Teaching English magazine by sccenglish

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CONTENTS 3

Poetry Winners Junior

Poetry Winners Senior

List of Poetry Winners

Julie O’ Callaghan Interview

Brief Guide to Texts 2009

Teaching the Comparative Study – Tony Magner

Film Feature: Alicia McGivern’s Film Selection

A Passion for Film – Sean Conlan

Making Movies – Vinny Murphy

Radharc Trust

Teaching English Magazine Crossword

Cover image: Sir Henry Raeburn, Portrait of The Reverend Robert Walker Skating. 1784. Oil on canvas.

H WRITE A POEM H WRITE A POEM H WRITE A POEM H JUNIOR WINNERS

That lay heavily in the air. And when I wasn’t observing the changes on the canvas I was observing the changes on the table.

Joint 1st Place The Table The table in my Dad’s studio Had layer upon layer of thick, glutinous oil paint, An explosion of pigments Swirling and blending with each other Like a vibrant landscape, The bright sun shining in Making each colour sparkle a different diamond.

Rebekah Mooney Loreto Community School Milford Co. Donegal

Joint 1st Place

Tempo Music is my life, Rhythm flows deep within me, Never-ending notes!

Catie Riordan Loreto Abbey Dalkey, Co Dublin Fresh mountains of paint, Sticky and soft and screaming to be used, Old mounds of dry encrusted paint Slumped to the side.

Joint 2nd Place

When touched it was like finding a rock among soil, Some jaggedy and some smooth, all different.

Nuneaton I remember cobbled streets Like overgrown pebbles beneath my feet, The smell of green, clear of the flowers That slowly disappeared To a friend, a lover, a mother or a bedside.

The table in my Dad’s studio was cluttered: Empty jars and broken pots, faded photographs which once owned colour, Countless squeezed-out tubes of paint Piled into the shape of a pyramid.

The taste of town cuisine That was far from lean; Fish and chips dressed in the best of the week’s news And pigeons searched for scraps and released gentle coos. On market days the town bustled with sound, One, two, three for a pound.

Raggedy cloths hung on hooks on the table, The creases cemented by dried-up paint. The splashing of paint, splattered and scattered on the floor, Had been there since the beginning. Coffee mugs of different shapes and sizes, Old and new, made up a private collection

The yellow stone fountain flowed and flowered out While George Eliot sat in monochrome Book in hand, a ghost from home.

Old paint brushes long past their use, With hair thinning and tips splayed, Were kept as keepsakes, Each with its own individual texture and history. The new brushes waited in their pristine condition, A velvety softness against my skin, Each one proudly awaiting its destiny.

Catherine Buck Loreto Community School Milford, Co. Donegal

I was never allowed to touch the paintings Only stare and dare to imagine what colour he’d use next. When I’d wake up in the morning I’d sit and watch him paint Listen to him humming a tune Or inhale the linseed and turps aroma

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H WRITE A POEM H WRITE A POEM H WRITE A POEM H Joint 2nd Place

Commended

Coffee

The Bureau

The lid pops open, gulping air, An aroma, irrigating my senses, Maroons me in a forest of fluids With red and blue macaws, Lizards and too much foliage.

The old oak wood is worn and scratched, And has been moved from room to room. Its creaking drawers hold secrets of the past, Letters of anticipation, relief, and gloom. The musty smell overwhelms me, As I open the awkward latch To reveal vague memoirs from tainted lives, And secrets from frayed pasts But between the bitter taste of feelings, Lies a collection of day-to-day things For our bureau’s more than a stationery holder, It’s also a keyhole to dreams. Ruby Malone Loreto Community School Milford Co. Donegal

Men with rich brown skin are haggling, dealing But their pesos can’t pierce the canopy. My eager lips kiss the humidity And the steam mists my vision Of a grinding enslavement And I am drinking it down.

Commended On Reading Hiroshima

Ellen Hanly Scoil Aireagail Baile hEil Co Chill Chainnigh

When I read Hiroshima I didn’t laugh at the lack of comprehension. Not even hysterically! This was not comedy.

3rd Place He wishes for dose Nikeys!

When I read of man’s inhumanity to man I didn’t cry at the lack of humanity Not even hysterically! My tears were not required.

I’d love to buy you dose Nikeys D wans ya loves wit d gold and silver tick I’d buy ya d blue, dim and dark wans too, So you’d be in nikeys in nights, day and in between! I’d put dem on your feet, But me, ‘avin no dosh dis month, only could afford reeboks, So put dese reeboks on your feet, Tread softly, cuz your walkin’ on my hard earned cash!!

Remembrance is the point. We who have not know the hardship of war Must never forget the summer day When a hideous nuclear mushroom held sway. Mairead O’ Malley St. Mary’s Secondary School Newport Co. Tipperary

(Modelled on ‘He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven’ by W.B. Yeats) Rebecca Holland Coláiste na Toirbhirte Bandon Co.Cork

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H WRITE A POEM H WRITE A POEM H WRITE A POEM H Commended

Commended

Unfair Verona

But Why?

Love engulfed them, Politics separated them,

The poppies now grow in Flanders’ fields, The shell-torn hell a sea of red and green. The drums no longer beat the pas-de-charge Up the slopes of Mont-St-Jean.

Justice hunted them, Together they ran.

Trafalgar’s wreckage, crew and all, Lie, drifting ‘mongst the fish and weed. Agincourt’s field lies silent now Cannae’s legions are dead and buried.

Parents hated what Children loved. Time followed them, Age caught them,

They all lie dead, great Caesars all, Hannibals, Wellingtons, and soldiers great. Hadrian’s Wall is all but gone, Save a lonely tower or open gate.

Hunger fought them, Death stalked them. Love triumphed, Love killed them.

A hundred years, a thousand years, So time soldiers, on and on. The father’s tales of heroics past Are too soon forgotten by the son.

Paraic Frisby Scoil Aireagail Baile hEil Co Chill Chainnigh

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David Briscoe Kinsale Community School Kinsale Co. Cork

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2nd Place

1st Place

Romantic Wishes

Lost in Translation

I want to be A glorious warlord With armies at hand My own dark horde I want to have Complete power And fill up graveyards By the hour

A late Friday night On a forty-five Going out to Bray For an end of mocks Celebratory dinner, We sat huddled together Laughing in whispers, Under the dim flash Of passing lights Through the condensationCovered window.

I want to know What if feels like To destroy your enemy And place his head on a pike Based on “In Berne” by Kerry Hardie Jonathan Rigley St. Kieran’s College College Road Kilkenny

I watched her face come And go With the passing cars And got lost In the silence When I kissed her.

Joint 3rd Place

We were on the bus Just twenty minutes When they got on – A gang of four, Old ladies, Effen and blinden, Laughing and joking, Senses excited and aroused, Ready for a night out. They sat down in front of us And painted the silence.

Grandparent Time Tick, Tock, The unmoving clock Glaring down on faces Of two golden singles, That make up this couple.

It was only as our carriage Entered Bray that I began To listen: “My daughter doesn’t like Me wearing these shoes, She says they’re lesbian shoes” And at the time I really thought nothing Of it. It was only during the dinner That I heard the echo, Of her daughter, Telling her mother Her shoes are gay. Eoghan Carrick Clonkeen College Clonkeen Road Blackrock Co. Dublin

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Sitting in silence. Their world has become different, Frightening. Dust gathers everywhere

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H WRITE A POEM H WRITE A POEM H WRITE A POEM H On phone, television, clothes, Faces. They drink from dusty cups Sweet tea sprinkled with dust. Dust. Observing this Continuous respite from time I cry inwardly and smile, To their almost blind eyes Thinking of something, anything To say. Dust gathers on the rim Of my dusty cup. The clock does move. But only when no one is looking. Emma Fitzharris Christ the King Secondary School Half Moon Lane South Douglas Road Cork

Joint 3rd Place The dunes of Downings celebrate, For they have won the battle. Winter has been defeated And seeds of joy are sown In the fields of Dundoan.

Downings in Spring The army of yachts returns to Mulroy, Hulls freshly painted, A new generation at the helm. Lambs bleat and stagger on unaccustomed feet, While Gania Mór heaves a sigh of relief.

Stacey Mc Nutt Loreto Community School Milford Co. Donegal

Harsh winds in the past, New beginning at last. Dust particles somersault and daringly dance Dodging the yearly attack of the dusters in the thatch.

Commended

Yellow drops of sunshine show their wicked side, Slyly hiding thorns, yet pleasing to the eye.

A Man Speaks from the Heart

Meevagh awakens in the early morning sun, Dewdrops dive to the murky depths of Pollgorm.

I resurface, repair and restore Other people’s antiques, heirlooms and more.

The regiment of yellow oil-skins returns from a Hard days battle to see Mc Veagh with the catch of the day.

I prey on people’s material wants, Cavorting with the well-heeled and affluent.

The retreating tide reveals footsteps on Tra Mór Along with freshly slimed rocks and crabs galore.

You mush be impressed, must admire my power, Swapping antiques for knock-offs, on three grand an hour.

Waves of blooming heather crash over Kinnelargy, Dooey begins to slowly relax While the threatening surge of the ocean slips into the past.

Labhaoise Ní Éigeartaigh Coláiste an Phiarsaigh Gleann Maghair Co. Chorcaí

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H WRITE A POEM H WRITE A POEM H WRITE A POEM H The banner flutters, While all around lies desolation, The livid wound of human violence upon the earth. Broken lie the mortal vessels of the youth, Like so many clay pots, Their essence, like wine, Open to the world.

Commended Love Cat My love stalks around my legs like a cat Brushing against me to shiver-paint me, Drawing me out of my old habitat With the promise that it will set me free. I cannot move, or I’ll kick it for sure. It purrs at me to take it on my lap. I know its rosy glow is all but pure. I will not twice be lured into its trap! But, when I resist, it scratches my thighs, A crimson masterpiece to stain the soul And inhibit me each time I dare rise To search for what can truly make me whole. Best to hide in bed where its claws can’t reach, And ignore it when it begins to screech.

Yet…. They will claim victory is won, A flag holds stronger than any mortal, A just cause. They will claim The youth died well. Old men, pass out your tin medals To weeping wives, husbands, Sister, brothers, children. On a rise in the centre, The banner flutters still. The wind drops but the ghosts stay, Watch, whisper, Like pale shadows. It stands still. Cian Clancy Clonakilty Community school, Co Cork

Commended Kate McNamara Loreto College Foxrock Dublin 18

Shades of Brown Beige Bronze Burnt Black Palest, palest white Each face sings the song of a thousand voices Merging in the melting pot of Ireland Strange tongues bubble As black hand clasps white And boundaries meet.

Commended The Victory Banner On a rise in the centre The banner flutters. The wind whips, shrieks, roars, Yet…. Swallowed by the deafening silence, The memory of violent noise hangs Thick in tainted air, Now replaced by raven’s caw, Wolf’s howl and frigid fog.

Eleanor Comiskey Eureka Secondary School Kells Co. Meath

On a rise in the centre, The banner flutters. Planted firm by doomed hands, In blood soaked earth, rent and ripped By blade and bullet Yet…. Still proudly proclaiming, still calling For challenge, still holding the field. On a rise in the centre,

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H WRITE A POEM H WRITE A POEM H WRITE A POEM H Commended

LIST OF POETRY COMPETITION WINNERS

Presences & Absences

Joint 1st Place Junior

We wait Standing still as wax For him to arrive.

