Lesson video

I'm Ms. Gayle, and today, we're going to be looking at the short story, "Ten Minutes' Musing" by Alice Dunbar Nelson.

Our focus today is on language analysis.

Take a moment to clear any distractions away and make sure you have everything you need at hand, including a pen and paper.

Now, write down the title, language analysis.

Okay, let's begin.

So we're going to start with a quick recap of the story.

Hopefully you've already seen the previous lessons in this unit, and have read the short story, "Ten Minutes' Musing" already.

We're then going to focus on reading a particular section for language analysis, and practise the skills of selecting the appropriate quotations and using those for some rich language analysis, looking at the writer's methods, and how those methods are used to make meaning.

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

So let's get started.

Let's just quickly recap what we mean when we talk about a short story.

A short story is a story with a fully developed theme, but one that's significantly shorter and less elaborate than a novel.

Well done if you remembered that.

And what can you remember about the story, "Ten Minutes' Musing"? In order to help you to recall some of the key details about the story, I've got a quick quiz for you here.

I would like you to answer the questions as they appear on the screen.

Firstly, which African-American literary movement was the writer, Alice Dunbar Nelson, associated with? Well done if you remembered that she's associated with the Harlem Renaissance, a movement that developed out of New York City.

What kind of narrator is using the story, "Ten Minutes' Musing"? Well done; we've got a first-person narrator, meaning using the pronouns I, we, and us.

What are the boys in the story doing? Well, the boys in the story are playing football.

At first, the teacher and narrator thinks that they're fighting and rushes out of the staff room, but it turns out that they're just playing football.

And that game of football and its savagery inspires her reflections on the world more generally.

Where is the story set? Well done.

The story is set in a school yard.

So well done if you remembered that.

Which of these words describes the mob of boys in the story? The boys are described as a seething mass.

So an angry mob of people who have lost their individuality.

So, we're going to move on to our language analysis now.

And if you remember, when we analyse language, we're thinking about why and how the writer creates meaning using the words and phrases, and techniques that they've chosen.

So we're going to start by reading the shorter extracts from the wider text again.

And I want you to focus, as you read, on how the writer uses language to present the mob of boys.

Remember, when we approach a language analysis, we first understand, we first need to demonstrate that we understand the text.

Then, we need to show that we understand that the focus.

When we've got the focus clear in our minds, we then choose rich evidence that we can use to prove the points that we're making.

We then link that evidence together to write our analysis.

So let's have a go at practising that process now.

Let's read: nearly every boy in the school was in that seething, swarming mass, and those who weren't were standing around on 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.

So, that's our extract.

It's quite a short one.

And we're focusing, remember, on how the writer uses language to present the mob of boys.

So we need to understand the text, understand the focus, and select rich evidence.

Pause the video here if you'd like to reread the extract independently.

Okay; so, now I would like you to just summarise for yourself what is happening in the extract.

Remember the first stage is to make sure that we understand the text.

So what are the boys doing and how do they seem? Well, in this extract, the boys are in an excited, seething, swarming mass, that is full of movement and chaos.

Now, move on to the second stage, which is developing our understanding of the focus.

So if you haven't already done so, explain how the boys seem.

What are your impressions of their behaviour? As we've said, it is important to understand the focus.

And we've seen that the boys seem focused on their collective aim.

Some of the boys are standing on the sides, screaming and laughing, and they're all in sort of a heightened sense of excitement.

The boys are determined, and the boys seem out of control, but purposeful.

They're all driving towards the same goal, which is ultimately, to get that football.

It is that, that triggers the narrator's reflections on human nature and desire, and ambition, and things like that.

So make sure that you've understood how the boys are presented and added to your notes, some of those impressions, alongside anything that you've already written down.

Okay; so now we need to select some rich evidence that shows how that mob of boys are presented in the text.

Now remember, a mob means a large crowd of people, especially one that's disorderly and intent on causing trouble or violence.

So, not something that you want to come across on a darkened night.

Now because the boys are described in this way, that's another kind of idea.

That's another idea that links into the writer's reflections on human nature, and how collectively, the boys behave very differently to how they might do as individuals.

So, I want you to look at this extract again and tell me which words or phrases could be rich evidence for describing what the mob is like.

