PRACTISING CLOSE READING IN CLASS
Giving pupils the reading skills to succeed!
​Paddy Salmon MA PGCE
Head of English SIS (Sèvres)
1993-2012
paddysalmon.wix.com/english-courses
2 There was once upon a time a king, of a far-off foreign country, who had 17 beautiful racehorses, which he wished to leave to his three sons.
He wanted, however, as he was a finicky old gentleman, to bequeath his riches in the following proportions: one half of his goods to his eldest son, one third to his second son and one ninth to his youngest son.
Of course he called in his sons' maths teacher, who promptly got out his chain saw and prepared to carve up the horses since, to start off with, the eldest son would have to have 8½ horses.
The English teacher, however, who was much cleverer than the Maths teacher (we always are), and who had a very nice horse of his own, said, "Stop! Stop! I can solve your problem."
QUESTION: How did he solve the king's dilemma?
ANSWER: He said, "I shall donate to you my own horse, Bess, even though it is not a race horse."
"Why?" said the king. "What good will that do?"
"Well," said the smart English teacher, "we now have 18 horses. Your eldest son can take 9 race horses, your middle son can take 6 race horses and your youngest son can take his share, which comes to 2.
9+6+2 comes to 17 race horses, so I can now take back my own horse.
Problem solved!"
The king was so impressed by the intelligence of the English teacher that he promoted him to Chief Counsellor and demanded that English Literature be taught as the first subject throughout his land.
Can you see any holes in the logic?
1 What is the shortest grammatical sentence in the English language?
The answer is "Go!" (This can lead to some interesting points to be made about grammar, with finite verbs, subject understood etc.)
All teachers need at some times to keep their classes mentally awake, the more so if you give them the idea that English literature is a training in thinking and responding. They are training to become literary detectives. Their first task is to stay awake and on their toes.
So, if you want to wake up your classes – in the five minutes before the bell goes, as a way of starting a lesson, finishing a term, or simply demonstrating that English teachers are particularly clever people! - try some of these:
4 Read this out aloud and without any expression (ie x11 "hads") to the class as a dictation and ask them to punctuate it so that it makes sense. You can tell them that it concerns an English examination:
Peter, where James had had "Had", had had "Had had". "Had had" had had the examiners' approval.
You can tell them that there were two examiners, as far as the apostrophe is concerned! Prize for the first correctly punctuated piece.
3 A man is looking at a picture on the wall. He says,"Brothers and sisters have I none, but that man's father is my father's son"Who is he looking at? Answer = his son (Prize for the first correct answer handed in on a small piece of paper in silence!) man is looking at a picture on the wall.
He says, "Brothers and sisters have I none, but that man's father is my father's son"
Who is he looking at?
Answer = his son (Prize for the first correct answer handed in on a small piece of paper in silence!)
21 ATTENTION GRABBERS
6 There once was an English teacher and a Maths teacher languishing together in a prison cell. There were two doors to the cell and there was a gaoler guarding each door. One door led to freedom and one door led to the gallows.
The king, who was a very autocratic individual, had decreed that each prisoner could ask only ONE question of ONE guard. The only problem was that one guard ALWAYS told the truth and one guard ALWAYS told a lie.
The Maths teacher decided to take pot luck, asking one of the guards which was the door to freedom.
"Is this the door to freedom?" he asked one of the guards.
"Yes, sir!" came the prompt reply.
He was unlucky, I'm afraid to say; the guard was the liar and the poor maths teacher stepped out to meet his fate and found - the gallows.
The English teacher, however, was crafty (they all are!!) and when it was his turn, he asked his question and then walked, gloriously, to freedom.
What was the English teacher's question?
Answer - The English teacher says the following to either of the guards, "If I ask the other gaoler for the door to freedom, which door will he show me?" He then takes the OTHER door.
5 What is the longest word in the English language?
The silly answer is SMILES, because there is a mile between the first letter and the last.
Some may ask if it is "antidisestablishmentarianism" and you can then have a quick cultural plug on what the established church signifies in Britain and how that is different from, say, France, or the rest of Europe.