Rebekah Mooney Loreto Community School Milford Co. Donegal

We are alone together You and I With so much to say. We have talked Over the phone By mail But never eye to eye. And so we can both hear The syllables unspoken Hovering between us As we stand Waiting for him to arrive.

Catie Riordan Loreto Abbey Dalkey, Co. Dublin

Catherine Buck Loreto Community School Milford Co. Donegal

3rd Place Junior Rebecca Holland Coláiste na Toirbhirte Bandon Co.Cork

Corey Molloy St. Kieran’s College Secondary School College Road Kilkenny

2nd Place Senior Jonathan Rigley St. Kieran’s College College Road Kilkenny

Joint 3rd Place Senior Emma Fitzharris Christ the King Secondary School Half Moon Lane South Douglas Road Cork Stacey McNutt Loreto Community School Milford Co. Donegal

Commended Senior

Commended Junior

Labhaoise Ní Éigeartaigh Coláiste an Phiarsaigh Gleann Maghair Co. Chorcaí

Ruby Malone Loreto Community School Milford Co. Donegal

Kate McNamara Loreto College Foxrock Dublin 18

Mairead O’ Malley St. Mary’s Secondary School Newport Co. Tipperary

Cian Clancy Clonakilty Community school, Co. Cork

Paraic Frisby Scoil Aireagail Baile hEil Co Chill Chainnigh David Briscoe Kinsale Community School Kinsale Co. Cork

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Eoghan Carrick Clonkeen College Clonkeen Road Blackrock Co. Dublin

Joint 2nd Place Junior

Ellen Hanly Scoil Aireagail Baile hEil Co Chill Chainnigh

Modelled on ‘Miracle on St. David’s Day’ by Gillian Clarke

1st Place Senior

Eleanor Comiskey Eureka Secondary School Kells Co. Meath Corey Molloy St. Kieran’s College Secondary School College Road Kilkenny

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JULIE O’ CALLAGHAN Poet Julie O’ Callaghan talks to Kevin Mc Dermott of the Teaching English magazine about her poem, ‘The Great Blaskst Island’ and her life as a writer. KMcD Tell me about the background of your poem, ‘The Great Blasket Island’. JOC The idea for ‘The Great Blasket Island’ came after watching a documentary by Muiris MacConghail on RTE television about islanders coming back (as in the poem) to see the houses where they grew up. The government had decided that the logistics for food/doctors/schools had become too difficult and that it would be more practical for everyone to move to the mainland. It was extremely sad to watch the islanders as they went to their childhood houses and spoke about their lives on the island. It occurred to me then that this same scenario happened with most families as the children grew up and moved away. That you would go back as an adult to the house you grew up in and find it had all changed. Lots of families I know, including my own, became very dispersed with everyone living far away from each other and that was another factor I was talking about. It would be nice to think that this poem might speak for the new immigrants to Ireland also.

can hear yourself think. My next book will be a selection of my adult poetry called Tell Me This is Normal - it will be out in the Spring of 2008. KMcD You grew up in Chicago. What kind of childhood did you have? JOC I grew up in a big wooden house in what had once been in a rural part of Illinois. By the time my family came to live there – a hundred years later, in 1959 – it was part of the outskirts of Chicago. It had a big hay barn behind it to remind us all of what the area used to be like. We lived about five minutes from the beach on Lake Michigan and we spent all summer swimming and playing in the sand. I went to Elementary School (Primary) at St Ignatius Catholic School – Irish-Americans and children with Italian and Spanish names went there. I imagine it wasn’t a million miles away from the kind of school we might have attended in Ireland. I went to that school from the ages of 5 to 14. Our teachers were nuns from the Sisters of the Holy Child Jesus. I was a member of the

KMcD Your most recent book, The Book of Whispers, is written for young adults. Are children and young adults your preferred audience? JOC I’m not sure that I have a preferred audience. When you are trying to write poetry any audience is welcome! The Book of Whispers was quite an odd project because it came out of pure inspiration and was written very quickly. I had taken part in a very noisy poetry reading for children at a big theatre in London and it seemed to me that noise was all wrong for poetry. I think it should be a haven of quietness where you 10

school choir and we gave lots of concerts and plays. Our school was big on playing basketball and we had a basketball tournament every year which was very important to us. It was the highlight of our school year. We had school Mass every Sunday – which was compulsory. Attendance was taken and a note was needed if you missed it.

was probably because I was quite good at writing the stories and little articles we had to do for homework. KMcD Was there a particular moment when you decided to become a writer? JOC I never really actually made a decision to be a writer – it all just happened. One moment which pushed me in that direction was when a High School teacher told us to write a poem for homework. Since we studied hardly any poetry, I only had a very vague notion about what a poem could be. I went home and wrote a poem in the shape of a tree – the branches were the various lines of the poem. Why I did that I have no idea – maybe it was because I was missing the elm tree that the City of Chicago had chopped down outside our house and it seemed like a good way to bring it back. The next day the teacher held up my poem to the class and told them that it was amazing poem and that I should write more. So I continued with poems in the shapes of cockroaches/pizzas/my hand/the sun/moon and this particular teacher said I should keep writing poetry. But I never wished to be a poet. It really is a mystery to me how that came about.

My parents had seven children within ten years. I was the second child and the oldest girl, with quite a few chores to do (most of which involved watching children!). My parents were readers but didn’t really have much time to sit and read. My father, in the early days, was a High School teacher of English in the Chicago Public School system. He encouraged us to read. We used to go to the library a lot and sit looking through the children’s section to find the right book for us. KMcD What are your earliest memories of reading? JOC I remember the early picture books very vividly. I loved the Madeline books (“Miss Clavelle turned out the light”) and I was a fan of the Babar books about a rather suave elephant and his family. One book which I loved when I was a little bit older was a book called Misty of Chincoteague Island by Marguerite Henry. I wanted to go and watch the wild ponies being rounded up like in the story.

KMcD Who has influenced you most in your writing? JOC The person who has influenced my writing in the most profound way has been my husband Dennis O’Driscoll. He has been the best of teachers and editors. If a poem gets past his eye, I am always thrilled and happy. But it isn’t an easy thing to live up to his standards. It seems like a fairytale to me that we ever met and I am not sure I would have continued writing if I hadn’t met him. He just knows everything about poetry, and for someone like me who never did much poetry at school, it is a mystery how we ever met and stayed together. I literally owe him everything: books, publishers, readings, ideas, finished poems.

KMcD Did you have a favourite subject? JOC English was always my best subject – I enjoyed it more than any other class. That

I try to learn from and love to read writers 11

such as Czeslaw Milosz, Pablo Neruda, Chinese and Japanese Classical Poetry, early Irish Poetry written in monasteries, Patrick Kavanagh, Seamus Heaney, Jonathan Swift, Robert Hass, James Schuyler, John Berryman – but these are just some of the poets I love. One of the younger American poets I have been reading is Dean Young.

The hardest part about writing poetry is to keep doing it even when no one seems to care or you can’t think of any interesting ideas. It isn’t a popular art like novel-writing and most people can’t support themselves on the money they get from their poems. So you have to love it and keep telling yourself to sit down and have a go – even when it seems useless to keep trying. And, while it’s necessary to be hypersensitive when you write, you need to keep a tougher skin for when you head out into the world again.

KMcD Do you think being a reader is important for a writer? JOC It would be impossible, really, to hope to be an artist or a painter or a composer without absorbing what the earlier generations had created – so reading is the most important part of learning how to be a poet. It also teaches you how extremely difficult it is to write a worthwhile poem.

KMcD Is Ireland a good place to be a writer? JOC Ireland must be about the best place in the world to write poetry. Irish people are taught to value poetry (even if they don't exactly love reading it) and that makes such a huge difference because the people around you think it cool to be writing. Poetry in Ireland comes from an ancient tradition and it's part of the culture. You don't have to apologise for it. I can't think of a better place to be writing.

KMcD What do you enjoy most about writing? What do you find hardest? JOC I enjoy the feeling of being so focused and oblivious to the outside world that time literally disappears and what might actually have been hours seems like a few minutes because things are going so well ... That situation happens when you have a great idea and you’re trying so hard to get it down into a perfect blast of poetry. I always need to hurry in case something happens – the doorbell rings or I remember something I was supposed to be doing.

KMcD What advice would you give to a young writer? JOC I only know how writing happened to me and that was like this: I sat and wrote – I have no idea why. I got a very little bit of 12

early encouragement and after that I just always did it. My only advice would be to read as many different kinds of poetry as possible: all eras, countries, types. If you need to write – you will. It isn’t something that can be forced. I had no childhood dreams of being a writer, but I woke up one day to find I had published my first book.

The Great Blasket Island Six men born on this island have come back after twenty-one years. They climb up the overgrown roads to their family houses and come out shaking their heads. The roofs have fallen in and birds have nested in the rafters. All the white-washed rooms all the nagging and praying and scolding and giggling and crying and gossiping are scattered in the memories of these men. One says, ‘Ten of us blown to the winds – Some in England, some in America, some in Dublin. Our whole way of life – extinct.’ He blinks back the tears and looks across the island past the ruined houses, the cliffs and out to the horizon.

Julie O’ Callaghan’s ‘The Great Blasket Island’ is on the list of Leaving Certificate prescribed poetry, Ordinary Level, for examination in 2009. Julie’s most recent collection is The Book of Whispers (Faber and Faber, 2006.) Julie has worked in schools with Poetry Ireland’s Writers-in-Schools scheme. She has published eight collections of poetry and is a member of Aosdána.

Listen, mister, most of us cry sooner or later over a Great Blasket Island of our own.

Junior Cert. students from Eureka Secondary School with Julie O’Callaghan at the launch of Sounds of the Season in March 2007

A Brief Guide to Texts Prescribed for 2009 Comparative Study Cat’s Eye ATWOOD, Margaret Elaine Risley, a successful painter, returns to Toronto and finds herself overwhelmed by the past. Memories of her childhood surface unbidden and she is forced to confront the spectre of Cordelia, her best friend and tormentor from their days in school. The novel moves effectively between past and present. The childhood scenes capture the relationship between bully and victim; the adult scenes reveal a woman coming to terms with her childhood. Accessible and engrossing.

protesting at the continuation of the war. The novel relates the relationship between Sassoon and the psychiatrist, Rivers, whose job is to ‘restore’ Sassoon to ‘sense’ before declaring him fit to resume his duties at the front. Wilfred Owen features in the novel as does the character of Billy Prior, the working-class officer who has lost his ability to speak. A tour de force that captures the horror or war; the barbarity of some forms of ‘therapy’ and the class politics of the military establishment.

NEW TEXT

Arthur & George BARNES, Julian The ‘Arthur’ of the title is the Scottish novelist, Arthur Conan Doyle. ‘George’ is George Edjali, a provincial solicitor, son of an Indian vicar and his Scottish wife. George spent seven years in prison for a crime he did not commit and Arthur Conan Doyle took up his case and succeeded in having a pardon secured for the innocent Edjali. Much of the novel alternates the story of Arthur with that of George until the two men, ‘unofficial Englishmen’ finally meet. The novel, based on a true story, is a good yarn, an interesting detective story and an indictment of the prejudice and racism that facilitated the miscarriage of justice.

