Mrs Sanders - Hassan Confusion After The Framing

We have begun to write another essay, in which we need to write from Hassan's viewpoint. We need to write a narrative showing Hassan's bewilderment concerning the way Amir treated Hassan, when he framed him. We discussed and planned this essay in class, which we will continue at home. There was some confusion about what Hassan is exactly bewildered about, the incident or the framing, but we managed to clear this up by discussing it in class.

The Caretaker - Davies' Attitude to Aston

We began to look at another extract from a past paper. The question asked us about Davies' attitude towards Aston and it provided us with an extract, where Davies was complaining about Aston smiling at him, to Mick. It also showed how Aston had brought Davies a pair of shoes, but he seemed ungrateful and this was shown through Pinter's use of statements and questions. We began to answer the essay question and we were are going to finish it in our own time.

U.S President Kennedy Speech

We have begun to write an essay based on the techniques that Kennedy uses to convey his ideas to the audience. We discussed how to structure our first paragraph and what we needed to include within in it. From then we began to quote certain words and go into more detail about the terms Kennedy uses, such as strong verbs and abstract nouns. These types of words, such as "unite" and "war" inspire and motivate us, as an audience, which then makes us remember what Kennedy said later on. We are currently going to continue the essay at home, writing about things such as Kennedy's attitudes and the choice of vocabulary.

The Kite Runner - Chapter 23

We continued making notes on Chapter 23, concerning Amir's character. I think he doesn't truly get the redemption he seeks until the very last chapter, when he runs after the kite Sohrab wanted in a kite flying competition. As a group, we discussed the idea of the double filter of the narrative, in that we see the story through the authoritative Amir and then through the child. We came to the conclusion that from Chapter 10 onwards Amir begins to look back retrospectively, rather than the story being told through a double filter. Currently, we are continuing making notes on this chapter as it is quite important in the development of Amir's character and his journey to redemption.

Chapter 23- Amir in Hospital

We are now beginning to analyse Chapter 23, where Amir is in hospital, after being beaten by Assef. I began looking at how the narrative viewpoint changes and how it became broken and disjointed to begin with, which shows how Amir is falling in and out of consciousness. We looked at the difference in tone and feeling from Amir, in this chapter. Before the beating, Amir was a self-loathing character, but now I think he is slowly beginning to accept himself. I think he feels quite positive about what happened to him, because on some level he believed he deserved it. We are also analysing other techniques used, such as the way Amir asks himself so many questions when he's going in and out of consciousness.

Aston's character - The Caretaker

On the double lesson, on Monday, we began to write the essay involving Aston's character and how Pinter uses representations of speech and other dramatic techniques to present him. I used my notes that I had made previously and compared it to the last section of the last scene, where Aston stands up for himself and is generally more authoritative. Currently, I have almost completed the essay. I learnt, from previous essays, that it would be best not to quote in my first paragraph and I should write generally and then be more specific in my next few paragraphs.

Amir's Guilt-techniques

On Friday, we looked into incorporating key terms into our essays, so it would be clear what we were writing about. In GCSE, we didn't need to include key words, such as "metaphors" or "adjectives", but when analysing The Kite Runner, at A Level, we did, so as to explain out point in more detail. I started to change parts of my sentence structures, to add in the techniques Hosseini uses and I incorporated more of my ideas into the essay.