Starter Task Read through the poem carefully and jot down any wordsterms that you dont understand in your exercise book LO To understand how Agard uses imagery and humour to assert racial identity ID: 628599
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Slide1
Half-caste by John Agard
Starter TaskRead through the poem carefully and jot down any words/terms that you don’t understand in your exercise book
LO: To understand how Agard uses imagery and humour to assert racial identitySlide2
Half-caste by John Agard
John AgardAgard
grew up in Georgetown, British Guiana (now Guyana). He loved to listen to cricket commentary on the radio and began making up his own, which led to a love of language. He went on to study English, French and Latin at A Level, writing his first poetry when he was in sixth form, and left school in 1967. he taught the languages he had studies and worked in a local library. He was also a sub-editor and feature writer for the Guyana Sunday Chronicle, publishing two books while he was still in Guyana.LO: To understand how
Agard
uses imagery and
humour
to to assert racial identitySlide3
Half-caste by John Agard
John AgardHis father settled in
London and Agard moved to Britain with his partner Grace Nichols (now also a famous poet) in 1977, settling in Ironbridge, Shropshire. He worked for the Commonwealth Institute and the BBC in London.
His
awards included the 1997
Paul Hamlyn award for poetry, the
Cholmondeley
Award in 2004 and the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 2012.
Agard
was Poet-in-Residence at the National Maritime Museum in 2008. His poem Half-caste has been featured in GCSE anthologies since 2002, meaning that most students (aged 14-16) have studied his work for their GCSE qualification.He lives in Lewes, East Sussex, with his partner, the Guyanese poet Grace Nichols.
LO: To understand how Agard uses imagery and humour to to assert racial identitySlide4
Half-caste by John Agard
John AgardHe was born in 1949 to a Guyanese father and Portuguese mother, so he is of mixed race.
When he moved to England he was horrified and very angry at being referred to by the derogatory term ‘half-caste’, so he often targets this subject in his poetry.He is an actor and playwright as well as a poet and his poetry is generally meant to be performed.
LO: To understand how
Agard
uses imagery and
humour
to to assert racial identitySlide5
Half-caste by John Agard
TaskListen to Agard reading the poem and highlight the following in different colours
:Any words written with non-standard spellingAny words that would usually be written with a capital letter
Caribbean dialect
words or phrases
Any lines that seem
exaggeratedly standard
E
nglish
Any
repeated phrases that lend a caribbean rhythm to the performance
LO: To understand how Agard uses imagery and humour to to assert racial identity
Why do you think
Agard
uses phonetic spelling and Caribbean speech rhythms in this poem?
R
eflects
his own identity and
culture
R
ejects
conventions of traditional English
poetry.
As his work is intended for performance, it doesn’t need orthodox spellings, capital letters or punctuation, only line breaks.
Make a key showing which colour you are using for whatSlide6
Half-caste by John Agard
QuestionsWhy does Agard
mix standard and non-standard spellings and word usage?What tone does Agard adopt in this reading?
What is the overall effect of the poem?
LO: To understand how
Agard
uses imagery and
humour
to to assert racial identity
Reflects his mixed heritage and accentuates the ‘wholeness’ of his cultural background in rejecting the ‘half-caste’ taunt.
Challenging, aggressive, confrontational, angry, but also
humourous, sarcastic, witty, sardonic – the perfect combination for effective satire.
Direct commands, directing the reader as ‘
yu
’, shocks us into
realising
the unacceptable implications of words we use without thinking. It asserts a person’s right to be respected as a whole human being and demands that others be more open-minded.
Now watch the video of John
Agard
discussing the poem
Pay attention because you will need to bear what he has said in mind when answering the questions belowSlide7
Half-caste by John Agard
ImageryYu mean when picasso
mix red an greenis a half-caste canvasYu mean when light an shadowmix in d
e sky
is a half-caste weather
Yu mean
tchaikovsky
sit down at da piano
an mix a black key
wid
a white keyis a half-caste symphony
LO: To understand how Agard uses imagery and humour to to assert racial identity
Agard
uses these examples as metaphors for mixing
colours
:
Paint palette
Piano notes
Light/shade
This supports his message that that things that are mixed usually turn out better and this applies to blood and cultures too.Slide8
Half-caste by John Agard
ImageryListening to yu
wid de keen half of mih ear
I offer
yu
half-a-hand
I close half-a-eye
I dream half-a-dream
I half-caste human being
cast half-a-shadow
LO: To understand how
Agard uses imagery and humour to to assert racial identity
Satirises the insulting idea of a whole person being treated as only a ‘half’.
Uses witty word play to jolt the user of the offensive language out of their prejudiced views.
Challenges them to change, not just their way of speaking but, more importantly, their way of thinking:
“come back tomorrow
wid
de whole of
yu
eye
an de whole of
yu
ear
an de whole of yu mind”Slide9
Half-caste by John Agard
HumourExcuse me
standing on one legI’m half-casteis a half-caste canvas/is a half-caste weather/
i
s a half-caste symphony/
In fact some o
dem
cloud
half-caste till
dem
overcastso spiteful dem dont
want de sun pass LO: To understand how Agard uses imagery and humour
to to assert racial identity
Joke apology is ironic, he means the opposite.
He is making the point that since he is treated as only half a
p
erson, he is acting like only half a person.
He jokes that if mixing
colours
means you are a half-caste, then Picasso painted half-caste canvases, England has half-caste weather and Tchaikovsky composed half-caste symphonies.
Making the point that great art, weather and music come from mixing and this is true of mixing races too.
Half-caste/overcast is a clever pun/play on words, poking fun at changeable English weather, and therefore at the English audience, reminding us he comes from a sunnier/kinder climate
Task
On your copy of the poem, highlight any puns or jokes the writer makes and annotate them by explaining what the serious wider point is that
Agard
is trying to makeSlide10
Half-caste by John Agard
LO: To understand how Agard uses imagery and humour to to assert racial identity
TaskWrite a PEEE paragraph that answers the following question:How does
Agard
use imagery and/or
humour
to get across his message about racial identity?