war song

Oh my God, tell me this won't last forever
Tell me that I'm not alone
Tell me this will come together now

Packed my thing up just the other day
Said my goodbyes to all these things I've saved
Out in the driveway, we laugh under the moon
Among my friends for now, but I'll be leaving soon

Many days from now, I'm sure
I'll be back among your graces
And with you I won't pretend
No, not at all

Crack the morning
Up and running quick
No sleep again last night but that's the way it is
Out in the open under broken skies
I feel every footstep
I see everybody's eyes
Oh and this is summer in another world
Far from the driveway and my baby girl
Soon comes the winter
With it quiet nights
Darker days and darker fights

But many days from now, I'm sure
I'll be back among your faces
And with you I won't pretend
No, not at all
Oh the fever is burning
Over at midnight but never like this
Hot under their fire
The stars are all falling but never like this
I hope you never see this

Wait, wait for my love
Don't forget me, never let me go
If you wait, wait for my love
I'll remember, never let you go
Until I'm fine, fine, fine
Until I'm fine, fine, fine

To be back in my room
I have the same dream every night
Just me among my things
No one else is there
There's no one left to fight
Just me among my things

Many nights from now, I know
I'll be back among your graces
Until then I'll just pretend
That I'm not cold

Oh my God, tell me this won't last forever
Tell me that I'm not alone
Tell me this will come together
Oh my God, you know

Wait, wait for my love
Don't forget me, never let me down
And just wait, wait for my love
I'll remember, every one of you
Just wait, wait for my love
Until I'm fine, fine, fine
Until I'm fine, fine, fine
I'll be fine, fine, fine
I'll be fine, fine, fine

This is a song about a soldier who has to leave all his family behind to fight for his country and he dreams about coming home again.

He uses repetition such as ‘ Tell me ‘ in the opening verse which asks the reader a question and makes us feel that he is in need of help or guidance. 

He also repeats the words ‘ I’m fine’ as he tells everyone he’s fine when inside he is feeling cold and wants to come home.

Verse 1:
(And i pray)
I just can't sleep tonight,
knowing that things ain't right.
It's in the papers, it's on the TV,
it's everywhere that i go.
Children are crying, soldiers are dying,
some people don't have a home.

Pre Chorus:
But i know there's sunshine behind that rain,
I know there's good times behind that pain (hey)
Can you tell me how i can make a change?

Chorus:
I close my eyes, and i can see a better day,
I close my eyes and pray.
I close my eyes and i can see a better day,
I close my eyes and pray.


Verse 2:
I lose my appetite, knowing kids starve tonight
Am I a sinner? Cause half my dinner,
Is still there on my plate.
Ooh i got a vision, to make a difference,
and it's starting today.


Pre Chorus:
Cause i know there's sunshine beyond that rain,
I know there's good times beyond that pain
Heaven tell me i can make a change.


Chorus:
I close my eyes, and i can see a better day,
I close my eyes and pray. (yeee)
I close my eyes and i can see a better day,
I close my eyes and


Bridge:
I pray for the broken-hearted,
I pray for the life not started.
I pray for all the ones not breathing,
I pray for all the souls in need.
I pray, can you give em one today?


Pre Chorus:
I just can't sleep tonight,
Can someone tell me how to make a change?


End Chorus:
I close my eyes, and i can see a better day,
I close my eyes and pray, (Ooh)
I close my eyes and i can see a better day,
I close my eyes and i pray, (ooh)
I pray, I pray
I close my eyes and pray.


I think these are lovely lyrics. its one of my favourites. The lyrics are really meaningful and he's really trying to change the world, i love this song<3. -Megan Price.

COLDPLAY(L)

The song and the title is about how even small things do matter to the world and to peole. We also need to explore the happy sides of things to get the full advantage. This is quite a ahppy song to show this.
Some of Coldplay's other songs also have a very strong meaning.
Fix you was written as a tribute to everyone who died in the London bombings. It is a very slow song that is quite moving.
Other songs include Lost which has the lyrics "just because I'm losing, doesn't mean I've lost" and "you might be a big fish in a little pond, doesn't mean you've won, 'cos along may come a bigger one." These tell us that we have don't have to be the best at everything, we just have to be who we are and be optomistic about the future.
Coldplay have very thought through lyrics and they are my favourite band EVEEERRRR! <3

Becky:)

ummm the rest off the stuff below...

aah i havent finished it! stupid thing.

