Lesson 1

AO1 Read, understand and respond to texts.

Students should be able to:

• maintain a critical style and develop an informed personal response

• use textual references, including quotations, to support and illustrate interpretations.

AO2 Analyse the language, form and structure used by a writer to create meanings and effects, using relevant subject terminology where appropriate.

AO3 Show understanding of the relationships between texts and the contexts in which they were written.

AO4 Use a range of vocabulary and sentence structures for clarity, purpose and effect, with accurate spelling and punctuation.

Assessment Objectives (AOs)

Year 9 ‘Never Let Me Go’Lesson 1

1. Which of the book covers here do you think best fits the novel? You have three minutes to decide and jot down your reasons.2. Group discussion: In groups, discuss your choices and decide overall which cover you would choose.

Debate

• You are going to explore the issue of cloning as seen in the film ‘Never Let Me Go’.

• One table will support the cloning• One table will argue against the cloning

• Use your own ideas about cloning and use the information from the film

FOR AGAINST

Now take one point each and expand them for the debate itself – we will do an example together.

Format

• One person from Team 1• One person from Team 2• One person from Team 1• One person from Team 2• Etc...• Then at the end, each team has two minutes to

question each other on the points made• You should make notes during the other team’s

speech so you can challenge them!

Learning Objective

• To establish an idea of Kathy as a narrator and as a character in the novel

• To have notes on the narrative devices used at the beginning of the novel to revise from later

• Key words: retrospective narrative, diction, first person narrator, direct address, symbolism

Remind yourselves of this passage from the end of the novel.

Look hard at the passage and write down one word, which best represents your feelings about what you have read. Don’t discuss this yet. When everyone is ready simply go round the class noting everyone’s word: then briefly discuss the results and what they might mean in terms of the passage and the book. Make sure that a summary of this discussion is recorded: we shall return to it right at the end of our study of the novel.

I found I was standing before acres of ploughed earth. There was a fence keeping me from stepping into the field, with two lines of barbed wire, and I could see how this fence and the cluster of three or four trees above me were the only things breaking the wind for miles. All along the fence, especially along the lower line of wire, all sorts of rubbish had caught and tangled. It was like the debris you get on a sea-shore: the wind must have carried some of it for miles and miles before finally coming up against these trees and these two lines of wire. Up in the branches of the trees, too, I could see, flapping about, torn plastic sheeting and bits of old carrier bags. That was the only time, as I stood there, looking at that strange rubbish, feeling the wind coming across those empty fields, that I started to imagine just a little fantasy thing, because this was Norfolk after all, and it was only a couple of weeks since I’d lost him. I was thinking about the rubbish, the flapping plastic in the branches, the shore-line of odd stuff caught along the fencing, and I half-closed my eyes and imagined this was the spot where everything I’d ever lost since my childhood had washed up, and I was now standing here in front of it, and if I waited long enough, a tiny figure would appear on the horizon across the field, and gradually get larger until I’d see it was Tommy, and he’d wave, maybe even call. The fantasy never got beyond that–I didn’t let it–and though the tears rolled down my face, I wasn’t sobbing or out of control. I just waited a bit, then turned back to the car, to drive off wherever it was I was supposed to be.

Remind yourselves of this passage right at the start of the novel.

My name is Kathy H. I’m thirty-one years old, and I’ve been a carer now for over eleven years. That sounds long enough, I know, but actually they want me to go on for another eight months, until the end of this year. That’ll make it almost exactly twelve years. Now I know my being a carer so long isn’t necessarily because they think I’m fantastic at what I do. There are some really good carers who’ve been told to stop after just two or three years. And I can think of one carer at least who went on for all of fourteen years despite being a complete waste of space. So I’m not trying to boast. But then I do know for a fact they’ve been pleased with my work, and by and large, I have too. My donors have always tended to do much better than expected. Their recovery times have been impressive, and hardly any of them have been classified as “agitated,” even before fourth donation. Okay, maybe I am boasting now. But it means a lot to me, being able to do my work well, especially that bit about my donors staying “calm.” I’ve developed a kind of instinct around donors. I know when to hang around and comfort them, when to leave them to themselves; when to listen to everything they have to say, and when just to shrug and tell them to snap out of it.Anyway, I’m not making any big claims for myself. I know carers, working now, who are just as good and don’t get half the credit. If you’re one of them, I can understand how you might get resentful–about my bedsit, my car, above all, the way I get to pick and choose who I look after. And I’m a Hailsham student which is enough by itself sometimes to get people’s backs up. Kathy H., they say, she gets to pick and choose, and she always chooses her own kind: people from Hailsham, or one of the other privileged estates. No wonder she has a great

