata by Darren Shan :-'I love this series because it's fast, witty and imaginative, and quite simple : there are only four main characters that battle Demon to survive. Simple and childish fun - that's what's good about it. There are five books so far, and more in the series to come.' Shan's website is here.

The History Boys

Tonight we take all our Transition Year on an outing to the Olympia Theatre to see the National Theatre production of Alan Bennett's The History Boys, part of the current Dublin Theatre Festival.

There's a Q and A audio interview with Bennett on the Festival site here, and Michael Billington's Guardian review of the original production is here. See also the 'Subjunctive History' website. In a few days we'll post a review by one of our own pupils.

McCarthy, Magorian, Johnston

More TY Extended Essay reading and recommendations :-

Josh Buckingham has read Cormac McCarthy's most recent novel, The Road, and says:-
'This book is about a man and his son walking towards the sea in a post-apocalyptic world. It shows their determination to survive and how they go about surviving. It is a very enthralling yarn and I would really recommend giving it a try.'

And Joanna Coldrick writes about Back Home, by Michelle Magorian:-
'This is about a teenage girl who is sent back to her parents from America after the Second World War. She is sent back to England but she realises that she misses everything in America. She feels like a stranger in her own home, after being gone for five years. Also, it makes you think that you can have as many families as you can imagine. I have also read Magorian's Goodnight, Mister Tom, and Elizabeth Laird's Red Sky in the Morning.'

Charlotte Farrell recommends Shadows on our Skin by Jennifer Johnston (who was interviewed here by Sophie Haslett last term):-
'It is about the Troubles in Ulster. I love the character Joe because he is funny, and the setting because I live there myself. It's mainly about what happened during the Troubles, and how the people were treated, and gives you a fair idea of the violence in Northern Ireland during that time.'

Emily Dickinson

The tenth Poem of the Week is by one of the poets on the Leaving Certificate cycle, the great American writer Emily Dickinson. It is number 333 in the collected edition (out of 1775), and, as always, has no title. It starts :-

The Grass so little has to do -
A Sphere of Simple Green -
With only Butterflies to Brood -
And Bees to Entertain -

The full poem is here.

The Academy of American Poets page on Dickinson is here, and the Dickinson Electronic Archives here.

TY Extended Essay Reading

Over the next couple of weeks we'll be posting lots of book recommendations by our Transition Year pupils, who are currently well into the reading part of their Extended Essay projects.

Sophie Kyd-Rebenburg has read Malorie Blackman's Noughts and Crosses :- 'I really like the story-line. It's about a boy and a girl who grow up together being best friends, but as their childhood comes to an end, realize that they have developed a much stronger relationship - love. The problem is, Calem is a Nought and Sephy is a Cross, and their families hate each other ... It's an interesting and enjoyable book because it shows that love is always there, no matter how big the difference between skin colour and wealth is. It grabs you when there is a lot of tension and even sadness.'
(Blackman's website is here.)

Tom Guinness has read The Old Boys, by Old Columban William Trevor : 'It is about a group of past pupils, whose school remains unknown, who form a committee called the Old Boys. Many, especially Mr Nox and Mr Jaraby, are trying to get the title of President of the Committee. This drives them to sabotage and blackmail. It also makes them partly crazy! I like the twists and turns of this book, such as Mr Turtle's proposal and his sudden death. The author portrays the emotions of the other characters very well. It is also in a setting which everyone knows well, a school.'

Eavan Boland

We're just back from a weekend 'Exodus' out of school, during which Head of Department John Fanagan went to the the annual Poetry School weekend in London, and writes :-

'I attended a wonderful seminar run by Eavan Boland whose poetry I was teaching to my sixth form a couple of weeks ago. She spoke of the creation and use of image in poetry and contended strongly that, like the appendix in the human body, the simile is now redundant. Using poems by Wallace Stevens, Sylvia Plath, Adrienne Rich and her own 'Black Lace Fan', she examined the power of metaphor as an organic part of the poem. We were encouraged to give our views: I argued with her about the compass simile in Donne's 'A Valediction : forbidding mourning', which I love and she doesn't.

At a reception afterwards I spoke to her for a while and found her very engaging. She is a wonderful teacher and the seminar was exciting and stimulating. The Poetry School is at www.poetryschool.com.'

