Hello, my name is Ms. Grant.

I'm so glad you've decided to learn with me today.

We are in a "World at War" Short Stories Unit.

Today we are going to read a fantastic short story, called "Propping Up The Line" by Ian Beck.

It's set in the trenches of World War I.

First things first, we need a copy of that short story, and you will find it in the 2014 Edition of "Stories of World War I" edited by Tony Bradman.

So I'd like you to pause the video and go and find your 2014 Edition of "Stories of World War I" edited by Tony Bradman, where we will find "Propping Up The Line," which is our focus for today's lesson.

So pause the video and go and find your copy of "Propping Up The Line." Welcome back.

Now we all have our copies of "Propping Up The Line," we can get started.

So by the end of today's lesson, you're going to be able to explain what happens in "Propping Up The Line," including commenting on some of the choices Beck made.

So we're gonna read the full short story today.

I'm very excited to read the short story.

It's very, very beautifully crafted.

There are some powerful moments where we're really immersed in the trenches of World War I, but then we see the aftermath as well, when the Soldier, the main focus, a character called Alfred, returns Home.

There are some key words which are going to help unlock our learning today, and they're gonna help us achieve our objective.

And they are third person narrative, short story, Wilfred Owen, and Simile.

Let's go through their definitions.

Third person narrative.

This is when a person telling the story isn't a character in the story and tells us about the characters using their names or she, he, they.

And "Propping Up The Line" is written with third person narrative.

Short story.

This is a fictional text which is shorter than a novel and can often be read in one sitting.

A writer might focus on one event or linked events and evoke a particular tone or mood, and "Propping Up The Line" is a short story.

Wilfred Owen, he's a British soldier and poet, 1893 to 1918.

He's best known for his poems about World War I.

You might have read some of his poetry already or heard of this famous poet.

And we're going to look at one of his poems today in conjunction with "Propping Up The Line," Ian Beck's short story.

And then similarly is our final keyword for today.

And this is a language technique whereby a writer describes something by comparing it to something else, using like or as.

And we'll see Ian Beck uses lots of similes in his short story.

We're gonna consider, where can we find them? And then we're gonna push ourselves.

We're gonna think, well, what is the effect of these similes? So these are our key words for today, and they're gonna help us achieve our objective.

Our lesson outline.

We're going to start off by reading section one of "Propping Up The Line, " showing our thorough understanding of that first section.

And then we're gonna finish off today's lesson reading section two of "Propping Up The Line.

So by the end of today's lesson, we will have read the full short story.

Let's start off by reading section one.

Today we are going to read the whole of Ian Beck's short story "Propping Up The Line.

Beck starts his short story with an author's note explaining his motivations and inspirations for writing it.

I'd like you to read the author's note, which can be found on page 42 of "Stories of World War I.

And then I would like you to discuss what motivated Beck to write this short story and what can you predict about its plot or tone.

Pause a video and complete these tasks now.

Welcome back.

It's always really, really nice, I think, to have an author's note before a short story just to understand their motivations, why they decided to write.

It gives us a bit of an insight before we go into the story.

And it was really nice to hear some of these discussions, some of your predictions about what we might find in the story.

So we know that this is a personal story for Beck, that his grandfather, a man called Alfred, was gassed in the trenches of World War I and it impacted him at the time when it happened.

Obviously, it was an incredibly serious event.

But what Beck is interested also in exploring is the long-term effects that it had on his grandfather, both emotionally and physically.

So in the short story, we know we are going to find, yes, a character.

We know that Beck, he says that he's used quite a lot of invention in his story, but it is based on his grandfather himself.

And Beck wants to celebrate his grandfather's life and the sacrifice that he made.

Now, Beck writes a short story using a third person omniscient narrator.

Let's have a look at this phrase in a bit more detail.

So third person omniscient narrator, third person, the narrator uses she, he, and they, rather than I, the person telling the story is not a character in the story.

Omniscient, the narrator is all-knowing about the events and the characters.

And finally, narrator, a third person narrator might focus more on one character's experience in this short story.

And in this case it is the character of Alfred.

So he's the main character, but Beck is not embodying this character, not using I, but instead using a third person omniscient narrator.

Now I'd like you to discuss why might Beck have chosen this particular narrative voice? You could consider how the story will be different if he'd chosen to use first person.

So when Beck sat down to write the short story, this is one of probably the first, one of the first choices that he had to make, which narrative voice shall I choose? And he's gone for third person.