record. I’ve

heard it said enough, so I’m sure you’ve heard it plenty more, and maybe there’s something in it. But I’m not the first to be allowed to pick and choose, and I doubt if I’ll be the last. And anyway, I’ve done my share of looking after donors brought up in every kind of place. By the time I finish, remember, I’ll have done twelve years of this, and it’s only for the last six they’ve let me choose.And why shouldn’t they? Carers aren’t machines. You try and do your best for every donor, but in the end, it wears you down. You don’t have unlimited patience and energy. So when you get a chance to choose, of course, you choose your own kind. That’s natural. There’s no way I could have gone on for as long as I have if I’d stopped feeling for my donors every step of the way. And anyway, if I’d never started choosing, how would I ever have got close again to Ruth and Tommy after all those years?

Look at the five pieces of it that are underlined. Work in pairs to decide both what they tell us about Kathy and the way she speaks and make a note of your conclusions.Go round the pairs and discuss differences and similarities: note down the points people agree on and the points that you found striking but hadn’t thought of.Now go back to the passage and see if you can get to another five things she says and another five aspects of her diction (the way she talks) and her character.

Note on Structure• Remind yourselves what you learnt about structure before the exams:• Chronological (time sequence)• Comparison and contrast• Cause and Effect• Inductive (specific to general)• Deductive (general to specific)

• What can you say about the structure of the opening passage of the novel?

• Consider that this style is called a ‘retrospective narrative’. It starts off at the end of the story, with the grown-up narrator looking back on the past. The narrator is also a character in her own story, so we get to see things from her point of view.

This is Hailsham as it appeared in the film version of the book. There is a real place called Hailsham (it’s in

Sussex) and it has a School. Look it up and see whether you think it looks more like the Hailsham of the novel or

less so and why that might be.

Then split the word into its two components: “Hail” and “Sham”. Think about the CONNOTATIONS of these two

words.

Go to the dictionary or search engine and see how many different definitions of each of these words you can find.

Write them down in your notebook and see what sort of impression they give of Hailsham in the novel and what is

going on there.

Lesson 2Learning Objective

• To be able to discuss and find examples of the use of IRONY in the novel

• Key Words: irony, technical lexis, semantic field, connotation

What is irony?Consider the following definitions of irony (there are plenty more, you can look them up).• a pretence of ignorance and an apparent willingness to learn from others in order to make

their false conceptions conspicuous• the use of words to express something other, often the opposite, of the literal/assumed

meaning.• incongruity between a developed situation for a character in drama (or prose fiction) and the

audience’s (wider, better) understanding of it.

Now: go back to passage from the opening chapter we looked in the previous lesson.In pairs consider and note down the ways the ways in which the following words (technical lexis) that the passage introduces are used ironically in the novel. Think about the semantic field these words come from and their connotations:CarerDonorRecovery TimeFinishPrivileged EstatesWhen, and only when everyone has worked on all five, go round the class and make notes ensuring that the ironies have been clearly nailed and recorded

Are there more of the same in the passage you can locate and define as ironic?

There are at least two more clusters to look at:Agitated… do much better than expectedYour own kind…. that’s natural

HOMEWORKBefore the next lesson: read/ remind yourself of Chapters Two and Three. Think about:The setting of the conversation in Ruth’s “Recovery Room”.Kathy’s portrait of Tommy and their feelings about each other.The important emphasis placed on Art and PoetryThe incident between Tommy and Miss Geraldine and Miss Lucy’s part in the outcome.Madame, the Gallery and her reaction to the prank they play on her.Their responses to this experience.

Lesson 3 Learning Objectives

The aims of the next two lessons are:• To consolidate and develop your understanding of Kathy and her twin

roles of character and narrator, introducing the concept of the unreliable narrator.

• To consider the setting, time scale and mood of the narrative;• Then to go on to start looking at the roles of the guardians in the lives of

the children: the influence they have, the ways the children respond and so on.

