Curriculum Online - Section One

2. GENERAL APPROACH

1. Comprehending and composing

The study of English as outlined by the syllabus consists in developing understanding and skill in these two broad domains of activity.

Comprehending

This term is inclusive of a range of receptive skills. It denotes the ability to:

Read, listen and view as appropriate
Understand texts at literal and inferential levels
Interpret and evaluate texts
Question texts
Understand how texts work
Identify their genre.

Composing

This term is inclusive o f a range o f expressive/communicative skills. It denotes the ability to:

Speak, write and shape texts as appropriate, e.g. explore experiences in a range of genres, give expressive shape to personal viewpoints
Imitate models appropriately and creatively
Shape texts in various genres
Research and prepare relevant materials
Develop a process approach to composing texts within the various genres. This would mean developing strategies in the areas o f pre-writing, drafting, redrafting, editing and proof-reading.

FOCUS NOTE:

In developing these skills students must encounter as far as is possible materials and subjects which interest them and give a sense of the real world. Growth in expertise in the use and understanding of language is only achieved when the students feel they are engaging in real acts of comprehension and composition and not simply 'practising' or participating in 'dummy runs' of language use. Making it real is one of the most difficult challenges an English teacher faces.

2. General approaches and methodologies for developing languageskills

Basic steps recommended:

Pre-reading

Create context and then present text(s) in specific genre.

In choosing texts to suit a class teachers should ask two questions:

Will the content or viewpoint of this text interest the class?
What comprehension and composition skills can be taught through the encounter with this text?

This means that before any texts are introduced there will be a preparatory session focused on the general topic of the texts. Students should be encouraged to air their views, speculate, question and raise issues and problems. The texts are then introduced as contributions to this class discussion.

Reading

Discuss and analyse as is appropriate to the class. It is important that teachers explicitly teach the comprehending skills itemised in the syllabus. Students need to be shown how to read texts for a variety of purposes. While context and content have been stressed the teaching must emphasise ultimately the process of interpreting and making meaning. Students need to be introduced to a variety of 'text attack skills' which develop their ability to read in an advanced manner. See Resource Materials, Section A. 1 for further commentary on reading skills.

Re-reading

The art of reading is in re-reading. Students should be given some assignments which demand a close re-reading of the text for a variety of purposes. Such purposes could be related to interpretations or details in the text or might arise from the contexts of either critical literacy or language awareness. The vital consideration is that the students feel that the re-reading has a real purpose.

Post reading.., preparation for writing

Use chosen text(s) or aspect of text(s) as stimulus and model for the students' own composition assignment. Outline model clearly; indicate characteristic aspects of language use and structure within the model of the genre. (Teacher should present text written by self or student to reinforce the model.)

% Composing

'I can't write without a reader. It's precisely like a kiss ... you can't do it alone.' (john Cheever)

Give assignment and engage students in the processes of

Pre-writing: brainstorming, class/group discussion, research, reflecting on the nature of the challenge posed by the model/genre proposed.
Drafting: writing freely to get a flow of ideas underway; trying out paragraphs, viewpoints, testing different angles and approaches, arranging in a preliminary structure relating to the genre, consulting with peers and teacher.
Redrafting: deciding on best arrangement of content and ensuring structure is cohesive, writing in register needed, finalising paragraphs and adapting and shaping to genre.
Editing: Rereading to ensure that there is clarity of thought and appropriateness of language in all aspects of the text.
Proof-reading: Rereading to check on punctuation, spelling and grammar.

FOCUS NOTE:

Word processing e teaching o f composition an~ 2ess approach to writing advoc us. The wordprocessor's facil proof-reading which is where t text and gives the student a se~

Evaluating composition

It should be made clear to the students what criteria of evaluation will be employed in relation to any composition they write. At all times it must be remembered that the student is learning to write and to compose and therefore respect for the student's own creativity should be given priority as is deemed appropriate. Whereas, for example, the criteria might be strictly applied in the context of such genres as reports and formal letters, more discretion would be required in the context o f poetry and personal narrative.

Evaluation may not always entail giving a grade. But it does entail giving more than just a grade in terms o f commentary and response. Positive feedback in the form of some dialogic comment reassures the student that communication is taking place.

