Literature- Practice essay extract

One of the foremost ways Williams dramatises fantasy and reality to enlighten all of the characters attitudes to life is through an exploration of the deceitful protagonist character of Blanche DuBois and her refusal to accept her fate and the situation of those around her. This is expressed particularly in Scene 1 when Blanche first arrives in Elysian Fields at Stella and Stanley’s apartment. The boundary between exterior and interior consists of the two-room apartment shared by Stella and Stanley. The Kowalski’s’ apartment, unlike the DuBois’ Belle Reve, is not a self-defined world that is inviolable to the reality of New America. The characters leave and enter the apartment throughout the entirety of the play, frequently bringing with them the complications they encounter in the outside environment. For example, Blanche refuses to leave her prejudices against the working class behind her upon arrival.  Her attempt to veil her repugnance at the situation is evident from first onset when she boldly states to Stella; “Explain this place to me! What are you doing in a place like this? (…) never, never, never in my worst dreams…”  Blanche’s disapproval of Stella’s realistic and ‘normal’ lifestyle allows Blanche to reinforce her own sense of superiority. She romanticises the situation, envisioning herself as an honest heroine in a tragic story.

LITERATURE C. Rossetti poetry analysis (unfinished)

Q. Explain how Rossetti describes/portrays death and loss in her poem ‘Song.’

 

Sentimentalized depictions of the unfortunate deaths of women, occupied many Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood paintings and poems. The well-known tales such as ‘The Lady of Shallot’ turn women into objects, to be toyed with and manipulated. They place women at the servitude of the man in their lives. These works originate mostly from a male vantage point. Christina Rossetti provides a unique counter argument to these works that surrounded the sum total of her life in her poem ‘Song.’ Here Rossetti uses an Iambic Tri-meter structure (which is mostly used in the dramatic forms of comedy and tragedy, and are/was used mainly for the verses that were/are "spoken" by a character from the dialogue rather than the vocal passages themselves) to voice the inner most thoughts of a dying Victorian woman, as though possibly in response to her brother, Dante Gabriel’s poem “The Blessed Damosel” in which a bereaved male whom is envisioning his dead beloved grieving for him in heaven, not long after she has passed. D. Gabriel’s poem is also written as an iambic tri-meter (but alternates between tri-meter and tetrameter) which consequently, is a common psychological pattern occurring subconsciously when responding or connecting with/to another individual in order to create a ‘common or relatable ground’ explaining both the context of each poem; wanting to connect with the dead/dying and the siblings response to each other; trying to understand death personally and romantically.

Rossetti’s female character in ‘Song’ feels little pain or loss but rather seeks peace for both gender characters. Rossetti paints a picture destitute of human earthly desire, in fact characterised by ambivalence. The woman does not languish endlessly for her lover; she states that “Haply [she] may remember/Haply [she] may forget” and that she too will forget her lover in time. There is a marked amount of repetition in ‘Song’, for example, whilst the first verse ends, ‘And if thou wilt, remember, / And if thou wilt, forget (lines 7-8), and the second ends ‘Haply I remember, / And haply may forget’ (lines 15-16). By prefacing the words ‘forget’ and ‘remember ' in the same way in both occurrences, there is a blurring of the distinction between memory and forgetfulness. Additionally, the beginning three lines in the second verse begin, ‘I shall not' (lines 9-11). The repetition of this expression highlights the transformation of the speaker's senses after death. The character is no longer able to ‘see', ‘feel', or ‘hear' the earthly pleasures (that overtake the imagery in the majority of Rossetti’s poetry) but rather, their concerns will shift away from the earthly environment. Lines 7-8 at first glance, seem to state the dying woman’s unwillingness to have her upcoming death trouble her beloved. These lines may be seen to incorporate a stereotypical Victorian view of the expected female selflessness.

Zone of proximal development

The zone of proximal development, often abbreviated as ZPD, is the difference between what a learner can do without help and what he or she can do with help. It is a notion introduced, yet not fully established, by Soviet psychologist Lev Vygotsky (1896–1934) during the last ten years of his life. Vygotsky identified that a child follows an adult's example and gradually develops the ability to do certain tasks without assistance. Vygotsky and some other educators believe that the role of education is to give children experiences that are within their zones of PD, thereby encouraging and advancing their individual learning.

The concept of the ZPD was originally developed by Vygotsky to argue against the use of academic, knowledge-based tests as a means to measure students' intelligence. He also created ZPD to further develop Jean Piaget's theory of children being independent learners. Vygotsky spent a lot of time studying the influence of school instruction on children and noted that children grasp language concepts quite naturally, but that maths and writing don’t come naturally, that these are concepts taught in schools and tend to come along with some struggle, while Piaget believed that there was a clear division between development and teaching. He said that “development is a spontaneous process that is initiated and completed by the children, stemming from their own efforts.” Piaget was a supporter of independent thinking and critical of the standard teacher-led instruction that is common practice in schools today.

