English Twitterbag 1

A new series fishing a few interesting English links out of our recent Twitter stream, expanding on them and throwing in a few comments...

All teachers and students of poetry should be interested in the Emily Dickinson Archive, which "will make high-resolution images of manuscripts of Dickinson’s poetry and letters available in open access, along with transcriptions and annotations from historical and scholarly editions." You can sign up to get an email alert when the Archive opens this autumn.

The Great Language Game [audio] is fun: the first few languages are easy enough, but then things get harder, especially when the choices multiply.

For any teacher of English in Ireland, the main issue at the moment is the impending change to the Junior Cycle. Evelyn O'Connor of LeavingCert.net has a meaty and characteristically passionate response here. As she suggests, get a cup of coffee ready for the long but worthwhile read.

The biggest and saddest recent event in literature was Seamus Heaney's premature passing from us: our own response is here, followed by a Storify of reactions from around the world. 

One of the most inventive and interesting users of Twitter is the novelist Teju Cole. He recently tweeted a series of modern 'received ideas' ("ARTISAN. A carpenter, in Brooklyn.") and wrote about them in the New Yorker here. Enjoy.

Finally, there are some excellent poetry posters for self-printing from the Scottish Poetry Library here - lots for classroom display.

Junior Certificate results 2013

Congratulations to our candidates who today achieved excellent results in many subjects. In English, 83% sat the exam at Higher Level (nationally, 73% do), with the remainder sitting Ordinary Level (no-one took Foundation Level).

At Higher Level, of all our candidates:-

11.4% achieved A
20.0% B
34.3% C
20.0% D.

Transition Year course and Extended Essay

Transition Year pupils are now choosing books for their major Extended Essays (to be handed in on Monday 18th November). We'll be posting here as usual recommendations once their reading is well underway, and the best essays themselves in December/January.

Click here for the TY course 2013-14.
Click here for the advice/suggestions sheet on selecting books.

8 years a-blogging

Here we go again, for our 8th year of blogging as a Department... 

Coming up this term, lots of news and resources for English (including the completion of the ShowMe analyses of Pride and Prejudice), pupils' work, book recommendations and much more. And, as always, there will be posts and ideas coming out of nowhere. This is also a significant term for all English teachers in Ireland because the first training takes place for the new Junior Cycle course - see Evelyn O'Connor's lengthy response here to the new specifications.  

Also, as always, our Twitter feed will be abuzz with all things English.

Seamus Heaney, RIP

'Seamus Heaney is trending on Twitter'. Not a sentence anyone could have predicted, but yesterday morning, Twitter suddenly lit up with sadness and shock from Ireland and around the world, and today the world feels like a diminished place.

What accounts for such a reaction? Of course Seamus Heaney was read more widely than any other contemporary poet, and his work has become a staple of examination boards (a dismal fate he accepted with characteristic grace and good humour), but the genuine and universal outpouring of appreciation needs more explanation. Some of us were lucky enough to have met him (myself first over 35 years ago as a 15-year old fan, when he treated me as he did everyone, whatever their status - with attention, charm and graciousness), and everyone who did attested to his warmth. He was extraordinarily generous with his time (and somehow managed to balance this with a prolific writing career) and was always humble, kind, twinkle-eyed. It is very rare to meet someone about whom no-one has a bad word to say (even, yesterday, in the frequently virulent and hyperbolic online world). 

Many English teachers have expressed how Heaney meant so much more to them than being 'merely' an author they taught (see John Tomsett and Evelyn O'Connor, for instance), and whose poems made particularly personal connections, and those of us who have been teaching 'a while' have grown up with him as pupil, student and teacher. He became part of our intellectual DNA, in my case for decades.

In an interview with Robert McCrum, Heaney said about Ted Hughes that he "always felt safer for Ted's friendship somehow. He was foundational to me ... he transmitted a desire to be more yourself to yourself." Now that Heaney is gone, the words might refer to him too. So many people are reacting almost as if a parent had died, and this is right: Heaney has been there for so long, was so steady, so committed to his craft, so unwavering in what he did through the lunatic years of the Troubles and the Celtic Tiger, that we can all feel a little abandoned for a while. Belinda McKeon's emotional piece in the Paris Review captures this feeling well. And Fintan O'Toole writes today on the front page of the Irish Times: He turned our disgrace into grace, our petty hatreds into epic generosity, our dull clichés into questioning eloquence, the leaden metal of brutal inevitability into the gold of pure possibility. That is quite a loss.

Heaney's last poem in his last collection, Human Chain, was written for his granddaughter. The beautiful "A Kite for Aibhín" (which you can hear him reading here, near the end of a Guardian podcast) sees him back at at the beginning, at Anahorish on a hill, 'Air from another life and time and place'. They watch the kite as it 'hovers, tugs, veers, dives askew, / Lifts itself, goes with the wind until / It rises to loud cheers from us below' and then the string breaks and 'separate, elate - / The kite takes off, itself alone, a windfall.' It's as if he planned that as a final image; the strings have finally broken and as we now cheer his career he is 'separate, elate', himself alone.

