Lesson video

Hello and welcome to today's English lesson.

Today, we're going to be focusing on developing a personal response and critical evaluation.

And again, we're going to be looking at the short story, Ten Minutes' Music by Alice Bunbar Nelson.

I'd like you to take a moment to clear any distractions away and make sure you have everything you need at hand.

And that includes a pen and paper.

Now please re-write down the title.

Developing a personal response.

Okay, let's get going.

So we're going to be looking at personal response or critical evaluation, and that just means providing your opinion or personal response to a text that you've read.

So we'll begin with a quick recap of the story.

Then focus on reading for meaning with a statement in minds that we will use for critical evaluation.

And then as always, there'll be a review quiz for you to complete at the end of the lesson.

So what can you remember about the story Ten Minutes' Musing? Answer these quick questions as a form of recall on that story.

Firstly, who wrote the story Ten Minutes' Musing? What does musing mean? Who narrates the story? What is the narrator watching? Where is the story set? What does the narrator reflect on? And how does the story end? Pause the video until you've completed those, and then check your answers.

Ten Minutes' Musing was written by Alice Dunbar Nelson.

Musing, means thinking or reflecting.

the first person narrator is a teacher.

The narrator is watching a mob of boys playing football at break time.

The story is set in a school playground.

The narrator reflects on money, greed, life and human nature.

And the story ends with the school bell ringing and the order being restored.

Well done if you've got all those correct.

So we're going to be re-reading the short story just to make sure we're ready for our critical evaluation.

As we read, this is the statement that I want us to consider.

This short story is effective because it contains a realistic description of a school break time.

And at the same time really communicates the narrator's feelings about the world.

To what extent do you agree? So as we're reading, we need to be thinking about what this statement is asking and whether we agree with it.

So as you're reading, think about whether it's realistic description of a school break time, and whether it clearly communicates the narrator's feelings about the world.

And you might want to write down some notes on your paper, as we read.

There was a terrible noise in the school-yard at intermission; peeping out the windows, the boys could be seen huddled in an immense bunch, in the middle of the yard.

It looked like a fight, a mob, a knock down, anything, so we rushed out to the door hastily, fearfully to scold, punish, console, frown, bind up broken heads or drag wounded forms from the melee as the case might be.

Nearly every boy in the school was in that seething, swarming mass, and those who weren't were standing around the edges, screaming and throwing up their hats in hilarious excitement.

It was a mob, a fearful mob, but a mob apparently with a vigorous and well-defined purpose.

It was a mob that screamed and howled, and kicked and yelled, and shouted, and perspired, and squirmed and wriggled, and pushed, and threatened, and poured itself all seemingly upon some central object.

It was a mob that had an aim, that was determined to accomplish that aim, even though the whole azure expanse of sky fell upon them.

It was a mob with set muscles, straining like whip-cords, eyes on that central object and with heads inward and sturdy legs outward, like prairie horses reversed in a battle.

The cheerers and hat throwers on the outside were mirthful, but the mob was not; it howled, but howled without any cachinnation; it struggled for mastery.

Some fell and what trampled over, some weaker ones were even tossed in the air, but the mob never deigned to trouble itself about such trivialities.

It was an interesting nervous whole, with diverse parts of separate vitality.

In alarm, I looked about for the principal.

He was standing at a safe distance with his hands in his pockets, watching the seething mass with a broad smile.

At sight of my perplexed expression, someone was about to venture an explanation, when there was a wild yell, a sudden vehement disintegration of the mass, a mighty rush and clutch at a dark object bobbing in the air, and the mist cleared from my intellect, as I realised it all, football.

Did you ever stop to see the analogy between a game of football and the interesting little game called life, which we play every day.

There is one farfetched as it may seem though, for that matter, life's game being one of the desperate chances and strategic moves, is analogous to anything.

But if we could get out of ourselves and soar above the world, far enough to view the mass beneath and its daily struggles and near enough the hearts of the people to feel the throbs beneath their boldly carried exteriors, the whole would seem naught, but such a maddening rush and senseless-looking crushing.

"We are but the children of another larger growth" after all, and our ceaseless pursuing after the baubles of this earth are but the struggles for the precedence in the business playground.

The football is money.

See how the mass rushes after it! Everyone's so intent upon his pursuit until all else dwindles into a nidicolous nonentity.

The weaker ones go down in mad pursuit, and are unmercifully trampled upon, but no matter, what is the difference, if the foremost, win the coveted prize and carry it off.

See the big boy in front, he with the iron grip, and the determined compressed lips? That boy is a type of a big merciless man, the Gradgrind of the latter century.

His face is set towards the ball, and even though he may crush a dozen small boys, he'll make his way through the mob and come out triumphant.

And he'll be the victor longer than anyone else, in spite of the envy and fighting and pushing about him.

To an observer, alike unintelligent about the rules of a football game, and the conditions which govern the barter and exchange and fluctuations of the world's money market, there is as much difference between the site of massive boys on a playground losing their equilibrium over a spheroid of rubber and a mass of men losing their coolness and temper and mental and nervous balance on change as there is between a pine sapling and a mighty forest king, merely a difference of age.

The mighty, seething, intensely concentrated mass in it's emphatic tendency to one point is the same, in the utter disregard of mental and physical welfare.

The momentary triumphs of transitory possessions impress a casual looker-on with the same fearful idea, that the human race after all, is savage to the core, and cultivates it savagery in an inflated happiness at its own nearness to perfection.

But the bell clangs sharply, the overheated, nervous, tingling boys fall into line, and the sudden transition from massing disorder to military precision cuts short the ten minutes' musing.

So to what extent do you agree then with this statement? Is it effective because it contains a realistic description of a school break time, and do we really understand the narrator's feelings about the world? Write down your initial thoughts about that statement.

By answering these two questions here, and to help you to do that, let's answer these mini questions on your screen.

Firstly, how effective is the description of the school? What are our impressions of it? Secondly, does it really communicate the narrator's feelings? What impression do you get of the narrator's feelings and ideas? Pause the video and take a moment to write down your answers to those questions.

Now, to some extent, I agree that the description of school is realistic.

And I agree that the writer communicates the narrator's feelings about the world.

We can go a bit deeper than that and think about why.

So these are my primary ideas, but I need to be a little bit more specific.

So I agree to some extent that the school description is realistic, because the story starts and ends with that realistic description.

But when the narrator starts musing, it becomes more reflective.

And I agree because, and I agree that the writer really communicates the narrator's feelings about the world because we get an insight into the narrator's feelings about money, power, and human nature.

So broadly on both those points, I would agree.

What do you think? I'd like you to write your initial response.

To what extent do you agree that the story is effective because it contains a realistic description of a school break time? Use those sentence stems on your screen to start to mould your thinking.

Well then.

Now I'd like you to read this model introductory paragraph.

To some extent, I agree that the story contains a realistic portrayal of a school, because it captures an everyday moment: a group of boys chasing a football.

However, at the same time, it's exaggerates this particular moment.

And because of the teachers' musings, the behaviour of the boys seems more extreme than a casual game of football.

Because the whole scene is framed through the narrator's thoughts and reflections, it becomes less realistic because it's a product of how she perceived the world.

In other words, it starts off being realistic, but because of the reflections of the narrator, we see it through her eyes.

Throughout the extract, the boys are described as a mob, suggesting that the narrator sees them as a violent rebel rather than individual students.

Furthermore, the mob screamed and howled, and kicked, and yelled, and shouted, and perspired, and squirmed, and wriggled, and pushed, and threatened, implying how the teacher sees their savage and animalistic tendencies.

The story begins in a way that seems realistic, with a description of the teachers rushing out of the staff room, ready to scold, punish, console, frown, because they hear the terrible noises of what could be a fighter mob, a knock-down, anything.

Here, the writer uses lists to show the frantic pace of events as the teachers try to discover what is going on.

However, as the story goes on, the focus of the story shifts to what the narrator really thinks about the world.

And so the description of the boys football game becomes less realistic and more of a metaphor for what the teacher is trying to say about the world.

When the narrator asked the rhetorical question.

"Did you ever start to see "the analogy between a game of football "under the interesting little game called life, "which we play every day?" We start to move away from the realistic scenes in the playground and focus on the world and the narrator's thoughts instead.

At the end of the story, we return to reality as the teacher's musings are cut short, when the bell clangs sharply, and the children start to file into school.

Therefore we could argue that the story begins and ends with quite a realistic description of school life.

But the focus on that of the narrator's thoughts and reflections in the middle of a story, give us a clear insight into her views on the world.

Now, as with all pieces of analysis, we need to make sure we're making clear points about the question focus.

Using rich evidence or quotations.

Explaining the effects of the writer's methods or choices.

And linking ideas together.

Here you can see how I've color-coded each of those ideas.

So the clear points in blue, the methods there in pink, and the quotations in green.

And all of those are working together to make sure that the explanation is clear, and the points that I'm making are clear.

As the answer develops, we can see more evidence starting to be embedded and more methods being explored and explained.

So having that structure of clear point, evidence, explanation really, really helps in your analysis.

And as you can see from some of those phrases in purple, we're trying to link our ideas together, as well as linking the moments of the text together.

So it's now your turn to write your answer, using the evidence from the text.

Feel free to use similar quotations to the ones I've found, or if you wish you can go back and write down any other pieces of evidence or methods that you noticed when reading the text for the first time.

Use the sentence stems on your screen and resume the video once you're finished.

Well done.

I'd now like you to check your answer, just to make sure that you've got clear points about the question focus, you've included rich evidence or quotations.

You've explained the effect of the writer's methods by identifying the techniques that have been used and the effect of those techniques.

And you've linked those ideas together.

Well done If you've done that.

And thank you again for your focus, I hope you enjoy the rest of your learning, but before you do that, make sure you complete the end of lesson quiz.