National Trust Structure

This week we have looked at the structure of National Trust.
Here's the PPT that we used in class.

National trust structure from MsCaldwell

Where are so far...

Right, I feel now is the time to make use of the blog!

So, we have been looking at Tony Harrison's National Trust. We first considered the meanings of National Trust. It first evokes images and thoughts of conservation, parks and listed buildings. We then dug a little deeper and considered the security in trust; that we trust that this institution will look after the country, the nation's best interests, and preserve what should be preserved. Here then, we considered the polysemic meaning of 'national trust'. After thinking about the title, the poem seemed to undermine our expectations of a thoroughly British, patriotic vision. 

The poem is here. 

Tony Harrison's poems are written to be listened to. What's the significance of them being listened to in a Northern accent?

We did some analysis of the poem. We'll do more of this. 

We then looked at one of the extracts from the critical anthology that you have for Unit 4: Marxism.

We reduced the reading down to a sentence per paragraph, word per paragraph, sentence for the complete reading and then a word.
As an overview, the sentences that we discussed in class were:

• Marxism continues to be relevant after the fall of communism as it allows an intellectual perspective that requires us to consider socio-economic circumstances.
• Karl Marx outlined that a person's socio-economic circumstances has a significant impact upon their thought and consciousness.
• Some people, including politicians, say that we are free and the right choices will allow social mobility.
• Money is everything, we are never free from it.
• Capitalism exploits workers by paying them less than they are worth and this creates alienation in a  society driven by profit. 

These aren't great sentences, but they reflect an understanding of the text. The object of the exercise was learning not sentence writing! If you haven't completed this exercise, you need to do it to understand it. 

We then returned to the poem and applied a Marxist critical perspective to it. 

You should now have written a paragraph looking at the poem from a Marxist perspective. You need to improve this paragraph about the poem from a Marxist perspective and leave it as a comment. To do this you'll need to take a tiny aspect of the poem and comment on how it relates to the socio-economic circumstances. I want you to write this paragraph in the comment box below. (Probably best if you do this in Word, or similar, and the paste so it is not lost.)

You should have also have watched this episode of Andrew Marr's History of Britain.

Finally, if you would like to extend your learning further, have a look at historical materialism.

Let me know if you have any questions.


Ms 

Welcome Y13!

Hoorah! A blog just for you - surely it's Christmas. No. But a total gift!

You can always find out what we are working on and contact me.

It's possibly the best thing ever...

Ms