IN MRS TILSCHERS CLASS CAROL ANN DUFFY ANNOTATIONS

IN MRS TILSCHER’S CLASS CAROL ANN DUFFY

ANNOTATIONS

Geography class. Symbolism – fertility, the river brings crops. Tactile. Egypt – desert, Nile bursts its banks Innocent annually. tone, happy/ You could travel up the Blue Nile Short/sharp childlike. sentences. with your finger, tracing the route Suggests – repeating repetition, while Mrs Tilscher chanted the scenery. the possibly teacher? boredom Tana. Ethiopia. Khartoum. Aswan. Assonance. (monotonous). That for an hour, then a skittle of milk Exotic Could be places. and the chalky Pyramids rubbed into dust. relaxing, harmonious – Two A window opened with a long pole. safety and meanings security of the – black The laugh of a bell swung by a running child. Metaphor – shape of the milk classroom. boards bottle. Milk used to be drunk in New lessons, out and Personification – sounds happy. schools every day, a third of a with the old. Idea of Pyramids. Fun, innocence. School days were movement, change. pint per child, until Mrs Thatcher, when Minister of Education in the joyful days. Universal experience. Second person. Draws reader in making them feel part of it. 1970 s, abolished it, for which she earned the name from her political enemies, "Mrs Thatcher,

Bold statement. Classroom better than home. Tone of security and warmth. She knew you. Alliteration. Positive recognition. Pride – praise you remember. Positive word choice – enjoyable. Idea of loving school. Simile – brightness, colourful. Joy/happiness. Enticing to children. Odd – Myra Hindley, This was better than home. Enthralling books. Ian Brady child The classroom glowed like a sweetshop. murderers. Symbolic Sugar paper. Coloured shapes. Brady and Hindley of darkness. Faded – faded, like the faint, uneasy smudge of a mistake. get rid of the grown up Mrs Tilscher loved you. Some mornings, you foundelements at that age. She was able to erase she'd left a good gold star by your name. the threat of The scent of a pencil slowly, carefully, shaved. A xylophone's nonsense heard from another form. adulthood/reality. An introduction to the Simile - she was outside world? able to erase the Snapshot images. Sensory classroom threat of (smell/sound). Strong memories. adulthood/reality. Innocence.

Suggests shape. Also a small pause to drama and surprise. Notion of a big change/growth/maturity/fertility. Time has passed. Verbs – action in the playground. Lively/ light hearted. Inky – suggests dark colours of tadpoles, like a blob of ink. Inkiness (metaphor) – water is stained, dirtiness coming in. In contrast to previous verses. Tadpoles symbolic of change. Over the Easter term the inky tadpoles changed from commas into exclamation marks. Three frogs Extended metaphor – children are likened to hopped in the playground, freed by a dunce, the frogs. They have followed by a line of kids, jumping and croaking matured from tadpoles in away from the lunch queue. A rough boy to frogs. The children told you how you were born. You kicked him, but are physically and stared at your parents, appalled, when you got back emotionally changing too. home. Rejects this idea. Crude interjections. Matter of fact tone. The rough boy – a bad boy – reveals the facts of life. Contrast with what is taught in the classroom and what is learned in the playground. Appalled – negative word/ emotional. Horrified at hearing what the boy has said. Also quite comical, universal feeling/experience. Disjointed syntax of the final sentence reflects the shock felt by the child. The sense that you can’t go back.

Tangible – you can feel it(touch). Alarm contrasts with the bell ‘laughing’. Entry to freedom. Excited about leaving. Use of ‘You’ – to involve us? So we remember it ourselves. Discomfort in body (puberty) Growing up over the associated with the summer. Hot/ humid summer. Images of atmosphere. Stick/stuffy passion and sexual in the classroom Atmosphere is frustration. (uncomfortable). alive/charged. Irritable/volatile. That feverish July, the air tasted of electricity. Frustration at not A tangible alarm made you always untidy, hot, getting answers. Lack fractious under the heavy, sexy sky. You asked her of response. Might how you were born and Mrs Tilscher smiled, signify her discomfort, her duties are coming then turned away. Reports were handed out. You ran through the gates, impatient to be grown, to an end. Lack of knowledge and as the sky split open into a thunderstorm. understanding of sex. Sounds Desire to go to secondary violent, school. No longer enthralled in Metaphor for even painful. her lessons. realisation of the facts of life.

AN EIGHT MARK QUESTION Poem: ‘In Mrs Tilscher’s Class’ Question: By referring to this poem, and any other by Carol Ann Duffy, show she explores theme of change.