3. NEW PERSPECTIVES

1. Text and genre

The concepts of text and genre are fundamental to this syllabus. While these terms have been usually associated with literary criticism they have in contemporary language studies broadened their meanings. They can now be used to refer to any communicative product, oral, written or visual. Letters, reports, newspaper articles, political speeches, films, poems, novels, etc., can all be described as texts and treated as exemplars of a specific language genre or a combination o f genres.

This should not be taken to mean that all texts are of equal value. An advertisement for chocolate and a Shakespearean sonnet can both be described as texts because they are both linguistic events or language artefacts. This does not imply that they are of equal cultural status.

All texts are produced within certain genres. A genre can be defined as a form of language use, a language-shape created by a specific communicative situation. Any communicative situation is influenced by a number of factors which vary in their operations and effects.

These factors are:
(i) The speaker/writer ........................................ WHO?
(ii) The receiver/audience ................................... TO WHOM?
(iii) The purpose of the communication ............. WHY?
(iv) The relationship between (i) and (ii) ........... WHAT CONTEXT?

These factors will determine the following attributes of a text:

vocabulary and register.., the kind of words used.
syntax . . , the organisation of the words within the sentences.
style . . , the overall management of the language.
tone . . , the stance and attitude of the writer/speaker.
structure.., the internal organisation of the text.
format . . , the external layout of the text.

This can be illustrated as follows:

1. The linguistic attributes of a letter are determined by whether it is either

a letter of condolence
or, a letter of application for a job
or, a letter to a personal friend.

Each o f these letters can be described as a different genre largely determined by its social context.

2. The linguistic attributes of an argumentative text will be determined in a similar way, depending on whether it is either,

a legal argument
or, a scientific argument
or, a political argument
or, a private argument.

Again each of these can be seen as constituting a different genre with its own necessary conditions to be observed if communication is to be effective.

Focus Note

While genres are significant in shaping effective communication in society they are neither absolute in their elements nor mutually exclusive. Language is always evolving and genres change and develop; likewise within any one text there can be a mixture of genres present. Furthermore creative writers in a variety of areas continually adapt, change and develop genres in their attempts to adequately render their experiences into words. However, for students learning to write in preparation for entering adult society basic competence in a number of communicative genres is essential. This does not mean a submissive encounter with a rigid linguistic formula but rather dialectical interaction between students' experience and socially approved genre structures and forms. Genres are best seen as forms of structural scaffolding which help the student to organise and define but do not determine the voice, quality or content of the final text.

Exemplar activity

Identifying the genre of texts and outlining their linguistic attributes.

Read the following text:

The door of a car banged open and a man about seven feet high and four feet wide jumpedout of it, took one look at Agostino, then one long stride, and grabbed him by the throatwith one hand.How many times have I gotta tell you cheap hoods not to hang around where I eat?' he roared.He shook Agostino and hurled him across the sidewalk against the wall. Chick crumpledup, coughing.'Next time, ' the enormous man yelled, 'I sure as hell will put the blast on you, and believeme, boy, you'll be holding the gun when they pick you up.'Chick shook his head and said nothing. The big man gave me a raking glance andgrinned. 7Vice night,' he said and strolled into Victor's.I watched Chick straighten himself out and regain some of his composure. 'Who's yourbuddy?' I asked him.'Big Willie Magoon,' he said thickly. 'A vice squad bimbo. He thinks he's tough.''You mean he isn't sure?' I asked him politely.He looked at me emptily and walked away. Igor my car out of the lot and drove home . . .

Q · Commentary

This is a dramatic narrative, full of action, surprise and threat. It has an ironic viewpoint and humorous tone which adds further interest. It is written to entertain a general audience and is typical of the genre of the American detective thriller.

The attributes of the language of this genre are evident throughout this extract, e.g.,

Lively physical verbs . . . banged, jumped, grabbed, hurled, crumpled.
Exaggerated description . . . Seven feet high and four feet wide.
American words, idioms and slang . . . hoods, sidewalk, I sure as hell, put the blast,buddy, bimbo, lot.
Quick, short dialogue.
American names . . . Chick, Agostino.
Straightforward syntax and sentence structure.

Now read the following extracts and identify the genre of each one by applying these questions:

Who wrote this text . . , what kind o f writer.., poet, novelist, scientist, reporter, student, etc?
For whom was it written . . , what audience was targeted?
Why was it written . . , to inform, to persuade, to narrate, to instruct, to entertain, a combination of these?
What are the main linguistic attributes of this text? What kinds of words, register, syntax, structure does it have?

