Gr 11-English First Additional Language-Facilitator's Guide Literature 2

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ENGLISH FIRST ADDITIONAL LANGUAGE FACILITATOR’S GUIDE: LITERATURE Grade 11

English First Additional Language Facilitator’s guide: Literature

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A Mills D Slabbert T Stolp

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Grade 11

Facilitator’s Guide G11 ~ English First Additional Language: Literature

CONTENTS

PREFACE............................................................................................................................................................................................... 6 ASSESSMENT REQUIREMENTS................................................................................................................................................ 8 STUDY TIPS AND METHODS..................................................................................................................................................... 9 YEAR PLAN.......................................................................................................................................................................................10 LESSON ELEMENTS......................................................................................................................................................................12 GLOSSARY OF LITERARY TERMS..........................................................................................................................................13 INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE.......................................................................................................................................48 UNIT 1: WEEK 1 – POETRY......................................................................................................................................................57 Lesson 1: ‘The Second Coming’ (William Butler Yeats)..........................................................................................57 Activity 1......................................................................................................................................................................... 60 UNIT 1: WEEK 2 – POETRY......................................................................................................................................................61 Lesson 2: ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’ (Wilfred Owen)..........................................................................................61 Activity 2......................................................................................................................................................................... 65 UNIT 1: WEEK 3 – POETRY......................................................................................................................................................66 Lesson 3: ‘Mid-term break’ (Seamus Heaney).............................................................................................................66 Activity 3......................................................................................................................................................................... 70 UNIT 1: WEEK 3 – NOVEL.........................................................................................................................................................71 Lesson 4: My Family and Other Animals: Parts One and Two (Chapter 8)...................................................71 UNIT 1: WEEK 4 – NOVEL.........................................................................................................................................................73 PART ONE: ‘The Migration’......................................................................................................................................................73 Chapter 1: ‘The Unsuspected Isle’.......................................................................................................................................75 Activity 4......................................................................................................................................................................... 77 UNIT 1: WEEK 5 – NOVEL.........................................................................................................................................................79 Chapter 2: ‘The Strawberry-Pink Villa’............................................................................................................................79 Chapter 3: ‘The Rose-Beetle Man’.......................................................................................................................................80 UNIT 1: WEEK 6 – NOVEL.........................................................................................................................................................82 Chapter 4: ‘A Bushel of Learning’........................................................................................................................................82 Activity 5......................................................................................................................................................................... 83 Chapter 5: ‘A Treasure of Spiders’.......................................................................................................................................86 UNIT 1: WEEK 7 – NOVEL.........................................................................................................................................................87 Chapter 6: ‘The Sweet Spring’...............................................................................................................................................87 ‘Conversation’ (Part 1)..............................................................................................................................................................88 Activity 6......................................................................................................................................................................... 89

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Facilitator’s Guide G11 ~ English First Additional Language: Literature

UNIT 1: WEEK 8.............................................................................................................................................................................91 PART TWO – Chapter 7: ‘The Daffodil-Yellow Villa’...................................................................................................91 Chapter 8: ‘The Tortoise Hills’..............................................................................................................................................92 Activity 7......................................................................................................................................................................... 93 UNIT 2: WEEK 1 – POETRY......................................................................................................................................................95 Lesson 5: ‘Reggae Sounds’ (Linton Kwesi Johnson)..................................................................................................95 Activity 8......................................................................................................................................................................... 99 UNIT 2: WEEK 2 – POETRY................................................................................................................................................... 100 Lesson 6: ‘Dark Rider’ (Tatamkhulu Africa).............................................................................................................. 100 Activity 9.......................................................................................................................................................................104 UNIT 2: WEEKS 2 AND 3 – NOVEL..................................................................................................................................... 105 LESSON 7: My Family and Other Animals: Chapter 9 – ‘Conversation’.........................................................105 Chapter 9: ‘The World in a Wall’....................................................................................................................................... 105 Activity 10....................................................................................................................................................................106 UNIT 2: WEEK 4 – NOVEL...................................................................................................................................................... 107 Chapter 10: ‘The Pageant of Fireflies’............................................................................................................................ 107 UNIT 2: WEEK 5 – NOVEL...................................................................................................................................................... 108 Chapter 11: ‘The Enchanted Archipelago’................................................................................................................... 108 UNIT 2: WEEK 6 – NOVEL...................................................................................................................................................... 109 Chapter 12: ‘The Woodcock Winter’............................................................................................................................... 109 Activity 11....................................................................................................................................................................111 Conversation (Part 2)............................................................................................................................................................. 112 Activity 12....................................................................................................................................................................113 UNIT 3: WEEK 1 – POETRY................................................................................................................................................... 114 Lesson 8: ‘Calvinia 1976’ (Jacques Rousseau).......................................................................................................... 114 Activity 13....................................................................................................................................................................118 UNIT 3: WEEK 2 – POETRY................................................................................................................................................... 119 Lesson 9: ‘The Collar’ (George Herbert)...................................................................................................................... 119 Activity 14....................................................................................................................................................................123 UNIT 3: WEEK 3 – POETRY................................................................................................................................................... 124 Lesson 10: ‘Random Notes to my Son’ (Keorapetse Kgositsile)...................................................................... 124 Activity 15....................................................................................................................................................................128 UNIT 3: WEEKS 3 AND 4 – NOVEL..................................................................................................................................... 129 LESSON 11: My Family and Other Animals PART THREE: Chapter 13: ‘The Snow-White Villa’.................................................................................................. 129

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Facilitator’s Guide G11 ~ English First Additional Language: Literature

UNIT 3: WEEK 4 – NOVEL...................................................................................................................................................... 130 Chapter 14: ‘The Talking Flowers’................................................................................................................................... 130 Activity 16....................................................................................................................................................................132 UNIT 3: WEEK 5 – NOVEL...................................................................................................................................................... 133 Chapter 15: ‘The Cyclamen Woods’................................................................................................................................. 133 Chapter 16: ‘The Lake of Lilies’......................................................................................................................................... 134 UNIT 3: WEEK 6 – NOVEL...................................................................................................................................................... 135 Chapter 17: ‘The Chessboard Fields’ ............................................................................................................................. 135 Activity 17....................................................................................................................................................................136 UNIT 3: WEEK 7 – NOVEL...................................................................................................................................................... 139 The characters............................................................................................................................................................................ 139 Activity 18....................................................................................................................................................................144 UNIT 3: WEEK 8 – NOVEL...................................................................................................................................................... 145 Chapter 18: ‘An Entertainment with Animals’.......................................................................................................... 145 ‘The Return’.................................................................................................................................................................................. 147 Activity 19....................................................................................................................................................................148 Activity 20....................................................................................................................................................................149 REVISION: WEEKS 1–4............................................................................................................................................................ 150 LESSON 12: Revision – Exam time.................................................................................................................................... 150 REFERENCES................................................................................................................................................................................ 155

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Facilitator’s Guide G11 ~ English First Additional Language: Literature

PREFACE PRESCRIBED BOOKS Novel: My Family and Other Animals. Gerald Durrell. (Paperback edition).

Poetry: Poems from all over, compiled by Rustum Kozain, published by Oxford Press.

INTRODUCTION This guide has been compiled to aid you in helping learners master Grade 11 English Literature. Use this guide in conjunction with the study guide. The activities learners must do from the study guide must be done independently. Under no circumstances should they see the answers before first completing the activities.

The aspects that you should concentrate on during the year are: 1.

Developing the learners as sound listeners

Learners must be critical listeners. They should be able to listen for specific information, main and supporting ideas, and make meaningful notes. They should be able to interpret and evaluate the tone of messages, recognise language that is intended to manipulate, and listen critically to a text.

2.

Encourage learners to speak as much English as possible without making serious language errors.

Even though we are studying literature, learners must be able to form their own opinion about what they have read. They should be able to voice their opinion about the discussed poem or novel in the correct manner. They should be able to take turns in a conversation, ask questions, respond to language, gestures, eye contact, and body language; signal interest and attention appropriately through expression, posture, etc.; respond to communication situations; use voice modulation (e.g. stress and intonation); pronounce words correctly; read fluently; argue and voice their opinion and express themselves in various social contexts, and participate in group discussions.

3.

Reading is important

Learners must be able to read for comprehension and the formal study of the prescribed literature. Emphasise the importance of reading independently, as reading is the easiest way for learners to expand their knowledge of the language. Encourage them to work out the meaning of unfamiliar words and images, identify figures of speech and their purpose, draw conclusions, evaluate texts, and to compare and contrast texts.

Remind learners that although the language of both the poetry and novel in some cases may fall strangely on the ear, the more they read these texts, the better their understanding will be.

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Facilitator’s Guide G11 ~ English First Additional Language: Literature

Learners should, however, not become overconfident and think the novel is easy and only has to be read once or that the study guide on its own contains sufficient information. The finer detail asked about the novel in the exam makes it necessary for all learners to read and reread both the poems and the novel as many times as possible.

4.

Writing is one of the most important skills in the acquisition of language.

Pay attention to how learners phrase answers in literature study. Often it is clear from their answers that they understand the question and the text, but how they formulate their answer prevents them from obtaining the marks. They must learn to be very specific in their answers and to elaborate or motivate. The more learners practise their answering skills, the easier it will be for them to write well-formulated answers.

5.

Learners should be aware of language structures and conventions.

They should build on their general knowledge of, for example, synonyms, antonyms, idioms, and proverbs. They should be able to write well-structured sentences. Although they will not be penalised in a literature paper for it, they should be able to use their tenses correctly.

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Facilitator’s Guide G11 ~ English First Additional Language: Literature

ASSESSMENT REQUIREMENTS Assessment is a continuous planned process of identifying, gathering, and interpreting information about learners’ performance, using various forms of assessment.

It involves four steps: 1.

Generating and collecting evidence of achievement.

2.

Evaluating this evidence.

3.

Recording the findings.

4.

Using this information to understand and assist learners’ development to improve the process of learning and teaching.

Assessment should be both informal and formal. In both cases, regular feedback should be provided to learners to enhance their learning experience.

Informal or daily assessment Assessment for learning is about continuously collecting information on learners’ achievement, which can be used to improve their learning. Informal assessment is daily monitoring of learners’ progress.

This is done through observations, discussions, practical demonstrations, learner-teacher conferences, informal interactions, etc. Informal assessment may be as simple as stopping during the lesson to observe learners or to discuss with them how their learning is progressing.

Informal assessment should be used to provide feedback to learners and to inform planning for teaching, but it does not have to be recorded. It should not be separate from learning activities taking place.

Learners or teachers can mark these assessment tasks. The facilitator may mark these tasks or may assist learners in marking some of them. This is important as it allows learners to learn from and reflect on their performance.

The results of the informal daily assessment tasks are not formally recorded unless you as a facilitator want to do so. The results of daily assessment tasks are not considered for promotion purposes.

Formal assessment All assessment tasks that make up a formal programme of assessment for the year are regarded as formal assessments. Formal assessment tasks are marked and formally recorded by external markers for progression purposes.

All formal assessment tasks are subject to moderation for quality assurance and to ensure appropriate standards are maintained.

The formal assessment provides the facilitator with a systematic way of evaluating how well learners are progressing in their grade and a subject. Examples of formal assessments include tests, examinations, writing tasks, oral presentations, demonstrations, performances, etc. Formal assessment tasks form part of a year-long formal programme of assessment in Grade 11.

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Facilitator’s Guide G11 ~ English First Additional Language: Literature

STUDY TIPS AND METHODS In preparing for your literature tests and exams you must make sure you are familiar with the texts.

You can never read your prescribed poems and novel too many times. When answering questions, make sure you understand the words used when questions are formulated.

Question word

What is expected of you when you answer the question?

Analyse

Find the main ideas and explain how they are linked.

Apply

Use your knowledge and reasoning to give a good suggestion or answer to the question.

Comment on the effectiveness of…

Say why a point or image (e.g. metaphor, alliteration) has an impact and give reasons/examples to justify your opinion.

Compare or contrast

Say how things are like each other or how they are different.

Define

Give the formal meaning/definition of a concept.

Describe

Say what happened in a logical order.

Evaluate

Explain why you say something is good or bad.

Explain

Use your own words to describe something or say why something happened.

List

Use one word or phrase only, items presented one beneath the other; may be numbered.

Illustrate

Explain using examples from the text.

Justify

Give valid reasons why you have interpreted something in a specific way or why the writer has done something in a particular way.

Relate

Indicate the connection between things or explain how things happened.

Substantiate

Support your opinion with clear references to, or quotations from, the text.

(Do not quote unless you are instructed to do so.)

Summarise

State the main features of an argument, leaving out all unnecessary detail or examples.

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Facilitator’s Guide G11 ~ English First Additional Language: Literature

YEAR PLAN TERM 1

LESSON

DATE STARTED

Week 1

LESSON 1: ‘The Second Coming’

Week 2

LESSON 2: ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’ LESSON 3: ‘Mid-term break’

Week 3

LESSON 4: My Family and Other Animals: Parts One and Two (Chapter 8) Part One: ‘The Migration’

Week 4 Chapter 1: ‘The Unsuspected Isle’ Chapter 2: ‘The Strawberry-Pink Villa’ Week 5 Chapter 3: ‘The Rose-Beetle Man’ Chapter 4: ‘A Bushel of Learning’ Week 6 Chapter 5: ‘A Treasure of Spiders’ Chapter 6: ‘The Sweet Spring’ Week 7 ‘Conversation’ (Part 1) Chapter 7: ‘The Daffodil-Yellow Villa’ Week 8 Chapter 8: ‘The Tortoise Hills’ TERM 2 Week 1

LESSON 5: ‘Reggae Sounds’ LESSON 6: ‘Dark Rider’

Week 2

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LESSON 7: My Family and Other Animals: Chapter 9 – ‘Conversation’

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DATE COMPLETED

Facilitator’s Guide G11 ~ English First Additional Language: Literature

Week 3

Chapter 9: ‘The World in a Wall’

Week 4

Chapter 10: ‘The Pageant of Fireflies’

Week 5

Chapter 11: ‘The Enchanted Archipelago’ Chapter 12: ‘The Woodstock Winter’

Week 6 ‘Conversation’ (Part 2) TERM 3 Week 1

LESSON 8: ‘Calvinia 1976’

Week 2

LESSON 9: ‘The Collar’ LESSON 10: ‘Random Notes to my Son’

Week 3

Week 4

LESSON 11: My Family and Other Animals: Part Three: Chapter 13: ‘The Snow-White Villa’ Chapter 14: ‘The Talking Flowers’ Chapter 15: ‘The Cyclamen Woods’

Week 5 Chapter 16: ‘The Lake of Lilies’ Week 6

Chapter 17: ‘The Chessboard Fields’

Week 7

The characters Chapter 18: ‘An Entertainment with Animals’

Week 8 ‘The Return’ TERM 4 Weeks 1-4

LESSON 12: Revision – Exam time

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Facilitator’s Guide G11 ~ English First Additional Language: Literature

LESSON ELEMENTS

Vocabulary The meaning of new words to fully understand the text/content.

Activity Core content and questions to test the learner’s knowledge.

Study/Revision Time spent studying the content in conclusion of the unit and preparation for the test or examination.

Novel

Poetry

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Facilitator’s Guide G11 ~ English First Additional Language: Literature

GLOSSARY OF LITERARY TERMS

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Facilitator’s Guide G11 ~ English First Additional Language: Literature

People have been telling stories since the beginning of time.

Cultures are built on stories, histories, myths, legends, fables and so on.

If we are to understand and participate in the culture to which we belong, we must first learn about the stories our culture has been built around. And while books aren’t the only stories out there, they are one of the most important. Literature teaches us about the world around us, about the histories and peoples of other times and places. It surely is more fun to read a novel about another time or place than to learn about it from a textbook.

What is the purpose of

literature and why do we study it?

Literature builds your vocabulary and improves your reading and writing skills. The best way to become a better writer is to read more. Learners who read more often have an advantage when it comes to writing. Literature has so many purposes: to enlighten, to protest, to challenge, to educate, inform, comfort, confront, express and even to heal in some cultures. It is also a form of entertainment and allows us to use our imagination to visualise the story in our own mind.

Genre enre means a type of art, literature, or music characterised by a specific form, content, and G style. Literature has three main genres: poetry, drama, and prose (divided into fiction and nonfiction). All these genres have features and functions that distinguish them from one another.

It is important for you to know which genre you are reading to understand the message it conveys and to be able to analyse it. Make sure you know the correct terminology for each genre and use these terms when you write essays and answer questions.

Poetry

P

oetry follows a metre and rhythm in each line and syllable. There are epic, narrative, romantic, dramatic, and lyric poems. You have heard of and studied odes, sonnets, elegies, and ballads.

Often poetry uses figurative language, such as metaphor, simile, onomatopoeia, hyperbole, and alliteration to create a heightened effect and this elevates the language the poet uses from normal speech to poetry.

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Facilitator’s Guide G11 ~ English First Additional Language: Literature

Drama rama is performed in front of an audience. It is also called a play. Its written text contains D dialogues and stage directions. This genre has further categories such as comedy, tragedy, and tragicomedy. William Shakespeare is known as the father of English drama.

His well-known plays include Taming of the Shrew, Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet. Greek playwrights were the pioneers in this field, such as Sophocles’ masterpiece Oedipus Rex and Antigone, while modern dramas include Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller.

Prose

U

nlike poetry, prose focuses on characters and plot, rather than focusing on sounds. It includes short stories and novels, while fiction and non-fiction are its subgenres. Prose is further categorised into essays, speeches and interpretations.

Fiction fictional work may incorporate fantastical and imaginary ideas from everyday life.

A It comprises elements such as plot, exposition, foreshadowing, rising action, climax, falling

action, and resolution. Popular examples of literary fiction include Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, and Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird.

Non-Fiction on-fiction could be creative like a personal essay, or factual, like a scientific paper. It may N also use figurative language, however, not unlike poetry, or fiction. Sometimes, non-fiction tells a story, like an autobiography, or conveys information to readers.

Other examples of non-fiction include biographies, diaries, memoirs, journals, fantasies, mysteries, and romances.

How to use the glossaries Some of the terms only appear once, because they have the same function in poetry, drama, and prose – so go through all three lists to find the one you are looking for.

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Facilitator’s Guide G11 ~ English First Additional Language: Literature

‘Beowulf’ is the oldest and longest epic poem in English. Written between 700 and 750 AD, it tells the story of the brave warrior and his battles with the monster, Grendel and a dragon guarding a hoard of treasure.

GLOSSARY OF POETRY TERMS Alliteration

The repetition of identical consonant sounds, most often at the beginning of words: ‘the flying furry fox’ or ‘steaming soup’.

Alliteration is used to reinforce the meaning, to link related words or to provide tone and colour.

Allusion

A passing reference to a person, place, thing, or event.

Typically, writers allude to something they suppose the reader will already know about.

The concept may be real or imaginary, referring to anything from fiction, to folklore, to historical events.

His nose gets longer whenever he talks.

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Facilitator’s Guide G11 ~ English First Additional Language: Literature

Anaphora

Words repeat at the beginning of successive clauses, phrases, or sentences. This is done for emphasis and typically adds rhythm to a passage.

In William Blake’s ‘London’, he uses anaphora: ‘In every cry of every Man, In every infant’s cry of fear, In every voice, in every ban, The mind-forg’d manacles I hear’

Antithesis

Two terms, phrases or ideas that contrast or have opposite meanings: ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness …’

Apostrophe

A speaker directly addresses someone (or something) that is not present or cannot respond. The entity being addressed can be absent, dead, or imaginary, but it can also be an inanimate object (stars or the ocean), an abstract idea (love or fate), or a being (such as a muse or god).

For example, John Keats begins his ‘Ode to a Grecian Urn’ by addressing the Urn: ‘Thou still unravished bride of quietness’ and directs the whole poem to the Urn and the figures represented on it.

Assonance

The repetition of identical vowel sounds in different words close to one another.

The example is from Edgar Allen Poe’s ‘The Raven’: ‘Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore — While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.’

Ballad

The ballad is typically arranged in quatrains and usually the second- and fourth lines rhyme (although this is not a rule).

Ballads tell a story and began as folk songs and continue to be used today in modern music.

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Facilitator’s Guide G11 ~ English First Additional Language: Literature

‘A ballad of John Silver’ (John Masefield) ‘We were schooner-rigged and rakish, with a long and lissome hull, And we flew the pretty colours of the cross-bones and the skull; We’d a big black Jolly Roger flapping grimly at the fore, And we sailed the Spanish Water in the happy days of yore.

We’d a long brass gun amidships, like a well-conducted ship, We had each a brace of pistols and a cutlass at the hip; It’s a point which tells against us, and a fact to be deplored, But we chased the goodly merchant-men and laid their ships aboard.’

Did you notice the allusion?

John Silver, the crossbones an d the skull, the Jolly Roger – all these elem ents allude to the story of Tr easure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson.

You will get be tter at allusion the more you read. This will help you to reco gnise subtle details and refe rences to othe r works.

Blank verse

Iambic pentameter that doesn’t rhyme. Blank verse is like normal speech but creates a musical effect. It tends to capture the attention of the readers and the listeners, which is its aim.

