Some ideas about the WITCHES in Macbeth.

The extent to which the Witches cause rather than predict M's tragedy is deliberately ambiguous. And that's entirely Shakespearean: his tragedies always deal in blurred lines between fate, individual agency and outside influence.

1/ Shakespeare uses foreshadowing and verbal echoes to create the effect that the Witches are influencing events. We might say they create a pattern of events.

In Act 1 Sc 1 their line "fair is foul and foul is fair" is rich with meaning for the play as a whole.

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Thinking about SLEEP and SLEEPLESSNESS in Macbeth.

Sleep is mentioned 34 times in the play. Sleep represents what we today might call "mental health": rationality, clear thought, natural order.

"Balm of hurt minds...Chief nourisher in life's feast", indeed (Act 2 Sc 2)

1/ Sleeplessness, conversely, is the sign of a damaged mind, of corruption, of the influence of evil.

In fact, the motif of sleeplessness is introduced in 1:3 by the First Witch as she plans to torture a sailor:

"Sleep shall neither night nor day / hang upon his penthouse lid"

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The influence of the mystery / whodunnit genre on An Inspector Calls is under-recognised. The formula, of a detective arriving at a well-to-do house with a family of unlikeable characters, was well established by 1945.

This was the era of Agatha Christie!

1/ Christie was already writing for the stage by 1945 and in her fiction had already begun to experiment with the genre: including, for example, Murder on the Orient Express whose punchline is *SPOILER* that every suspect with a motive helped to kill the victim.

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Kingship in Macbeth.

(with love to @NooPuddles for the inspiration!)

There are 3 kings in the present of the play Macbeth, and others implied who will reign in the future.

1/ What sort of king is Duncan?

I think a solid 7/10. He treats his people well, he rewards service, he's a gracious guest at the Macbeths' castle.

But what we CAN say about Duncan is that he's a bit naive.

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A high-grade analysis of the song "Sk8er Boi" by Avril Lavigne (2002).

1/ "He was a boy
She was a girl
Can I make it any more obvious?"

The opening lines introduce ANTITHESIS as the key language technique in this song, in this case the antithetical pairing of "boy" and "girl".

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Revisiting key quotes from Macbeth:

Act 1 Sc 2
SOLDIER: "His brandish'd steel / Which smoked with bloody execution."

The soldier's account of Macbeth's exploits in battle establish him as a fierce warrior capable of bloody violence.

1/ The play sets up a contrast between Macbeth's skill and savagery in battle, shedding the blood of countless enemies, and his doubt and self-torment over killing one man when it's the King himself.

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Revisiting some key quotes from Macbeth and doing some interpretation.

Act 1 Sc 1:
WITCHES: "Fair is foul and foul is fair."

People and events in the play that seem good (fair) ultimately turn out to be bad (foul).

1/ It's significant that this phrase marks the end of a battle: a scenario in which the foul -- death, bloodshed and maiming -- can also be "fair" in its outcome and in its display of patriotism.

Note: I don't think Shakespeare had the sense of "fair" as in "just" that we have.

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Are quotes important?

Yes.

But the AO1 says "use textual references, including quotations".

So let's think about QUOTES and REFERENCES.

1/ A detailed knowledge of the text at hand is key for achieving a high mark at GCSE. Of course, that doesn't always manifest in memorising chunks of text.

When you're writing about the shape and structure of a text and its internal movements, "references" can go a long way.

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A thread of practice P2 Q5 questions, as I think of them. Not promising they'll all be hugely original but hopefully you'll find some ideas.

1/ "Key workers such as nurses, train drivers and teachers are the true heroes in our society."

Write an article arguing for or against this idea.

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If you do AQA, "Modern" text are your Year 11s using?

(See replies for all options) Or...

Goes without saying that "Peepo" by Janet and Allan Ahlberg is the unsurpassed masterpiece of baby and toddler literature, and if you can get to the end without choking up then you're doing better than me. @sezl knows. @smithsmm knows too.