Text A

· . . After the seaweed factory the Way turns inland and briefly follows the edge of thelimestone terrace, below which is a gully, sheltering a lush and profuse growth ofwildflowers and orchids. Soon a boreen is met that curves around to meet the white sandybeach at Port Mhuirbhigh. In the distance the stone fort of DiSh Aonghasa can be seenrising from the clifflop on the Jar side of the island. Inis Mdr is only O. 75 km (0.5m) wideat this point, and it is said that during a storm in the seventeenth century the sea cameover the southern cliffs and briefly bisected the island.

Text B

When Hubert and I were children and after we grew up we lived at Temple Alice. TempleAlice had been built by Mummy's ancestor, before he inherited his title and estates. He builtthe house for his bride, and he gave it her name· Nouz the title extinct and the estatesentirely dissipated, Temple Alice, after several generations as a dower house, came toMummy when her mother died. Papa farmed the miserably few hundred acres thatremained of the property. Mummy loved gardening. On fine days she would work in thewoodland garden, taking the gardener away from his proper duties among the vegetables.On wet days she spent hours of time in the endless, heatless, tumbling down glasshouses,which had once sheltered peaches and nectarines and stephanotis. One vine survived-she knew how to prune and thin its grapes, muscatels. Papa loved them.

(Text A: From a walks guidebook: Text B: From an autobiography)

See Language ResourceMaterials, Section A.2, formore exercises on genre.

This type of reflection and analysis leads to a richer sense of what is known as language awareness·

H Language Awareness/Knowledge about language

These terms refer to the aim of developing in students a reflective capability about their own use of language and the language use of others. It is common for mother-tongue users to have little awareness of how they make meaning in their own language. In general they instinctively respond to a communicative need. This shows that they have internalised the rules and processes of making meaning in words. These rules and processes can be described as grammar; learning a mother-tongue involves unconsciously internalising the grammar of a language. Developing language awareness means helping students to become conscious o f what they already know about language and then attempting to build on that.

The raising of language awareness does not imply a study of grammar in the traditional prescriptive way. The traditional 'dry-as-dust' approach to grammar, the decontextualised study of the rules of syntax and punctuation, sentence construction, parsing and analysis, has been shown to be detrimental to the development of fluency in the writing of composition and clearly would be equally so in an oral context.

Language awareness development is predicated on the study and understanding of language in use in real communicative or expressive contexts. These guidelines advocate strongly a text-based approach, which foregrounds how meaning is created through actual usage in specific texts.

What should students know about language?

They should know:

how language works, how words are selected and organised in patterns to make meaning in a variety of contexts
how language use is largely determined by social, cultural, political values and structures
how to talk about language use in an appropriate terminology by developing what is called a meta-language, i.e. a language to talk about language use.

In specific terms this means developing an understanding and a facility with such terms and concepts as: context, text, genre, audience, tone, style and register. These terms and concepts describe the situation which produced the text, the social and cultural structures which were operative in shaping the text. This has been described as constituting what is called macro-language awareness. But since this is an awkward phrase the term contextawareness will be substituted for it in these guidelines

Also students need to understand and be able to use such terms and concepts as: syntax phrase, sentence, paragraph, thesis, tense, parts of speech (nouns, verbs, adjectives . . .), punctuation marks (capitals, full stops, commas). This has been described as constituting what is called micro-language awareness, knowing and understanding how the 'nuts and bolts' of a specific text are actually working to create meaning. Instead of micro-language awareness, the phrase text awareness will be used here.

In attempting to develop language awareness teachers should try to abide by the basic methodological principle of seeing students' own texts as the most suitable and appropriate resources on which to focus. This does not exclude using other texts but the emphasis should be very much the other way.

Exemplar activity

Using a student's text to develop language awareness.

