Selection of short, apt references to support points made.
Clear and sustained focus on the question asked and on the details in the extract.Content/ key moments/significance/track through the text/ reactions of characters/language/reaction on the audience/audience response/ track emotion and detail audience reactions/.Then I need to take these key bullet pointed notes from the report and transform them in to something memorable and digestible for students (for an excellent break down of the key messages from the Edquas Literature and Language posts exam, see this post from Susan Strachan) In their exam they will have around twenty minutes to respond to a question like: How does Shakespeare present Macbeth in the extract and how do the audience respond to him? Now my first point of call is obvious: the report on last year’s exam, looking at the various elements that make up a strong response. The first lies in improving their ability to approach an unseen extract. Yet now, when I “look into the seeds of time” (last one) and consider the waves of grade eight predictions in my able Year 11 group this year, I know there will be areas in which I will need to reflect and adapt to make sure they are as well prepared as they can be. I wrote at length on how I approach teaching the play last year. As you may have guessed, September has opened with a return to teaching Shakespeare’s wonderful ‘Macbeth’. “I’ll be refining, not charging in gung ho like a child tearing open presents on Christmas day.” In this respect I rather enjoyed this post from Mark Roberts last week, in which he outlined a return to school in which: The slightly laboured point is there is a disconnect: the process of reflection is important and no doubt useful, but what happens in the classroom is where it really matters, not about how eloquently or thoughtfully we can describe the process. Despite writing tens of thousands of words on teaching in this book mission over the summer I am not entirely sure if I have left a class “rapt” this week and there have been plenty of moments of “imperfect speaking”. There is also, as the week continues, the dawning understanding that the perfect visions of teaching that we might have plotted over the summer don’t always instantly come to fruition. As much as we might relish and love our jobs and as much as we might feel rejuvenated, there is always a moment of shock when presented with a room of young people again: “what are these/so withered and wild in their attire?” It requires an instant transformation, a return to a teacher persona that has been lying dormant, sun bathing, for quite some time. There are elements of Macbeth and Banquo’s first meeting with the witches that eerily mirror the first week back at school. ‘So foul and fair a day I have not seen.’ Macbeth’ Act one, scene three
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