So we can interrogate this choice a little bit.

We can think, well, why has he chosen third person? So I'd like you to discuss why might Beck have chosen this narrative voice? Pause the video and discuss question now.

Welcome back after a really interesting discussion about one of these choices that Beck has made.

Some people saying, well, this third person narrative voice, it means that we know that we're going to be looking at Alfred's time in the trenches in this particular gas attack, but we also know we're going to be looking at the long-term effects.

So maybe it didn't just affect Alfred but also affected his family.

So we're going to see some of the effects on his family as well.

And that means third person narrative voice will be really useful because maybe we'll be able to enter in and see some of these characters as well.

And then others saying, "Well, this may be offers a little bit of distance.

Now, Beck wants to honour his grandfather's sacrifice.

He wants to celebrate his life, but maybe he feels I need that little bit of distance from my grandfather because I have had to do quite a lot of this through invention, the trenches of World War I are obviously an incredibly intense experience and maybe capturing that with I will not be the best way to celebrate his experiences.

I need tot think of this as a story, not something I experienced myself.

So a little bit of distance there as well through this third person narrative voice.

Now, a check for understanding before we move on to reading the first section of our short story.

Beck embodies the character of Alfred in "Propping Up The Line", pretending he is his grandfather in the trenches of World War I.

Is this true or false? Pause a video and select your response now.

Well done if you selected false, now I'd like you to justify your answer.

Is it a, Beck chooses a third person narrative voice using I and me, but keeping a distance from his grandfather's innermost thoughts? Or is it Beck chooses a third person narrative voice, but Alfred's experience is the one we hear the most about, he is the focus? Pause the video and select your justification now.

Well done if you selected b.

So Beck chooses a third person narrative voice.

But Alfred indeed, Alfred's experience is the one we hear the most about.

He is the focus.

So we are now going to read lines one to 179 of "Propping Up The Line." This can be found on pages 43 all the way through to 49 of "Stories of World War I." And after you've read, I would like you to answer these questions.

There are five of them.

We've got, why do you think Alfred decides to kill the rat? What similes does Alfred use to describe the corpses he sees? What are Alfred and Jonesey asked to do and why? What happens to Jonesey and what happens to Alfred? So I can see you've all got your copies of "Propping Up The Line." Fantastic.

Really enjoy reading through this first section.

And then after you have read, I'd like you to answer these questions, pause the video and complete these tasks now.

Welcome back.

It was beautiful to hear everyone reading through that short story, some people choosing to read in their head, some people choosing to read out loud and just to hear the understanding coming through, through your intonation and through your discussion of these five questions.

Well done.

Now I'd like to look a little bit closer at question two.

Now here's Sophia's answer to question two, which was, what similes does Alfred use to describe the corpses he sees? Now, she's got three answers.

Alfred compares the bodies to tiny bits of tea in a strainer.

Alfred compares the bodies to meat you might see in a butcher's.

And Alfred compares the bodies to clothes drying on a line.

So three very graphic similes here to describe the corpses in no man's land.

I'd like you to discuss, just select one of these similes and explain what you think Beck is trying to convey about what Alfred is seeing.

Pause the video and discuss this question now.

Welcome back, a really lovely, thoughtful discussion there about the effect of these similes.

These similes, they come in quick succession in the story and it's a character trying to make sense of what he sees in no man's land.

And it was actually nice to hear that discussion of all of these comparisons are actually to things that are quite domestic things that Alfred experienced in his home life.

And perhaps the experience in the trenches is so alien to him that he's struggling to understand it and that's why he falls back on these particular images.

So Beck here trying to say, trying to talk about the inhumanity or the incomprehensibility of no man's land and therefore having his character try to refer back to things that he does know in order to understand his experience.

Now, I heard lots of people selecting this second simile, this idea that the men or the corpses that Alfred sees remind him of something he might see in the butcher's shop.

And that this similarly is really used to convey the inhumanity of war and the idea that these people, these people who are people like you and me who have hopes and dreams and desires, they have been turned into nothing more but meat by by war.

So an incredibly powerful simile here.

And you can see that Beck is really trying to grapple with the idea of World War I and all of its horror.

So these three similes, as I say, in quick succession, all trying to convey the horror and perhaps Alfred's incomprehensibility, he can't quite understand what he's seeing in front of him.

Okay, we've read that first section of "Propping Up The Line." I know that you are eager to start on the next section and to see what happens to Alfred in the rest of the stories.

