Enjoying Irish literature in secondary schools - Ireland in Schools

More documents

Recommendations

Info

$E:\Irish music\A4 Irish history in song 1 & 2.wpd - Ireland in Schools$

$E:\History & Citizenship units 2 - WP\H503 Irish ... - Ireland in Schools$

$E:\WP Literature & Literacy units 2 - WP\L217PS ... - Ireland in Schools$

1. New Irish writing for children & young adultsIrish drama and poetry have long graced the curriculum in schools in Britain, particularly at GCSE and A-level,and continue to do so. Now, however, new Irish writers are producing a wide range of fiction for children andyoung adults.Delivering - & enriching - National StrategiesIn pilot schemes run by ‘Ireland in Schools’ (IiS), Irish texts are helping teachers to meet and go beyond therequirements of government strategies. They enriched the National Literacy Strategy at Key Stages 1 & 2 andare now doing the same for secondary English.Teaching schemesTeaching schemes on Irish texts are included on the IiS CD-ROM E01 along with other resources for English,Drama and Literacy for Key Stage 3 to A-level. All schemes have been developed by practising teachers andproved in the classroom.Broad appealThe success of these schemes lies in the excellence of the teaching and in the range and quality of Irishchildren’s literature - myths & legends, historical novels, fantasy and contemporary realism. There are booksand stories to suit all ages and abilities, allowing all to participate in a common project. All can enjoy readingbooks which are suited to their individual interests and abilities.Fantasy - for boysPilot schools have had their share of reluctant readers among the boys, but they all respond to tales of fantasyby Irish authors, such as Eoin Colfer’s Artemis Fowl.Myths & legendsThe combination of the heroic and the magical, and the feistiness of Irish heroines, appealsacross gender and age and ability ranges. Among the illustrated collections, the favouriteis Sionbhe Lally’s lavish Favourite Irish Fairy Tales.Liam Mac Uistin’s Celtic Magic Tales shows magical powers getting people into and out oftrouble (‘Quest for Aideen’); heroes, like Cuchulainn, involved in deadly or humourouscontests; and love bringing tragedy - ‘Deirdre & the Sons of Usnach’, an epic story ofbravery, loyalty and honour mingled with jealousy, betrayal and death - an early exampleof tragic love in European literature.Historical novelsIreland’s history - generally flashpoint periods when conflicting ideologies meet and when conflicting loyaltiesare tested - remains a focus of Irish writing for the young. Very popular is Under the Hawthorn Tree by MaritaConlon-McKenna, the first of an award-winning trilogy. It is a gripping story of love, loyalty and courage setin the devastation of the Irish Famine of the 1840s, when three children were left to fend for themselves. AChannel 4 film of the book helps to ease the way for reluctant or slower readers.Contemporary realismMore writers are now portraying a vision of the country in which their young readers arethemselves growing up, free from the ‘Oirish’ stereotyping.Some of this remains ‘middle-class literature’, featuring at least one working parent, withaspirations to education and a positive social ideology for teenagers to rebel against. 1 Othernovels, though, address less comfortable aspects, ‘the growing underbelly’, of modern Irishsociety. 21 Such as Marilyn Taylor’s ‘Jackie trilogy’, Jane Mitchell’s When Stars Stop Spinning and Eoin Colfer’s Benny and Omar and Benny and Babe.2 Such as ‘the new not-working class’ (Siobhán Parkinson’s Breaking the Wishbone), foster families (Parkinson’s The Moon King (E31), dysfunctional families (Marita ConlonMcKenna, No Goodbye), prejudice against gypsies (Conlon McKenna, The Blue Horse) and political violence (Mark O’Sullivan, Silent Stones).IiS, Enriching English in secondary schools, 2
PoetryIrish poets are studied at Key Stages 3 & 4 and have provided the coursework element of two English schemesfor GCSE. Students’ assignments show how much the schemes of work fostered an appreciation andenjoyment of poetry and knowledge and understanding of Ireland. Particularly gratifying is the work ofstudents who usually write half a page but become expansive when responding to contemporary Irish poems.DramaIrish materials are a powerful stimulus to original drama. At Key Stage 3 and GCSE, the Famine promptsthoughtful and imaginative work, but at A-level, one teacher uses a wide range of Irish writing to provide the‘spark for drama. Their quality is typical of a culture which has produced many of the greatest writers in the Englishlanguage and concern the basic questions of human existence which dominate our lives whatever our country of birth’.Links with Citizenship & HistoryThe inter-twining of Irish literature and history and the complex issues raised provide opportunities forEnglish and History teachers to improve the learning experience of students and to make more effective useof scarce resources.The poetry of ‘the troubles’ dramatically deepens students’ understanding of what it is like to live in such adivided society as Northern Ireland, while original drama inspired by the Irish Famine helps to deliver the‘essential elements of citizenship’.Two historical novels (The Guns of Easter by Gerard Whelan and No Peace for Amelia bySiobhán Parkinson) underpin a Year 9 scheme which develops thinking, literacy andcitizenship skills - see page 8 below.The novels tell the experience of 1916 - why some Irishmen joined the British army to fightagainst Germany, while others fought against the British and appealed for German aid duringthe Easter Rising - through the eyes of two young Dublin people from very differentbackgrounds, one a Catholic boy, the other a Quaker girl. They ‘vividly remind readers of thehuman and social dimensions to the school subject usually referred to in mere abstract terms as “history”’.The O’Brien Press, Ireland’s leading publisher of books for children, has published a series of guides tohelp Irish teachers use the Press’s authors in the classroom.The suggestions for teaching can readily be adapted to the curriculum in England, Wales and Scotland.Real Books offers general suggestions for most of the texts. The other Guides provide more detailedguidance for a selection of the Press’s fiction for children and young adults.Real Books for Primary Schools, 0-86278-609-6Teaching GuidesCollection 1, 0-86278-633-0Collection 2, 0-86278-666-5Collection 3, 0-86278-697-5Second -Level Schools Book 1, 0-86278-682-7http://www.obrien.ie/schoolsIiS, Enriching English in secondary schools, 3
Page 1: Enjoying Irish literature in second
Page 5: Ashling, Wednesday, 21 & 28 MayIt h
Page 8 and 9: 5. Delivering the Key Stage 3 strat
Page 10 and 11: 7. English & drama at Key Stage 4 &

Enjoying Irish literature in secondary schools - Ireland in Schools

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?