ESCAPE

There is a man more feared than God in our world today; Aman with the intelligence of Flipper the Dolphin, Skippy theKangaroo and Bubbles the Chimp collectively; the governmentseek him out, the FBI cannot find him and the Kilally Gardaiare up for assault.A top marksman, fluent in two and a half languages he hasfive known identities. A computer expert with a flair for theunknown. He is regarded as an incalculable liability, a riskt o society and a dangerous enemy.You may ask, why? What has this man done? And why can no-one find him? Theanswers my friend are simple. No one can find him because once spotted he disappears asfast as dog food under a rottweiller's nose. The betrayal of a trust is why he is a wantedman. Loyalty was thrust aside when he realised blackmail was where the money wasmade.What knowledge he has annihilates civilisation. The only man to uncover the greatestcover-up. However, he still remains as cool as a fridge and as controlled as a microwave,the ultimate kitchen utensil.A warrant for two million has made a tasty morsel. Thepapers call him Mr. Z, butthat's only because Mr X already exists.You probably wonder how I know so much and why I am telling you. It is because thisman owes. He owes me more than he thinks. He believes his true identity is a mystery but only I know. I live with him. Sneaking and skulking about at night does not go unnoticed.I know everything. Why shouldn't I?When he is sitting under the kitchen table at six-thirty the enemy pound down the stairs. Itkstill dark outside and I am about to put an end to this abominable behaviour. Taking apart spyheadquarters where my son escapes to is amazing. I never knew the limits of a six-year-oldk mind.The delusions of his imagination are way beyond comprehension. He has travelledthrough space on an exercise bike. Did a round trip of the world from under the sink. Hehas discovered Atlantis i n the bathtub and lives life with more energy than he burns.Yesterday King Kong paid us a visit and broke the lamp shade. Last week Godzillacame to tea and broke a mug.While I put him back to bed that morning he told me of the great adventures he had hadwith the FBI when they called at five o'clock. My son has escaped all the troubles of the worldand visited the great monuments of life. He has never left the grounds of our home.

Commentary

This composition is quite typical of much writing produced at Senior Cycle level: it is fluent and displays a certain liveliness in approach and style. However, as there is no audience or genre specified it is difficult to assess its overall quality. It initially appears to lack unity and cohesiveness (i.e. effective linkages within sentences, paragraphs and overall text).

Questions that could be asked about this text to develop context awareness:

Who is the writer? Is it the student herself or has she adopted a deliberate,authorial voice for a particular end in mind?
What particular audience is being addressed?
What genre is being used?
Narrative or non-narrative?
What context of communication is envisaged?

There are no definite answers to these questions. This is to be expected since the student offers no specifications of any kind. One could speculate and suggest that it is a type of popular journalism aimed at a general audience, an attempt at ironic humour in a magazine piece.

Having established some possible answers about this piece o f writing some further work could be done b y focusing on the issue o f text awareness. A specific area of the text could be selected for analysis. Here the first two 'paragraphs' will be considered.

FOCUS NOTE:

It is important that this approach is not seen as a negative, correcting exercise. On the contrary it is meant to focus on what the student has created in the text by the manner in which she has used language and it also suggests ways of making it even more effective.

There is a man more feared than God in our world today. A man with the intelligence ofFlipper the Dolphin, Skippy the Kangaroo and Bubbles the Chimp collectively. The governmentseek him out, the FBI cannot find him and the Kilally Gardai are up for assault.

A top marksman, fluent in two and a hall.l" languages he has five known identities. AcompuWr expert with affair for the unknown. He is regarded as an incalculable liability,a risk to society and a dangerous enemy.

Questions could focus on such topics as:

Use of the third person . . , man, he, him. What is the impact of this? Makes the figure depersonalised and remote. Is this useful in the context of the whole composition? What does it achieve . . , a comic, ironic effect perhaps? Sentence length and sentence linking . . , generally short, no linkages . . . What effect is achieved? Some o f the sentences are unconventional in having no verbs . . . should this be changed? Does it give a sense of lightness and movement which contributes to the playful quality of the writing? Paragraph structure.., short lists of descriptive phrases. . , little internal cohesion. What role are these 'paragraphs' playing? Punctuation... could it be revised to ensure more intelligibility? Tense . . . use of the present tense . . , what effect? Is it maintained?

These questions seek to point out what is achieved b y writing the text in this way: thus the student is encouraged to reflect on her use of language, her selection of words and her implicit decisions about a variety of things and whether it is worth considering alternative approaches which might make the text more effective.

What is important for students to learn in this work is that the social context, genre and audience largely determines what is most appropriate and effective in the areas o f register, of syntax, of sentences. In this particular example it is difficult to assess the success of the piece since the context is not specified. This also makes it difficult to assess the composition on any specific criteria since it is not clear why it was written and what purpose it was meant to achieve.

See Resource Materials,Section A.3 for moreexemplars of students' texts.

III Critical literacy

As indicated in the rationale (p.8) this new perspective focuses on developing students' critical thinking skills applied to a range o f texts in a variety of genres. Developing students' ability to think critically has always been central to literary study at Leaving Certificate level. Critical literacy is a development o f that traditional emphasis and an enlargement o f its scope.