NEW TEXT

Kepler BANVILLE, John Banville’s vividly imagined historical novel captures the squalor of life in central Europe in the 17th century during a time when magic and superstition vied with science and reason to capture the human imagination. Banville’s genius is to paint a portrait of a burdened, unhappy and, in many respects, an unappealing human being, who dares to imagine the world as we now know it to be. Apart from Kepler and his wife, Barabra, the novel is peopled with a rich cast of memorable and eccentric characters, including Tycho Brahe and Rudolf II. The background of the Reformation and the politics of power, prestige and patronage, add to the rich mix.

Regeneration BARKER, Pat Barker’s imaginative re-creation of Siegfried Sassoon’s enforced stay in Craiglockheart a military hospital for soldiers suffering from shell-shock. Sassoon was sent there in 1917 after he had written to Parliament 14

NEW TEXT

Waiting for Godot BECKETT, Samuel A bare tree, some mounds of earth and the sky. Two characters waiting for Godot; an over-bearing lord and a whimpering slave; and a boy who twice delivers messages. Beckett’s brilliant play, with its pared-down dialogue, sharp sense of comedy, absurdity and deep anguish. A play that can be enjoyed at many levels.

published in 1977, established a new kind of travel writing, which mixes evocative description, amusing anecdotes, oral tradition, odd bits of history and historical narrative and accounts of local outlaws! A genuine original from a writer who died prematurely in 1989. Fasting, Feasting DESAI, Anita Desai’s portrait of an Indian family caught between adherence to the old ways and the intrusion of Western ideas. Uma is the daughter who cannot escape the family; Aruna is the daughter who makes a successful marriage and Arun is the son who tries to cope with the confusion of life in America. Told through a series of well-drawn set pieces, Desai’s novel is a contemporary take on the comedy of manners, which casts a satiric eye on the contradictions within American consumerism. Spies FRAYN, Michael Stephen Wheatley, the adult narrator of S p i e s, revisits the scenes of his childhood and narrates the summer when he and his friend Keith ‘discovered’ that Keith’s mother was sheltering a German spy. Their spying unearths a less glamorous story than they imagined – an illicit love between Keith’s mother and her brother in-law – with painful consequences. Clever and witty, Frayn’s Second World War novel is a cautionary tale on the dangers of paranoia in an era of war and national threat. A novel about the halfunderstood world which children inhabit, written in a direct, simple style.

Circle of Friends BINCHY, Maeve Although this is a long novel, it is not a daunting read. Eve and Benny are best friends and the novel charts their friendship and their ups and downs in life and love. Binchy’s warm, conversational style engages the reader and makes us empathise with her heroines. Jane Eyre BRONTE, Charlotte The plain but indomitable heroine is forced to battle against the demands of a cruel guardian, a harsh employer and a rigid social order. The grand passion which develops between Jane and Rochester is set against the magnificent backdrop of the Yorkshire moors. The language is demanding but the story, characterisation and setting are absorbing.

Philadelphia! Here I Come! FRIEL, Brian Friel’s play of growing up, of exile and longing, of family and the failure of communication between father and son. The device of Public and Private Gar works as well today as it did when the play was first produced in 1964. Funny, sad and moving, and an important insight into life in small-town Ireland in the Fifties and Sixties for a generation for whom exile and emigration are distant realities.

In Patagonia CHATWIN, Bruce Chatwin’s account of his journeys in the southern tip of South America, first 15

NEW TEXT

North of Ithaka GAGE, Eleni North of Ithaca is New York journalist Eleni Cage’s account of the rebuilding of her ancestral home in a Greek village, where her grandmother had been executed during the Greek Civil War in 1948. (Her grandmother’s story is related in Eleni written by the writer’s father.) Her decision to restore the old house in the village of Lia, close to the Albanian border, causes tension in the family and raises the spectre of old hurts and division. The story of an American making a connection with her Greek roots is comic and tragic (with the predictable clash between urban cosmopolitanism and rural traditionalism) and told with energy and affection. A story on the need to belong, as well as an interesting insight into modern Greek history and society.

moving novel, which is set in contemporary England. Christopher is autistic and the lack of emotional differentiation in his account of the world makes for a memorable story. The plot revolves around Christopher’s investigation of the murder of his neighbour’s dog. His investigation uncovers disturbing facts about his family and neighbours in this utterly original and accessible detective and coming-of-age novel. Mark Haddon writes with great skill and understanding and Christopher emerges from the pages as a truly unique character, entirely believable and completely lovable. Highly recommended. The Speckled People HAMILTON, Hugo The speckled people are “the new Irish, partly from Ireland, partly from somewhere else.” The Speckled People is Hugo Hamilton’s account of growing up in Dun Laoghaire in the 1950s with an Irishspeaking father and a German-speaking mother, both homesick for a country they can call their own. This is a fantastic memoir which captures the confusion of the child narrator as he tries to cope with his father’s nationalist obsessions and his mother’s meek acceptance of things as they are. A brilliant study of a family out of kilter with the world around it and a boy who wants to be like the other English-speaking children on his street. Funny, touching and thoughtprovoking, as the young narrator makes sense of family, history and identity and the secrets locked in the wardrobe.

Under the Greenwood Tree, HARDY, Thomas Thomas Hardy’s first critically acclaimed novel is a love story with a pastoral setting, where even a wedding has to be delayed as the bridegroom/beekeeper tends to his swarming bees. As in all of Hardy’s romances, the course of true love does not run smooth and there is many a slip between the onset of love and the celebration of the marriage between Fancy Day and Dick Dewey. In between Hardy describes the village of Mellstock and the

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time HADDON, Mark Christopher Boone is the fifteen year old narrator of this inventive, comic and 16

replacement of the choir and its musicians by the new church organ, a form of ‘progress’ which cuts communal ties. The novel also touches upon the effect of vanity and social ambition upon choices made by young men and women in pursuit of a partner. Structured around the movement of the seasons, the novel begins in winter and ends in the warmth of spring. Thomas Hardy in light and optimistic mood celebrating the England of his parents before the onset of the industrial revolution.

and patriarchy which, by concentrating so intently on the story of Mary Turner, never strays into abstraction. Richard III (Film) LONCRAINE, Richard (Dir) Loncarine’s fast-paced adaptation of Richard III is set in an imaginary England of the 1930’s. Richard is the totalitarian dictator, motivated by ambition and a desire for revenge, who crushes all who stand in his way. Richard is played with real verve by Ian McKellen who draws you into his schemes and amoral life with roguish charm and wit. A terrific film that really catches the intoxication and smell of power, desire and ambition. Loncraine’s film will generate discussion and debate.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man JOYCE, James Joyce’s novel, which draws on his own childhood and adolescence, traces the formation and development of the hero, Stephen Dedalus. Told in the third person, the novel shows the influence of home, school and college upon the young writer as well as the influence of religion, history and nationalism. It traces Stephen’s development from his early childhood to the deep religious conflict he experiences as a schoolboy and, finally, to university, where he challenges the conventions of his upbringing and redefines his understanding of faith and intellectual freedom. The novel portrays Stephen in a humorous and ironic way as a rebel, a prig and a poseur without forfeiting the reader’s sympathy for the young hero. Fragmentary, experimental and uneven, with a number of notable set pieces, including the justly famous Christmas Dinner Scene (“Poor Parnell! My poor dead king!”), The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is one of the great modernist novels in European literature.

Strictly Ballroom (Film) LUHRMANN, Baz (Director) Baz Luhrmann’s multi-award winning film is funny, exuberant and theatrical. Scott is the talented dancer whose passion for dance pushes him beyond the rules and limitations of ballroom dancing. In pursuit of his own way of dancing he meets and falls in love with Fran, whose Spanish grandmother teaches Scott to take the rhythm of the dance from the beat of his heart. The plot sees the unlikely pair of lovers triumph against the odds. A dazzling film shot in brash colours (Red Curtain cinema) with terrific editing and even better dancing and choreography. A coming-of-age movie, a take on the Ugly Duckling story, and an exploration of the conflict between passion and conformity delivered with energy, creativity and style.

The Grass is Singing LESSING, Doris Dark, brooding and gripping, Lessing’s novel is a study in the psychology and exercise of power and the politics of gender and race. Set in Africa it tells the story of the life and murder of Mary Turner, wife of a struggling farmer. Lessing portrays Mary as a flawed and weak person, who is trapped in a marriage and a life from which she cannot escape. Strong forceful writing on the corrupting influence of both colonialism

No Great Mischief MAC LEOD, Alistair Told in prose that is lucid, understated and poetic, No Great Mischief touches on family history (The MacDonalds) and tragedy; family love and loyalty; the waste of drunkenness and the harsh beauty of the Nova Scotia landscape. For the MacDonalds, who settled on Cape Breton Island, off the coast of Nova Scotia, Scotland and their Scottish ancestry live on in their hearts and in their imagination. The 17

narrator of the novel is Alexander MacDonald who, like all the members of the MacDonald clan, draws strength from his history and ancestry and from the clan motto: “My hope is constant in thee.” At the beginning of the novel, Alexander comes to Toronto to help his alcoholic older brother, Calum. The two brothers drive to their beloved Cape Breton and along the way the family saga is retold and relived. The story that emerges is one of survival across history and a changing landscape. It is also the story of the ties that bind family members to each other and to the land of their ancestors.

not all readers will find that the charm and wit of the book will sustain them through its 300+ pages.

NEW TEXT The Lonesome West McDONAGH Martin McDonagh is an exciting voice in Irish theatre. In The Lonesome West Quentin Tarantino meets J.M. Synge or J.B. Keane meets Father Ted in this black comedy set in Leenane, the “murder capital” of the west. Featuring fratricide, sibling rivalry, a doubting-priest and a tough-talking teenager girl, the play reveals McDonagh’s gift for language and exuberant comedy. Funny, dark, surreal, McDonagh will appeal to many Leaving Certificate students and provoke interesting debate on the way ‘Irishness’ is represented. Is the play a satire? Is it a parody?

Fly Away Peter MALOUF, David This short, lyrical novel, set during the First World War, contrasts the crumbling civilisation of Europe with an Australia that seems like Paradise on earth. The hero is Jim Saddler, the bird-watcher and naturalist who befriends the landowner, Ashley Crowther and Imogen Harcourt, an eccentric English photographer. The novel contrasts their idyllic life in Australia with the hellish life in the trenches, where Jim loses his life. Episodic, poetic and sad, the novel succeeds in being hopeful despite the ruins of war. Life of Pi MARTEL, Yann Winner of the 2002 Man Booker Prize Life of Pi is part tall-tale, part fable, part philosophical treatise on faith and scepticism, a literary yarn with its tongue firmly in its cheek. It tells the fantastic story of 16-year old Pi Patel, an Indian boy cast overboard from a sinking ship carrying a cargo of zoo animals, who finds himself sharing a life raft with a hyena, a zebra, an orang-utan and a Bengal tiger hiding under the tarpaulin. The majority of the book is taken up with the seven months Pi spends at sea alone on the raft with the tiger, Richard Parker, who soon sees off the other animals. Martel is playful and inventive and there are many edge-of-the seat moments, and the book is full of useful hints for surviving on a raft with a tiger. However,

The Crucible MILLER, Arthur Written as a comment on the hysteria of McCarthyism in the 1950’s The Crucible seems more relevant than ever in a world in which the American government wages its ‘War on Terror’ and extremist Islamic groups dedicate themselves to preserving 18

their culture from the corruption of western society. The story of the play is fiction, based upon the Salem witch trials of 1692. John Proctor is the farmer, husband and father whose integrity and commitment to the truth is not proof against false accusations and the blindness of religious faith in a puritan society. The play deals with events which are inherently dramatic and engaging, and raises many questions for debate including the extent to which the play is misogynistic, especially in its portrayal of Abigail Williams, the young girl who testifies against Proctor.