How about in this section? Again, select any words or phrases that could be rich evidence for what the mob is like.

Write them down on your paper now.

Well done; I'm going to take you through some things that I would have selected now.

Firstly, I would have chosen this quotation here, "Nearly every boy in the school was in that seething, swarming mass." Why do you think I've chosen that quotation? How does the writer use language here to present the mob of boys? Now, the thing that stands out to me here are those adjectives: seething and swarming.

And we've said that seething means angry.

Swarming, we associate with insects or gathering together in quite an aggressive way.

So the mob seems chaotic and dangerous, like an angry swarm of insects.

The individuals have merged together into a huge and wild mass.

So if you've got that quotation written down, you now need to be labelling the techniques and the effect on that quotation, so that when you come to write it up in your analysis, you are ready to put that into paragraphs.

The second quotation I might have chosen is this one here.

"It was a mob, a fearful mob, but a mob apparently with a vigorous and well-defined purpose." How does the writer use language here to present the mob of boys? Well here, we've got the use of repetition, as well as the use of adjectives in order to create particular effects, for us, as a reader, but what are those effects? We need to be precise, don't we, when we're thinking about that.

And the repetition of the word mob emphasises that collective chaos, because we've said the definition of mob is this aggressive, uncontrollable group that can be quite vicious and violent.

The adjective, fearful, suggests that threat that they seem to pose.

Again, write down that quotation, with the annotations that we've written on the screen there.

And then we continued to talk about the mob.

So I'd also pick out this quotation here.

"It was a mob that screamed and howled, and kicked, and yelled, and shouted, and perspired, and squirmed." What stands out to you there? How does the writer use language here to present the mob of boys? Well, here, this might be a new term to you, or it might be one that you are already familiar with.

The writer uses a polysyndetic list of verbs.

Now polysyndetic is the repetition of a conjunction like and.

So you can see here where it's a screamed and howled, and kicked, and yelled.

That's polysyndetic listing, because we don't need to have that and, but it's put in there for emphasis.

So the polysyndetic lists of verbs here emphasises the noise, passion, savagery, and chaos of the mob.

So we've selected some rich evidence now.

It's time to start linking that together, to write our analysis.

Now here's a model answer that will help you to write your own.

In "Ten Minutes' Musing", the writer, Alice Dunbar Nelson, captures the wild chaos of the boys who, as the numerator later discovers, are playing an intensely competitive game of football.

The writer uses the word mob to describe the boys.

And this is repeated a number of times.

A mob, a large, disorderly crowd of people carries connotations of trouble or violence and so we associate this with the boys.

The writer goes on to use the adjective fearful to describe the mob, as if they seem to pose a threat to themselves and to each other because they are so uncontrollable.

However, the narrator is clear that amid the chaos, the mob has a "vigorous" and "well-defined purpose", suggesting that they are not entirely out of control.

Furthermore, the violence and savagery of the mob is clear through the writer's use of a polysyndetic list of verbs describing their movement and actions.

They "screamed and howled, and kicked, and yelled, and shouted, and perspired, and squirmed." This list helps to emphasise the number of individuals involved in the "mob", with each separate action highlighted by its own repeated conjunction: "and".

So, hopefully, you can see that that answer meets the success criteria that we need to focus on in language analysis.

It has made clear points about the question focus.

The rich evidence or quotations are neatly embedded in the explanations.

It has explained the effect of the writer's methods and choices.

And the ideas are linked together.

And you can see an example of that here in this color-coded version of that model.

We've got a clear statement at the beginning, embedded quotations, and clear explanations of the methods.

So, it's your turn now to think about how the writer uses language to present the mob of boys.

Use the sentence stems on your screen, the notes that you've made about the quotations, and everything that we've already talked about to complete your answer.

Resume the video once you're finished.

Now, I'd like you to check your answer.

So make sure you've got clear points about the question focus, you've used that rich evidence and included quotations.

You've explained clearly the effect of the writer's methods.

And you've tried to link at least two or three quotations with ideas together.

Well done if you've done all of those things.

That's really great.

Thank you for your focus and I hope you enjoy the rest of your learning today.

Make sure you remember to complete the end of lesson quiz.