SCC ENGLISH

'Macbeth' quotation auto-test

2013-05-16T14:54:00.000+01:00

For pupils preparing Macbeth for their exams, here is a quotation auto-test (below, or direct link here). There are 20 quotations, and as each slide comes up you can think who said the words, in what context, and what wider importance they might have, before an 'answer' appears on the next slide. The idea here is primarily to make you think. Give yourself marks...

For lots more Macbeth revision resources, click here.

Knowledge: old and new

2013-05-15T09:54:00.000+01:00

Another entry from this year's Junior Poetry Prize, by Hollie Canning (III form):-

Knowledge: old and new

When I was young
I used to think
that pigs could fly
and cats could wink.

I have a secret
and you must keep it:
I thought parrots could bark, and
carrots would make you see in the dark.

How silly I was back then -
when I dug in the sand
to find a land,
and demanded chocolate for dinner.

But now I know
how kiddies show
the purest innocence
You could ever know.

Junior Poetry Prize, 2013

2013-05-13T09:25:00.000+01:00

Congratulations to the winner of this year's Junior Poetry Prize, Lucia Masding (Primary) for her poem 'A New Day Dawns' and also to Hollie Canning and Catherine Butt for their commended poems, which will also be posted here in the coming days. The theme given to candidates was 'Old and New'.

'A New Day Dawns'
by Lucia Masding

The sun beams down on the glass windows,
A new day dawns.
Exhaustion for the old man,
Excitement for the young boy.

The young boy energetically bursts out of bed,
While the old man, with great effort, rolls out of bed.
The young boy leaps down the stairs two by two,
His face blooming with eagerness.
The old man descends down on the stair lift,
His face glowering with weariness.

The young boy guzzles down his cereal bar and toast
As the old man gradually consumes his porridge.
The young boy waits impatiently for his orange juice,
The old man tightly clasps the warmth of his tea.

Soon the young boy bounds out of the front door to play football,
Meanwhile the old man wonders what to do.

Later the young boy explodes through the door,
Sweat trickling down his rosy cheeks,
Eager to play on his bike.
The old man thumps down on the couch
Sighing with sheer boredom.

The young boy groans about going to bed
Although he is worn out.
But the old man gladly retires to the warmth
Of his electric blanket.

The young boy eagerly awaits tomorrow, and next year.
The old man wonders if he will live to see another day.

Shakespeare Prize, 2013

2013-05-10T09:56:00.002+01:00

Congratulations to Hamish Law, winner of the 2013 Willis Prize for Knowledge of Shakespeare and to Kezia Wright, who is awarded a Distinction and book token as runner-up. Shakespeare remains at the heart of our Department's work, and this annual prize recognises the importance we continue to give him, with his plays studied in the final five years of schooling here.

The candidates had to write an essay on what makes the plays memorable, and also address as an unseen poem Sonnet 57 to the 'fair youth'. The best entries dealt with the underlying anxiety of this memorable work:

Being your slave what should I do but tend
Upon the hours, and times of your desire?
I have no precious time at all to spend;
Nor services to do, till you require.
Nor dare I chide the world without end hour,
Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you,
Nor think the bitterness of absence sour,
When you have bid your servant once adieu;
Nor dare I question with my jealous thought
Where you may be, or your affairs suppose,
But, like a sad slave, stay and think of nought
Save, where you are, how happy you make those.
So true a fool is love, that in your will,
Though you do anything, he thinks no ill.

The Netherfield Ball

2013-05-08T09:41:00.000+01:00

We're currently studying Pride and Prejudice with V form as part of their comparative module, and everyone is alerted to a well-timed programme on BBC2 on Friday night (9pm to 10.30pm). In Friday's Guardian, John Mullan had a piece on this programme.

As he points out, a ball is "the ultimate occasion for a heady kind of courtship – a trying out of partners that is exciting, flirtatious and downright erotic". Mullan's book What Matters in Jane Austen? (now in paperback) is excellent (certainly far better than the patronising cover and subtitle 'Twenty Crucial Puzzles Solved'). Dedicated to the great critic Tony Tanner, who also wrote on Austen, it has many of Tanner's qualities, perceptively following ideas through the novels, such as names, money, intimacy, the lower classes and lots more. Highly recommended.

Below, the ball from the 1995 BBC version.