There are useful links to Boland, one of the Leaving Certificate poets, on the Norton Poets site, and an interview in Caffeine Destiny here. One of the prescribed poems on our course is the beautiful 'The Pomegranate', here. Shortly available in the Library : the newly published Eavan Boland Sourcebook.

Braces

Jessi Dean's perfectly-pitched and often hilarious piece on wearing braces was a great success at the House Speech competition last Sunday night. It also works well on the page or screen, so here is the full piece, which starts :-

Ladies and Gentlemen, tonight I’m here to talk to you about a subject that has a huge impact on my life…….Braces! People with braces get such a hard time. You don’t stop to think about it but, when you see the images shown on TV of the typical ‘dork’ they always seem to have braces. Take the show Ugly Betty for instance, which I’m sure you’ve all seen. She’s actually really pretty in real life but, for the show, they’ve obviously thought- ‘hmm..how can we make her Ugly Betty?’ So they stick some braces on her. Well, thanks very much, how’s that supposed to make us feel? And then of course, there’s the amount of ‘clever’ names people have come up with – Braceface (obviously), Chainsaw Chops, Tinsel Teeth, Cageface, Metalmouth, Railway Face…and the list goes on ... continued here

Teaching English magazine

The Autumn 2007 edition of Teaching English (we featured in the spring edition) is now out from the English Support Service, and is again an attractively produced publication with lots of interesting features (the cover is Henry Raeburn's 'Portrait of the Reverend Robert Walker Skating'). Click below on the pages for a larger view, and again to zoom.

Among the features are :

• Winners from the Write a Poem competition for schools,
• An interview by Kevin McDermott with poet Julie O'Callaghan,
• A guide to the 2009 Leaving Certificate comparative books, including new texts by John Banville (Kepler), Julian Barnes (Arthur & George), Beckett (Waiting for Godot), Eleni Gage (North of Ithaka), Martin McDonagh (The Lonesome West), Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Purple Hibiscus) and Asne Seierstad (The Bookseller of Kabul),
• An interview with Athboy Community School teacher Tony Magner on teaching the comparative module,
• and several articles on film - Alicia McGivern of the IFI, Sean Conlon on teaching film and Vinny Murphy on the Moving Image project.
  

Philip Larkin's 'The Mower'

The ninth Poem of the Week being read to English classes, and posted in our classrooms, is Philip Larkin's direct and powerfully moving 'The Mower', written in 1979. Larkin is one of the poets on the Leaving Certificate rota (he's currently being studied by this year's leavers). The full text is here.

We've added to our Poetry links on the right-hand side the Philip Larkin Society, which has its own 'Poem of the Month' - currently, 'As Bad as a Mile'.

The Antigonish Review has here a long essay by Terry Whalen titled : 'Strangeness made Sense - Philip Larkin in Ireland' in which he states that 'Ireland clearly drew Larkin out of his shell'.

Just Going Out

Now a piece from a regular contributor, Joseph Millar. Mr Jameson asked his Leaving Certificate pupils to find a line from their poetry anthology that intrigued them and then to write a piece in any form of writing prompted by this.

The line Joey chose was from Derek Mahon's poem 'Antarctica', the famous statement by the explorer Captain Oates, on Scott's 1912 expedition, "I am just going outside and may be some time".

The piece starts :-

Tom won’t arrive for a while yet, so for the time being I have the flat to myself. I close the door, and drop the keys onto a table that is too big for the room. Beside me is a cardboard box. It is filled with my things: books, CD’s, clothes, and it’s depressing to see how easily my life can be compressed. The word “MOVING” is crayoned onto the side, accompanied by three nauseatingly blasé exclamation marks. In this empty flat, the box acts as a sort of centrepiece, and that alone should highlight the aesthetically destitute home I had made for myself. I’m standing in Dublin’s only sensual deprivation chamber, and what’s worse, I’m paying €300 a month for the pleasure.

Read on here.