• Finally to consider one of the major themes of the novel: the extreme importance placed on creativity in the Hailsham curriculum, the reasons for this and Madame’s role in it all.

• Key words: setting, time scale, nostalgia, mood, narrative, theme, irony

Look back at Chapter One, pages 7-11. Here the girls (Kathy, Ruth, Laura, Hannah) watch the boys prepare to play football and witness a cruel prank played on Tommy by the other boys. They then witness and respond to Tommy’s hysterical reaction. In pairs look at and note down:

Three things Ruth, Laura and Hannah say and/or do about Tommy’s behaviour.Their reasons for being critical and unsympathetic.The differences between this and what Kathy:1. Thinks and feels about it

2. Openly says about it.

What importance might this account of Tommy’s loss of temper have later in the novel?

At the start of chapter two we are shown Tommy apologising to Kathy for his behaviour. Kathy says “I’d more or less forgotten about it.” Do you believe her?Discuss the responses in groups of four and go round the class logging responses. For the final bullet have a show of hands and then ask for reasons.

Kathy’s reminiscences of Hailsham in this chapter are set in a much more recent time in her memory: when she was in Ruth’s “recovery room” “in Dover”. This develops the sense of Kathy (here with Ruth) looking back at their schooldays nostalgically.Define “nostalgia” and note down for future reference. (The word is derived from the Greek words nostos meaning “homecoming” and algos meaning “ache/pain”.)

Now: read the following passage and then note down five pieces of the description that contrast with Hailsham and might, therefore, lead Kathy to a feeling of nostalgia for it.

We were having this conversation on a fine summer evening, sitting out on the little balcony of her recovery room. It was a few months after her first donation, and now she was over the worst of it, I’d always time my evening visits so that we’d be able to spend a half hour or so out there, watching the sun go down over the rooftops. You could see lots of aerials and satellite dishes, and, sometimes right over in the distance, a glistening line that was the sea. I’d bring mineral water and biscuits and we’d sit there talking about anything and everything that came into our heads. The centre Ruth was in at the time, it’s one of my favourites, and I wouldn’t mind at all if that’s where I ended up. The recovery rooms are small, but they’re well designed and comfortable. Everything – the walls , the floor- has been done in gleaming white tiles, which the centre keeps so clean when you first go in it’s almost like entering a hall of mirrors. Of course, you don’t exactly see yourself reflected back loads of times, but you almost think you do. When you lift an arm, or when someone sits up in bed, you can feel this pale, shadowy movement all around you in the tiles. Anyway, Ruth’s room at that centre, it also had these big glass sliding panels, so she could easily see the outside from her bed. Even with her head on the pillow she’d see a big lot of sky, and if it was warm enough, she could get all the fresh air she wanted by stepping out onto the balcony.Discuss the findings around the class and note down what you agree are the best examples of the description of this setting.

Now consider how irony is developed in this passage: again work towards five examples as a class Q & A. You might like to start with the contrasting views from here and from Hailsham.

“A lot of the time, how you were regarded at Hailsham, how much you were liked and respected, had to do with how good you were at ‘creating’”Remind yourselves of pages 18-22; Tommy’s failure to “create” well and the reactions of Miss Geraldine and Miss Lucy to that. In the light of these contrasting reactions go on to and re-read:

• Chapter Five, pp51 and 52; Ruth and the pencil case. And• Chapter Three, Tommy’s account of Miss Lucy and his interview with her on

P25 “Tommy had heard all of this before, but”…. to P27 ”What’s that got to do with you being creative?”

What have you learnt about creativity and these two guardians’ different attitudes to it? Make some notes: this will be the start of the next lesson.

Lesson 4Learning Objective

• See the previous lesson. You are now working towards planning a piece of writing on a passage from the novel and a previously unseen passage.

The aims of the next two lessons are:• To consolidate and develop your understanding of Kathy and her twin roles

of character and narrator, introducing the concept of the unreliable narrator.• To consider the setting, time scale and mood of the narrative;• Then to go on to start looking at the roles of the guardians in the lives of the

children: the influence they have, the ways the children respond and so on.• Finally to consider one of the major themes of the novel: the extreme

importance placed on creativity in the Hailsham curriculum, the reasons for this and Madame’s role in it all.

