Exploring Siegfried Sassoon's war poetry

Thursday provocation

Learning objective: to analyse ideas, structures and language in "The things they carried."
Success criteria:
1. I can identify key quotes which are relevant to the provocation
2. I can analyse the text to show my understanding of Lieutenant Cross.
3. I can draw on wider knowledge of human nature and the Vietnam War to analyse the text.

Provocation:

Lieutenant Cross' actions at the end of the short story show that he is an uncaring leader.

Do you agree or disagree with the statement above?  Find quotes to develop and support your position.  Then write create convincing and perceptive paragraphs to respond to this statement.

Look at the last section of the short story first for evidence, then across the whole short story.  Then consider how your wider knowledge of human nature (perhaps particularly of the role of guilt and trauma) and of the Vietnam war can contribute to your written response.

Wednesday: focus on the Vietnam war

Yesterday my laptop wasn't working, and so this recap comes from photos.  We worked on building our knowledge up about the Vietnam War.

Big themes: linking Frau Amsel's Cupboard to other texts and to the wider world

Learning objective: to analyse big ideas relating to "Frau Amsel's Cupboard" perceptively.
Success criteria:

1. I can develop an argument agreeing or disagreeing with the three statements below.  
2. As part of a group, I can create a diagram demonstrating our argument in response to one of the statements.
3. Our diagram includes reference to the short story "Frau Amsel's Cupboard," to other texts and to the wider world.

Three provocative statements: 

Sexual purity is more important than feeding children.

A powerful person has the right to manipulate others for personal gain.

All is fair in love and war.

Our class responses, thinking about one of the above statements in relation to the short story "Frau Amsel's Cupboard," to other texts and to the wider world.

Group one: a slideshow in response to the first statement.

Group two: a diagram in response to the second statement

Group three: a slideshow in response to the first statement.

Group four: a slideshow in response to the first statement

Group five: a document responding to the first statement.

Group six: a slideshow responding to the second statement, and an argument diagram.

Group seven: a diagram responding to the second statement.

Frau Anselm's Cupboard

Period 3 today we are reading "Frau Anselm's Cupboard."

1. In three sentences, describe what happens in this short story.
2. What did Frau Anselm's husband do, and with what consequences?
3. What does the officer arrange with Frau Anselm, and why?
4. "She thought of the space in her cupboard that should be occupied by food."  What does this thought prompt Frau Anselm to do?
5. What very ordinary thing does the officer ask for that opens a window into her personal world?
6. Why does the officer take her to view his collection of bowls?
7. What do you think the message in the story about the ancestress is?
8. Why do you think Frau Anselm lets the children play with her treasures at the end of the story?

Connections: images of war

Yesterday we spent our first lesson together sharing texts we had read or watched that related to the following themes/ideas:
1. Texts which make us think about a familiar topic in new ways
2. Texts which explore a topic from different perspectives
3. Texts which explore healing a broken heart
4. Texts which explore justice and prejudice

As each group presented aspects of their discussion, I was looking to learn more about your reading interests and history, and to see if any common topics or themes emerged.  Out of the presentation, I decided that we would explore aspects of war.  This is a topic with huge and wide ranging potential.

Before we start our first short story, I want us to think about the different possible perspectives on war and experiences of war.  Each of us will find 4-8 images of war to represent the perspectives we think could exist, and make a drawing to show this, which we will save as a jpeg and then upload to our padlet on this blog: