A BROKEN PROMISE by Jordan Marshall

Latoya thought the world of Jim although no one seemed to do the same. Latoya was smart, intelligent and was by far the most beautiful girl in her third form class. So it puzzled everyone when she got together with Alan. Their relationship would make true the statement that opposites do attract as Alan was a rough, hard edged delinquent who was already out of school. He had made nothing of himself and spent all his money buying drugs and alcohol, so it was of no surprise that her friends begged her to break it up. She always claimed she knew what she was doing.
          One dark and quiet afternoon, in an old and abandoned classroom, she confronted Alan and told him what her friends had told her.
          "They say that some day you're going to hurt me!" mumbled Latoya, "but promise me you will always take care of me."
          "Ofcourse hon," whispered Alan, "I love you too much to do anything else." Latoya's face blushed with disbelief.
          "Do you really love me?"
          "Just close your eyes and I'll show you how much I do." At this point he wrapped his hands around her face and began kissing her gently on her lips. He then proceeded to kiss her on her neck, she smiled approvingly.
          "Honey, I'm sorry but I can't stay any longer, my parents will get worried."
          "But wait, I haven't finished showing you how much I really love you." She sensed a hint of mischief in his voice and immediately became tense. She gave him a kiss on the cheek and began to pull away. "What you think you doing!" He shouted.
          "I'm just fourteen. You really don't expect me to go all the way," she said adamantly. He began to smile, a evil grin on his face. He then clamped down on her leg, "that's the thing," he said, "you don't have an option." He held down her hands and began to strip off her clothing. She squirmed and cried for help but no one seemed to hear her.
          "I can't afford to let something like this happen to me. she thought. she then gathered all the strength she had and kicked him in the groin. He screamed in pain. She used this as an opportunity to escape so she spat into his eyes and threw him off of her. She then threw a couple of desks and chairs on him to prevent him from moving. At this point he lay on the ground swearing and holding his crotches. She left the room in tears in only her skirt and brassiere, running through the empty school yard. She felt hurt and distressed as the one whom she had loved had broken his promise.

REMINDERS

Please remember (when writing your short story)

• Start with a 'BANG'. Start with dialogue or action. Do not start with " This is a story about...", " It was a...", "Once, there was a...." or "Once upon a time..." . These are boring. The idea is to GRAB the reader's attention and keep them hooked to your story.
• Remember, each new speaker has their own paragraph.
•  Start with a conflict
• Like your descriptive essay, appeal to all your senses and include literary devices such as similes, metaphors, personification, alliteration....
• Show don't tell. Instead of saying you're scared show me - sweat began to bud all along your face, hands began to tremble, knees knocked, you began to move hesitatantly, eyes wide open, quickly turned back etc. (not once did I say scared or afraid or nervous, but you got all those feelings)
• It's not a report, so allow your characters to develop, go in great detail; be subjective. your opinion makes the story interesting.
• allow your characters to have a personality. Is she mean, is he a liar, is he a kindhearted soul or is she a dedicated friend? But don't tell me, show me. "As swift as a fox, he snatched the shirt off the hanger and stuffed it in his bag.... as cool as can be he walked through the revolving doors of JCPenny." or "How yuh so beggy beggy? Yuh fi buy yuh own sharpner. Every minute unu want supm else. Move man."
• your conflicts should be resolved. Agood idea is to resolve the conflict and have something else ironically happen to end your story in suspense. For example, you are travelling late and get held up. You are rescued by passersby. You thank them and go on a bus. Two men enter the bus, tell everybody not to move, they are robbing the bus.

WILL POST MORE LATER.

IT IS UPON US

It is fast arriving the end of our second year together, and as you ought to know, the End of Year Examinations is upon us. The next few blogs will be dedicated to reinforcing various topics you will need to revise for your English exams.

Remember, it's two Language papers and one Literature paper.

For the Language papers, students should be able to:

• answer comprehension questions
• write a business letter(report writing will be incorporated in this mode of writing)
• write a description of a person (or placce)
• write a short story

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• identify synonyms and antonyms
• select the correct homonyms
• identify the correctly spelt words
• select the most appropriate word to complete sentences
• punctuate sentences correctly

NB. There will be atleast three comprehension passages on the multiple choice paper (poetry, short story, exposition).