• Key words: setting, time scale, nostalgia, mood, narrative, theme, irony, universalise, empathise

Remind yourselves of the two passages you looked at for the previous extension activity. The influences of Miss Geraldine on Ruth and Miss Lucy on Tommy are very different. Moreover, the ways Kazou Ishiguro has chosen to describe them through Kathy’s voice are very different, too.Split the class into six (previously unused) groups. Each one will concentrate on finding examples/evidence for ONE of these six issues. Then trace them on the board with some discussion, so as to clearly link guardian- influence on- R/T: character (description)- Kathy (narrative)- K character.Thus:Influence of Miss G- on Ruth- as delineated by Kathy’s narrative- which tells that Kathy….For Example:Miss Geraldine has had a powerful influence on Ruth. It is suggested that when they were young she was the guardian they would turn to and the one who would be kind and sympathetic. She over-compensates in the case of Tommy’s elephant. Ruth is the leader of Miss Geraldine’s “protectors”. Here she wants to claim a special relationship, which would be improper. The pencil case represents creativity, so important as a mark of prestige at Hailsham.What does this show us about Ruth and where precisely is it shown?How does Kathy describe this? She shows us the detail; “furry pom pom” ; she quotes Moira’s (correct) scepticism about Ruth and angrily rejects it “I pushed past her”; and feels a loyalty to Ruth “the sort of loyalty she inspired.”How does the narrative work and why is it so convincing?And how does it add to our understanding of Kathy’s character?

Read the following passage:“If she doesn’t like us, why does she want our work? Why doesn’t she just leave us alone? Who

asks her to come here, anyway? “No one answered, and we carried on over to the pavilion, not saying anything more about what

had happened.Thinking back now, I can see we were just at that age when we knew a few things about

ourselves- about who we were, how we were different from our guardians, from the people outside- but hadn’t yet understood what any of it meant. I’m sure somewhere in your childhood, you too had an experience like ours that day; similar if not in the actual details, then inside, in the feelings. Because it doesn’t really matter how well your guardians try to prepare you: all the talks, videos, discussions, warnings, none of that can really bring it home. Not when you’re eight years old and you’re all together in a place like Hailsham; when you’ve got guardians like the ones we had; when the gardeners and the delivery men joke and laugh with you and call you “sweetheart”.

All the same, some of it must go in somewhere. It must go in because by the time a moment like that comes along, there’s a part of you that’s been waiting. Maybe from as early as when you’re five or six, there’s been a whisper going at the back of your head saying: “One day, maybe not so long from now, you’ll get to know how it feels.” So you’re waiting, even if you don’t quite know it, waiting for the moment when you realise that you really are different to them; that there are people out there, like Madame, who don’t hate you or wish you any harm, but who nevertheless shudder at the very thought of you- of how you were brought into the world and why- and who dread the idea of your hand brushing theirs. The first time you glimpse yourself through the eyes of a person like that, it’s a cold moment. It’s like walking past a mirror you’ve walked past every day of your life, and suddenly it shows you something else, something troubling and strange.

In this very serious passage Kazuo Ishiguro uses the technique of universalising the children’s experiences of hostility, togetherness and growing self-consciousness to enable us to empathise (fully understand and identify) with them directly. He asks the reader a direct question “what is your experience of being human?”

In this very serious passage Kazuo Ishiguro uses the technique of universalising the children’s experiences of hostility, togetherness and growing self-consciousness to enable us to empathise (fully understand and identify) with them directly. He asks the reader a direct question “what is your experience of being human?”In groups of three or four look back at your eight-year-old selves and recall the kind of experience described here. In essence discovering something pleasant/unpleasant; nice/nasty about someone else’s attitude to you that you had sensed but not fully understood, as the last sentence suggests. It could be something that you look back on now with a range of feelings.Then share your memories with the class.Then go on to p239, first paragraph and write the answers to Laura’s three questions, which the passage starts with.

Plenary/homework

Go back over your notes and be sure you understand all that has been covered on Kathy and her ways of telling the story (character and narrative technique). In the next lesson you will be asked to complete your first piece of writing on the novel.

Lesson 5Learning Objective

The aim of this lesson is to familiarise you with the exam format and how to approach essay questions.

