Video: Checking Out Me History (Part 2)

﻿Hi, Miss Walker here. In today's lesson we are going to be exploring how Agard has presented ideas of identity in the poem, Checking Out Me History. Make sure you've got a pen and paper and that your working area is free of any distractions before we get started. Today's key question, how does Agard explore ideas about identity in the poem 'Checking Out Me History'? We'll start the lesson by looking at the key vocabulary and terminology before moving on to explore the central themes in the poem. In Part 3 we're going to analyse Agard's use of language that explores ideas around identity. And in part four, we'll analyse the form and structure that he's used to explore ideas about identity as well. In part five, we're going to take all of our learning and we're going to put it together into a writing task that responds to the key question. The last part of the lesson will be the review quiz. One key word for today, and it is diversity. We've got a couple of meanings here for diversity. First one, when something has many different parts and elements. And two, when we talk about the concept diversity, it means to acknowledge or accept that everyone is different and unique i.e. on the grounds of race, gender, age, religious beliefs, for example. The synonyms for diversity are variety or differences. And the etymology dates back to the late 14th century, which is a fact of difference between two or more things or kinds so that in which two or more things differ. So it's about acknowledging these differences. You can use the adjective diverse, or you can use the verb diversify. Let's have a look at the examples. Number one, in our company, our goal is to make sure everyone feels valued. Diversity is very important to us. So this company is saying that they acknowledge that everyone is unique and an individual. Two, in the poem, Tissue, Dharker presents the diverse uses of paper and reflects on its great importance to human civilization. So the diversity here is looking at the multiple uses of paper. Pause the video to complete the task, what is one of the meanings of diversity? Remember there are two, you are just looking for one of the meanings. Pause the video to choose which definition is correct. Well done. One of the definitions of diversity is acknowledging difference and variety in society. I'd now like you to write your own sentence, using the word diversity, and I've popped a picture up on the screen there as well, that I think you should use to help you. I would spend roughly two minutes on this task, pause the video now to complete it and then resume once you're finished. We're also going to be taking some words from previous lessons. Those words are identity, anaphora and semantic field. Pause the video here to make sure that you've got the definitions in your notes, if you've not already done so from previous lessons. Moving on to central themes. Well we know identity is a central theme, 'cause that's in our key question, but we'll also be looking at conflict as a theme as well. Let's get started. So the focus for this lesson is on identity and also how conflict is interwoven and connected with identity as well. Quick check. What are the central themes in the poem? Three, two, one. Well done, conflict and identity. Before going into more detail and looking at identity and conflict, just important to have a quick recap on the ideas in the poem. So the poem makes the reader consider the way history is taught. We're invited to consider how our identity is formed as we learn about cultural traditions and narratives. Agard challenges the Eurocentric view of history and cites major black figures that have been emitted from the colonial education system. Remember Eurocentric is a negative term that refers to history being based purely on the efforts and successes of European people. True or false, correct the statement if it is false. Number one, we are invited to consider how British identity is formed. Two, Agard challenges the Eurocentric view of history. And three, he tells the story of one black historical figure. Now pause the video to make sure you have corrected the false statements if there are any. Well number one is false. We are invited to consider how identity is formed as we learn about cultural traditions and narratives, it's not about inviting us to consider British identity. Two is true. And three, that's also false, he tells the story of three figures, Toussaint, Mary Seacole and Nanny de Maroon. We're now going to look at how conflict is displayed in the poem in two forms. The first form is the conflict with the colonised British education system. So the speaker challenges, he has a conflict towards the one sided view of history and the lacking diversity in the curriculum. So the fact that the curriculum doesn't acknowledge that there are different people with different histories. He argues that by refusing to teach people like the speaker about relevant historical figures and events, British educators denied colonised students, a part of their identity. They kept something hidden from them. So the first conflict is to do with the British education system. The second conflict is to do with the collective identity of the colonised peoples. There is an emission of different heritages that has created a conflict with the collective identity of colonised people, their identities, having a bit of a crisis because they don't know who they are and where they've come from. People don't know their history and this then affects how they view themselves. And in order to reclaim that identity the speaker argues that the colonised peoples must reclaim their history in order to get rid of that conflict of identity. Quick check, which two conflicts are presented in the poem? Is it conflict with European people? Conflict with historical white figures? Conflict with the colonised British education system? Conflict within the collective identity of colonised people? Wow, that's a tongue twister. Okay, you decide in three, two, one. Well done, conflict with the British education system and then conflict within the collective identity of colonised people. Second