Nat 5 Homework- 'Gap Year'

POETRY:

Finish the work from your worksheet- started in class last poetry lesson!:

Continuum of emotion

 Create a continuum of the emotions in the poem, to prove your understanding of them.  Draw a line on a landscape piece of paper- and mark happiness at one end and sadness at the other.

Plot these quotes from the poem on the continuum, thinking carefully about which quotes are happier/more sad than the others:

Next: on your continuum, write down some more precise words to describe some of Kay’s emotions beside the relevant quote:  i.e. nostalgia, longing, pride, worry etc.

Fill in these new emotions onto your overview sheet!

WORD-CHOICE

Task Two: Read the statements, identify the effective piece of word choice and analyse it.

1.      The boy was interrogated about his actions by his parents.

2.        We have been bombarded with numerous images.

Now, check your answers at the bottom of  the page and give yourself a mark out of 4.  2 marks per question.

Task Three: In pairs, for each of the following quotes from the poem ‘Gap Year’, fully explain the effective example of word choice (in bold), following the correct steps from your formula.

Example:

 ‘I remember your Moses basket before you were born’.

The word choice of ‘remember’ means to think back over something. However, it has connotations of nostalgia, intimacy, and of something being meaningful enough to you for you to remember it. This shows us she is reminiscing positively about her memories of the past and how she waited in anticipation for Matthew’s birth.

Your turn

1. willing you to arrive, hardly able to believe
2. I’d feel the mound of my tight tub of a stomach
3. Now, I peek in your room and stare at your bed
4. Your handsome face – soft, open..
5. I feel like a home-alone mother
6. your empty bedroom, trying to imagine you in your bed
7. My love glows like the sunrise over the lost city

Numbers 2, 5 and 7 are also examples of imagery. Use your imagery formula (just as…,so…) to fully analyse these, using your word-choice analysis to help you !

Answers to task 2

1.       ‘interrogated’ – Denotation- to question. Connotations- force, crime, suspicion, lots of questions…

This suggests the parents asked the boy lots of questions, possibly to catch him out.

2.       ‘bombarded’ – Denotation- hit by connotations- attacked,  no escape, enveloped.

This suggests that there have been a lot of images, so many that it is overwhelming.