The Secret Life of Bees MONK KIDD, Sue Lily is fourteen and believes she accidentally killed her mother when she was just four years old. She lives with her father, a peach farmer, who treats her badly and is cruel. For as long as she can remember, Rosaleen has looked after her. And when, on Lily’s fourteenth birthday, a couple of days after the Civil Rights Act is passed, Rosaleen decides to walk into town to register to vote, Lily goes with her. This short walk changes their lives. Rosaleen is attacked and beaten and soon she and Lily are on the run, heading for Tiburon the name of the town written on the back of a small picture of a black Madonna, one of the few secret mementoes Lily has of her mother. What they find there is unexpected and extraordinary.

NEW TEXT Purple Hibiscus NGOZI ADICHIE, Chimamanda This debut novel by the young Nigerian writer has been widely praised. The story is narrated by the 15-year old Kambili. She describes a life of apparent privilege. However, her wealthy father is a fanatic and his strict adherence to Catholicism makes life a misery for his wife and family. A kindly aunt alerts Kambili to the possibility of a different kind of life, free of fear and free of domestic tyranny. The novel is grounded in the domestic world but explores themes and issues which move beyond the boundaries of the personal and the familial. Through the eyes of the young narrator, we witness the conflict between Catholicism and the tribal tradition of animism and ancestral worship. We also witness the pernicious effect of religion in a society that is crumbling and struggling with the aftershocks of colonization. Kambili’s voice is sad, poignant and hopeful.

Set against the backdrop of the battle for and against civil rights in the American south, this is a coming-of-age novel with a difference. The core of this story is Lily’s search for a mother, and she finds one in a place she never expected. The Secret Life of Bees is a lovely story with a host of eccentric characters, which can safely be described as ‘heart-warming’.

The Plough and the Stars O’CASEY, Sean O’Casey’s classic play set in the Dublin tenements during the 1916 rising, in which the dignity and heroism of women are set against the bluster and selfishness of men. Tragedy with a comic touch, and an exuberant sense of language.

children. For many this is a really vibrant film on rebellion and the search for love, freedom and friendship, with a good script and excellent performances. For others, it is clichéd in its depiction of disabled people as emotionally immature and naïve. A film that will get students talking. Bel Canto PATCHETT, Ann The story of a hostage-taking in an unnamed Latin American country. As negotiations on the rebels’ demands drag on interminably, the captors and their international group of hostages settle into an unlikely routine, centred on the daily practice of an opera diva. For some of the hostages and their young captors, the time spent in the besieged house is an idyll. A story about music and love that is brilliantly sustained to its unexpected ending. A literary novel with a sure sense of plotting and suspense.

My Oedipus Complex and Other Stories O’ CONNOR, Frank O’Connor’s brilliant collection of stories is a master class in the art of short-story writing. The collection moves from the warm funny recreation of childhood in Cork, in which the child narrator views the world with a hilarious clarity, to stories of adult rivalry and proud old men. Throughout, O’Connor casts a wise and sympathetic eye (and sometimes a sly and cunning one) on an Ireland that has gained its independence but not yet entered the modern world. Full of imaginative sympathy and vivid dialogue, the stories are best heard read aloud.

The Third Man REED, Carol This classic film noir, set in post-war Vienna, explores themes of innocence and corruption and the amorality of blackmarket profiteering. Holly Martins (Joseph Cotton) is the innocent abroad, Harry Lime (Orson Welles) is the dashing villain. The moral ambiguity of the post-war world is brilliantly conveyed in the cinematography, with its startling camera angles, and monochrome design. Love, death, betrayal, moral dilemmas and Orson Welles; the chase through the sewers of Vienna; the impossibly-long final shot; and the zither music of Anton Karas. Who could ask for more? A must-see film for lovers of cinema.

NEW TEXT Inside I’m Dancing (Film) O’DONNELL, Damien Two young men in wheelchairs determined to live life to the full and escape from the institution where they are treated as

NEW TEXT The Bookseller of Kabul SEIERSTAD, Asne In 2001 Asne Seierstad, a Norwegian journalist, met an Afghan bookseller in Kabul and was invited into his household to write a book about his family. In spite of war and a repressive regime, the bookseller worked to keep literature alive in his native city. Seierstad’a fictionalised account tells 20

the story of a cultured man who is also a tyrannical patriarch, in whose household women are treated as little better than slaves. Was the hospitality of the bookseller betrayed by an ungrateful guest? Was the bookseller undone by his own arrogance and lack of self-awareness? Can a Western sensibility look fairly on a society so far removed from its own or is the stark truth that Afghanistan is hopelessly mired in poverty, with a society that hates women? A fascinating read.

The Tempest SHAKESPEARE, William Prospero is the unjustly usurped Duke of Milan, living on an island with his daughter Miranda, and perfecting his magic. His servants are the spirit, Ariel, and Caliban, the son of the witch, Sycorax. Magic, comedy, love and reconciliation abound as Prospero employs his powers to restore the losses he has endured, before relinquishing his magic and presenting himself as an old man whose life’s work is done. A very rich play from the pen of the mature Shakespeare. Unless SHIELDS, Carol Reta Winter is a translator, a successful author, the wife of the local doctor in a small Canadian town and the mother of three teenage girls. Her life is perfect until her daughter, Norah, suddenly abandons her studies and becomes a vagrant, sitting all day on a street corner in Toronto with a begging bowl and a sign with the word ‘goodness’ printed on it. Unless charts Reta’s struggle to make sense of her daughter’s action while, at the same time, attending to the everyday concerns of her life and her family. It captures the tragedy and the absurdity of the situation as Reta muddles along as best she can in spite of the rage she feels on her daughter’s behalf for the way women are excluded from life and life’s greatness. Carol Shields was suffering from the cancer which claimed her life in 2003 during the writing of Unless and it is hard not to read the novel as autobiographical. Written in Shields’ light, fluent prose, with many interesting and amusing digressions, Unless is a novel about being a woman, being a mother and being a writer. It is funny, touching, satiric and forceful and packs more into its 200 pages than many novels twice its length.

Macbeth SHAKESPEARE, William Shakespeare’s exploration of ambition and the lust for power, with strong characterisation and witchcraft thrown in for good measure. Macbeth is the last of Shakespeare’s four great tragedies and is dark and bloody in mood and atmosphere. Shakespeare interweaves the public and the private, so that the story of the rise and fall of a king is also the story of a marriage and its dissolution.

Cinema Paradiso (Film) TORNATORE, Guisseppe (Director) Already something of a classic, Guisseppe Tornatore’s hymn to cinema, Cinema Paradiso, is the enchanting tale of a young boy’s coming-of-age and his love affair with cinema. Set in Sicily, in the aftermath of 21

World War II, the young Toto escapes from the hardship of life through his friendship with Alfredo, the projectionist in the town’s picture house, the ‘Cinema Paradiso’ of the title. Alfredo becomes a father-figure to Toto and encourages him to pursue his dreams. The film opens with the adult Toto, a successful film director, learning of the death of Alfredo. His decision to return to his home town of Giancalda for Alfredo’s funeral marks the beginning of a sentimental journey into the past. Beautifully shot and lit, with a lyrical musical score, this humorous and unashamedly sentimental film captures Italy’s love affair with the magic of the silver screen. A warm and satisfying film.

society, Huck undergoes his journey of selfactualisation. A long novel, which parodies the picaresque and romance tradition, and explores the difference between natural sympathy and conventional morality, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is still capable of raising issues of race and interracial relations, and generating controversy, a century after it was first published. The Truman Show (Film) WEIR, Peter (Director) Truman Burbank (Jim Carrey) is the star of the most popular show in the history of television. For 10,909 days, it has been on the air showing every moment in every day of the life of one man. Everyone in “The Truman Show” is an actor, with one important exception: the lead character himself. Truman thinks the show is real. However, when a former member of the cast tips him off, Truman begins to suspect the truth. Essentially a satire on the power of television, The Truman Show is also a touching story of a man struggling to retain a sense of himself in a false world. Peter Weir makes good use of documentarystyle interviews and footage to raise some interesting questions about the nature of the reality portrayed by television, without losing sight of the comic intention of the film. Old School, WOLFF, Tobias Set in a privileged, single-sex New England school in the 1960s, this beautifully crafted novel allows us to enter a world where schoolboys take part in literary jousts to win a private audience with one of the illustrious writers who visit their school – Robert Frost, Ayn Rand, and Hemingway, their hero. Involvement in these competitions ensures that the unnamed narrator must grapple with questions of duplicity, honour and integrity. Elegant and economical, this is a truly engaging and accessible coming-of-age tale.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn TWAIN, Mark First published in 1885, Twain’s novel was notable for the first person narrative, and its mixture of comedy and social satire. The Mississippi features almost as a character and, on the river, freed from the prejudice of white

TEACHING THE COMPARATIVE STUDY Della Meade of the Teaching English magazine spoke to Tony Magner about teaching the comparative study for Leaving Certificate. Tony Magner grew up in Portmarnock, County Dublin. He studied for his BA and his H DipEd in UCD. He began his teaching career in St Paul’s Secondary School in Raheny, Dublin. From there he moved to St Joseph’s in Athboy, County Meath, which subsequently became Athboy Community School, following an amalgamation with St. James’ Vocational School in 2004. Tony always loved literature, reading and writing, and it was this love that directed him towards teaching English. S o c c e r fans may be interested to know that Tony writes the match-day programme notes for Bohemians Football Club.

narrative method, and the broadest representation of literary expression. I am also very familiar with each of these texts, having taught them all before – although not in the same year. I also feel students will enjoy the gritty realism and compelling story of Christy Brown; the tragedy of a doomed friendship between two kids close to their own age, in Babylon; and the angst and frustration of a young man in a similar rural environment to their own in Philadelphia! Each text has its element of humour; its distinct cultural climate; strong characters; dominant themes and clear structure. Where possible I like to include a visit to the theatre or cinema to see a production of the texts we are studying. This year we’ve been to see the adaptation of How Many Miles to Babylon? in the Helix, which the students enjoyed immensely.

When I met Tony in the staffroom, he had just come from a fifth-year class where they had been getting familiar with the look, shape, feel and taste of pomegranates! This was the students’ introduction to t h e Boland poem of that name. For the comparative study, Tony’s sixth year class is studying Jennifer Johnston’s How Many Miles to Babylon; Brian Friel’s Philadelphia Here I Come!; and My Left Foot directed by Jim Sheridan. DM

DM In what order did you begin reading the texts? TM In fifth year, students started on How Many Miles to Babylon? This was their anchor text. The key theme we explored was the importance of family. The students were free to focus on one particular relationship, such as the Father-Son angle, or speak about family in general. I also suggested they consider ‘lack of communication’ as a theme.

Why did you choose this set of texts?