What are critical thinking skills?

In popular parlance the term 'critical' has become identified with a negative response or appraisal; this is an unfortunate reductionist interpretation of the term. In the present context the term 'critical' involves the following components and activities:

Identifying and challenging assumptions in texts
Recognizing the centrality of context and culture in determining the way texts represent and shape experience
Imagining and exploring alternatives in all contexts
Developing a reflective scepticism relative to absolute and general statements.

FOCUS NOTE:

These are advanced thinking skills and will need to be approached in a progressive and developmental manner. Successful learning o f these skills will take time; it will involve giving students confidence in their own perceptions and speculations and introducing them to a series of strategies for comprehending and interpreting texts.

Critical literacy: what is i t in practice?

From the viewpoint of critical literacy

Texts are seen as language constructs which are embedded in specific cultural assumptions and practices.
As a result texts participate in ways of structuring society, in attributing significance and power to particular groups and activities and possibly disempowering others.
Therefore texts seek to position the reader, to persuade the reader to see the world in a particular way.
Critical literacy enables the reader to resist the 'persuasiveness' of a text, perceive from whence it is coming in terms of values and assumptions, enter into dialogue and ultimately assess these values and assumptions.

In a specific way approaching texts from a critical literacy viewpoint involves asking these three broad questions:

Why was this text written?
How was this text written?
Are there other ways of writing this text?

Each of these general areas of inquiry divide into an array of more precise questions which will emerge in the exemplars that follow.

Exemplar 1: Names, syntax and inequity

Applying the three guide questions to the following simple text let us see what is the outcome.

In Memory of Daniel and Mrs. Harrington

This inscription is written underneath a large crucifix which was donated to a church in the late nineteenth century.

1 Why was the text written? To commemorate and honour two people (husband and wife) who had died.

2 How is the text written? It is written in a rhetorical, declarative phrase which communicates effectively although it is not a complete sentence. However, if we look more closely at the selection and ordering of the words, at the construction of the text, some interesting patterns become evident.

The man is given a personal name (Daniel), the woman is not; she is identified only in her relationship (as wife) with him, i.e. Mrs. Harrington. The reader could speculate on why the woman's personal name was not used. Is it because she only had significance and status in her role as the wife o f Daniel? The text positions the reader to see her in this way.
The same stance is reinforced by the syntax (the word order) of the inscription. Daniel is placed before his wife, thus emphasising his precedence and power.
Since the cultural context of this text is the late nineteenth century in Ireland these attributes of the relationships between the sexes within marriage is not surprising.
What this short analysis demonstrates is how the language use and the construction of the text is a direct reflection of those attributes and the value systems they incorporate.

3 Are there other ways of writing this text? Consider the following options. Which of these would have been acceptable and unacceptable to Daniel? Which would be acceptable and unacceptable today?

In Memory of Mrs and Mr Harrington
In Memory of Daniel and Mary Harrington
In Memory of Daniel Harrington and Mary O'Shea, Husband and Wife
In Memory of Mary and Daniel

Each of these (and others that could be imagined) embody in their selection and ordering of words a view of the roles of men and women in society and the source of their identity and status. It would be a useful exercise to explicate these views in more detail.

Exemplar 2: Identifying structures of power in word usage

As indicated earlier a text carries, either explicitly or implicitly, statements about structures of authority and power in society. These statements will be reflected in the way words are used in a text. A useful way of looking at a text from this perspective is as follows:

Who in the text are active, take initiative, and make decisions?
What kinds of words are associated with these people?
Who in the text appear as passive victims, as being powerless and manipulated?
What kinds of words are associated with these people?
Are people treated as individuals or as members of a group?
How are these groups identified?
What assumptions lie behind the attribution of identity to these groups?
What beliefs inform this article?
How could these beliefs be challenged?

Consider the following article in the light o f these questions.

Sexualisation and pre-teen girls

All of popular culture - magazines, books, films, videos, fashion and pop music - sendsout the message that sex is the most important thing in life and being sexy and sexuallyavailable is the only wayfor a girl to be successful in youth wrms, to be 'cool'. And the girlswho are getting the message- from the latest fashions and video releases- are now two,three, four years short of adolescence.