 

-WIKIPEDIA INFO ALTERED

General OVERVIEW

Intro basics: General OVERVIEW

I will be analysing the development of children’s writing (including topics such as grammar, punctuation and formality) through their books over a period of time (from Reception to present day).As well as this, I will set an additional ‘experiment’ or task for the children (all ages) to write a letter to an old relative (SUCH AS a great, great, grandparent) explaining in as much detail as they can about the family now, the parents jobs, where they go to school, what’s their favourite subject etc. I will then compare these letters between siblings and analyse the formality, the level of descriptive language and the understanding of correct grammar.

ALL CHILDRENS WRITING AND PARTICIPATION WILL BE ANONYMISED ENTIRELY. ONLY AGE WILL BE INCLUDED.

What the theory/research leads me to expect to find- hypotheses.

Hypotheses-

The level of formality decreases as the subject’s get younger. Things would be described as ‘the basics’ (in terms of descriptive language, punctuation, grammar etc.) in a younger child’s writing. Whilst older children may try to explain further and in more detail with a proportion more of formality within their writing.

KEY QUESTIONS FOR THE WRITING TASK.

These questions have to be understood FULLY by the range of ages I’m using. Therefore the questions cannot be too complex or too simple because the participants may feel the need, subconsciously to conform to the question in terms of formality etc.

Write a letter to your great, great, Granddad or Grandma explaining…

Q1. Where do you go to school and what is your favourite subject?

Q2. What do your parents do as a job?

Q3. What are your hobbies and what do you like to do in your free time?

Q4. Do you have any brothers or sisters? If yes, what are their ages and where do they go to school?

Q5. What is your favourite piece of technology and why do you like it?

 POTENTIAL THEORISTS TO USE

JEAN PIAGET- http://www.simplypsychology.org/piaget.html

“Jean Piaget (1896 - 1980) was employed at the Binet Institute in the 1920s, where his job was to develop French versions of questions on English intelligence tests.  He became intrigued with the reasons children gave for their wrong answers to the questions that required logical thinking. He believed that these incorrect answers revealed important differences between the thinking of adults and children.”

Stage of Development/Key Feature/Research Study

Sensorimotor -0 - 2 yrs.  Object Permanence Blanket & Ball Study

Preoperational-2 - 7 yrs.  Egocentrism Three Mountains

Concrete Operational- 7 – 11 yrs.  Conservation/Conservation of Number

Formal Operational- 11yrs + Manipulate ideas in head, e.g. Abstract Reasoning 

 

(----------- = relevant to my study).

LITERATURE (1 paragraph-1point) PRE-RAPHAELITE + ROSSETTI

T. Discuss how Rossetti writes about nature in the poem ‘Shut Out’

Rossetti’s narrator draws our attention to the naturalistic detail that has attributes to the pre-Raphaelite style that Rossetti was so heavily influenced by. Such details included the inconsistency of human love, the importance of religion, individual unworthiness and the earthly pleasures which are an ever present prospect in both Rossetti’s and Pre-Raphaelite work. The rich and precise detail shown in this piece highlights the variety of earthly pleasures and  ‘beauty’ within the connotations of the supposedly metaphorical “song birds” and “flowers bedewed and green” as well as the downfall or ‘death’ shown within the “[grieving]” and the “tears” of the overall literal narrative; literal visual themes which are seen in many Pre-Raphaelite paintings.

LANGUAGE CW STUDY EXAMPLES AND DEFINITIONS (unfinished)

LANGUAGE CW STUDY EXAMPLES AND DEFINITIONS

Longitudinal Studies  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longitudinal_study

“A longitudinal survey is a correlational research study that involves repeated observations of the same variables over long periods of time. It is a type of observational study. Longitudinal studies are often used in psychology to study developmental trends across the life span, and in sociology to study life events throughout lifetimes or generations. The reason for this is that, unlike cross-sectional studies, in which different individuals with same characteristics are compared, longitudinal studies track the same people, and therefore the differences observed in those people are less likely to be the result of cultural differences across generations. Because of this benefit, longitudinal studies make observing changes more accurate, and they are applied in various other fields. In medicine, the design is used to uncover predictors of certain diseases. In advertising, the design is used to identify the changes that advertising has produced in the attitudes and behaviours of those within the target audience who have seen the advertising campaign.”

Examples of longitudinal studies (related to child/children development)

• Millennium Cohort Study – UK – 2000/19,000participants: Study of child development, social stratification and family life.
• Child Development Study- Cohort-United States-1987/585 participants: follows children recruited the year before they’ve entered kindergarten in 3 cities: Nashville, Knoxville, TN and Bloomington, Indiana.
   