The examIn your exam you will have a choice of two essay questions on this novel. For example:

Question: How does Ishiguro present fear about the future in Never Let Me Go?Write about:• how Ishiguro uses different characters to

present fear about the future• how Ishiguro presents these ideas by the

ways he writes.

How could you plan to answer this question?• Mind map ideas and select best ones• Think of specific events/ characters and use as a basis for the question• Plan ideas using the AOs i.e. all the language features you can remember that create fear.

Remember PEA

• For each paragraph, remember to PEA!1. Make your point. For example, Ishiguro uses

irony/first person narrator/ambiguity/tone/understatement/the character of ... to present fear in the novel.

2. Example: use a short (just a few words) quotation to back up this point.

3. Analysis: pick out how this technique presents fear, and its effect on you, the reader. This should be the longest part of your paragraph – several lines.

Skeleton Plan/mindmapQuestion: How does Ishiguro present fear about the future in Never Let Me Go?Write about:• how Ishiguro uses

different characters to present fear about the future

• how Ishiguro presents these ideas by the ways he writes.Key words to include: Lesson 1: retrospective

narrative, diction, first person narrator, direct address, symbolismLesson 2: irony, technical lexis, semantic field, connotationLesson 3: setting, time scale, nostalgia, mood, narrative, theme, ironyLesson 4: setting, time scale, nostalgia, mood, narrative, theme, irony, universalise, empathise

Extension Task/HomeworkFind a passage in Never Let Me Go in which Kazuo Ishiguro creates a sense of fear.

Lesson 6Learning Objectives

• Go over the written work giving feedback and examples of good practice which link the text, task and mark scheme.

• Go on to consider other elements of fear that are in the novel (starting with students who engaged the previous extension task).

• To link this with the passage on p73 in which Miss Lucy gives her unequivocal account of the function and purpose of the children’s lives

• And to start to see its critical place in the structure, texture and development of the novel.

• Key words: structure, texture, development, provoking emotions in the reader

Use the mark scheme to look at your own essay.

• How well does it understand and respond to the task?• How far does it show well -supported understanding of the text?• Where does it fit into the MS Band Descriptors?

Now do the same with a neighbour’s essay.

Feedback – some really good parts from the essays

In this passage from Chapter Nine Kathy recalls seeing Harry C “a couple of years ago”. In other words in the 1990s before she prepares to “complete”.It provokes a wide range of emotions in the reader, including fear, although a different kind of fear from the one we looked at previously. This is anything but childish; it is very grown up, but no less terrifying.

I saw Harry fleetingly a couple of years ago at the recovery centre in Wiltshire. He was being brought down after a donation. I wasn’t in the best of moods because my own donor had just completed the night before. No one was blaming me for that – it had been a particularly untidy operation – but I wasn’t feeling great all the same. I’d been up most of the night, sorting all the arrangements, and I was at the front reception getting ready to leave when I saw Harry coming in. He was in a wheelchair – because he was so weak, I found out later, not because he couldn’t actually walk- and I’m not sure he recognised me when I went up and said hello. I suppose there’s no reason I should have any special place in his memory. We’d never had much to do with each other apart from that one time. To him, if he remembered me at all, I’d just be this daft girl who came up to him once, asked if he wanted sex, and then backed off. He must have been pretty mature for his age, because he didn’t get annoyed or go around telling people I was a tease, or any of that. So when I saw him being brought in that day, I felt grateful to him and wished I was his carer. I looked about, but whoever was his carer wasn’t even around……..When I mentioned Hailsham he did a thumbs up, but I could tell he didn’t recognise me.

In pairs discuss:• the range of emotions the passage arouses• what is frightening about it.And feed back in class discussion.

From this discussion it should emerge that it is frightening not simply because of what it says: we’re used to Kathy’s narrative voice by now, after all, but principally because of where it occurs in the novel, in other words its effect is determined by Kazuo Ishiguro’s use of structure.

Elements of this need to be clarified and noted:• It is in the immediate past of the narrative: neither the present, nor the more distant

past of Hailsham.• It is set in the context of what the principal characters have “known and not known”

and presents the hideous reality of what they have been created for.• It is “bookended” by the complications of their complex sex lives and relationships, all

typical of enquiring, lively “normal” teenagers (although of course this has its its own contrasting ironies).