7 There was once a king of a foreign country, who had a remarkably fine set of 20 leather-clad volumes of Charles Dickens' novels. Being somewhat of a playful nature he showed these beautifully bound volumes to his sons' Maths tutor and also to his English tutor. There they were lined up on the wonderfully carved oak shelves which adorned the princes' schoolroom. He said to the Maths teacher and the English teacher,
"I will give a thousand dollars to the person who can tell me how many inches there are between Page One of the First Volume and the Last Page of the Twentieth Volume. The pages of each volume take up 2 inches of space and the thickness of each book cover is ½ an inch of rich Moroccan leather binding."
The Maths teacher said, "That's simple, then. It's 20x2 for the pages plus 18x½ for the bindings - if you take off 2 half inches for the first and last covers. The answer must be 49 inches."
He was quite wrong, of course, and the English teacher, who was much brighter, walked off with the prize. What was the English teacher's answer?
Aha! I'm not going to tell you the answer this time, but you should look at books ON A SHELF and THEN count from the first page of Volume One to the last page of Volume Twenty. The distance is NOT what you think!! Work it out before your students make you look silly! You should end up looking very clever!
8 Read out, "Charles the First walked and talked half an hour after his head was cut off." Ask the class to punctuate it so that it makes perfectly good sense logically and grammatically.
9 PARADOXES
Discuss paradoxes. Do they know of any?
Do they know the common one of saying "I always tell lies"?
Consider the implications of that.
Do they also know Zeno's paradox? Ask them to get their Maths teacher to prove it wrong!! (Perhaps check with the Maths teacher first…)
In a race, the quickest runner can never overtake the slowest, since the pursuer must first reach the point whence the pursued started, so that the slower must always hold a lead. – as recounted by Aristotle, (Physics VI:9, 239b15)
In the paradox of Achilles and the Tortoise, Achilles is in a footrace with the tortoise. Achilles allows the tortoise a head start of 100 metres, for example. If we suppose that each racer starts running at some constant speed (one very fast and one very slow), then after some finite time, Achilles will have run 100 metres, bringing him to the tortoise's starting point. During this time, the tortoise has run a much shorter distance, say, 10 metres. It will then take Achilles some further time to run that distance, by which time the tortoise will have advanced farther; and then more time still to reach this third point, while the tortoise moves ahead. Thus, whenever Achilles reaches somewhere the tortoise has been, he still has farther to go. Therefore, because there are an infinite number of points Achilles must reach where the tortoise has already been, he can NEVER overtake the tortoise!
Now, here is an interesting story, which illustrates another paradox about sets, called Russell's Paradox:
There was once a barber, who possibly lived in Seville. Wherever it was that he lived, all of the men in the city either shaved themselves or were shaved by the barber. And the barber only shaved the men who did not shave themselves.The story raises the question: Did the barber shave himself? Let's say that he did shave himself. But we see from the story that he shaved only the men in town who did not shave themselves. Therefore, he did not shave himself. But we again see in the story that every man in town either shaved himself or was shaved by the barber. So he did shave himself. We therefore have a logical contradiction.
What do logicians say about this? Get pupils to look up this topic in more depth on the internet (if they are interested…).
Writers often play with paradoxical ideas and irony largely depends on contradictions and confusions. Look now at the two poems in 7 COMPARING TEXTS about "The end of the world"… You can also from here go to the section on IRONY and APORIA and consider the ideas there.
10 The "Macavity" Sprint Play-Off
This is a variation on tongue-twisters. The game is a straight race, taken in turns by volunteers to read the first 4 sections of "Macavity" by TS Eliot as fast as possible without mistakes (penalty points of one second added for each mistake made). There has to be an official time-keeper. The teacher, too, should take part, obviously. Here is the whole poem with the relevant sections highlighted. The game works well with all ages and trains pupils in enunciating clearly and swiftly.
"Macavity : The Mystery Cat"
Macavity's a Mystery Cat: he's called the Hidden Paw -
For he's the master criminal who can defy the Law.
He's the bafflement of Scotland Yard, the Flying Squad's despair:
For when they reach the scene of crime - Macavity's not there!
Macavity, Macavity, there's no one like Macavity,
He's broken every human law, he breaks the law of gravity.
His powers of levitation would make a fakir stare,
And when you reach the scene of crime - Macavity's not there!
You may seek him in the basement, you may look up in the air -
But I tell you once and once again, Macavity's not there!