TM My choice was based on simple reasoning. Firstly, it is always my preference to study one each of the three forms – novel, play and film – especially when Literary Genre is one of the modes of comparison. In this way students are guaranteed a variety of stimuli, viewpoints,

In Babylon, Alec and his parents have a very formal, even distant, relationship. I emphasized the tension between his parents, his awkwardness around them and how it affected his outlook. We also saw 23

how differently Jerry feels about his family. Communication is always stunted, never clear, and nothing is resolved in the novel, in terms of family relationships.

comparison. This is enormously helpful in sixth year when it comes to revision, choosing key scenes and building examination answers. Every time we read or watch a segment of a text we discuss it in terms of the three modes of comparison. This helps the students to realize that, unlike the single text, there are parts of the comparative texts they do not need. They need not be worried about prioritizing and they need to be encouraged to find their own themes and angles. I try to help them to see that anyone can tell me the story of their texts, but only they can tell me how they feel. This is why I ask the students to have as many comparisons and comparative words as possible in their essays, but also to refer to themselves too as often as possible (‘I feel’ … ‘this shows me ’… ‘I think’ … ‘It strikes me’ …) and to make their essays as individual as possible.

With cultural context, we focussed on the clash between the Anglo-Irish Ascendancy and the ‘native’ Irish. In terms of Literary Genre we looked at the retrospective narration, the climactic finale, the various sub-plots and the general way in which Johnston tells her story. I try to help the students define the modes before starting to read the texts. For instance, where cultural context is concerned, we explored the background of emigration for Philadelphia! and I try to relate this to what the students know already. For example, many of the students are involved in their local GAA clubs, which were decimated by emigration in the 1950s and 1960s. I also encourage the students to question grandparents and older relatives or neighbours. In the era of Celtic Tiger Ireland, the concept of necessity driving people away from families and friends is really alien to the students.

The second text we are studying is My Left Foot and every time the students write their comparative diary I encourage them to link their thoughts and observations to those from their anchor text. I break the film into eleven sections. We watch one or two segments of a section in each class and discuss them in the light of the themes and comparative modes. The third text is studied in the same way, usually early in sixth year.

DM Have you any particular approach or method which you think works well with the students? TM One of my chief methods of teaching is the Comparative Diary. To complement the usual questions designed to engage the students with each of the three modes of comparison, I ask the students to write short diary-style entries into a special copybook for each scene or segment of text we read. In these diaries I sometimes ask them to rewrite a scene or conversation from the point of view of one particular character. This helps the students to challenge the narrator’s view and see things from different perspectives. Thus, by the end of a text, students have between ten to fifteen short entries of perhaps half to three quarters of a page on each of the three modes of

In terms of classroom work, I encourage the students to discuss the observations they have made in their comparative diaries. I also encourage them to copy in the thoughts of their classmates if others have found an angle they have missed. I feel this helps the students to co-operate, to discuss and to see that, because it is their own personal diary and their own observations, they can never be told, “You are wrong.” I also encourage the students to explore other themes (away from family and communication) if they see fit. I think that, 24

because I really enjoy these texts myself, my enthusiasm will help the students to see ways of contrasting and comparing them. As a ‘Dub’, I enjoy banter on My Left Foot and its inner-city setting. Country kids love to sneer the Dubs, not to mention the MeathDublin rivalry. But the whole cultural tension surrounding Alec and Jerry’s friendship is alien to the students and challenging, as is the issue of emigration.

students to underline all the comparative words they’ve used – this is my way of emphasising the importance of the task. Tony Magner on: Leaving Certificate Poetry The students have the same freedom in poetry as they have in the comparative study. All the examiner chooses is the poet. The individual student has control over the poems, the themes and the approach.

DM Do the students find the Comparative Study hard?

The Pleasure of Teaching There is not a single day where I have not split my sides laughing at something some student has said or done. Every class is different. Kids give you energy. There is a great buzz in seeing students learning to express themselves and growing in confidence. Classes are full of good moments. A recent example is when a student asked why she couldn’t use text English, arguing that it was her language in common usage, same as Chaucer’s and Shakespeare’s language was the language in common usage in their day!

TM No, not really, but their first efforts at comparative writing can be weak as this is a skill that the students need to develop. That said, the comparative study does lead to more independent and collaborative writing. Brainstorming the ideas on the modes in class enhances the confidence of all. I think this is particularly true of shyer and weaker students who are brought along by collaboration and the opportunity to give their views and have those views accepted and valued by their classmates. This puts all the students on an equal footing. DM Do you like Comparative Study?

teaching

The most special classes are the last ones with those students you’ve brought on from first year. The warmth of that final class is marvellous – knowing you’ve had a hand in their development; that you’ve contributed something to your students; and you have an opportunity to wish them well with the rest of their lives! It is very special also to see your students graduate, particularly the first time you bring a set of students through from first to sixth year.

the

TM Yes! I find great freedom in being able to say to students, ‘If you tell me anything you’ve noticed I’m not going to tell you ‘you are wrong’’. The students have enormous power over their essays – they choose the key scenes and the theme. Students are not used to being in control of things for the Leaving Certificate! When they realise the control they have, they become confident and begin to make braver comparisons – more deep-rooted and less obvious ones. Often they find some extraordinary angles that surprise and delight me. It’s a very imaginative time in students’ lives and the comparative study gives scope to their imagination.

Amount of Prescribed Material for Leaving Certificate There is too much literature on paper two. I think six poets should be prescribed instead of eight, and two comparative texts instead of three. The amount of material affects the balance in your teaching. For example, I think question ‘b’ on Paper 1 is getting lost, becoming an appendix, as there is no time to teach letters and reports and cover the literature. It would be good to have the time and space to spend on teaching skills. On the positive side, there is unbelievable freedom and I’d hate to lose that.

I try to prepare my students in some way during their Junior Certificate by asking them to compare poems and, sometimes, characters from their novels. And I ask the 25

FILM Alicia McGivern’s Film Selection Alicia McGivern, Senior Education Officer with the Irish Film Institute (www.ifi.ie) talks to the Teaching EnglishMagazine.

hung about it as Mrs Walsh, in her lovely reading voice, recited it aloud to the class. John Donne is still one of her favourite poets. Growing up, the cinema was a treat, none more so than a trip to the Grafton Cinema in Dublin, followed by milk and buns in Bewleys Oriental Café. One of the earliest films Alicia remembers seeing was The Song of Bernadette, starring Jennifer Jones with Vincent Price and Lee J. Cobb, which convinced her that she would become a nun! She also went to films in the local picture house The Strand in Fairview. Another memory is of her father rustling the newspaper during a showing of Nicholas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now on television. Notwithstanding the rustling, Alicia knew, as she watched it, that Don’t Look Now was “a special kind of film.” There was also a film club in the school, a reflection of the interest and creativity of many of the teaching sisters. After she left school, Alicia often went to the cinema, to late night shows where half the audience were smoking, and that smoky atmosphere was part and parcel of the experience.

Alicia is from Dublin and grew up and went to school in Raheny. She is the fourth child in a family of six. Alicia’s Dad had a great love of music and literature and she remembers him playing recordings of classical music, opera and in particular John Mc Cormack on Sunday afternoons in the front room of the family home. The invitation to listen to a favourite piece of music was often a test of youthful endurance and, sometimes, a source of embarrassment. Today, all the family have inherited their dad’s love of and openness to music. From the example of her father, Alicia learned how one could lose oneself in music and art and she regards this as “an invaluable gift.” Alicia attended the all-girls Manor House School and she is pleased that her alma mater supports the work of the Education Department in the IFI, with students from the school regularly attending screenings from the IFI Education Programme. Alicia says that when she meets people who also attended Manor House there is great reminiscing. For her part, Alicia remembers a number of teachers who were really passionate about their subjects. In her first year in school the English teacher arranged for Seamus Heaney to visit the class. Alicia remembers him sitting there, “in a woolly jumper” reading from Death of a Naturalist. It was the kind of event which caused her to understand that school “could be more than just preparing for exams, could, in fact, be truly inspiring.” Another English teacher she remembers with fondness is Mrs Walsh, who had “a mischievous streak” and introduced the girls to the poetry of John Donne. Alicia remembers being enthralled by ‘The Flea’ and the aura of daring that

Leaving school, without a family tradition of university, Alicia followed many of her friends who applied for jobs in the Civil Service, the bank or other financial institutions. Looking back, while she was studious, Alicia says she hadn’t a sufficient enough sense of herself, or confidence in herself, as a student to have considered college in a serious way. Her first job was in Irish Life. She enjoyed working in a large office and she enjoyed the fun and social life that went with it. She then joined Aer Lingus. Alicia describes it as a terrific place to work with a hectic social life that included outings to concerts and gigs. Around the same time as she joined Aer Lingus, Alicia applied to do an Arts Degree in UCD, cycling from the airport in North 26

Dublin, to Belfield in South Dublin. UCD was “a complete eye-opener” and she met “a fantastic mixture of people”. She studied English, German and Philosophy. Following her degree, Alicia spent a year in Germany, near Dusseldorf, teaching English to support herself, and seeing a lot of German films. After the year, she came home and did her Diploma in Education. This was followed by a further year abroad, this time near Vienna, working as a language assistant and using film as classroom stimulus. “I only

are films that stand out from that period in the 1980s. The more immersed she became in film, the more Alicia realised the potential of film in education.

had to work twelve hours a week and with the spectacular galleries in Vienna, I was surrounded by art.” From Vienna, Alicia moved to London and worked as a teacher of English in a secondary school in Enfield, in Middlesex. There she continued using film in the classroom, initially showing film adaptations of Shakespeare and literary novels. At the same time as she was teaching, Alicia was attending cinemas in London which showed art house films. D i v a, Betty Blue and the Talking Heads film, Stop Making Sense, as well as My Beautiful Laundrette and Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner

fascinating.” Alicia says. “They were old communist buildings, with wooden seats. You got in for buttons but they wouldn’t show a film unless there were enough people in the audience. People went in to keep warm as much as watch films …” From the 1980s on, Alicia began to collect films and build up her own library, including Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Three Colours Trilogy, as well as old melodramas.

After London, Alicia went to the Czech Republic with VSO. It was the period after the Velvet Revolution of December 1989 and Alicia worked in a University in Liberec, a city north of Prague, close to the border with Poland. Again, cinema featured during her time in Liberec. “The cinemas were

Following her return to Dublin, after stints in Kerry and Belfast, Alicia got a job in the Education Department of the Irish Film 27

Institute. Alicia then undertook a Masters in Film Studies in DIT, an experience she describes “as great and challenging.” She enjoyed writing about individual films and about film as an art form, within the context of cultural studies. For her dissertation, Alicia studied the films of Ang Lee, who has directed such well known works as, Sense and Sensibility (1995), The Ice-storm (1997), Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (2000) and Brokeback Mountain (2005). Her study explored the notion of transnational film-making.

an example of Irish film-making that allows the viewer to gain a sense of who the characters really are. When we met, Alicia was about to attend a screening of Pan’s Labyrinth “which looks different. It’s by Guillermo del Toro, the maker of The Devil’s Backbone. It’s got great reviews and I hope it will be stimulating. But sometimes I just want to see mainstream stuff.” Because of her work, Alicia tries to see a wide range of films, especially those that are popular with students. It helps her work to know the kind of stories that are being told in mainstream films and the kinds of society they seek to reflect and portray. She believes that many mainstream films have a good deal to offer in terms of film education and Alicia says that she can now watch and enjoy most films. She expresses the hope that her work gives opportunities to both teachers and students to engage with film in ways that are relevant to the classroom but also relevant to their own lives. In contemporary terms, Alicia sees film as equally important if not more important than any other art form. “Visually is how we tell many of our stories today and our job is to encourage more people to be able to make sense of those stories and the way they are told. The students already have a vast knowledge. We are trying to help them develop it.” Alicia loves working with students. “Nothing beats sitting in a darkened cinema with an audience enjoying what’s on the screen and then having the students respond to what they have seen and experienced. It’s really enjoyable to connect with their excitement but also to see how film motivates them in some way. Film and moving image should be an essential part of any revision of the postprimary curriculum, and needs to be recognised as an art form in its own right.”