We're gonna move on to section two.

Now, research tells us that about 3% of people in World War I immediately died of breathing in poisonous gas.

And we've just read section one of "Propping Up The Line." We know there is a gas attack, we know that Jonesey dies immediately from that gas attack.

And here we've got the statistic that about 3% of people in World War I immediately died if they breathed in poisonous gas.

Now, however, for those who survived, there were long-term physical and psychological effects of enduring a gas attack.

So of course lucky to escape immediate death.

But it is important to consider that there were long-term physical and psychological effects of these gas attacks.

Now I'd like you to reread the section in which Beck describes the gas attacks.

I think he's trying to capture here what the long-term physical and psychological effects could be.

You'll find this on page 48 of "Stories of World War I" in that short story "Propping Up The Line" and its lines 155 to 166 that I would like you to reread and I would like you to discuss after you've reread that section, what long-term effects might Alfred face following this event? So a bit of a prediction activity before we move into section two of our story.

So pause the video, reread this section in which Beck describes the gas attack, and then answer the question, have a discussion, what long-term effects might Alfred face following this event? Pause the video and complete these tasks now.

Welcome back.

Thank you for completing that rereading of that short section of the short story with such energy and returning to it in the way that we should as students of English literature.

The idea that reading of course is always a really enjoyable activity the first time thinking, what's going to happen? How is this character going to develop? But short stories, novels, any text is really worth going back to and rereading to try and think, well, what are some of the decisions that the writer has made? And can I think about the effects of those decisions? Now our discussion question was about the long-term effects Alfred might face following this event.

And I heard lots of people saying, well, he did breathe in a little bit of the gas.

It obviously did have a physical effect on him.

So perhaps he's going to face some lung damage in his future.

But the way in which this gas attack is described is particularly graphic, a particularly brutal moment of the short story.

And so this image maybe will haunt him as he moves into the rest of his life.

So we've got physical and psychological effects of this gas attack.

Now, many writers convey the horror of gas.

I'd like you to read two stanzas of one of Wilfred Owen's most famous poems in which he describes a gas attack.

And he writes, "Gas! Gas! Quick, boys.

An ecstasy of fumbling, fitting the clumsy helmets just in time.

But someone still was yelling out and stumbling, and floundering like a man in fire or lime.

Dim through the misty pains and thick green light as under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, he plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning." Now I'd like you to discuss.

We've got Wilfred Owen here, a poet who is famous for his unflinching portrayal of the brutality of trench warfare of World War I.

And he here in this particular poem is looking at a gas attack.

Now, Beck, many, many decades later, also wants to convey the horror of gas.

So it's something that writers return to, something that through their writing, they try to understand.

Now, I'd like you to discuss what do Owen and Beck both convey about the horror of gas? You've just read Beck's Short.

We reread that section with the gas attack.

What similarities can you see between Owen and Beck? What are they both conveying about the horror of gas? Pause the video and discuss this question now.

Welcome back after a really nice discussion, thinking about Beck's short story and Owen's poem, not just in isolation, but thinking here we've got two writers who are exploring the same thing.

What can we see in terms of their similarities? How can we deepen our understanding of what it is they're actually trying to convey? Now, Owen's poem, just like Beck's short story, really explores the speed with which you need to respond to a gas attack.

It's terrifying.

You need to get your gas helmet on it.

If you don't, you know that you will be horribly impacted by the gas, perhaps even killed.

And so this phrase, "An ecstasy of fumbling." So that idea of that speed and the idea that you are sometimes quite clumsy when you're trying to do things quickly, and particularly when you are scared.

And some people focused on this idea, this phrase, "I saw him drowning." And you can see that Owen repeats that phrase twice.

And actually Beck tries to explore something similar.

The idea that even though it's gas, we're not underwater, the idea that the death would be akin to something like drowning because your lungs fill with fluid.

So this kind of verb, the idea of drowning in this quite strange place because we are on land.

So both of Owen, both Owen and Beck really try and convey the brutality of this particular type of weapon and the fear that it brings or evoked in soldiers.

So we've got these two examples here and a really nice exploration you engaging in that discussion about, well, what are both of these writers trying to convey in very different forms? We've got a short story in a poem.

Those are very different types of texts, but both of them have some commonality in the way, or what they're trying to express about this gas attack.

Now we check for understanding before we read section two of "Propping Up The Line." I'd like you to complete these sentence stems. We've got gas attacks had long-term effects on people because, gas attacks had long-term effects on people but, and gas attacks had long-term effects on people so.