A Kite for Aibhín

A Kite for Aibhín

A Kite for Aibhín

What he leaves behind is of course is what's photographed on this desk at the top of this post (and thankfully there are happy years ahead of rereading and rediscovery), and after yesterday's shock fades what will also be left is a sense of deep gratitude for this man's work and his life.

JMG

Below, a Storify of many of yesterday's reactions, including plenty of excellent links to material for teaching.
 

Leaving Certificate 2013

Congratulations to our recent leaving VI form, who have gained our best-ever average of 465 points per candidate in their Leaving Certificate results. See a full analysis here.


83% of our candidates sat the English exam at Higher Level (compared to 65% nationally).

• 12.2% of all our candidates achieved an A at Higher Level (nationally, 6.3% of all candidates achieved this).
• 9.8% achieved a B (nationally, 17.6% of all candidates).
• 41.5% achieved a C (nationally, 25.6% of all candidates).

See previous results by clicking on the years for 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012.

Summer Reading: Canada

First, I'll tell about the robbery our parents committed. Then about the murders, which happened later. The robbery is the more important part, since it served to set my and my sister's lives on the courses they eventually followed. Nothing would make sense with that being told first.

Thus starts Richard Ford's capacious novel Canada.  It is about many things, but at the heart of the story is a single act, committed by the central character Dell's parents when he and his twin sister Berner were teenagers. The novel explores how this act defines and warps their lives for ever (the final, very short, section sees the twins movingly though briefly reunited after a lifetime). 

This is a very American novel about the possibilities of second chances and reinvention (Ford is as sceptical as Fitzgerald in Gatsby). Its title points the way to a central idea - that there might be somewhere else we can escape to. But what Dell finds across the border is no comfort. Ironically, eventually he becomes Canadian and spends his life there, and it is from this perspective that he gives his calm, wise and powerful narrative.

Scott Simon's Twitter vigil

Workflowy

No 17 in a series of occasional reviews of iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad apps useful for English literature and language learning and teaching. 


This is one of the very best apps we've come across (and, as with several others in this series, it'll be just as good for teachers and students of other subjects).  At first sight it seems to be a straightforward outlining tool, and indeed that's one of its virtues, but the more you use it the more useful and flexible you realise it is. Using its zoom, indenting (and 'outdenting') and note tools expands the basic minimal opening page as much as you want.  Each page becomes a separate document, and very handily you can share each one separately. There are plenty of handy keyboard short-cuts and strong search functions, and you can export all your lists easily. The Help section has plenty of good short videos to explain the different functions.

One of the most impressive features of Workflowy is its virtually instantaneous syncing across devices, and this makes it not merely an iOS app. English teachers will probably use it most on their laptops, and then check up on the data via the (free) iPad or iPhone apps.
 
Workflowy is a very good app to recommend to students for note-taking and organising. For teachers, here are a few ideas:-

• course planning, with individual units and lessons
• brainstorming about future teaching
• class lists 
• resource lists
• sharing any of the above with colleagues and pupils
• using collaboration within the Department to design courses, exams and more

The basic service is free, and you can 'earn' more use, but there's quite a big jump to the paid version, which comes in at $49 annually, and Workflowy might well earn more money if they reduced this charge, since this a tool users are likely to become addicted to.

Here's a handy Young Adult summer reading flowchart from Teach.com. And here is our own Big List.

Summer reading suggestions list for pupils

Last year we sent out a summer reading suggestions list for pupils, and here it is again, this time revised with lots of new books. 

Today term ends, and so everyone has over two months to read, read, read... Enjoy. 

(click once on the magazine for a closer view, once again for the closest, and use the arrows to navigate. Put it on your own device by clicking the arrow top second right, and then 'Download').

Summer Reading List for parents, 2013

Here is our 4th annual reading list of suggestions for parents (well, of course for all interested adults), which this time incorporates all the 'back issues' for those who missed them (click once on the magazine for a closer look, once again for the closest, and use the arrows to navigate. You can also put it on your own device by clicking the arrow top second right, and then 'Download').

This is a pretty meaty list, with 16 pages of recommendations and 86 books. So you're bound to find plenty of interest. Happy reading, and enjoy the summer...

Actiontrack Diary 2013

The final entries from Ally Boyd Crotty describing the Actiontrack Showbuild, which came to a very successful conclusion on Saturday evening with the Western show The Good, the Bad and the Thirsty (left, the dress rehearsal) ...