• It is followed by a particularly lacerating example of Kathy’s own emotional decency, honesty and, above all, understatement.

Plenary/Extension Task/Homework

Now go back and read Miss Lucy’s speech to the children on pp 73-74: “But Miss Lucy…. Then maybe the sun will come out, too.”

Before the next lesson you need to be clear about exactly what she says, why she says it and the effects it has on the children.

Be clear on these three points.There is huge contrast between her succinct precision and the complexity of the reactions. It prompts Kathy to further recollections of two moments in the immediate past, with Ruth and separately with Tommy and leads into their retrospective thoughts about how Hailsham worked.

Lesson 7Learning Objectives

• To reinforce last lesson’s extension activity.• To consider the use of suggestion, ambiguity and suspense

in the novel. And your need to accept alternative interpretations of what you’ve read.

• To look at the outcomes of Miss Lucy’s revelations; and to• Move on to pp63-65, Kathy’s account of the tape, the

dance and Madame’s intervention: the heart of ‘Never Let Me Go’

• Key words: suggestion, ambiguity, suspense, opening debate, pre-ordained fate

• Look again at Miss Lucy’s outburst on pp73-74. Class discussion: Why does she say what she does? What does it tell us about her? Does it come as a surprise? What exactly does it mean?

Miss Lucy’s outburst pp73-74

Now look at another two passages from Chapter 21. First p239 from “We were the first...” to “...the tide was with us.”ThenP240 “From your perspective ... Barrier against seeing you as properly human”.Here Miss Emily confirms that what Miss Lucy has told them is true and starts to offer her explanation of Hailsham’s intentions and functions.

Then read p244 Miss Emily’s account of Miss Lucy and her response to Miss Lucy’s behaviour. “Miss Emily raised her eyebrows... So she had to go”.

Here Ishiguro opens up one of the novel’s big debates: and asks you to make your mind up. Hands up: Should the children have been kept in ignorance of their pre-ordained fate? Or told about it clearly and honestly?Work in groups of 3-4 to find evidence from the novel for one of these views. Then vote again.

Main Activity: Evaluating Ishiguro’s methods of building up suspense and dread:1: shocking the reader

2: confirming what we sense but don’t wish to accept

"The problem, as I see it, is that you've been told and not told. You've been told, but none of you really understand, and I dare say, some people are quite happy to leave it that way. But I'm not. If you're to have decent lives, you have to know who you are and what lies ahead of you, every one of you."

In 6 groups, take one of the first 6 chapters to p73 and make a list of moments where Miss Lucy’s statement is suggested/implied/intangible/beneath the surface of the narrative.

e.g. Chapter 1P4 “it feels just about right to be finishing at last come the end of the year.” and anything else from the passage on pp4-5 up to “Instead he wanted to hear all about Hailsham”.

Structure point: note the passages between these: apparent ordinariness and mundanity, typical childish behaviour and school life: this adds to the suspense and tension by providing a contrast. In the words of one American reviewer: “Ishiguro, in his gentle way, gives you the willies”.

Plenary/extension activity

Re-read p63 “Anyway, that’s why I was so secretive about my tape...” to p67 “This gave us both a little chill, and though we giggled, we didn’t say any more about it”.

Homework: Revise the first 6 chapters for a test next lesson

Lesson 8Learning Objectives

To emphasise and understand the significance of the tape scene in Chapter 6 (pp63-67) in itself and in the development/structure of the novel as a whole

Lesson Form Structure Language1 First person narrator

Direct addressRetrospective narrative

SymbolismDictionConnotation

2 IronyTechnical lexisSemantic fieldConnotation

3 MoodNarrativetheme

SettingTimescalenostalgia

Irony

4 NarrativeThemeUniversaliseEmpathiseMood

SettingTimescaleIrony

IronyEmpathiseMood

6 TextureProvoking emotions in the reader

StructureDevelopment

Provoking emotions in the reader

7 Opening of a debatePre-ordained fate

SuggestionAmbiguitySuspense

SuggestionAmbiguity

Re-read p63 “Anyway, that’s why I was so secretive about my tape...” to p67 “This gave us both a little chill, and though we giggled, we didn’t say any more about it”.