Macavity's a ginger cat, he's very tall and thin;
You would know him if you saw him, for his eyes are sunken in.
His brow is deeply lined with thought, his head is highly domed;
His coat is dusty from neglect, his whiskers are uncombed.
He sways his head from side to side, with movements like a snake;
And when you think he's half asleep, he's always wide awake.
Macavity, Macavity, there's no one like Macavity,
For he's a fiend in feline shape, a monster of depravity.
You may meet him in a by-street, you may see him in the square -
But when a crime's discovered, then Macavity's not there!
He's outwardly respectable. (They say he cheats at cards.)
And his footprints are not found in any file of Scotland Yard's.
And when the larder's looted, or the jewel-case is rifled,
Or when the milk is missing, or another Peke's been stifled,
Or the greenhouse glass is broken, and the trellis past repair -
Ay, there's the wonder of the thing! Macavity's not there!
And when the Foreign Office find a Treaty's gone astray,
Or the Admiralty lose some plans and drawings by the way,
There may be a scrap of paper in the hall or on the stair -
But it's useless to investigate - Macavity's not there!
And when the loss has been disclosed, the Secret Service say:
`It must have been Macavity!' - but he's a mile away.
You'll be sure to find him resting, or a-licking of his thumbs,
Or engaged in doing complicated long-division sums.
Macavity, Macavity, there's no one like Macavity,
There never was a Cat of such deceitfulness and suavity.
He always has an alibi, and one or two to spare:
At whatever time the deed took place - MACAVITY WASN'T THERE!
And they say that all the Cats whose wicked deeds are widely known
(I might mention Mungojerrie, I might mention Griddlebone)
Are nothing more than agents for the Cat who all the time
Just controls their operations: the Napoleon of Crime!
11 Another ice-breaker: SPEED INTERVIEWS.
This is good to start a new class with, or just to switch to a different activity all of a sudden.
Get the group into pairs. If there is an odd number, one pupil will interview you.
Armed with paper and pen, they are instructed as follows.
"You will interview each other for 5 minutes exactly on a topic I will gve you. Take notes if you want. At the end of the 5 minutes I will ask several interviewers to report back in turn on what their interviewee told them.
"The roles will swap afterwards and the interviewee will interview the interviewer. Also for 5 minutes only."
You will keep an eye on the stop-watch and let them know 2 minutes left, one minute, 30 seconds, 5 – 4 – 3 – 2 – 1 – STOP!
Subjects:
One of your grandparents
Describe one of your earliest memores
A place that means a lot to you
Somebody who has inspired you
My first teacher (that I can remember)
How I like to spend my free time
What things maks you angry?
Best holidays
A prized possession
One of the best books you have ever read
Get feedback on at least 3 interviews before you get them to switch partners.
12 CLOTHING
It's always quite good as an English teacher to cultivate some slight eccentricity. If you are happy with the idea, come in with (if you're a man) an eccentric tie, or flamboyant braces, (if you're a woman), high heels, 60s flower power stuff. Encourage the pupils, too, to dress the part.
Explain that as "literary detectives" it's important to know about and be able to decode dress and fashions. Get the pupils themselves to research the "bikini", winkle-picker shoes and drainpipe trousers, cricketing blazers, why President Kennedy spelt the death of the hat for men, and why hats were so important up until then (bowlers, top hats, caps etc). What ties signal and where they come from. Why (or why not) bow-ties?
Why did people once dress for dinner in Britain and what did they wear?
Have a debate on school uniform with junior classes. (It always goes down very well and there's plenty to find out about on the internet.)
All of this can then lead to looking at "Whenas in silks my Julia goes".
Look also at "Warning " by Jenny Joseph ("When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple…").
13 THE TRUTH GAME
This is a fine game to play with pupils who are clever enough to take it on board. It's best if the teacher starts. The game is to tell a story which is EITHER totally true OR ELSE made up. Pupils have to guess which it is.
The value of the game lies in encouraging story-telling. It sometimes leads to interesting revelations and delightfully constructed "fictions" or else "truths stranger than fiction".
Here is one story I have kicked off with:
ONE OF THE BEST LESSONS I EVER HAD
We were studying 'Othello' by Shakespeare, which as you (ought to) know is about a black general of the Venetian army, who is tricked, by his wicked (and white) lieutenant or "ensign" called Iago, into believing that his very beautiful young white wife, Desdemona, is being unfaithful to him.