I'd like you to pause the video and complete the sentence stems, pause the video now.

Welcome back.

Well done for completing those sentence stems, showing your understanding of this gas attack, which is a central focus of Beck's story.

So gas attacks had long-term effects on people because of the physical and psychological damage inflicted.

And we've got some hints about that through the character of Alfred and through the presentation of the gas attack, gas attacks had long-term effects on people, but about 3% of people were killed immediately.

So well done for remembering that statistic and gas attacks had long-term effects on people.

So many writers try to present its horrors and understand what its victims experienced.

And we've seen that by exploring not just in Beck's short story, but also Wilfred Owen's poem.

Okay, we're gonna move on to our final practise task.

We're going to read the final section of "Propping Up The Line." So I would like you to read lines 180 to the end of "Propping Up The Line." This is pages 49 to 64 in "Stories of World War I." And I would like you to answer the question, we've got four questions this time.

So Alfred has a family.

Explain who each person is.

Why does Alfred feel he can't tell his family what he experienced in the war? What similes does Beck use to describe how he will never speak of his time in France? So in learning cycle one, we looked at the similes that explored his time in no man's land in the trenches.

And now we're going to look at the similes the Beck uses to try and explore his time at home when Alfred has returned home.

What are the long-term effects of Alfred breathing in gas during the attack? And finally, why do you think the story is called "Propping Up The Line?" So we've got a range of questions here somewhere.

You're going to have to find that information, the accuracy of that information.

For example, question one.

But why is a story called "Propping Up The Line?" This will be more exploratory.

And I'm really interested to hear some of your ideas about why you think this short story is called "Propping Up The Line." So pause the video, enjoy reading the final section of this short story and then answering the questions, pause the video and complete the tasks now.

Welcome back.

Really lovely to hear people finishing that short story and having that sense of completion of a whole text read and some really, really thorough understanding of not just the comprehension, what happened in this story, who are the characters, but also some evaluations, some exploration through questions two and four.

Let's do some feedback for question two.

So here's Sophia's answer to question two.

We're looking at her exploration of similes again.

And the question was, why does Alfred feely can't tell his family what he experienced in the war? What similes does Beck use to describe how he will never speak of his time in France? Well, Sophia has written, "Alfred feels he can't share the horror of his time in the trenches.

He doesn't want to share its brutal reality, but he also thinks he might not be believed.

Alfred feels he must suppress and hide his deepest emotions and memories.

He uses two similes comparing his silence to a cold piece of meat or to his friend Jonesey," which is on lines 341 to two.

And it's page 55 of your short story.

Now I'd like you to discuss.

Again, I'd like you to select one of these similes.

This is one of the methods that we've had a real focus on during this lesson.

And explain what you think Beck is trying to convey about Alfred's feelings.

Pause the video and discuss the question now.

Welcome back.

Really nice to hear people really unpacking those similes.

So a simile, in some ways, it can feel quite complicated at points because you're comparing one thing to another.

You've got to hold those two things in your mind, but really, writers often use them to try and help us understand a particular event by comparing it to something else.

And here Beck has done just that.

So lots of people looking at this idea, well, a cold piece of meat.

That is what Alfred is comparing his memories to, what he needs to do with his memories.

So he needs to leave them dormant.

He cannot bring them out into the light.

He cannot show them, he needs to keep them hidden.

And that actually is very poignant, very sad, this feeling that Alfred has to go through the rest of his life not sharing with his family, with those he's closest to, one of the most intense experiences of his life.

And then others saying, well, this reference to Jonesey, this comparison to Jonesey shows just how important this memory will be for him.

So he sees someone who he knew, who he cared about, who was incredibly young, die in front of him.

And the idea that Alfred's mind flicks back to Jonesey and uses him as a comparison shows just how this memory will haunt him.

It's always sort of at his fingertips.

He's always slightly thinking about it.

So two different explorations of why these similes, or the impact of these similes in this short story.

In summary, "Propping Up The Line" is a short story by Ian Beck written using a third person narrative voice.

Beck was inspired to write the story to honour his grandfather who was gassed in the trenches during World War I.

Gas attacks killed about 3% of people immediately.

There were long-term physical and psychological effects for those who survived gas attacks.

Many people who write about World War I try to convey the horrors of gas attacks in their work.

It's been such a pleasure to read this short story with you today and I look forward to seeing you next time.