Day Three:

Thursday 13th June - On our third day of Actiontrack, we began with more warmup games, and then gathered round in a circle and were given out a script. The Actiontrack crew has spent the night gathering all of our ideas and using the songs as inspiration to write a script with a western theme. There was a character for each person with individual names, and the only thing that wasn't ready was the title. We read through the story, line by line, and then were given out our parts after break-time. With props to make and lines to learn the real work had only just begun.

Day Four: 

Friday 14th June - Beginning our fourth day it was very strange to think that we were going to be performing the fully completed play the following day. We had so much to do! We started from scene one and worked our way through, after setting the stage out in a peculiar but clever way in the middle of the BSR. The characters twho weren't in the scenes that were being practised began making props such as signs, and some of the puppets we would be using during the show. A few of us also raided the costume room to try to source some Western costumes that could be used. At the end of the day soloists got to practise their songs also, and we learned some of the dances that would go with them. The last thing we did was choreograph our first scene - the bar room brawl. We used strobe lighting and each had groups to fight in, and had a particular fight choreographed in our groups to ensure no one would be hurt. We had one more day, and there was still a lot to be done!

Day Five:

Saturday 15th June - Even the start of the morning was hectic on the show-day. Everybody was running around frantically, learning lines, painting signs, choosing costumes... There was a lot to be done, and after we finished learning our last 3 dances, we went through the play from start to finish - which took us three hours. On watching the play, the Actiontrack crew knew the problem - lines had not been learnt. The shadow puppets and props were finished, and what was letting us down was our lines. They gave us 45 minutes to get our lines together and get changed into our costumes for our final dress rehearsal. Finishing just in time before the audience began to arrive, we went through the whole play, remembering our lines and our dances.

Performance:

At 8.15 the BSR was packed, and as we waited nervously in the Cadogan we were talked to by Nick before we began the performance. As we began, everything went well. No lines were forgotten, songs were sang, danced were danced and the shadow puppets and costumes were perfect. 

 

The whole week was extremely enjoyable, and it is certainly something I will not forget. The songs we sang have been circling insude my head ever since the performance. I would like to thank Nick and his team from Actiontrack for an amazing week!

Journeys

Here are three more poems which were entries for the recent Peter Dix Memorial Prize for Poetry, this time by IV former Mark Russell:


The Path She Walked

As she followed the path she had chosen
She contemplated her footsteps
Making no impression on
The path she walked.
Her steps were sure.
More sure than when she made her way home
With pebbles and words
Hurled at her;
More sure than passing through her open front door
Into the rooms stained with
Stale beer and undried tears.
But now committed, she followed her path,
With the salty wind blowing in her hair,
And the jagged rocks below her
That rushed up to meet her.



Strangers Together
Like grey cells in a test tube
We sit together
Silently hoping not to notice each other.

Pushing up a wall between you and
The person an inch away.
A wall made of lined paper
Or earphones.

And as the outside world flashes by
The steamed up window
Blurs it all

And you wait
For the train to bring you home.


All Roads Lead To Rome

They say that
All roads lead to Rome.
It seems as good a destination as
Anywhere;
It’s not here.

So I’ll take that road.
And I’ll follow it to Rome.
And it will take me
Away from my home.

And I know everything stays the same.
Wherever I am,
Nothing ever changes.
But while I follow the road
To some place else
At least
I can dream.

The Submarine, June 2013

The latest edition of the Library magazine, The Submarine, has just been published, and you can look at it online below via Issuu (click for a closer view, again for the closest, and navigate via the arrows).

This excellent publication (the last of the academic year) is this time showcasing art, including pieces by our own pupils. As Mr McConville, the Librarian, says in his editorial, 'if we look properly at art we can carry away with us into the actual world a new way of looking, a new insight.' Some such new ways are evident here, such as in the entertaining Instagram versions of famous works like American Gothic and the Mona Lisa. Saya Kasuze writes on (and sketches) Leonardo's Last Supper, Mr Watts writes about the splendid Chester Beatty Library, Mrs Haslett about the Casino in Malahide, Ms Cullen considers the importance of line in art, Bella Purcell recommends the Bilbao Guggenheim and Ms Smith the Lady Level Gallery in Port Sunlight near Liverpool. And there is more.

[Here are some poetic interactions with art that have been on this blog in recent years]

The Beauty of the World

At the recent Transition Year English Evening, Sofia McConnell read out this piece, which was composed for her TY Work Portfolio:

The Beauty of The World

Sunrise. I watch it from my bed. A golden-red, enormous African sun comes creeping up over the blue-green hills, around it a ring of orange, yellow, pink, and then the blue, blue sky. The world is lit up within minutes. The twinkling stars have hidden for the day, allowing the sun to revel in her glory. The moon, realising it is time to go, slowly, reluctantly hides her face.