‘Tintern Abbey’ (William Wordsworth) ‘Five years have past; five summers, with the length Of five long winters! and again I hear These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs With a soft inland murmur. —Once again Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs, That on a wild secluded scene impress Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect The landscape with the quiet of the sky.’

Cliché

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Refers to an expression that has been overused to the extent that it loses its original meaning or novelty: abandon ship, the grass is always greener, silence is golden.

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Facilitator’s Guide G11 ~ English First Additional Language: Literature

Couplet

Consists of two lines with the same metre or rhyme that are equal in length. In the case of the latter, you would refer to it as a rhyming/heroic couplet, which is very common in poetry and has the rhyme scheme: aa, bb, cc and so on.

Diction

Diction refers to the poet’s choice of words, phrases, sentence structures and the order of the words in a poem.

Poetic diction usually refers to the poet not adhering to the rules and conventions of standard written and spoken language when it comes to sentence structure, word order, the use of very old or newly coined words.

When reading a poem, consider the different meanings the words may have and how their arrangement in the poem adds to or changes those meanings. Diction reflects the writer’s vision and steers the reader’s thoughts. Poets choose words for a specific effect, e.g. a coat isn’t torn; it is tattered. Remember that each word in a poem, play or novel has a purpose.

Enjambment

A line with no end punctuation but running over to the next line.

Four of the first eight lines of Shakespeare’s ‘Sonnet 116’ are enjambed: ‘Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love That alters when it alteration finds Or bends with the remover to remove: O no! It is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken …’

Foot

A group of two or more syllables, one of which is stressed. The most common feet in poetry contain either a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable (trochee) or an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable (iamb): Thĕ cúr | fĕw tólls | thĕ knéll | ŏf pár | tĭng dáy. | The iambic pentameter is the most natural and common type of metre in English and elevates speech to poetry.

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Facilitator’s Guide G11 ~ English First Additional Language: Literature

Hyperbole

Overstatement/exaggeration for serious, ironic or comic effect: ‘I’ll love you, dear, I’ll love you Till China and Africa meet, And the river jumps over the mountain And the salmon sing in the street.’

The tall tale of the American West is a form used mainly for comic effect. For example, Paul Bunyan, the huge lumberjack who eats 50 pancakes in one minute and dug the Grand Canyon with his axe.

Idiom

An idiom is a saying, phrase, or fixed expression that has a figurative meaning different from its literal meaning: ‘Fog’ (Carl Sandburg) The fog comes on little cat feet.

It sits looking over harbor and city on silent haunches and then moves on.

The idiom referred to in this poem is ‘nothing ever lasts’. In the poem, the city appears to be normal as usual activities are taking place. However fog comes silently like a cat and everything changes. There is no visibility and most of the work comes to a halt. Even the poet has to sit and wait for the fog to go away.

Finally after waiting for sometime, it moves on. Again change happens and so the poem depicts that nothing lasts forever.

Internal rhyme (middle rhyme)

Rhyme within a line of poetry, i.e. the middle words and the end words rhyme with one another: ‘Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping …’

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Facilitator’s Guide G11 ~ English First Additional Language: Literature

Irony

Surprising, interesting, or amusing contradictions or contrasts.

Verbal irony: words are used to suggest the opposite of their usual meaning.

‘All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.’ Animal Farm (George Orwell) Irony of situation: an event occurs that directly contradicts expectations.

From The Crucible (Arthur Miller) DANFORTH [reaches out and holds her face, then]: Look at me! To your own knowledge, has John Proctor ever committed the crime of lechery? [In a crisis of indecision, she cannot speak.] Answer my question! Is your husband a lecher?

ELIZABETH [faintly]: No, sir.

DANFORTH: Remove her!

PROCTOR: Elizabeth, tell the truth!

DANFORTH: She has spoken. Remove her!

PROCTOR [crying out]: Elizabeth, I have confessed it!

ELIZABETH: Oh, God! [The door closes behind her.]

REMEMBER There is a differe nce between iron y and sarcasm.

Do not confuse the two when yo u analyse a poem or write an essa y. Verbal irony co mmunicates the opposite of wha t is said, while sa rcasm is a form of irony that is directed at a pe rson, with the intent to criticis e or mock.

Metaphor

It compares two things that are not alike but do have something in common.

Unlike a simile, where two things are compared directly using like or as, a metaphor’s comparison is more indirect, usually made by stating something is something else.

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