question, how can colonised people reclaim their identity? So you're just choosing one box here. Is it the first one? The speaker argues that the colonised peoples must find out about their history. Two, the speaker argues that they should forget about white, Eurocentric history. Three, the speaker argues that people must fight against the education system. And four, the speaker argues that people need to accept a Eurocentric education and just move on with it. Pause the video and choose your response. Be ready for when I turn over the slide in a couple of moments. It was the first one, the speaker argues that the colonised people must find out about their own history, they've got to go and do the research and educate themselves. Right, so we've covered conflict. We've covered conflict of identity and the conflict with the British education system and it's colonised and now we're just looking at identity. So the speaker wants to know facts in histories in order to know who he is, where he came from and what his heritage is. It's suggested that preventing colonised people from learning about their past is a form of oppression. You're keeping them in the dark about their history, you're not letting them acknowledge where they're from. The poem suggests that knowing your past is essential when establishing an identity. Okay a quick check. Why does the speaker challenge the British education system? Is it because it's aggressive towards colonised people? Or is it because it oppresses the diversity of colonised history? Pause the video and choose your response. Great, it's because it oppresses the diversity of colonised history. So it doesn't acknowledge that there are multiple perspectives or multiple views and experiences within history. It only looks at that Eurocentric view of history. We're in part three of the lesson, in which we are going to explore how he's used, or how Agard has used language to present ideas about identity. And also how conflict is interwoven with those ideas of identity. Here's the first group of lines taken from early on in the poem. Pause moment, let's read over them. The speaker uses the collective pronoun, dem, which we would know, or some of us would know as them. Who was he referring to? And two, 'all dat' suggests that everyone knows about 1066, no further explanation is needed. However, he tells a whole story about Tousaaint. Why might he have done this? Pause the video to answer the questions. Firstly, the collective pronoun 'dem' most likely refers to the British education system, which has chosen what to include and what to leave out or omit from the curriculum. Secondly, it could refer to his teachers. Or alternatively, it could refer to the history writers who only chose to write or record a white Eurocentric history instead of a diverse account of the past. The speaker may have used the term 'all dat' to display his frustration with the British teaching. It implies that he doesn't want to give it any more time, so he kind of brushes it away and just gives it a couple of words 'all dat'. So instead he uses the poem to share and celebrate prominent black figures, such as Toussaint, Seacole and de Maroon. Second group of lines. But now I checking out me own history I carving out me identity. The speaker uses the word but, to mark a change in time, he is now going to educate himself about his history. He does not need the colonised British curriculum. Carve means to cut into something in order to produce a new object or items. Why might Agard have used the phrase, carving out? Pause the video to complete the question. There's quite a lot you can say about this phrase, carving out. So the verb carve has connotations of creation and new beginnings. When you carve something, you take it and you make it into something new and something different. Agard is establishing a new beginning for the speaker's identity. Furthermore, when carving something, you are making significant changes to it. This reinforces the idea that the speaker needs to relearn his history and make great changes to it in order to form his identity. And this we've got to remember, would be a considerable task to do. Agard uses a semantic field of sight to help explore ideas about identity. Here are four quotations that relate to the semantic field of sight. Bandage up me eye. Toussaint, a slave with vision. See-far woman. A healing star among the wounded. Well vision means being able to see, and it also means the ability to plan for change in the future. See-far, that was referring to Nanny de Maroon having a vision for changing the future. And healing star that refers to Seacole and she is thought of as this guiding star, who's helping people to see their past. Agard uses the semantic field of sight for several reasons. He brings a hidden cultural heritage and history to light so that people see it for the first time. Finally it symbolises a move away from blindness that Agard refers to in the second stanza of the poem. I showed you four quotations that refer or represent the semantic field of light. See if you can remember what the words are that are blanked out from these quotations. Pause the video to complete the task. Well done, bandage up my eye. Toussaint a slave with vision and then see-far woman. And healing star. Well done if you got them all right, if you didn't just take a moment to pause the video and write down the correct answer. Next task, true or false. Correct the statement if it is false. One, Agard wants to bring a hidden cultural heritage in history to light, true or false? Two, Agard reinforces the idea that learning about black historical figures is important to cultural heritage and it will guide colonised people towards forming their identity. Three, the light only symbolises the anger burning inside the speaker. Pause the video to decide whether they're true or false. Remember to correct the ones that are false. Number one and two are true however, three is false. It doesn't just symbolise his anger. In fact, I didn't mention that at all. What it does symbolise is a move away from the blindness. Okay, so we've looked at language and how Agard uses it to explore and present ideas about identity. And