Interesting Words in Macbeth #1: FACE

"Faces" in Macbeth are associated with deception and honesty, and the ability of people to judge one another's character.

1/ Duncan tells Malcolm "There's no art / to find the mind's construction in the face" (1:4). In contrast, Lady Macbeth tells Macbeth "Your face, my thane, is as a book where men / may read strange matters." (1:5)

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A quote from An Inspector Calls that I've been turning over:

Mr B: "It's a free country, I told them."

I love this because it encapsulates Mr Birling's privilege and concurrent lack of empathy for his workers. It's also interesting contextually.

1/ We've been talking about privilege a lot in class. Birling seems totally unaware that the workers in his factory don't have the choices or independence that he enjoys as a result of his wealth.

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Let's raise a glass of port to the Titanic-sized mediocrity that is: Mr Arthur Birling.

Thread.

1/ It's worth really unpicking Priestley's description of Birling from the opening of the play:

"A heavy-looking, rather portentous man in his middle fifties with fairly easy manners but rather provincial in his speech."

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I love the opening sentence of A Christmas Carol:

"Marley was dead: to begin with."

Let's dig into it...

1/ Marley was dead to begin with. But obviously Dickens is foreshadowing his return in spectral form. Dickens knew the outlines of good storytelling. You don't say a character is dead unless you're going to have his ghost turn up a few pages later...

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Eva Smith's body.

Eva's body is a construct. It may or may not exist: the Eva/Daisy that encounters each character could be identical, or not.

We might say it's ironic that although Eva is the subject of mistreatment by the Birlings, the Inspector also appropriates her.

1/ Eva's body is a commodity. It has value because of its youth and physical attractiveness.

Mr B remembers her as "good looking". Her looks help her get the job in Milwards, and they enable her to get "help" from Gerald. They give her a price when she turns to sex work.

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"Pretending" in An Inspector Calls

The words "pretend" and "pretence" appear 12 times in An Inspector Calls.

JBP uses them to reflect the insincerity and moral failure of the Birlings' society.

1/ "Pretend" is first used by Gerald, where it neatly highlights Mr Birling's ham-fisted class pretensions:

Mr B: It's exactly the same port your father gets.
Gerald: [...] The governor prides himself on being a good judge of port. I don't PRETEND to know much about it.

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A Grade 9 Analysis of the song "Alexander Hamilton" from the musical Hamilton.

How does a bastard, orphan, son of a whore and a Scotsman,

The song opens with a lengthy rhetorical question, suggesting that its subject will be something unintuitive or interesting to find out.

1/ Hamilton's life story will be almost unbelievable.

The phrase "bastard, orphan, son of a whore" uses tricolor to emphasise the severe obstacles that Hamilton faced to success. It introduces themes of class and parentage.

LMM uses humorous juxtaposition with "Scotsman"...

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I was thinking about how in Macbeth, Shakespeare uses one dramatic scenario over and over again. A big chunk of the play is based around one basic setup.

A character comes onto the stage and reports a death.

1/ There are almost too many examples to list:

- the "bloody man" reporting Macbeth's killing of Macdonwald to Duncan
- Malcolm's report of the Thane of Cawdor's death to Duncan
- Macbeth reports his murder of Duncan to Lady M
- Macduff relays his sight of Duncan's body

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LONDON by William Blake.

What gives this poem its power is its ambiguity. It has a hallucinatory, nightmarish quality, created through a blurring of physical, psychological and sensory phenomena.

Examples of what I mean:

1/ The "marks of weakness, marks of woe" suggest physical signs, but "weakness" and "woe" can be seen psychologically. Is it physical weakness, mental weakness or both?

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Some quick, late thoughts about YA books on the curriculum.

@DavidDidau blogged on this today, and it got me thinking. This isn't meant as a point-by-point response or anything -- read this, then read his blog, and decide for yourself.

1/ I think YA books can happily co-exist on the KS3 curriculum with older and more canonical books. That's not to say they're the same, or there are no qualitative differences. I just think our subject can encompass both.

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