Although Alicia has written on and off for years, she never pursued writing in a focussed way and she has never considered writing for film. However, if she were to make a film, it would probably be a documentary. “There are so many interesting stories to be explored and told. Ireland has thousand of stories, reflected in television drama like Bachelor’s Walk or Pure Mule where you can really engage with the characters and get to know them.” Adam and Paul is another film Alicia cites as

Alicia McGivern’s Three Favourite Films Jean-Jacques Beineix’s Diva (1981) Steven Spielberg’s ET (1982) Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s All About Eve (1950) with Bette Davis and Anne Baxter 28

Best Film Adaptation Of Shakespeare Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet (1996)

Religion, SPHE; Themes: family, injustice, human rights, determination and decisions, friendship;

Novels Worth Adapting JM Coetzee’s Disgrace (1999) Andrea Levy’s Small Island Keri Hulme’s The Bone People (1983) Best Film Adaptation of a Novel James Ivory’s The Remains of the Day (1993) Worst Film Adaptation of a Novel Brian de Palma’s The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990) 20 Films for Use in the Classroom Roman Polanski’s Oliver Twist (2005) Polanski’s take on the classic tale is grippingly atmospheric. Sir Ben Kingsley excels as the sinister Fagin in an adaptation that brings the story vividly to life again for a new generation. Target Audience: Year 1 - 2. Classroom focus: English – adaptation, stimulus for creative writing on characters or setting.

Terry George’s Hotel Rwanda (2004) (15) Don Cheadle stars in the true-life story of Paul Rusesabagina, a hotel manager who housed over a thousand Tutsis refugees during their struggle against the Hutu militia in Rwanda. A gripping and harrowing film that reminds us of these horrific events which took place just over a decade ago.

Niki Caro’s Whale Rider (2002) Unique story of a young girl growing up within a community in which elders seek to hold onto language, culture and traditions that the younger generation are leaving behind. Target Audience: Year 1 – 3. Classroom focus: CSPE, English, Irish, Environmental and Social Studies, Geography; Themes: Modernity versus the environment, generational conflict, identity, tradition, intercultural awareness;

Target Audience: Year 4 – 5. Themes: injustice, human rights, racism, courage and determination, colonisation; Classroom focus: English, SPHE, History, Religion;

Phillip Noyce’s Rabbit-proof Fence (2002) Another Australian story, this time concerning the forced adoption of Aboriginal children into white families, a practice that continued up until the 1950s.

Siddiq Barmak’s Osama (2003) 12-year-old girl forced to dress as a boy in order to work during the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. When she is forced to join the school and military training the boy Espandi comes to her aid. Beautifully photographed and a heart-rending story of life during this extreme time.

Target Audience: Year 1 – 4. Classroom focus: CSPE, English, History, 29

Target Audience: Years 2 - 4 Classroom focus: English, CSPE, Religion, History, Art; Themes: identity, law and order, gender politics, human rights.

woman whose family want to her to go to work after she finishes school rather than accept a university place. Refreshingly different, Ana is obliged to make difficult decisions as she grows in confidence.

Thomas Carter’s Save the Last Dance (2001) Julia Stiles is great in this coming-of-age tale about a teenage girl who moves to a poor area of Chicago after a family tragedy. Her only friend in the mostly black school is a hiphop dancer, Derek who teaches her new moves as she trains to be a dancer and realises the healing power of dance.

Target Audience: Years 4 – 5 Classroom focus: SPHE, English, Spanish; Themes: growing up, gender, race and society, family, decision-making, peer pressure, identity and self-expression. Gabor Csupo’s Bridge To Terabithia (2007) Adaptation of Katherine Paterson’s much loved novel. This is a terrific film, a boy-girl story where both characters on the verge of adolescence struggle with their sense of self and their family demands, escaping to a magical kingdom when life becomes difficult. An unexpected turn of events leaves the young boy coping with grief and loss.

Target Audience: Years 1 – 3 Classroom focus: English, CSPE, Religion Themes: growing up, racism, coping with loss, peer pressure, friendship, expression through art. David Gordon Green’s George Washington (2000) A group of children in a depressed small town band together to cover up a tragic mistake. First love, friendship, racism, peer pressure all surface in this unusual, carefully told coming-of-age story. Target Audience: Years 3 - 4 Classroom focus: English, CSPE, SPHE, Religion; Themes: friendship, bullying, racism, decision-making.

Target Audience: Years 1 – 2 Classroom focus: CSPE, SPHE, Art, Religion, English; Themes: growing up, friendship and love, family, grief and loss, fantasy, competing.

Peter Sollett’s Raising Victor Vargas (2002) (15) When Victor, who prizes himself on his ability to charm any number of girls in his Hispanic community, fails to instantly win over ‘Juicy Judy’, he has to learn a few lessons, notably how to please his strict grandma. Hilarious, warm and tender coming-of-age tale. Target Audience: Years 4 – 5 Classroom focus: English, SPHE, Spanish; Themes: Friendship, family, growing-up, image and identity, gender & sexuality. Patricia Cordoso’s Real Women Have Curves (2002) Starring Ugly Betty’s America Ferrara, this story about Ana, a young Mexican-American 30

Andrew Davis’ Holes (2003) Adaptation of popular Louis Sachar novel. Stanley Yelnats is accused of stealing a pair of famous trainers. He is sent to Camp Green Lake detention centre where he and the other boys are forced to dig large holes in the desert each day. The malicious warden (Sigourney Weaver) is secretly looking for buried treasure, things go badly wrong when Stanley and friend Zero escape.

Mateo opens the young girls’ eyes onto an unfamiliar world. Target Audience: Year 4 - 5 Classroom Focus: SPHE, Religion, English; Themes: family, loss, racism, emigration. David Keating’s The Last of the High Kings (1996) A Leaving Cert summer in Howth, Co Dublin, 1977, with the sound of Thin Lizzy in the air. Jared Leto is eager to leave school and his eccentric family behind him. Girls, friends and parties are the plans for the summer months but life is not that simple … Adapted from Ferdia MacAnna’s short story, this lively and amusing story stands up well against Hollywood pictures dealing with similar themes.

Target Audience: Years 1 – 2 Classroom Focus: CSPE, Religion, English, Art Themes: friendship, punishment, secrecy, bullying and peer pressure, forgiveness.

Target Audience: Years 4 – 5 Themes: friendship, love, peer pressure, self-expression, family, absent father, religion and politics; Classroom focus: SPHE, Religion, History, English. Ken Loach’s Kes (1969) Modern classic, adaptation of Barry Hines novel. Loach’s film set a marker for subsequent stories about growing up in troubled families and its legacy can be seen in recent Irish film, The Mighty Celt. Tender and evocative, the school football game brings a welcome relief from the often heart-breaking mood of the film. Target Audience: Years 1 – 4 Themes: growing up, bullying, family life, escape, identification; Classroom focus: SPHE, CSPE, English. Pearse Elliot’s The Mighty Celt (2005) (15) Young boy growing up in post-ceasefire Belfast. Works for local greyhound trainer and finds escape in training The Mighty Celt. Trainer Joe has different plans for the dog but also is still involved in criminal activities which are discovered by the boy. At home, his mother is trying to move on from her troubled past.

Jim Sheridan’s In America (2002) Based on his own family’s experience of emigration to the US in the 1980s and written by daughter, Naomi Sheridan, this story is an interesting examination of father-daughter relationships as well as offering an insight into a family surviving difficult times and dealing with loss. Befriending their troubled neighbour 31

Target Audience: Years 4 – 5 Themes: growing up, family, animal cruelty, forgiveness, loyalty and justice; Classroom focus: English, SPHE, History, Religion.

society, gender; Classroom focus: English, CSPE, Religion, Sport. Byambasuren Davaa’s The Story of the Weeping Camel (2003) In the Gobi Desert, a nomadic family of shepherds has troubles when one camel rejects her new offspring. The family try everything and when there is no further hope of saving the animal, they send their two sons to bring a musician from the nearest town to perform a ritual and save the “baby camel”. Hard to believe that such an unfamiliar story and culture would have become such a hit film.

Nicholas Ray’s Rebel without a Cause (1955) Ray’s film starring James Dean remains the definitive ‘teen’ story of angst, family strife, peer pressure and love. Although it moves at a slower pace than today’s Hollywood fare, it’s a beautiful film with terrific performances from Dean, Natalie Wood and Sal Mineo as Plato. Ray’s filmmaking art merits study as does the concept of stardom, Dean’s performance earning him an enduring posthumous fame.

Target Audience: Year 1 – 4 Themes: Family, culture, tradition, survival; Classroom focus: English, CSPE, SPHE, Music, Geography;

Target Audience: Years 4 -5 Themes: coming of age, family, peer pressure, friendship, sexuality, love; Classroom focus: SPHE, Art, English, Religion.

Stephen Daldry’s Billy Elliot (2000) (15) Growing up in during the miners’ strike in the North of England, Billy is torn between his love of dance and his family which is slowly disintegrating. Battling for his art against his family’s set ways and attitudes, Billy encounters some opposition before he gets where he can realise his talent.

Lukas Moodyson’s Show me Love (1998) (15) Two teenage girls in small-town Sweden. Elin is beautiful, popular, and bored with life. Agnes is friendless, sad, and secretly in love with Elin. Sensitively handled, this story about small town life in which the two protagonists struggle, through their friendship, to come to terms with their own identities is a far more challenging and stimulating film than most Hollywood attempts at similar material.

Target Audience: Year 4 – 5 Themes: Family, bigotry, coming-of-age, self-expression & identity; Classroom focus: SPHE, English, Dance;

Target Audience: Years 4 – 5 Themes: coming of age, peer pressure, identity and sexuality, love; Classroom focus: English, SPHE, Religion. Gurinder Chadha’s Bend it Like Beckham (2002) Keira Knightley came to our attention in this small tale of two very different girls who both want to play on the football team. Jesminder is the daughter of orthodox Sikhs who has no desire to toe the family line, instead developing her considerable football skills. Target Audience: Years 1 – 3 Themes: growing up, race, family and 32

A PASSION FOR FILM Kevin Mc Dermott of the Teaching English magazine went to St Mary’s Diocesan School, Drogheda, to meet Seán Conlan and learn about his passion for teaching film. KMcD How did your interest in film develop?

based at the time in Harcourt Street in Dublin. The extracts, on the old film reels, were sent up on the train each week and I collected them from the station and we projected them on the school’s RCA 1600mm projector. How times have changed!

SC The inspiration came in university, when I was doing the HDipED. Eddie Fitzgerald, a Salesian priest, ran film appreciation classes in the college in the evenings after lectures. The classes were aimed at a general audience and took the form of viewing and discussing study extracts, ten minute sequences from different films. Eddie directed our viewing of an extract and then analysed it in a detailed way. It was really impressive. And in doing the analysis we really got into the mind of the director at a deeper level than the director might have been aware of. We examined artistic decisions that were probably made sub-consciously.

