St Mary’s Book Group 2016 #2
Readings:
‘Before You Knew You Owned It’ by Alice Walker
Extract from Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Once again we had a very exhilarating session with every one bursting with enthusiasm to share their opinions on these 2 pieces. Even before Mr. Howard’s arrival there was an interesting exchange of ideas about what they thought of our choices.
Lottie’s lovely opening prayer thanking God for the gifts of creativity in authors’ poetry & prose the group started a flow of creative ideas & analytical skills in dissecting the readings. A few had gathered basic birthdates & countries of origin from Google, but unlike adults who might research numerous websites & literary reviews, every child contributed their own very diverse & original opinions on what Alice Walker & Joseph Conrad might be trying to convey to readers. So without being aware of Walker’s poor African-American ex-slave family heritage, several children developed the idea of accepting that a simple life is better than a complicated one. Her repetition of
“Expect nothing. Live frugally/ On surprise”
was interpreted as a clear expression of taking less from earth’s resources, because weighed against the scale of creation the “tiny human midget” is lucky to exist at all. Strong links were made to recent RE lessons on caring for the planet & each other, not selfishly wanting more & more for ourselves. While discovering figures of speech including oxymoron & paradox we somehow diverted to the Greek myth of the cyclops, Polyphemus?! Believe me all cross-curricular references feed relevantly into these discussions.
No one felt as positive about the Conrad extract which was a partial description of a perilous river journey through the Congo in the late 1800s.Everyone caught the narrator’s sense of isolation, fear, & doom & gloom from Conrad’s powerful imagery. A few people criticised his poor punctuation in complex sentences, but more significant were several assertions that both the description of the native Congolese & the apparently careless attitude to preserving individual lives was offensive to 21st century readers generally & our Years 5 &6 pupils in particular. The link between Christian/Catholic principles, human rights & British Values was strongly underlined.
As usual time ran out well before their ideas dried up, but a plea for something less serious next time will be considered. Watch this space!
Mary Norrish, Governor