Now, in the class, there was a boy I shall choose to call Thomas and a girl I shall choose to call Olivia. Thomas was French and had just been thrown out of his home by his father, who disliked him and didn't approve of his friends, his "artistic" life-style etc etc. He was being put up by a friend's family. It was all very sad, though very few of the pupils knew this at the time. There had been complications for some time with his father. Thomas, himself, was very intelligent, a bit wayward and cynical and challenging, in the way that many 17 year-olds can be. He loved music, film, theatre and literature. He was being seen by a psychotherapist at the time.
Thomas told us he had an interesting theory about Othello and Iago. He said he had been reading Ernest Jones (an early follower of Freud) on "Hamlet" and now he, Thomas, had come up with a psychological reading of "Othello" that solved the problem of Iago's apparently motive-less hatred of Othello.
The reason Iago hated Othello so much, was not because Othello, a black man, had reached a superior position than himself, but because Iago was Othello's psychological "son". In terms of classical Freudian thinking, with the Oedipus complex, Iago hated his "father" who represented everything which would psychologically block him. As Thomas saw it, Iago could get nowhere sexually, professionally, or socially with Othello paternalistically overseeing everything. Iago, therefore, had to kill his "father", in order to free himself.
Olivia, who was American, immediately took offence. "How can you say such a thing, Thomas? That makes no sense whatsoever. Iago is white and Othello is black. That is at the heart of everything. It's all to do with racism and also sexism."
It seemed to make perfect sense to Thomas, however, who proceeded to take us through the text, analysing Iago's hatred in terms of Iago's perceived sense that his "father" had let him down.
"This is total bullshit!" said Olivia very loudly, after a while. "Iago has a down on women, perhaps, but not fathers! I just cannot accept what you're saying."
Actually, I knew that Olivia, too, had issues with her father, but in a very different way. He was in danger of a big prosection for fraud and she, like the rest of the family, were backing him to the hilt, evidence or no evidence. This, too, was not suspected by the other pupils.
Tempers became very frayed between the two. Olivia took us through Iago's teasing of Desdemona and of his treatment of Emilia, his wife, Thomas came back with Iago's speeches at the end of the play. Nobody said a word throughout except Thomas and Olivia. I might as well have not been there. We all just listened and watched.
In the end, Olivia threw her books on the table and screamed, "Thomas, I've had it with you! This makes no sense and you don't listen to my arguments."
"That's because, you are not listening to my arguments," said Thomas. "Go away and read Ernest Jones and then come back and discuss it."
"You make me sick! The play doesn't support your interpretation. I've proved it, but you take no notice! I'm not staying here a minute longer!"
We watched Olivia storm out. Thomas was equally furious. "I've had enough of this!" he yelled. He too stormed off.
The class watched for my reaction. "Well," I said, "I think that's one of the best lessons I've ever sat through! Let's just read a bit more from Act V."
"Best?!" said somebody.
"Yes, they were arguing about something that MATTERED, and although it was rather heated, they were both trying to argue from the text. What more could I want?"
And Olivia went on to get 18 in the oral of the OIB and Thomas ended up with a 20. I think they went out with each other for a time, but that was several years later.
TRUE STORY OR FALSE?
14 BALLON DEBATES
For younger classes. These can be an excellent way to get debates going and allow pupils the freedom to dramatise as well.
It's easiest if the teacher makes up a list of 35 or so REMARKABLE PEOPLE: Charlie Chaplin, Marie Curie, Louis XIV, Coco Chanel, etc etc. The class are offered the list and asked to bid for people. If two people want the same person, they can toss a coin or draw a straw. Explain that they don't have to LIKE or even know much about the people. They will have to do some research to write their speeches.
They are all in a big HOT AIR (appropriately!) BALLOON. It is losing height and all will have to be thrown out to make it lighter. All except 5. They must all make a speech lasting no more than 5 minutes in which they defend their right to stay in the balloon. At the end of all the speeches the pupils will vote for the five best speeches. They can have 7 votes each, let's say. The votes are all added up at the end and we can then see which 5 will stay in the balloon.
Do the poem "The Balloon of the Mind" if you haven't already done so. Section 1 Close Reading of Short Poems.