Which raises" many questions. Why is this" happening now when the public are more awareand anxious about child sexual abuse than ever before? What happens to the dynamics ofchild abuse when children have the waffoed ideas about sex that popular culture now givesthem? Where do such trends originate? And the burning question for parents: what eJyectis" this trend likely to have on girls? What about their psycho-sexual development as theymove into their teens and beyond?

The short answer is we don't know. This is a new trend which has not been researched butit seems likely that it is connected to the upsurge in poor body image and eating disordersnow being experienced by girls as young as eight. For the first time in history, children'searliest sexual imprinting is coming not fi'om a living person, or their own fantasies, butfrom a mass-produced, technologised and de-humanised version of sexuality...

7bough our culture is" saturated with sexual imageo~ that does not mean that anythinggoes. On the contrary, the range of that imagery is depressingly narrow and repetitive.Anybody who criticises popular culture risks being dismissed as reactionary and out oftouch but it is the culture itself which is reactionary. Music videos, for example, do notpush any limits; many of then, just bring the cliched imagery of pornography into themainstream. And feeding such imagery to young girls does not break any boundaries -rather; it helps to maintain a mainstream social order . . . Naomi Wolf, author of The Beauty Myth, contends that it is no accident that such images have proliferated in the erawhen women have made legal and political advancements.

(Adapted from an article entitled, 'Spice Girls, Sexualisation and pre-teen girls' by Ms Aine McCarthy, published in The Irish Times, January 20th, 1997)

Exemplar 3: The significance of cultural context

In attempting to comprehend texts, developing an awareness of their cultural context is vitally important. Without some knowledge of the Elizabethan view of the role of the monarch it is difficult to appreciate Shakespeare's history plays or indeed some of the great tragedies; likewise, if we do not know that Yeats lived in a time of revolutionary change in Ireland much of his work loses its impact.

In the light of the above comment it is of interest to look at the following poem:

The flowers left thick at nightfall in the woodThis Eastertide call into the mind the men,Now far from home, who, with their sweethearts,shouldHave gathered them and will do never again.

Initially read without a context it suggests a sense of the loss of youth and the sadness of separation and possibly death. What might have been is opposed to what inescapably is now the reality. A reader aware of the tradition of poetry might be able to identify the characteristic style of a period and the particular poetic voice. However the poem takes on added dimensions of pathos, tragedy and imaginative perspectives when the title is added and its particular cultural context given.

In Memoriam (Easter, 1915)

The flowers left thick at nightfall in the woodThis Eastertide call into the mind the men,Now far from home, who, with their sweethearts,shouMHave gathered them and will do never again. Edward Thomas

Now the poem has a keener edge. The contrast between the romantic landscape created here (springtime, Easter, flowers, lovers, richness of life) and the landscapes of the battle fields of the First World War creates a memorable and moving impact. By locating the poem in its historical moment its world impacts on ours with an increased energy. So it can be with all texts approached from the critical literacy perspective.

Exemplar 4: Narratives and closure

The manner in which narratives conclude (achieve closure) reveals how an author views the world, and can also indicate the cultural assumptions, social structures and political beliefs in which the narrative is embedded.

It has been said that most novels before the twentieth century ended in marriage, (implying, one assumes, that the lovers lived happily ever after), whereas most novels in the twentieth century begin with marriage and go on from there. This admittedly generalised comment does, however, point to a major cultural and social shift in relations between the sexes and the nature of marriage, reflected in narrative fiction and its modes of closure. For example, contrast the endings of novels by most eighteenth and nineteenth century novelists (Fielding, Austen, Dickens, and perhaps Eliot) with some of the fiction of this century, (Joyce, Lawrence, and Bellow), and the point has some merit.

In Frank O'Connor's The Guests of the Nation, the shooting of the two English hostages, Belcher and Hawkins, is a powerful statement on the dehumanising impact of war and extreme nationalism. Furthermore it destroys the stereotypes of the English and problematises the position of the Irish rebel which had been a staple element in nationalist propaganda. (This is one interpretation of the story. Are there other interpretations?)

It is a useful exercise to imagine a series of alternative endings to this story and then consider the respective impact each of these might have on the subtance of the story. In this way the choice which O'Connor made ultimately is thrown into relief and the apparent intention of his construct made evident.

Possible closures:

Belcher and Hawkins fight and are shot accidentally.
Noble sides with the hostages and helps them to escape.
Noble is courtmartialled and shot for his action.
The narrator and Noble plot to shoot Feeney and allow the hostages to escape.
They leave the nationalist movement and emigrate.
Noble visits Hawkins' mother and they become good friends.