KMcD You came to St Mary’s directly after your HDipEd. What were your teaching subjects? SC I took English and Latin in college. I loved the challenge of reading Latin and I loved the Shakespearean tragedies. Later we brought in Classical Studies, a very visual subject and that suited me just fine. KMcD Before taking the classes with Eddie Fitzgerald, were you a film buff?

And I began to use that methodology when I came to teach here in St Mary’s in 1974. The extracts were supplied by the IFI, which was

SC No, not at all. Like everyone else of my generation, I went to the pictures on as

many Saturday and Sunday afternoons as I could. Six old pence got you two pictures! The Apollo in Walkinstown was our local. I ventured to the Star in Crumlin on a few occasions and distinctly remember John Wayne’s line about the “turning of the earth” in The Searchers from one of those forays. When I was taking my degree I went, like everyone else, to see the Fellini films and Ingmar Bergman’s Wild Strawberries (1957). And I still don’t understand them! I much prefer narrative films. So, yes, I was going to films and talking about them, but it was very much as social entertainment. I wasn’t reading the films or taking time to consider them as texts. After I got married, my wife, Breda, and I would go regularly to the Irish Film Theatre in Earlsfort Terrace.

1986. Initially I used the IFI extracts and we talked about different aspects of filmmaking. We had extracts from Carol Reed’s Fallen Idol (1948) and Hitchcock’s The Birds (1963). And because I was interested in the idea of auteur cinema, of films reflecting the director’s vision, I used more and more of Hitchcock’s films. Hitchcock made films for film classes! He is so much the controller of everything you see on the screen that his films are made to be deconstructed. From watching extracts we moved to showing feature-length films. I got the idea of putting a season of films together from my visits to the Irish Film Theatre where they mixed classic films with new releases. We had a season of six-to eight films per term. This was before television channels were saturated with films and videos became readily available. Each programme was a mixture of my own favourite films, John Ford’s The Searchers (1956), for example; films that I thought the students should see; and the films that I knew the students wanted to see! I also tried to bring in the idea of genre, to show how films that

KMcD Tell me about bringing film into the classroom. SC I found film a way of getting the students really interested and engaged in Latin, a subject that they might not have thought of as lively or exciting. There are various points in The Aeneid, for example, where you know Virgil is screaming out for a camera! He’s really writing a film script! In Book I, there’s a scene where Aeneas and his crew reach the shore, after being washed across the sea. In film terms, it’s a long shot, an establishing shot, as Virgil describes the ship finding the shore. Then its cuts to a medium shot, as he shows the men involved in various activities; and then there’s a close up of someone knocking flint together in order to make a fire to cook the strips of meat from the stags killed by Aeneas. You can see the poem in cinematic terms and this brings it alive for the students and helps them to visualise it in a way that they find easy. Right through my teaching of English poetry, I’ve asked the question, ‘If you had a camera, how would you film this?’ At one point, this led to us making some films, creating visual interpretations of poems, for example. Before that, however, I set up a film appreciation club that ran from 197634

were really popular in the cinema at the time were related to other films and constituted a genre with discernible patterns. For example, after the success of Jaws, disaster films became really popular. And many of them featured a similar range of characters: the corrupt official; the good man who is being used by the company and who wants to do the right thing; and the misguided agents of the state who think their duty is to obey orders.

Barthes and so on, but I didn’t get to that until 1995-1997 when I did a Masters in Communications and Cultural Studies in DCU. By then, I wanted to do a concerted, structured piece of work rather than the ad hoc reading I had been doing. It’s a big commitment, undertaking a Masters, not only financially, but when you have a big family, as I have, you go missing Tuesday and Thursday evenings and all-day Saturday, every Saturday, so I owe a lot to Breda. The main thing that I got from the degree was the opportunity to read widely in a structured way. The reading gave me a global view of the subject and grounded and consolidated my ideas. Having a theoretical basis is important. I found that to be true when I was doing the training of trainers for the revised Leaving Certificate English Syllabus in the late 1990s.

We blacked the school canteen and hooked into the school’s PA amplifier. The Last Waltz (1978) was a brilliant show!

KMcD You’ve done a lot of work with John Nicholl. Did you meet John when you were doing the MA? SC We both did the MA in DCU but I’ve known John since our schooldays in Drimnagh Castle. When we were in college we used to meet and talk about films and music (Neil Young was a favourite topic). Then John worked here in St Mary’s for a couple of years before moving back to Dublin. But we kept in touch and met regularly and talked about the things we were trying out in our teaching, especially in relation to Media Studies. Eventually this led to us producing some material for publication. I did a really interesting summer course with Stephanie McBride in DCU in 1988, with a view to presenting Media Studies in a more formal way to the students. VPTP and TY classes provided a great opportunity to try out material and get the students really engaged and writing. Material from the British Film Institute on genre, especially work they’d done on the Western, was of great help and I absorbed much of it into my own notes and work. And then I started producing teaching packs for teachers on various films. The earliest one was Into the West (1993) and T h e Truman Show (1998) is the most recent one. In all I think I’ve written about sixteen

KMcD At what stage did you do some further study in film? SC Since college days I had been reading up on film theory and history. I’m so old, Kevin, that I actually have books on film from the 1970s that don’t have any references to semiotics or semiology but which were invaluable in getting a handle on the discourse of film. Things got a bit more complicated after that – structuralism and 35

teaching guides. (See www.film-studies.net)

Martha that comes into the score every time she appears on screen, or someone thinks about her or speaks about her. It’s Wagnerian. Interestingly, the students latched on to the idea very quickly and really began to listen to the film, as opposed to simply watching it. Another great example of the use of music to bring out major themes is Peter Brook’s version of Lord of the Flies (1963).

KMcD Did you see yourself as having an advocacy role for film? SC Absolutely! As far back as 1995, John and I put together some ideas on how film night be integrated into the revised Leaving Certificate syllabus and submitted our ideas to the NCCA. And I was a committee member of the Media Teachers Association. John and I also contributed to the IFI summer courses in film for teachers. I suppose that amount of involvement gave me a confidence in what I was doing especially in relation to mainstream narrative film.

In TY over the years, there are three texts that I’ve read with the students and then studied the film version: Lord of the Flies; My Left Foot and The Outsiders. The Outsiders (1983) is an excellent film. There’s so much in it, especially the metaphor of gold, taken from the Robert Frost poem, ‘Nothing Gold Can Stay’:

KMcD Tell about the films you’ve used in school that you think work well.

Nature’s first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf’s a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay. Francis Ford Coppola commissioned Stevie Wonder to compose the song for the soundtrack and the lyrics pick up on the theme of gold, from the Frost poem. And there’s a magical sequence in the middle of the film, which is set at dawn, when Johnny Cade, one of the central characters, recognises beauty as if for the first time. I love the film and the students love it, too.

The Searchers (1956) always goes down well with TY. In the film there are terrific contrasts. Inside you have the ordered world of blue plates and tables set for dinner, while outside the desert is full of hazard. The film explores the way humans try to create order out of chaos, turn the wilderness into a garden. And in the end we have the Gunman and what does society do? It shuts the door on him. The choice for the Gunman is to abandon his old ways or go in search of the next adventure. Really, the film is a Medieval morality tale. The

SC Once video came in, it offered great scope. One of the things I started to do was to isolate the soundtrack of films and invite the students to listen to it, much as you might listen to an opera. In The Searchers, for example, there’s this leitmotif for 36

Devil/the Spirit of Hatred fights with the Angel/the Spirit of Love over the soul of Everyman. It’s the simple victory of Good over Evil. In the mouth of the cave, at the end of the film, Ethan lifts Debbie in just the same way as he had lifted her in the kitchen at the start of the film. “Let’s go home, Debbie,” he says, as the love theme, Martha’s leitmotif, swells. The music tells the story that love has triumphed. It gets better and better every time you watch and teach it. And there’s always one student who’ll point out something that I’ve never seen before.

sense, it’s a film about choices. It’s a lovely film and one which could be used to explore issues around gender and sexual orientation.

Two years ago I introduced Casblanca (1942) and I was amazed by the response of the students. The appeal is certainly related to Humphrey Bogart’s character, Rick Blaine, and the world-weariness he exudes. He has been beaten down but, when Ilsa appears, something ignites within him and he is saved. His nobility in helping Ilsa and Victor seems to go against his nature and amazes those around him. So, in Rick we see the possibility of redemption, in the face of all that life can throw at you.

Of the Leaving Certificate films, Cinema Paradiso (1988) is my favourite. It’s absolutely monumental. I love the idea that you have to leave your people in order to find your people. That’s true in my own life, when I look back on my childhood and I understand what was going on between my parents and all our neighbours in Walkinstown – how they accepted and looked out for each other. I think I was aware of it, but it’s only now that I fully realise and understand how deep the bond was between them. I love the romantic, courtly love that’s in the film that goes back to Dante and Beatrice and places the beloved on a pedestal, like the Virgin Mary, chaste and pure. In fact, in the film there is a crossover because August 15th, the feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, occurs as Salvatore serenades Elena outside her window. And Cinema Paradiso is visually beautiful and the use of metaphor is beautiful, too. In the scene at the harbour where Alfredo is telling Salvatore to move away there are ships’ anchors in the foreground. I love to encourage the students to read films metaphorically, to go beyond the words or the image, to read between the lines. I also encourage the students to describe what they see on the screen and create what I think of as the audio-visual poem of a film.

Billy Elliott (2000) works well. There are so many possibilities for Billy in relation to who he might become; the identity he might achieve; and the career he might follow – miner or ballet-dancer. In that 37

MAKING MOVIES Vinny Murphy is a film-maker who worked with schools on the pilot phase of the Moving Image project. Here he talks to the Teaching English magazine about his career and his involvement in education.

before working as “a van-helper with a chap I was playing music with.” Vinny says he never had any idea to have a ‘normal’ nineto-five job. In his late teens, he regarded a job as a way of getting some money, while music he regarded as his life. By the time he was nineteen, Vinny was playing in bands – guitar, bass and keyboards. He was largely self-taught, though he adds with a straight face, “I took piano lessons and did very well in preliminary grade!”

Vinny grew up in Marino in Dublin and comes from a family of four children. He has two older brothers and a younger sister. Vinny’s outstanding memory of school is moving to Belgrove Primary School, in fifth class, where the teacher, Vince Conway, “turned me on to English and writing.” Vince, the current principal of Belgrove, used a variety of techniques to develop the students’ creativity and incite their imaginations. Under his guidance, Vinny found himself writing as much as fourteen pages for a short story. “Before Belgrove, my memories are in black and white and then, after I arrived there, they go into colour.”

Around this time, a friend of his mother mentioned that a community-based employment scheme was recruiting some young people. One of Vinny’s older brothers, who was also into music, went along and came home relating the kinds of questions he had been asked, such as, “How do you feel about the way Dublin is going?” Vinny was intrigued, went to meet the people heading up the project and was invited to join what turned out to be a community-based theatre group, City Workshop. The group of twelve, led by Peter Sheridan and Maggie Byrne, researched the social history of the North Inner City and, ultimately, devised a trilogy of plays which toured the country and was performed in the Royal Court Theatre in London. Initially, Vinny was offered a place on the scheme as a musician. He had been exploring experimental music and went on to compose and arrange songs for City Workshop. However, Peter Sheridan and Maggie Byrne “tricked” him into acting in some of the sketches devised by the group until, in the play which the Group performed at the end of the first six months of the scheme, The Kips, The Digs, The Village, Vinny had what he describes as “a proper part”.

