Following on from an earlier post in which I looked at a draft outline for an approach to the Hunting of the Snark, here are my draft teaching materials for my class in the 7 class activity to recreate the Snark as part of the 140th anniversary of the founding of the school.
The rationale:
- First published in Easter 1876, Lewis Carroll’s Hunting of the Snark is a classic piece of Victorian nonsense poetry. It is easy to imagine the new boys at The John Lyon School being in receipt of this book as a present and learning to recite the verse among their friends. There meaning of the poem is obscure – if it has one at all! Certainly the original group of travellers are left in little doubt that the “Snark IS a boojum, you see”. The suggestion is that the object of our desire is somehow a deceit – a fantasy which will cause the finder to disappear entirely – perhaps to lose their individuality in the faceless world of a wider society.
- Today, in our anniversary year, we are revisiting this text in Years 7&8 and electing to find our JLS Snark in 2016. A Snark is some form of scholarly success – certainly not solely academic – that might be the boojum- a one-trick pony who offers little to society than an obsession with personal achievement ion a narrow academic context. Our Snarks seek a wide range of skills and activities and learn that failure is only deferred success and that risk-taking in the name of progress is vital to the development not just of young minds, but of all humanity.
My class are working on Fit 2: the Bellman’s speech. I hope my ideas work and that anyone reading this might be inspired to develop something of their own…
English Teaching Resources 