Lesson Aim To understand what the poem Our Sharpeville by Ingrid de Kok is about To analyse how the poet has used language and structure to convey thoughts feelings and ideas Ingrid de ID: 712196
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Slide1
How would you feel if some students needed a special permission pass to move around the school, but other students could come and go as they pleased?Slide2
Lesson Aim:To understand what the poem ‘Our Sharpeville’ by Ingrid de
Kok
is about
.
To analyse how the poet has used language and structure to convey thoughts, feelings and ideas.Slide3
Ingrid de Kok
Grew up a white South African in the mining town of
Stilfontein
near Johannesburg.
She writes passionately about the racial issues underpinning her country and the impact it has had upon children.Slide4
What is apartheid?
A form of racial discrimination.
Began in Africa in the 1930’s
Created 3 races: White, Bantu, Coloured
Separated the country: Where people could live, work, eat and socialise.
The Bantu and Coloured races experienced discrimination in the form of second rate houses, jobs, etc.
Outlawed with the election of Nelson Mandela in 1994.Slide5
How do these images of apartheid make you feel?Slide6
What happened in Sharpeville?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLOxfFAjIk0
March, 1960
Sharpeville, a South African mining community.
The Pass Laws meant that black people had to carry passports wherever they
went
.South African police opened fire during a peaceful protest against Pass Laws.Over 180 injured.69 killed.Slide7
Our Sharpeville, Ingrid de
Kok
I was playing hopscotch on the slate
when miners roared past in lorries,
their arms raised, signals at a crossing,
their chanting foreign and familiar,
like the call and answer of road gangs
across the veld, building hot arteries
from the heart of the Transvaal mine.Slide8
I ran to the gate to watch them pass.
And it seemed like a great caravan
moving across the desert to an oasis
I remembered from my Sunday School book:
olive trees, a deep jade pool,
men resting in clusters after a long journey,
the danger of the mission still around them and night falling, its silver stars just like the ones you got for remembering your Bible texts.Slide9
Then my grandmother called from behind the front door,
her voice a stiff broom over the steps:
‘Come inside; they do things to little girls.’
For it was noon, and there was no jade pool.
Instead, a pool of blood that already had a living name
and grew like a shadow as the day lengthened.
The dead, buried in voices that reached even my gate,the chanting men on the ambushed trucks, these were not heroes in my town,
but maulers of children,
doing things that had to remain nameless.
And our Sharpeville was this fearful thing
that might tempt us across the wellswept streets.Slide10
If I had turned I would have seen
brocade curtains drawn tightly across sheer net ones,
known there were eyes behind both,
heard the dogs pacing in the locked yard next door.
But, walking backwards, all I felt was shame,
at being a girl, at having been found at the gate,
at having heard my grandmother lie
and at my fear her lie might be true.
Walking backwards, called back,
I returned to the closed rooms, home.Slide11
What does the poem mean?
It’s about seeing the massacre through the eyes of a young, white child.
Her family tries to keep her in a safe and protective bubble, away from the racial tensions.
She feels drawn towards the forbidden world of the black mining community and hopes that the things that her family tell her are about it are untrue, but is trapped by the adult values that control her life.Slide12
List the childlike words and images.
List the images showing danger and violence.
How do they contrast?
Why is it effective to show the massacre through the eyes of a child?
Which images are particularly effective?Slide13
Plenary
Our lesson objectives were:
To understand what the poem ‘Our Sharpeville’ by Ingrid de
Kok
is about.
To analyse how the poet has used language and structure to convey thoughts, feelings and ideas.In your own words, answer the following questions:
What is ‘Our Sharpeville’ about?How do language and structure contribute to meaning?