Reading the book AWAY in class: phase I

English Leistungskurs EN21 L, 12th graders, second term February to July 2000. Topic: "Ireland". Not just Ulster, of course, but culture & history & literature of the Republic of Ireland - not only because our study-trip at the beginning of the next term will see us in Dublin and Donegal!

Course-material: "Ireland - A Story of Beauty and Terror" (Langenscheidt - Longman: Viewfinder Topics, ed. by Peter-J. Rekowski). Good collection of various texts, covering geography, Great Hunger & emigration, Swift & Yeats, Gaelic & Church, Oisin & Mary Robinson.

The decision what sort of literature to read was not so easy: I didn't want to read a collection of short-stories, "Angela's Ashes" didn't motivate me to work on it in class, Roddy Doyle neither.

Up came AWAY, especially because of its Irishness (whatever that is) and the idea to concentrate on this and not really on the aspects of immigrants' history in Canada, development of Canada, etc. (Though these are awfully interesting aspects as well, really!).

The decision was made, the course agreed to my suggestion to read AWAY after getting a first idea by clicking through the webpage about AWAY and Jane Urquhart I had prepared.

Usual procedure:" Please read the first chapter up to p. 130". Tips on how to read effectively, readers' diary, notes, etc. And the first lesson started with large white poster-size paper and the task to work out all sorts of information on the women who "leaned towards extremes": Who is who, tells what, lived when: Esther, Eileen, Mary (Moira).

That helped the course (15 females, 2 males) to get along with the beginning and so we could go on working out the most important aspects of the first chapter, i. e. the May story-line and the Sedgewicks story-line.  The posters on the wall became more and more, I added print-outs from web-pages to give background information on Rathlin Island, Puffins, etc.

Most lessons were spent in groups or in pair-work, concentration on contents, persons, background (like landlords, absenteeism, myths, geography, etc.). Of course, most of the pupils hadn't read up to p. 130. so reading and working out various aspects was nearly done parallel, often accompanied by tasks like this one on a handout:

The pupils worked quite efficiently, the results were presented at the end of each phase, sometimes just orally, mostly accompanied by large sheets of papers. At the end of the first chapter the Irish story-line was quite clear to the pupils and the necessary test (Klausur) had to be written anyway: About chapter one of AWAY, of course.            next steps