I rise and run downstairs; the cold, marble floors are a welcome shock to warm feet. The kitchen sizzles, bacon and sausages fry happily in the pan, spitting at anyone who dares to come too close. Only Gichuki can get way with it: the skilled and laughing man cooks happily to his heart’s content, adding aubergines and tomatoes to the already crowded pan.

Outside a table is laid for four, with cold lemon juice, tea and milk lie, waiting to be drunk in the centre of it. Sitting around already are a young man of about seventeen, eating a mango and reading his book, a small girl of three, sucking the juice out of an over-ripe tangerine with a hole in it, and an old, old woman, recently widowed, whose only consolations are her three grand-children.

I walk out to join them and am greeted by smiling faces and yapping dogs at my feet. Down below the veranda I see a small herd of elephants coming for a drink and maybe a splash in the water hole. I heave a happy, happy sigh and take my seat.

The day that follows is filled with sunshine. The market is buzzing with shouts, laughs and boasting old mamas comparing delicious, ripe bananas. Vibrant colours meet my eye wherever you look. The hot earth warms the soles of my feet through worn, leather flip-flops.

A visit to the village school is welcomed with the huge smiles, wide eyes, screams and shouts of overjoyed children. The afternoon spent on horseback is just as happy and even more exciting, galloping up a long succession of hills, over fallen logs, through shaded valleys and dams, checking fences and livestock with a laughing older brother. The impalas and other gazelles watch us ride from behind small acacia-tree clumps, leaping away in graceful arches when we get too close.

A delicious dinner of beans and stew in the dining room awaits us that evening. The sun has finished her journey through the sky and the stars and moon are back in all their glory. Bath and bed are welcomed after the day’s course. I smile as I drift to sleep, looking forward to whatever tomorrow may bring.

Actiontrack Diary 2013: Days One & Two

Ally Boyd Crotty and Sofia McConnell will be reporting each day this week on their experience of the Actiontrack Showbuild in the BSR.

Tuesday 11th June: This was the first day of this year's Transition Year Actiontrack Workshop. We started the day with various warm up games such as zip zap boing, a game we had played before with the Actiontrack crew in second year, as well as various name and shape games. We then put our acting skills to a test and used these shapes to create mini-plays of our own. Later on in the afternoon we began playing word games, which to us seemed pointless, but little did we know they would expand into bigger ideas for the play itself. We had to place these words together to create song titles, and were then given the job of putting lyrics to these titles. Everybody got stuck in and enjoyed themselves.
 
Wednesday 12^th June:  On the second day, after our warm-up games, which were mostly vocal, we all gathered around the piano to sing our newly made song choruses, with the crew playing instruments along to the lyrics they had improved from the day before. Each song was catchy and had a western theme, which we found out would be the basis for our play. We were then given songs and told to put stories to them, and acted out the scenes. Ideas from these were jotted down and could contribute to the final production. Even though it was only a small start, we could see the play beginning to be formed.

Peter Dix Prize for Poetry, 2013

This year's Senior Poetry Prize was won by Sadhbh Sheeran (who also won it last year). The Peter Dix Memorial trophy is pictured.  Here are three of the poems from her portfolio which won the prize:-

Macbeth
The words
That fill the face
Of the damned
Slip out less freely
Than their souls.
Wail for the wicked,
Mask heart for the
Unforgiven.

In the absence
Of innocence
Resolve to call
Upon conscience.


Mummy

Mummy puts Her Love
into reused jars with Homemade jam,
irregularly sized, plastic lunchboxes,
as well as big medium and small, pyrex bowls.
It joins daddy’s apples in the fruit bowl
and fills up the empty biscuit tin.

Mummy scatters Her Love
about the place with care.
It can be found in the wash basket
and folded in Her jumper drawer,
alongside the jumbo pack of tissues in her bag.

Mummy lends Her Love
and tells us to keep It Forever.
to take It with us on our journeys.
Lent things are Always to be returned,
never damaged, brought Home.
She taught us that, Our Mummy did.

By putting Her Love into reused jars
With Homemade jam.


Anniversary

I want to say I threw you a party,
Played your songs and told your stories,
But I didn’t.
I wore pyjamas down to breakfast.
I want to say I put on your jacket,
The one you gave me,
But I didn’t.
I did visit you, for the first time all year.
A muddy oblong without a stone.
I chose a card for you. I’d painted it,
Brimming with colours.
I didn’t know what to write so mummy did it.
Maybe you could read it,
I couldn’t.
I did bring you flowers, boring out of season
Flowers; white, cold, nameless things and
Yellow roses.
I placed them close to your head.
Maybe you could smell them.
I couldn’t.
Somebody had put a rock where your heart should be,
Flat and round and white against the mud.
Maybe you could feel it.
I could,
It hurt.
I wanted to tell you that Spring will come
But I didn’t,
Because I know that you know that,
Can taste it in the earth and rain.
For then the mud shall turn to flowers,
And you shall show the world you came!