End of Term review

Hello,

Well, we've reached the end of the first term of year 10, and you can all be very happy with the way you've worked. We've focused on An Inspector Calls, and are ready now to write coursework essays as soon as we get back after half term. This is great but .... what have we learnt? What's the point, really, in terms of what we can take away from the unit which might be useful to us? Well, the aims by this point are that you:

- understand the plot, characters and themes of the play

- understand some of the ways that a writer has used the form of a play to communicate to the audience. For example: use of stage directions, props, use of language, dialogue, interaction between characters, entrances and exits, dramatic irony etc

- understand that plays can be interpreted differently by different directors, actors and audiences

- understand the importance of the social and historical context on how the play is understood by an audience

- understood some of the ways to be successful in showing your knowledge, particularly by writing developed paragraphs which expand on points in detail

Overall though, this has been a unit focused on improving your skills as readers. It's aimed at helping you develop into more confident, sophisticated readers, which is of course a skill which you can then transfer onto anything else you read also. Which, as it happens, means Macbeth for us, as this is the next text we'll apply our skills to!

Over the holidays, you need to complete this homework:

- prepare yourself for your essay by making sure that you understand the title and that you've thought about what you are going to write. You will not be given an essay plan, but have to come up with a series of your own points - we have spent time on this already. Remember that your title is:

Discuss the ways that Priestley has crafted the opening scenes of An Inspector Calls to prepare the audience for events to come.

I'm afraid that we aren't able to let books go home, but if you want to look for quotations, this link has the opening scene: Inspect Calls plus a really useful introduction, but as ever, Bitesize is your best bet. The Character section has loads of quotations but you need to have read it all.

We won't write the essay during Monday's lesson, but will use it as a final preparation lesson, so come with any questions!

Please spend a minimum of one hour preparing for this piece of writing. If you want to spend more then you can, but remember that you need a holiday too...

Mr Boulter