THE REST:
and can express it in a way that we can understand and relate to. The last three lines show the seriousness of it all and the last line adds a bit of comedy to the whole thing showing that the character doesn't take it too seriously. The author wants to make us relate to the character by letting us see in her mind and the rest of the book also gives us information about the other characters as we see their thoughts written down in their exam writing which is included in the book and a good way of putting their personalities across.

Becky <3

passage from 'Dreaming Of Amelia' by Jaclyn Moriarty

My head exploded.
I finished sweeping up my head and then, for a laugh, picked out a couple of the bigger pieces, and juggled them. That was funny. You should have seen our dog. He thought it was a game just for him, getting closer, desperate to snatch one of the pieces of my head from the air. And I was shaking my head. I mean literally. I'd put the rest of the head in a martini glass and I was: shake, shake, shake. And-
Ah, just kidding.
My head didn't explode.
What, are you as stupid as my dog?

I think this is a very imaginative piece of writing. It shows what goes through peoples heads and how far they can take things. It also shows how they can make something into a meataphor

STRANGE FRUIT – Song by Billie Holiday

Southern trees bear a strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black body swinging in the Southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.
Pastoral scene of the gallant South,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolia sweet and fresh,
And the sudden smell of burning flesh!
Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for a tree to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.

I’m not really sure if I 'like' this song but it certainly made me feel bad when I read it, so I guess that makes it effective.This is a song that was made famous when Billie Holiday sang it in 1939 (type ‘Strange Fruit Billie Holiday’ in Google and you can watch her sing it on You tube). It’s about the lynching of black people by the Ku Klux Klan in America in the 1920’s. It is a protest song against racism and has a very strong message that shocks the audience. The fruit on the trees in the farming areas of the South where the worst lynching happened is used as a metaphor for black people hanging from them. I think this is really shocking and makes their lives seem so unimportant. The bodies are left for ‘the crows to pluck’, they are left ‘to rot’ and ‘to drop’, just like fruit that has been left on the tree. The last word ‘crop’ is the most shocking because I think it is saying that this happened to lots of black people. Awful images like ‘bulging eyes’ and ‘burning flesh’ add to the horror and the suffering of these black people. TECHNIQUES WE COULD BORROW FOR OUR WORK: giving a strong message about something /using emotional language /metaphors

Alex Eburne

Humorous quote

I told the doctor I broke my leg in two places. He told me to quit going to those places.Henny Youngman
LOL!

I haven't got much to say about this but I saw it and thought it was funny. Humour is quite a powerful way of getting attention or getting a message across or making something memorable. Maybe we could borrow this technique for our work.

Alex Eburne

Agatha Christie 'The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd

This is the blurb from one of Christie’s most famous murder novels ‘The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd’.

Roger Ackroyd was a man

       who knew too much.

He knew the woman he loved

Had poisoned her first husband. He knew

Someone was blackmailing her- and

Now he knew she had taken her own

Life with a drug overdose.

Soon the evening post would let him

Know who the mystery blackmailer was.

But Ackroyd was dead before he’d finished

Reading it- stabbed through the neck

Where he sat in his study…

The blurb uses many pronouns ‘he’ and ‘her’ to hide their identities and make a sense of mystery and secrecy. The line ‘Who knew too much’ is indented which makes you focus on it because it sticks out and you know that something bad will happen to him. ‘Knew’ is repeated three times in the first paragraph and makes you want to know exactly what it is that he knows and nobody else does.

There are negative words throughout the blurb: ‘poisoned’and ‘stabbed’ which are acts of violence so you know there is going to be lots of plots and murders. The harsh ‘B’ sound and the ‘P’ sound give a nasty and harsh tone to the writing. The sibilant sound in the last two lines ‘stabbed through the neck where he sat in his study…’ makes you think of something sinister or evil. The blurb ends with an ellipsis, which encourages you to follow the story in the book. GOOD TECHNIQUES TO BORROW FOR OUR WORK = use of pronouns instead of names/repetition/sounds/ellipsis and structure (i.e indentation).

Alex Eburne

RE: For want of a nail (commenting on Becky's post)

Sorry, I tried to post this on comments yesterday but I couldn't. Can anyone help? Thank you!