now we're going to do the same, but for form and structure. Let's start with form. The poem of appears in two different forms. As a combination of italics, short and long stanzas and a regular rhyme. This creates a feeling of fragmentation. It feels like it's been broken into pieces. If you look at the box on the right hand side, you can see how the stanzas about she'd been separated away from each other. The second stanza on that clip or on that box has been moved in slightly. So we get this sense that things are not aligned, they're not joined up. And the first stanza in that box is the white British side of education that he's learnt. And the second stanza in this box refers to the history of the fantastic black figure Nanny de Maroon. Now the speaker has not been shown a bigger picture of history, too much of his own nation's history was withheld. So his identity felt fragmented and incomplete, and that's reflected in the form of the poem. Pause here to complete the questions. One, the poem appears in two forms. What feeling does this create? And two, why is this speaker's identity incomplete? Pause the video to complete the questions. Great, number one answer, fragmentation. Number two, his own nation's history was withheld and that's why his identity is incomplete and fragmented. Still looking at the form of the poet, the indented stanzas, that means if you look at the box on the right hand side, it's the second stanza. If you can see it's been shifted over to the right, that's it being indented. Now those indented standards are also written in italics. These stanzas represent the other side of history, the side he wants to know about that hasn't been taught. The different styles between the stanzas have been juxtaposed to illustrate the two voices that represent the two sides of the speaker's history. Pause here to complete the questions. One, what do the indented stanzas represent? Two, what did the juxtaposed styles illustrate? Pause the video, complete the questions and resume when you've done them. Good, so the indented stanzas represent the other side of history. And the juxtaposed styles illustrate the two voices that represent the two sides of history. Onto structure, Agard uses the refrain, "Dem tell me, Dem tell me, wha dem want to tell me" The refrain reinforces the idea that the speaker's history has been kept hidden from them by white European educators. The use of enough anaphora "Dem tell me" is also used throughout to emphasise the difference in conflict between the speaker and the colonised British education system. In this task, I've presented you with the effect of the method, and you've got to decide what the name of the method is. So the first one, this method emphasises the difference and conflict between the speaker and the colonised British education system. What is the method? Secondly, this method reinforces the idea that this speaker's history has been kept hidden from them. What is the method? Pause the video to complete the tasks. Good, so I mixed it up a bit, anaphora comes first, that's the method that emphasises the difference in conflict between the speaker and the colonised British education system. And refrain is the response for the second question. It's that time in the lesson where we take all of our learning about language, about the central themes, about form and structure, and we pop it into a writing task. The key question was, how does Agard explore ideas about identity in Checking Out Me History? You're going to spend 15 minutes to write a short response to that question. You may wish to mention, but you don't have to include if you've got other ideas, how the speaker has been blinded to his own heritage, or you could talk about the celebration of prominent black figures from history or the use of indented stanzas to represent the speakers two identities. It's up to you. Words that you do need to include though, are diversity or diversify, identity and conflict. Pause the video now to complete the writing task before coming back on to compare your own written response to one of my examples. Here's the first example answer. In the poem, the speaker feels that his identity has been hidden from him. This is shown in the quotation, "bandage up me eye with my own history." Bandages are normally white and they are used to cover up injuries. In the poem, the bandages might represent the white history that he is taught in school that covered up his true heritage and identity. They stopped him from seeing diversity in his history. The reader understands that the speaker wants to find his own history so he can reclaim his identity. Here's a developed response. In the poem, Agard presents a speaker's conflict of identity. This speaker resolves his inner conflict by carving out his own history. He is creating a new beginning for his identity. The conflict has arisen from the teachings of the colonised British education system, which failed to ensure that indigenous people were enriched with knowledge of their own past. The lack of diversity in the teaching meant that he was only exposed to a white Eurocentric history. For example, "dem tell me about 1066." Contrastingly, the speaker's celebration of major black figures addresses the need for change in the curriculum and a new vision for how history should be taught in a colonised British education system. Pause the video here and decide which response you are going to compare your answer to. Part six, it's time to complete the review quiz. Come back on when you have completed the task. Well that's the last lesson in this unit of work for the AQA Power and Conflict anthology. I hope you've enjoyed exploring the new poems and analysing the themes and key meanings behind them. I've really enjoyed teaching them. All the best, Miss Walker.

Exit Quiz: Checking Out Me History (Part 2)

Completed: Checking Out Me History (Part 2)

In this lesson, we will examine some of the choices of language, form and structure Agard has made to convey his ideas about identity in the poem 'Checking Out Me History'.

English

Checking Out Me History (Part 2)

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Final Quiz

Lesson Complete