   
  JEAN PIAGET  http://www.simplypsychology.org/piaget.html
  “Jean Piaget (1896 - 1980) was employed at the Binet Institute in the 1920s, where his job was to develop French versions of questions on English intelligence tests.
  He became intrigued with the reasons children gave for their wrong answers to the questions that required logical thinking. He believed that these incorrect answers revealed important differences between the thinking of adults and children.
  Piaget (1936) described his work as genetic epistemology (i.e. the origins of thinking). Genetics is the scientific study of where things come from (their origins). Epistemology is concerned with the basic categories of thinking, that is to say, the framework or structural properties of intelligence. What Piaget wanted to do was not to measure how well children could count, spell or solve problems as a way of grading their I.Q. What he was more interested in was the way in which fundamental concepts like the very idea of “number”, “time” “quantity”, “causality”, “justice” and so on emerged”
   
  “Before Piaget’s work, the common assumption in psychology was that children are merely less competent thinkers than adults. Piaget showed that young children think in strikingly different ways compared to adults.
  According to Piaget, children are born with a very basic mental structure (genetically inherited and evolved) on which all subsequent learning and knowledge is based.”
   

THERE ARE THREE BASIC COMPONENTS TO PIAGET'S COGNITIVE THEORY:

1. Schemas

(Building blocks of knowledge).

      2. Adaptation processes that enable the transition from one stage to another (equilibrium, assimilation and accommodation).

     3. Stages of Development:

•sensorimotor,

•preoperational,

•concrete operational,

•formal operational

 

Stages of Development

“A child's cognitive development is about a child developing or constructing a mental model of the world. Jean Piaget was interested both in how children learnt and in how they thought. Piaget studied children from infancy to adolescence, and carried out many of his own investigations using his three children. He used the following research methods: Piaget made careful, detailed naturalistic observations of children. From these he wrote diary descriptions charting their development.  He also used clinical interviews and observations of older children who were able to understand questions and hold conversations. Piaget believed that children think differently than adults, and stated they go through 4 universal stages of cognitive development. Development is therefore biologically based and changes as the child matures. Cognition therefore develops in all children in the same sequence of stages. Each child goes through the stages in the same order, and no stage can be missed out. There are individual differences in the rate at which children progress through stages.  Piaget did not claim that a particular stage was reached at a certain age - although descriptions of the stages often include an indication of the age at which the average child would reach each stage.  Piaget (1952) believed that these stages are universal - i.e. that the same sequence of development occurs in children all over the world, whatever their culture.”

 

Stage of Development/Key Feature/Research Study

Sensorimotor -0 - 2 yrs.  Object Permanence Blanket & Ball Study

Preoperational-2 - 7 yrs.  Egocentrism Three Mountains

Concrete Operational- 7 – 11 yrs.  Conservation/Conservation of Number

Formal Operational- 11yrs + Manipulate ideas in head, e.g. Abstract Reasoning 

Research into the Language in Childs Development.

The linguistic list at lingusticlist.org/ask-ling/lang-acq.cfm – Ask a Linguist FAQ “All children acquire language in the same way, regardless of what language they use or the number of languages they use. Acquiring a language is like learning to play a game. Children must learn the rules of the language game, for example how to articulate words and how to put them together in ways that are acceptable to the people around them. In order to understand child language acquisition (…)” followed by questions and answers such as: “How long does it take to acquire language?” “Do all children learn at the same rate?” “How do children handle to language acquisition process?” and “What strategies do children use in learning language?”

The website is very clearly structured, giving an answer to every enquiry and covering all ground of child language acquisition.

https://aggslanguage.wordpress.com/comsly/ “4:1 Child Language acquisition theory [covering the grounds of theorists]- Chomsky, Crystal, Aitchison and Piaget.” This website states clearly four main theories made by the mentioned above with a clear bullet pointed list under  each theorist. Stating things such as the grammatical structures, syntactic structures and certain linguistics structures in relation to child acquisition. The entirety of the information is very formal but gives very clear ways to understand each process including for and against for each individual theory/theorist. It also includes an example of dialogue with explanations including terminology, with each line.

Simply Psychology at www.simplypsychology.org/langauge.html Language acquisition by Helena Lemetyinen 2012 – “Language is a cognition that truly makes us human. Whereas other species do communicate with an innate ability to produce a limited number of meaningful vocalizations (e.g. bonobos), or even with partially learned systems (e.g. bird songs), there is no other species known to date that can express infinite ideas (sentences) with a limited set of symbols (speech sounds and words).This ability is remarkable in itself. What makes it even more remarkable is that researchers are finding evidence for mastery of this complex skill in increasingly younger children. Infants as young as 12 months are reported to have sensitivity to the grammar needed to understand causative sentences (who did what to whom; e.g. the bunny pushed the frog (Rowland & Noble, 2010). After more than 60 years of research into child language development, the mechanism that enables children to segment syllables and words out of the strings of sounds they hear, and to acquire grammar to understand and produce language is still quite an enigma.” This website is brilliant for the psychological side of child language acquisition. It includes early theories, universal grammar, contemporary research and a conclusion with added references and full explanations under each sub heading.