My Mouth was Dry 3

Following on from Saskia Bolus's take on 'My Mouth was Dry', here is Dudley Browne's description of the tense first rugby match of the season, which starts :-
My mouth was dry and I thought my heart would burst from my chest. This was my first thought as I stood there watching the opposing team stroll onto the pitch, all twenty-two of them, and I got the impression that not one of them was under six foot. I had thought we would do well in this match. I was hoping we would do really well because this was not just any rugby match.

The full story here.

Shakespeare Tube Map

The Royal Shakespeare Company has just launched merchandise (including a handy poster for classrooms) based on a 'map' of connections inspired by the London Underground Map. The map shows how characters 'migrate' into each other across the plays :-

The lines include: lovers (red), mothers (pink), fathers and daughters (green), villains (light blue), heroes (dark blue), strong and difficult women (turquoise), warriors (black) and fools (orange). Interesting intersections include Henry V who meets on the warrior and hero line, and Lady Macbeth on the strong and difficult women and warrior line.

Available at the RSC shop.

House Speech Competition 2007

Last night we had our annual House Speech Competition in the BSR; all the speakers are from Transition Year, and the whole form helps them prepare over the two weeks before the event.

This year, the winner was Jasper Mathews, speaking on 'Things that annoy me', followed by Jessica Dean on her experiences of wearing braces, and Sophie Kyd-Rebenburg on her 'patchwork family' of many different nationalities. Both girls are in Hollypark House, which won the House competition.

Other speakers included Alec Cherry (the Dublin transport system), Luke Pitt Ryan (the NorthSide), Molly Sanderson (love), Robin Russell (cricket), Ian Fraser (speeches themselves), Lauren Cooke (her most embarrassing moments) and Paddy Faulkner (the experiences of black people). Josh Buckingham was the night's presenter.

Vesuvius

On Saturday evening, Rowland Cooper, who won the Peter Dix Poetry Prize in 2006, read his latest poem 'Vesuvius' at the Poetry Speakeasy in the Ranelagh Arts Festival to a large and appreciative audience. It was inspired by his reading Robert Harris's novel Pompeii.

It starts :-

The windless air hangs on the shoulders

Like the packs of the legions

As they trudge in rank through the German forests.

Yet still the shores are pummelled

And dashed by waves vigorous

With expressionless violence.

The full poem is here.

My Mouth was Dry 2

Continuing the pieces which start with 'My mouth was dry ...' by Junior Certificate pupils, Saskia Bolus's piece starts :-

My mouth was dry and my heart beat so hard I thought it would burst out of my chest. Curled up in a ball under the bed, my heartbeat drumming inside my head, not daring to move a finger, as I heard they caught Mr. Dussel. The thought of being caught was unbearable.

Read the full story here.

My Mouth was Dry 1

Greetings to anyone visiting our English Department blog who's arrived here as a result of visiting us on today's Open Day for visitors to the College.

Over the next few days, we'll be posting examples of creative writing from Mr Fanagan's III Junior Certificate set. They were set the task of continuing a piece from the opening sentence :-

My mouth was dry and my heart beat so hard I thought it would burst out of my chest.

Fields of Sunflowers

The latest Poem of the Week is Yehuda Amichai's 'Fields of Sunflowers' :-

Fields of sunflowers, ripe and withering,

don't need the warmth of the sun anymore;

they're brown and wise already. They need

sweet shadow, the inwardness

of death, the interior of a drawer, a sack

deep as the sky. Their world to come

the innermost dark of a dark house,

the inside of a man.

Amichai was born in Wuerzburg, Germany, in 1924 and moved as a boy with his family to Palestine in 1935, eventually becoming Israel's most distinguished modern poet in Hebrew. He died in 2000.

Tenderfoot Programme

Congratulations to five of our Transition Year, who have been selected for the inter-schools' Tenderfoot Drama Programme based at the Civic Theatre (pictured) in Tallaght over the coming months - Fiona Boyd, Lauren Cooke, Sarah O'Mahony, Molly Sanderson and Anna Traill. Fiona and Molly start in the writing module, and then Lauren, Sarah and Anna join them in the full theatre module.

Three plays are selected for production, from the writing and theatre modules, and then there is an intensive two-week work-experience period of rehearsal and performance from December 3rd to 15th. The plays will be produced by professional directors, but performed and designed by the TY pupils from around Dublin. More details here as the programme develops.