AS Language and Literature work in my absence 22/1/16

Clevernesses,

I hope that you managed to find some interesting things in the work I set you for Tuesday. I wanted to do the essay on the theme of 'home' in class but time is of the essence, so please spend 50 minutes of the lesson time posting the essay you planned to your blog (or emailing it to me if there is a problem with that). The support sheet is copied at the bottom of this post in case you were absent - email me to let me know if that was the case but do your best to do the essay anyway.

Then I would like you to post the analysis you did on Tuesday - it can be in note/bullet point form or you can practise your PEE. Here's a reminder of what I set:


Read pages 166-182 “We get applications.” Choose 4-6 key quotes to explore what the reader learns about Dave in his work with the Might team – annotate the quotes, exploring techniques, themes, structure etc.

For homework for Tuesday, please read the interview section of Heartbreaking (pages 182-237) making notes on what we learn about Dave.

And here is the text of the support sheet I gave you for the essay on the theme of home:

Your essay on the memoir in the exam will be on Eggers’s presentation of key themes or characters. It is a good idea to collect examples that you could use in a discussion of each of the key themes as you go.

Here are some ideas that you can choose from (and add to) for the essay we are going to write – pick what you think is significant and that you can apply terminology about form, language and structure to; remember to cover form - memoir, language – literary and linguistic techniques, and structure – linking different parts of the text together.

Examine the presentation of the theme of ‘home’ in (the first 104 pages of) ‘AHWOSG’

Theme of home (in first 104 pages) ideas:

·         p.1 “house is a factory” shoes in the dryer

·         p.2 mother can’t check if he has cleaned up, effects of her illness on the home environment in this section

·         6-8 interior décor, thrift, and descriptions of the father – hints about alcoholism

·         34 “party at home” – effect of outsiders – link to “everybody knows”

·         37 sleeping in parents’ room “weird”

·         Contrast family home with following homes – e.g.  p51. Sublet

·         P.61 living arrangements “re-create domestic life from scratch”

·         Use of diagram p.62

·         72 search for a new home – contrast with family home in a “nice town” (p.76) and the sublet

·         77 laundry

·         78 neighbours

·         80 chores and power play

·         82 entropy (gradual decline into disorder) of living conditions

·         86 menu

·         88 cooking and D’s responsibility weakening

·         89 lack of boundaries – Toph feeling unsafe

·         90 “Daaad!” role play

These are just ideas of what you could include in an essay that explores how Eggers presents the theme of home, so feel free to choose others – in the exam, you will have to choose ideas from the whole memoir without support – you won’t be given a page range either.

In the exam, you have to answer in an hour and hit the following objectives:

AO1 terminology  applied to appropriate quotes, effectively organised essay (PEE and linked points), formal and accurate expression 20 marks

AO2 analyse (and appreciate the effectiveness of) how techniques, conventions of the form and the structure Eggers has used make meaning, mature understanding of the text 20 marks

AO3 evaluate the impact of context in the production (Eggers’s context when writing) and reception (different contexts of diverse readers) of the text, showing an overview 20 marks