Today we started with Close Reading and I reminded you (again) about how to answer imagery questions – some of those who handed in homework last week didn’t get it quite right. (In fact, no one who handed in the homework got the full 2 marks.)I suggested that you try the formula:
“Just as… [literal idea]
so [what the writer is really meaning here].”
This gives us:
Just as it would be astonishing for an outsider to come across Incas nonchalantly using precious gold for pots and pans to use in the kitchen
so the writer was amazed to hear astonishing stories told by his relatives - while they seemed not to think there was anything remarkable about them at all.
We then read the rest of the Alan Bennett Close Reading passage, which is to be finished for homework.
Before starting “A Patchwork Planet” we read Shakespeare’s “A Consolation”, in which the poet thinks of times when he’s been at his lowest ebb and then – “Haply I think on Thee” – perhaps he remembers his beloved – and he’s happy again.In chapter 4 of “A Patchwork Planet” we read about Barnaby’s 30th birthday dinner at his parents’. We learned about his mother’s background; more about his occasional irresistible urges to mess up; more (in flashback – part of the structure of the novel) about his arrest for burglary and the consequences of this. He tells us about being sent to Renascence by his parents, and having to learn “A Consolation”. The poem makes him miserable because he too feels “in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes” – but has no “Thee” to love him.
There is quite a lot in this chapter about change (not just on Barnaby’s part: who else has changed?) and the symbolism of clothes. Then there’s the third turning point in the book. The first was Barnaby’s going to meet up with Sophia; the second was his meeting up with Opal. What’s the third?
Homework: finish Alan Bennett Close Reading; read ch 5 of “PP”; do Language Skills book pages 7-9; and comment on this blog - if nothing else, answer the two questions I ask above.
4 comments:
Hi Pam,
It's kelda just to let you know i read the blog :D
To answer your two questions:
1. The other person who has changed is his now-successful friend and former partner-in-crime, who represents a possible Barnaby had he not been caught by the Police.
2. The third turning point is his decision to pay back the money his parents spent keeping him out of prison, which entails him working harder to get the extra money.
-Chris
1) His friend len could have been just like barnaby or worce had he been cought at the same time as barnaby was breaking in to houses. At the same time I don't really think that barnaby could ever have conformed to be someone like len and his brother even if he had'nt been cought or got to the reform school.
2) His 30th birthday marks the start of a change, he was expecting an argument with his family. He likes to say the things that should not be said. Proves how much hes not like them and how much of an out cast/black sheep he is and confirms it in barnabys mind. This time the fight leads him to thinking that he will get them off his back and hes determant to pay them back. This not onlyt brings a change in barnaby and the storyline but also in his working condictions and who he works with.
read it
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