For the Literature exam, students will be tested on:

• poetry (mood/tone, literary devices and how effectively they are used, themes, stanzas)
• elements of drama
• Shakespearean drama (comedies, tragedies, histories - state characteristics and identify examples of each)
• all three novels read for the year (Sixty Five, Men and gods, Enchanted Island)              *Remember you are to answer A question from TWO books.

Themes include (but are not limited to):
- Heroism
- Love and Family relationship
- Violence
- Death/ tragedy

As you should realise by now, this is what you have been doing for the year.

****With hard work and perseverance comes success.****

Essay Writing

This is just to help with your essay writing; so you know how you are expected to answer your essay questions.

ANALYZE

When you are asked to analyze, you must separate a thing or idea into its parts to explain their relationship to each other.

COMMENT

When you're asked to comment, you should explore the importance and meaning of something, or write a note of explanation, or write a criticism or example of something written or said. You may also write a remark or make a critical observation or express your opinion.

COMPARE

Here, you must look for similarities. The term compare is usually stated as compare with, and it means that you are to emphasize similarities, although differences may be mentioned.

CONTRAST

Show the differences between two or more topics.

CRITIQUE

Express your opinion with respect to the correctness or merits of the factors under consideration. Give the results of your own analysis and discuss the limitations and good points or contributions of the plan or work in question.

DEFINE

When asked to define something, your definition must contain concise, clear, and authoritative meanings. Details are not required, but boundaries or limitations of the definition should be given. Keep in mind the group/class/category to which a thing belongs and whatever differentiates the particular object from all others in the group/class/category.

DIAGRAM

You must draw a chart, a plan or a graphic representation in your answer. You may be expected to label the diagram or add a brief explanation or description.

DISCUSS

Examine the topic, analyze it carefully and then present detailed considerations pro and con regarding the problems or items involved. This type of essay question is common.

EVALUATE

Present a careful analysis of the problem, and stress both the advantages and limitations. Evaluation means an authoritative and personal appraisal of both contributions and limitations.

EXPLAIN

Clarify and interpret the material you present. State the "how" or "why," explain differences of opinion or experimental results, and state any causes if it's possible. In short, tell how it all happened!

JUSTIFY, PROVE

To justify your answer, provide factual evidence or logical reasons. In this type of answer, the evidence should be presented in a convincing form. Establish your answer with certainty by evaluating and giving evidence or by logical reasoning.

LIST, ENUMERATE

Write an itemized list, series or tabulation. Be concise.

OUTLINE

Give the main points and essential supplementary materials. Leave out the minor details and present the information in a clear systematic arrangement or classification.

SUMMARIZE

Give the main points or facts in condensed form. Brief examples can help make your summary more specific.

TRACE
           Give a description of the progress, historical sequence or development from the  point of origin.This type of essay may require probing or deductions.

DESCRIBE
            to give an account of; to tell or depict in written or spoken words.
       

Standardised test

The Literature test will be on "Murder at Dunsinane" (Macbeth).

You will be tested on:

• Personality traits of Macbeth
• Macbeth's dreams and aspirations
• Themes found in the story
• Rationale behind Macbeth's death
• Prophesies of the witches for Macbeth
• Macbeth's reaction to the witches' prophesies
• Role of the Witches

ALL THESE WERE DISCUSSED IN CLASS.

Murder at Dunsinane

• Macbeth is a tragedy by William Shakespeare about a regicide (killing of a king and take over of his kingdom) and its aftermath. It is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy and is believed to have been written sometime between 1603 and 1606, with 1607 being the very latest possible date.


• Shakespeare's sources for the tragedy are the accounts of Kings Macbeth, MacDuff, and Duncan in Holinshed's Chronicles (1587), a history of England, Scotland and Ireland familiar to Shakespeare and his contemporaries.

• Over the centuries, the play has attracted the greatest actors in the roles of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. The play has been adapted to film, television, opera, novels, comic books, and other media.

• In the play, the Three Witches represent darkness, chaos, and conflict. Their presence communicates treason and impending doom. During Shakespeare's day, witches were seen as worse than rebels, "the most notorious traitor and rebel that can be." They were not only political traitors, but spiritual traitors as well. Much of the confusion that springs from them comes from their ability to be on the borders between reality and the supernatural. They are so deeply entrenched in both worlds that it is unclear whether they control fate, or whether they are merely its agents.

• The witches' lines in the first act: "Fair is foul, and foul is fair: Hover through the fog and filthy air" are often said to set the tone for the remainder of the play by establishing a sense of confusion. Indeed, the play is filled with situations in which evil is depicted as good, while good is evil.

• While the witches do not directly advise Macbeth to kill King Duncan, they use a subtle form of temptation when they inform Macbeth that he will be king. By placing this thought in his mind, they effectively guide him on the path to his own destruction. This follows the pattern of temptation many believed the Devil uses. First, a thought is put in a man's mind, and then the person may either indulge in the thought or reject it. Macbeth indulges in it, while Banquo rejects

• The three witches remind English teachers of the three Fates of Greek mythology and the three Norns of Norse mythology. "Weird" (as in "weird sisters") used to mean "destiny" or "fate". Perhaps in an older version they were.

WILD CAT FOR A WIFE (TAMING OF THE SHREW)

The story promotes inequality of females by forcing them into submissive roles.

·         Baptista treats his daughter, expecting them always to do his bidding. It is he who decides whom Bianca will marry (the richest bachelor) and it is he who orders Kath’s betrothal to Petruchio a man she despises.

·         Petruchio forces Kath to acknowledge that he is always right. At the end all the husbands brag about what they apparently believe is an important quality of a wife: submissiveness.

Using reverse psychology, Petruchio praises, pampers and coddles Katharine in order to rob her of the occasion to complain and thereby kill her scolding tongue.

Various issues arise from the story, such as the question of what roles men and women can and should play in society and in relationship to each other. Is Petruchio a loving husband who teaches his maladjusted bride to find happiness in marriage, or is he a clever bully who forces her to bow to his will? Does Katherina's acquiescence in playing the part of the obedient wife reflect a joyous acceptance of her assigned role as a married woman and the beginning of a fulfilling partnership with her husband? Does it, instead, mean that she has learned to play the obedient wife in public so as to get her own way in private? Or does it reflect the defeat of a spirited and intelligent woman forced to give in to a society that dominates and controls women and allows them only very limited room for self-expression?

ELEMENTS OF DRAMA

• Playwright – The person who writes the play. (Comes from an old English idiom in which “wright” meant “maker of”)

• The conflict underlies every play. It is the key issue around which the plot/ storyline is developed using specific persons (characters), during a clear time frame (time) and it must take place somewhere (setting)

• Act – A major division in a play. In an act there is a major development that usually begins and moves to a climax, which leads to other things happening in other acts.


• There are also one act plays in which everything occurs in that one act. (similar to short story vs. novel)


• Scene- This is generally a subdivision of an act. Whenever people go on stage and change the setting, the scene has been changed. Therefore scene refers to a specific development that takes place at a specific point in time.

• Dialogue- This refers to the conversation between two or more characters in a play


• Monologue – A monologue occurs when one actor is on stage thinking aloud


• A Soliloquy help to thicken the plot, it leads the audience into the mind of the character and allows the audience to be able to “read into” the actor/ actress’ motivations for his / her actions.


• Stage directions - These are the notes put into the script by the playwright to tell the actor or director what to do.


• Script – This refers to the text of the play, ie The book the actor reads to study his / her lines


• Lines – These are the words that the writer has written for the actor and actresses to speak.


• Props – short for stage properties, Items that are used by actors on stage.

ANTIGONE

Antigone is a model of honor and sacrifice for the sake of familial loyalty. She cares for her bereft and guilt-ridden father, and then she insists on burying her slain brother in the face of an unjust law and likely death. The tragedy does not depict a reward for her valor, but readers appreciate (or at least debate) her honorable actions. The gods and magical items are not significant players in this political and social drama; the focus is on Antigone and her moral choices.

The theme of family loyalty arises throughout the Greek myths, but in this story, we see how far a character will go to defend it. Other times someone has died or risked death for a family member or a lover; Antigone acts in a way similar to Theseus and Perseus. Her actions do not take her on wild adventures, like these other heroes, but she does achieve a heroic, sacrificial status nonetheless. The Greek myths clearly support family loyalty, and this tale stands as a prime example of how the stories were used to convey moral messages.

This myth also brings the myths rather far from the tales of gods into the world of human culture and politics. Antigone is caught up in the middle of political and ethical battles fought on human terms and in light of competing human values.

In Antigone, the question is asked, which law is greater: God's or man's. Sophocles votes for God (or more appropriately, the gods, since the early Greeks were polytheistic). He does this in order to save Athens from the moral destruction which seems eminent.

In Antigone, God's judgment of man plays a key role in the battle between human and divine law. Though Creon, the king of Thebes , renders judgment on Antigone because she violates the state's law against burying her brother, God's justice proves to be much more powerful when Creon backs down at the end of the play and admits that his law is unjust.

To understand Antigone, it's important to know some basic beliefs of Hellenic people. When a corpse was not buried, but instead left uncovered to be eaten by birds and animals, the gods were insulted and made angry, since this was thought to be a supreme insult to the body's family. This is why Antigone feels it necessary to bury the body of her brother, who is considered a traitor to Thebes , but her blood nonetheless.

Also, the lesser theme of God's judgment being passed on through the generations of a family is revealed in Antigone. Indeed Antigone suffers not only because she elects to stand up for an ideal, but because her disastrous destiny is predicted by fate. Oedipus' sin has now haunted his daughter as well.

MEN AND GODS PROJECT

Second Form Assignment

English Language and English Literature

Term 2

Text: Men and Gods

PROJECT #2

Instruction: Students will work in groups of five. Each group will create a newspaper based on the text that is being studied, Men and Gods.
The following information must be included in the newspaper:

a) Design a cover for the newspaper with an interesting headline.
b) An interview with a mythological character mentioned in the text.
c) Two letters to the Editor
d) A comic strip depicting a specific story in the text
e) Two games(for example a crossword puzzle)
f) A minimum of three advertisements (must be based on the text)
g) Obituary
h) A poem/ short story section
i) A “Dear Aphrodite” section (like “Dear Pastor”)


Due date: March 26, 2010.

***Each member of the group MUST do atleast one of the sections listed above.***

6th weekly

HEY GUYS, IT'S HERE AGAIN. ANOTHER DEPARTMENTAL EXAM. HERE IS WHAT YOU WILL BE TESTED ON:

- Vocabulary (synonyms and antonyms)
- Descriptive writing (person)
*** ensure that you utilise all that was taught throughout the half term (literary devices, appeal to all senses)

FOR LITERATURE

- Definition of the various terms associated with Greek Mythology
- Information from the first three stories in the text (Cadmus, Actaeon, Pentheus)
- Short Answer questions based on the story of Perseus.
- Themes (religion and heroism)

NOTHING WILL BE ON THE EXAM THAT WAS NOT ADDRESSED IN CLASS, SO NO LEWAY WILL BE GIVEN FOR LACK OF INFORMATION.

*****KEEP POSTED FOR MORE INFORMATION*****

ASSIGNMENT(Greek mythology)

1. Students will prepare a list of girls’ names which are connected with mythology. Explain the references.
2. who were the Olympians and who believed in them?
3. When were the myths started?
4. What purpose did the myths serve for the ancient Greeks?
5. What were the oracles and in what ways were they used by the Greeks?

Here are links that will help


http://www.messagenet.com/myths/neomyth.html


http://carlos.emory.edu/ODYSSEY/GREECE/home.html
choose the Gods and Goddesses section.
http://www.mrdowling.com/701-mythology.html

Video on olympian gods

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WP_NeirFIkM&feature=related


This video serves as an introduction to Greek mythology.ENJOY!!