Now answer the following questions1. We are to assume Kathy at a “Sale” in exchange for “tokens” has acquired the tape. What is it

about the style, age and presentation of the tape “from her time” that suggests how it got to the “sale” in the first place?

2. Why does she regard listening to the song as such a private activity?3. In the paragraph at the bottom of page 64 Kathy recalls that she “didn’t listen properly to the

words” because she was obsessed with the lines “Baby, baby never let me go”. What does it suggest about her thoughts and feelings here?

4. She is eleven years old and mature for her age: how does this help to focus on her feelings?5. And why, therefore is it so sad: and so ironic?6. How does the paragraph in the middle of page 65 “Maybe the volume… baby never let me go”

reinforce the tragic irony?7. When Kathy sees Madame she thinks “the odd thing was she was crying” why “odd”.8. Do you think it is “odd”? Or not? Give your reasons. 9. Previously the students have decided the Madame is scared of them: here Kathy says ”there was

something else, something extra in that look I couldn’t fathom”. What do you think that is?10. Why do you think Kazuo Ishiguro chose this as the title of the novel?

Top Tip: these young people have been created infertile and yet tragically they have all the instincts of the fertile. The philoprogenetive appeal of motherhood is perhaps the most instinctually powerful a woman can feel as Kathy starts to do here. Hence Madame’s reaction and hence the irony of her realisation of the appalling reality of all she has set out to do.

Extension task

Now: Go to Chapter 22 pages 247- 249: “Madame watched the departing vehicles…. Then she turned and went back into her house”.What do you make of what Madame says here and how, exactly, does it add to the importance of the novel’s title?

Lesson 9 – Chapters 7 – 9 - ToneLearning Objectives:

To look ahead to the “last days at Hailsham” and the issues that accompany them. Amongst them are:

• Our growing awareness of the educational practices at Hailsham; at least according to Kathy in terms of “what we were told and not told”.

• With particular relevance to sex education and sexual morality: and to the students’ futures.

• The growing awareness of the imminence of “donations” and the way the students’ reactions are presented.

• The ways in which the Tommy/Kathy/Ruth triangle is complicated and intensified and presented by Kathy.

• The demise of Miss Lucy.

Key words: tone, narrative voice, speakers, dialogue, structure, theme, wider issues

In groups of 2 or 3, re-read the following passages and suggest which of the points on the previous slide they fit into (15

minutes):

Chapter SevenP71 “I went on watching Miss Lucy…. You get terrible accidents sometimes.’”P74 “Then she went silent….Then maybe the sun will come out too’”.P75 and P76 “One of the things that occurs to me now…. treat sex as something pretty special”P79 “But I’ve gone off a bit. The reason I was talking…it was typical of the way the whole subject impinged

on us when we were thirteen.”

Chapter EightP83 “Room 22 was hardly used for classes…. ‘What can I do for you’”.P86 “So what had been going on?....P87: if the guardians had caught us at it”.P87 “It’s very clear to me… before rushing out with her folders.”P88 “When we discussed all these things… completely sick making”.

Chapter NineP93 “All this did, as I say, … what I was wanting from him”.P95 ”For a moment we sat there…P96 We can’t afford to waste time”.P99 “’Hold on Tommy. Did she…P100 she suddenly stood up and kind of bent over me and hugged me.’P101 “’Tommy just listen…. So don’t blow it”.

Main Activity

Go back to each extract and make notes on the tone of each. That means Kathy’s narrative voice and the tone of the speakers she represents. This is the key to seeing the contribution they make to the way the novel is developed.

Plenary/extension activity and Homework

In the next lesson we will be looking back on Part One of the novel and will start to draw some overall conclusions about what we have read. We will need to establish the concept of the context of the novel. In preparation for this look up and make a note of these different types of fiction and try and think of some examples you know about.

• The School story• The Coming of Age story (often termed a “bildungsroman”)• The Science Fiction story• The Alternative History story (“what if…”)• The Love story

Lesson 10 – ContextLearning Objectives

• To establish the contexts of the novel first by genre, then by culture, history and sociology.

• Key words: genre, conventions, culture, history, sociology, juxtaposition, contrast, irony

Starter

• Look at your notes on context. Discuss the examples you found of:

• The School story• The Coming of Age story (often termed a

“bildungsroman”)• The Science Fiction story• The Alternative History story (“what if…”)• The Love storyMake a list of the CONVENTIONS (things you would

expect to find) of each genre.

