Academic
Word up!
Learning English creatively
You've been Fluffypunk'd!
2 October was National Poetry Day and Blue
Thursday,
Coat celebrated by inviting performance poet Jonny
Fluffpunk to address the pupils in morning Assembly and
conduct a series of poetry workshops throughout the day.
According to Mr Morton, a bearded English teacher who
introduced Jonny in Assembly: “National Poetry Day is more
than just a day for English teachers and bearded people!”
Jonny read three of his poems to the assembled school –
and then ran individual class workshops for various groups.
In a very interactive Year 8 workshop during the morning,
he asked the boys each to write down a line of a favourite
song – and then the group collectively put the lines together
in an order that made sense as a new poem. The boys had
enormous fun – and the resulting poem was surprisingly
effective..
with Dr Michael Sanders (Senior Lecturer in Victorian
Literature) all about the novel they are studying, Elizabeth
Gaskell's 'Mary Barton'. All the students agreed that they
came away really enthused about the novel and with reams
and reams of notes to lug back home.
The South goes North
7 and Saturday 8 November, students from
OntwoFriday
of the four A2 English Literature sets travelled to
Manchester. The students visited numerous attractions
related to the coursework assignment they are working on
this year, which has a lot to do with the way Manchester’s
Industrial Victorian past is depicted in literature.
Although the 5:30am departure was not popular, the trip
certainly was. Students watched a live demonstration of
machines from Manchester’s Victorian cotton mills, and
explored an archive of materials telling the story of various
working class people’s movements. As a bit of light relief they
watched a production of Tennessee Williams’s 'Cat on a Hot
Tin Roof'. However, the highlight of the trip was surely a visit
to the University of Manchester where, as well as meeting
some English undergraduate students to discuss university
life and tour the campus, the students had a seminar session
Of Mice, Men - and Boardgames
of Mr Morton’s Year 9 English class, who have
Thebeenmembers
studying John Steinbeck’s 'Of Mice and Men', were
given the half-term task of creating a board game based on
the classic novel. In their class on Wednesday, 5 November,
the boys had the opportunity to display and explain their
games – and play them with the rest of the class. The
games were given relevant names such as Race to the Fat
of the Land, Of Mice and Men Monopoly (created by Ben
Shaw), Run Rabbit Run (Alex Turvey), The Workers’ Game
(Joshua Mill), Take me to the Land (Nathan Branch), Race
to the Ranch (Tom Inch) and Travelling Men (created by
Aidan Sinclair – pictured below, right, playing the game with
George Ellerton and Tom Pickford).