Yes I like the rhythm of this poem too. It has an irregular rhythm (line 1 has 10 syllables; line 2 has 9 syllables etc). This reflects the message of the poem which is that sometimes we do things without thinking and life does not always run smoothly. The repetition of the ‘T’ and ‘S’ sounds are like the clashing of swords. Lots of 1 syllable words make you read the poem faster, again like a fast paced battle. Repetition of ‘lost’ stresses the message that nothing is gained from all of this fighting. GOOD TECHNIQUES TO BORROW FOR OUR WORK = simple words/repetition/rhythm/sounds

Alex Eburne

Lord Of The Flies extract (part 1)

Within the diamond haze of the beach something dark was fumbling along. Ralph saw it first, and watched until the intentness of his gaze drew all eyes that way. The the creature stepped from mirage onto clear sand, and they saw that the darkness was not all shadow but mostly clothing. The creature was a party of boys, marching approximately in step in two parallel lines and dressed in strangely eccentric clothing. Shorts, shirts, and different garments they carried in their hands: but each boy wore a square black cap with a silver badge in it. Their bodies, from throat to ankle, were hidden by black cloaks which bore a long silver cross on the left breast and each neck was finished off with a hambone frill. The heat of the tropics, the descent, the search for food, and now this sweaty march along the blazing beach had given them the complexions of newly washed plumbs. The boy who controlled them was dressed in the same way though his cap badge was golden. When his party was about ten yards from the platform he shouted an order and they halted, gasping, sweating, swaying in the fierce light. The boy himself came forward, vaulted onto the platform with his cloak flying, and peered into what to him was almost complete darkness.

The novel is about a group of boys stranded on a tropical island. At first they work together and then fear sets in and evil takes over and the boys end up fighting a war amongst themselves. I think this description from the opening chapter is brilliant. Up until now, the island has been described in a positive way. It is a bright sunny day (weather description) and the boys who we have already met are happy and playful. Suddenly this description changes things (contrasting language). A group of choirboys appears in the distance and as they move towards the other boys they bring an unexpected gloominess to the island: ‘something dark was fumbling along’ and there is a ‘shadow’. Their bodies are ‘hidden by black cloaks’ which suggests that they are hiding something (their characters?). They are described as ‘the creature’ which suggests they are not human (character described through appearance). We are introduced to Jack as ‘the boy who controlled them’ and ‘he shouted an order’.  Straight away he seems serious and unfriendly (character described through his words). There is ‘fierce light ‘ on the island but Jack sees ‘almost complete darkness’ which suggests he cannot see the beauty of the island like the boys introduced at the beginning (contrasting language). At the end of the novel, the choir turns into an evil tribe with Jack as the violent leader and most of the other boys join it. They are called ‘creatures’.  Also at the end ‘the sky was black’. This shows that the evil hinted at in the choir at the beginning (in this piece of writing) has spread to the other boys and the ‘shadow’ has grown and now covers the whole sky showing evil has spread across the whole island (linking beginning of novel to end). Brilliant!!!!!!!

GOOD TECHNIQUES TO BORROW FOR OUR WORK = describe character of person through appearance and their words/weather descriptions to add atmosphere/contrasting language (i.e. light and dark)/symbols (i.e. darkness = evil)/linking beginning description to end description...

Alex Eburne

For Want of a Nail

For want of a nail the shoe was lost.For want of a shoe the horse was lost.For want of a horse the rider was lost.For want of a rider the battle was lost.For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

I think this is a very good and clever poem because of the way the author has written it. It is a rhyme that shows that small actions can result in large consequences. It is true to life and the subject is a good way to put the message across because it is easy to understand and everyone can understand it.
It is a very precise poem with a strong meaning, but it is also very simple. The last line sums up the whole poem and the meaning "and all for the want of a horseshoe nail" making the rest of the poem seem more important than just the rhym that it was before the last line.
The way the author has started and ended all the lines (except the last) in the same way helps the flow of the poem and keeps it in order.

Becky

'I have a dream' speech

I think Martin Luther King's speech 'I have a dream' is a good piece of writing because it was so powerful people still remember it today and it became one of his most well-known speeches. He repeats words and phrases which shows of his passion against racism. Rebecca Jones

English..

Megan

Becky

Alex D

Alex E