Each o f these options could be explored from a variety o f perspectives, e.g.,

How does it affect the focus of the stow?
Is it true to the social and cultural context?
Is it romantic/realistic?
Is it true to the characters?
Is it forced on the stow?

Exemplar 5: Interpretative positions

In this context of narrative constructs and closures worthwhile illustrative work can be done with myths and fairy tales. Since most students will be familiar with versions of these narratives it would be interesting as a model of critical analysis to compare versions and point to changes of emphasis in the different versions which would reflect different social and cultural assumptions.

The original version of the mythical stoW of Oisin, Niamh and Tir na nOg is concerned with the issue of human mortality and the desire for immortality. It considers the realities of aging and death and accepts their inevitability in human life. The stoW in its original narrative shape and closure expressed this position. However, with the arrival of Christianity the closure of the stow was adjusted to give voice to a belief in the next life: Oisin is converted to Christianity and dies happily.

It is therefore possible to look at this legend and interpret it from a variety of positions. The interpretation that is made depends on the point of view of the reader. Here are some possible stances:

Psychological position: It is a stoW about coming to maturity. In Freudian terms it shows an individual psyche moving from the pleasure principle (escape, selfindulgence, pleasure, individuality) to the reality principle (duty, service, responsibility, application, work).
Feminist position: As usual in patriarchal societies this story shows a woman as the temptress. She is exhibited as beautiful and dangerous, remote from the real world, ever present to serve male need and bereft without the male. The woman is mainly passive, makes no significant decisions and therefore is seen as just a prop in the context of the hero's actions.
Christian position: Oisin was for many years a victim of pagan beliefs which provided no answers to the fundamental life questions. His conversion to Christianity saved his soul and enabled him to die contented in his new faith, sure of salvation and eternal life.

Adopting different perspectives on texts enables students to see how a variety of meanings can be found within them. This will hopefully encourage students to reflect and become aware of their own interpretative position and realize the relative nature of it. It should also emphasise that a text does not hold a specific decided meaning: meanings are generated through the encounter between the reader and the text. The need for dialogue is the vital component in establishing any meaning.

Exemplar 6: Visual/verbal texts

The approach of critical literacy is applicable to all texts, aural, written or visual. Its application to visual texts is most significant for the comparative study of film in the new syllabus. This will be considered more fully later in the section on film. Here a number of introductory comments will be applied to some visual materials, e.g. cartoons and illustrations. Many teachers will be already familiar with this from their teaching of the media in the Junior Certificate Course.

Like written texts, all visual texts are deliberate constructs. The political cartoon is a special genre or type of text. It combines visual and verbal aspects. It is recognised by its style of drawing (caricature) and its reference to current events. Its purpose is generally humourous and satiric. In examining political cartoons the following aspects should be considered:

Visual aspects: Persons present their caricatured representation and details of clothes and setting.
Verbal aspects: Use of slogans, comments and speech bubbles.
Context: Socio-political and media contexts, e.g. details of actual events and where they appear.

Consider the following cartoon in the light of this:

~Excuse me. Is this the environment?"

1. Visual aspects

Caricatures: The figures are readily recognisable as country and city folk. The simplified version of their appearance emphasises details which suggest a particular character image for each of them. The countryman is heavy and stolid, attired in the traditional garb of sheepskin coat, tweed hat and walking stick. He looks robust and healthy. Opposite him the city dwellers are spare and angular; the man's earring, stubbed face and ponytail associate him with a loosely identifiable social grouping such as the eco-warriors. The facial expressions convey their opposing attitudes very well. What kind of reply, for example, is the farmer likely to make to the question? The background against which the encounter takes place is vaguely rural but is quite deliberately plain and sparse.

2. Verbal aspects

The words in a political cartoon reinforce and anchor the meaning of the visual text. Here, the ironic position of the 'environmentalists' is presented through their comic inability to recognise that which they seek to protect for others and their view that the environment is something exclusively rural. How does this irony affect our perceptions of them? Are they likely to be very effective in this crusade?

What is the standpoint of the cartoonist here?

3. Political and media context

This cartoon appeared in the British satirical magazine Private Eye in the late 1980s during an upsurge in awareness of the importance of the countryside and a growing tension between the attitudes of city and country dwellers.