5 Groups: Identify how NLMG fits into each of the genres (focus on first 9 chapters)

• The School story• The Coming of Age story (often termed a

“bildungsroman”)• The Science Fiction story• The Alternative History story (“what if…”)• The Love story2. Discuss/note down the ways in which the novel

moves from genre to genre and relies on a sense of each and the juxtaposition/contrast of each for its effects which are very often ironic ones.3. BIG QUESTION: So far, what is the novel about?

(see the next slide)

What Ishiguro says:

In a recent interview Kazuo Ishiguro explained that his intentions (for what they are worth and which may be debated, of course) were to foreshorten the period of life between the recognition and understanding of death and the actual experience of it to show how we react to the inevitability of our demise.“The last piece of the jigsaw was a conceit with which I could do this. It was then I hit on the idea of cloning”.You need to leave this section of the novel with a very clear idea of its theme/s. If there is any doubt go back to the passage of your choice, which might be the one we looked at in Lesson Four.

Possibilities to work towards:What it is to be fully humanRepression/Self Denial/ the “pragmatic management of emotions”The steady erosion of hope for/in the futureWhat “living a decent life” entailsThe difficulties of accepting and remembering things

Extension task/Homework

• Make sure your notes are organised and revise them: the next lesson will be our second piece of writing on the novel.

Lesson 11: Writing TaskRemind yourself of the following passage from the novel and answer the question that follows. You should take about 30 minutes to do this.It would be too easy to claim it was just Ruth who kept the secret guard going long after we’d naturally outgrown it. Sure enough the guard was important to her. She’d known about the plot for much longer than the rest of us, and this gave her enormous authority; by hinting that the real evidence came from a time before people like me had joined – that there were things she’d yet to reveal even to us – she could justify almost any decision she made on behalf of the group. If she decided someone should be expelled, for example, and she sensed opposition, she’d just allude darkly to stuff she knew “from before”. There’s no question Ruth wanted to keep the whole thing going. But the truth was, those of us who’d grown close to her, we each played a part in preserving the fantasy and making it last as long as possible.Explore this moment and another of your own choice to show how Kazuo Ishiguro presents the complex relationship between Kathy and Ruth through Kathy’s narrative and how it relates to the major preoccupations of the novel.

Skeleton Plan/mindmap

Question: Explore this moment and another of your own choice to show how Kazuo Ishiguro presents the complex relationship between Kathy and Ruth through Kathy’s narrative and how it relates to the major preoccupations of the novel.

Plenary/Extension task• When you have completed your writing and handed it in go on to

read/remind yourself of the final two paragraphs of this section on P185. “It wasn’t long after that I made my decision…… I was saying my goodbyes.”

• The suggestion here is that Kathy has made a spur of the moment decision to leave the cottages and move on in her life and career. But in many ways these two short paragraphs are ones that we have foreseen for most of this part of the novel.

• When you have read them carefully think about the reasons and feelings Kathy has here: her tone of voice what she says and what she omits are, once again, crucial to seeing both the structural and thematic importance here.

• Finally consider how it looks forward to the final part of the novel: Kathy’s isolation, loneliness and repressed despair: the first passage we looked at in lesson one.

Lesson Form Structure Language

1 First person narratorDirect address

Retrospective narrative

SymbolismDictionConnotation

2 IronyTechnical lexisSemantic fieldConnotation

3 MoodNarrativetheme

SettingTimescaleNostalgia

Irony

4 NarrativeThemeUniversaliseEmpathise

SettingTimescaleIrony

IronyEmpathiseMood

6 TextureProvoking emotions in the reader

StructureDevelopment

Provoking emotions in the reader

7 Opening of a debatePre-ordained fate

SuggestionAmbiguitySuspense

SuggestionAmbiguity

8 &9 ToneNarrative voiceTheme

StructureDialogue

Dialogue

10 CONTEXT, GENRE, CONVENTIONSCulture, History, Sociology, LiteraryThe School storyThe Coming of Age story (bildungsroman)The Science Fiction storyThe Alternative History story (“what if…”)The Love story

JuxtapositionContrast

Irony