Vinny went to a local secondary school, but left a few months after his Intermediate Certificate under circumstances which caused him to feel let down by the education system. As a young person, Vinny describes himself as “seriously on a mission” to stand up for students’ rights, though he adds with a smile, “I was also just messing, as well.” However, he remembers one teacher whom the students deliberately engaged in conversation to divert him, as they thought, from teaching the subject. But it was those long conversations which fully engaged him and taught him a great deal about the world and how it worked. When these conversations arose, Vinny was attentive and involved. Now, in his work with young people, Vinny says the important thing is to find the common ground and begin the conversation. After school Vinny did a variety of jobs

Vinny names Peter Sheridan as the biggest influence on him in terms of teaching and teaching style. “Peter is fantastic at taking people on and getting people to relate to each other; making the situation relaxed and easy-going, while, at the same time, being 38

really challenging.” Peter has “a magnificent honesty.” “He doesn’t hide and he really puts himself into the work. There’s no sense that he’s saving himself for something else, for something more important. With Peter, it’s as if the most important thing in the whole world is what’s right in front of him at that moment. And you feel you have to do the same. Peter was very serious about the work, but there was always a place for having a laugh.” Peter Sheridan’s attitude and approach has been “a huge source of inspiration” to Vinny.

was also familiar with the drama-ineducation techniques of Dorothy Heathcote. However, he admits to being naïve and overambitious in his early days and learned as he went along. Vinny has a quiet confidence and a willingness to “give it a go” which allowed him to say ‘yes’ whenever opportunities came his way. For example, after City Workshop, he taught the music side of a course in music and movement. Part of this confidence and inner belief Vinny attributes to playing music, from a young age, with older musicians who themselves were confident. Vinny also believes that it is easy to be confident when you are not trying to impress people or pretend to know more than you do. In this sense, confidence is a matter of being honest in relation to yourself.

At the end of the trilogy of plays, Vinny recognised that he had caught the acting bug, though he had no sense of having embarked on a career. He did, however, receive two offers to act in films. The first was Pat Murphy’s Anne Devlin (1984) and then he took one of the leads in Fergus Tighe’s Clash of the Ash (1986). To date, he has appeared in about forty films, from no-budget shorts to John Boorman’s The General.

In Jobstown, Vinny directed a version of Hamlet, H For Hamlet¸ and three pieces back to back – Football, Trouble and Hairspray – with three different groups. “The kids,” he says, “were brilliant.” In 1998, after directing eight shorts, Vinny made his feature debut, Accelerator. Among the cast were many of the students form the workshops in Jobstown. After twenty-one years, Vinny describes himself as a writer, director, actor, composer, and teacher. And while he wouldn’t like to give up any of them, teaching is very important to him.

Making Films Vinny believes that anyone can make a film. While film-making is creative, Vinny stresses that there is a strictness and disciple of form and you have to work within that discipline or you end up wasting time. “A major point about learning how to make films is that the best way of learning is by doing. You’ll learn an awful lot more by making a film than by any amount of reading about it. After making your first film, no matter how small it is, you’ll be in a much better position to learn more by then reading up on the subject.”

From his time in City Workshop, Vinny ran drama workshops, mainly in working class areas, like Darndale and Jobstown, for a variety of youth projects. For these classes, Vinny drew on his experience of working with Peter Sheridan and Maggie Byrne and 39

He also stresses that by filming an improvisation, for example, students get to see the results of their work very quickly. Reviewing this work becomes a basis for learning and developing. Vinny believes in treating young people as professionals and in setting and expecting professional standards. Vinny likes to get working quickly with a group, to surprise and engage them, and then use that surprise in moving on to the next phase.

The Conflict The Aftermath. Devise a scene using this structure and write the dialogue. b) Explore the seven questions of a successful narrative. Who is the main character? (Psychological problem; moral need) What does the main character want? Who is stopping him or her from achieving it? How does the main character plan to get what he or she wants? What happens in the end? How does it happen? What has the main character learned?

Vinny suggests the following stages in making a film: Use warm-up games to get students out of normal life and normal expectations. (A good source book is: Philip Bernardi, Improvisation Starters: A Collection of 900 Improvisation Situations for the Theatre.)

Bring some newspapers into class. Pick three stories and study them in light of the seven questions. Students can mix and match from the stories to create a story which they think will hold an audiencesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; attention. Develop a short script based on the story.

Devise a set-up with a clear conflict. Invite actors to improvise the scene. Encourage movement and interaction between actors.

c) Watch a film in class and identify sequences in which the following pattern and cycle of events is evident:

Film the improvised scene.

The Goal of the main character The Problem which arises for the main character The Disaster which befalls the main character The immediate Reaction of the main character The Reflection of the main character The Decision of the main character.

Look at the filmed scene. Let the students see how quickly one can get results. In general, young people perform really well on camera. When they view the improvised scene, they see themselves acting in a story and they realise how the group has created something structured and meaningful. Use the improvised scene to look at different shots and their composition.

This pattern can occur over and over in a feature film. It is a useful device for organising the narrative of a short film and writing the script.

Do some work on scripts and script-devising.

Having come up with a script, Explain and Assign Crew Roles You could divide the class into groups of twelve, with eight crew and four actors in each group (depending on script.) Encourage the students to see these as roles

You could: a) Teach the structure of a dramatic scene: The Set Up The Revelation 40

you step in and out of, and roles which can change from project to project.

for recording all sound during filming, and is also responsible for ‘atmosphere recording’ in location.

(These Crew Roles have been adapted for use in school.) The Director is responsible for overseeing the creative aspects of a film.

The Boom Operator is responsible for microphone placement and movement during filming.

The First Assistant Director keeps things moving on the set. This is a central role that involves scheduling; calling the shots and liaising with people. It covers all the practical aspects of film-making.

The Film Editor is the person who assembles the various shots into a coherent film, with the help of the director. The Sound Editor is responsible for assembling and editing all dialogue and sound effects.

The continuity person keeps track of what parts of the script have been filmed and ensures consistency from shot to shot.

The Composer creates and integrate the film’s music.

The Location Manager locates and coordinates locations and makes sure that everything runs smoothly in terms of permission to use location and availability of all the services needed to shoot the film in that location.

The Writer provides the script. Shoot the Film

Some Tips on filming:

A Production Designer is responsible for creating the look of a film – settings, costumes, properties and character makeup.

Work within the limitations of your environment, your equipment and your crew. Prepare a shot list and a shooting schedule before you film.

The Art Director works carries out the intention of the production designer.

Record background or atmosphere sound in each location.

The Property Master is in charge of finding and managing all the props that appear in the film.

Keep a continuity sheet (list of shots) with the scene numbers and takes.

The Make-up Artist and the Hair-stylist create the look of the characters and are responsible for maintaining that look from shot to shot and scene to scene.

Remember the opening shot is really important. It should be a strong visual image and tell something about the kind of film that is going to follow.

The Costume Supervisor manages the wardrobe workspace.

For an excellent introduction to filmmaking Vinny recommends Eugene Doyen’s a Video Production Handbook which is available on Buckinghamshire Chilterns University website: http://www.bcuc.ac.uk/PDF/Eugene_Doye ns_Video_Production_Handbook.pdf

Shoot all you need in one location at one time.

The Costume Standby monitors the actors’ costumes before and during the filming of each shot. The Director of Photography makes decisions on lighting and the framing of scenes. The Production Sound Mixer is responsible 41

THE RADHARC TRUST Supporting Documentary Filmmaking Living in a media saturated environment? Wondering whose version of reality is being told? Want to impress your point of view?Got enthusiasm to harness? These are some of the reasons why professional documentary filmmakers have a passion for their work. Today, you don’t need expensive and complicated equipment and specialist knowledge to make a film. In fact you can even make a film on your mobile. To make a good documentary, however, you do need a good story to tell. Perhaps it’s a story unique to you (a story nobody else is covering) Perhaps you have exclusive access to the central interviewees (your family, friends or neighbours). Perhaps it’s a story nobody else is courageous enough to document. Filmmaking, and the documentary genre in particular, offers a unique opportunity to challenge ideas, to put factual information before a wide audience or, simply, to give a new perspective on the world.

Check out: www.freshfilmfestival.net national youth film festival. www.fis.ie Film in Schools (primary) www.filmbase.ie Centre for film and video www.documentaryfilms.net – general view of current documentary production. (Further help and assistance available from The Radharc Trust – www.radharc.ie)

It’s not just the adult professionals who are doing it though; college students, sixteenyear-olds, twelve-year-olds, six-year-olds, all ages are making documentaries. All you need is: Your Story Light l Sound l Camera (mini DV Camera, digital camera, camera phone) l Editing software (AVID, Final Cut Pro somebody near you will have one). l l

Let your voice be heard!

teachingenglish

CROSSWORD

Take some time out of your busy day to relax with a cup of tea and our crossword...

Across 1. Hector Munro’s pen name (4) 3. Long lyrical poems (4) 6. Become liable to pay a fine (5) 10. Isle where ‘peace come dropping slow’ (9) 11. Most of his work is set in Wessex (5) 12. Murphy’s lesson, Wilde’s gaol (7) 13 Montague wrote about the wild one (3,4) 14. Hopkins writes that generations have done this (4) 16. Banville’s planetary orbitals man (6) 18. Lee slips the other way (3) 21. Can father add? (3) 22. Seat fit for the likes of Richard III (6) 23. Distinctive style or flair (4) 25. Could Betcham be mixed up with Shakespeare’s Scottish King (7) 27. Clean Arundel tomb? (7) 29. An uproar, commotion (3-2) 30. How was the Belle Dame? (4,5) 31. Stand up and tell the truth! (2,3) 32. Which direction from Eden? (4) 33 1 down’s first name (4)

Down 1. She moved in with a bookseller (9) 2. Blixen’s adopted country (5) 4. Strictly required by fashion (2,7) 5. Spirited war horse (5) 6. Japanese who wrote about a butler (8) 7. Poor Clare is material not spiritual (9) 8. Be similar in sound (5) 9. Secondary teachers’ mag could be up and about (5) 15. Wolff holds cool about his book (3,6) 17. Terrestrial telephone wires (4,5) 19 Directed Richard III (9) 20. Cheapest accommodation on the Titanic (8) 24. Italian cathedral (5) 25. Author of ‘After the Titanic’ (5) 26. Post this at top speed (5) 28. Is Rod a Lessing? (5)

Solutions

TEACHING ENGLISH MAGAZINE BACK ISSUES Did you know that back issues of the magazine can be obtained by contacting the Administrative Officer? See below for contact details. A wide range of magazines and newsletters are published by the Support Services within the SLSS. Full details available from the Administrator, SLSS, Blackrock Education Centre, Kill Avenue, Dun Laoghaire, Co. Dublin. Phone: 01 236 5021 Fax: 01 236 5070

The Teaching English magazine is published by the Second Level Support Service. Co-ordinator of English: Dr Kevin Mc Dermott Navan Education Centre, Athlumney, Navan, Co. Meath. Phone: 046 907 8382 Fax: 046 907 8385 Mobile: 087 293 7302 Email: english@slss.ie Administrative Officer: Esther Herlihy SLSS Regional Development Officers: Della Meade Mobile: 087 293 7311 Pauline Kelly Mobile: 087 293 7293

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