English lessons took on a new dimension when a Northern Irish teacher decided to encourage his class to go beyond their reading to research the period detail of a Philip Pullman book. The upshot was a highly motivated class. Jack Kenny reports
Set in the gloomy alleyways of rat-infested, late 19th-century Wapping, east London, Philip Pullman’s The Ruby in the Smoke is a great read. Good literature such as this is powerful enough, but with information and communications technology you can add impact by researching and enhancing period detail.
Gareth Lenaghan, head of English at Ballyclare High School in Northern Ireland, chose Pullman’s book for his Year 9 pupils (Year 8 in England) because it was a good read and the kind of book that could be enhanced by research on the internet. Fortunate to have access to ICT in his classroom, he believes that much of his work could be replicated in an ICT suite.
“Young people have an ease and familiarity with technology that it would be negligent of a classroom teacher to ignore,” Gareth maintains. He knows that ICT appeals to a teenager’s appetite for the electronic medium and believes that there are compelling reasons for incorporating it into the teaching of literature. “There are good resources available online to encourage critical awareness of other opinions. The goal of independent learning can be one of the outcomes.”
A member of the school’s ICT steering group, Gareth is influential in the way that ICT is developed in Ballyclare High School. “I have six machines in the classroom; they are all connected to the internet. I have six tables for group work in the classroom and I like to have about five students in each group. A pair from each of those groups will at any one time be working online. The rest will be working on structured activities: constructing a dialogue to explain part of the plot, a couple of students had to devise a plot for a Penny Dreadful, stirring tales of British derring-do. You have to use structured activities: oral, written and vocabulary because there is a broad vocabulary in a novel like The Ruby in the Smoke.”
The Ruby in the Smoke is set in 1872 and centres on 16-year-old Sally Lockhart. The book opens as Sally discovers that her father has died in mysterious circumstances. He was working in the Far East and Sally’s investigation shows up England’s involvement in the Opium wars with China. “That is the context and the background to the plot. Stereoscopes and stereo photography (which take 3D pictures) are also featured and pupils found out about them. One of the lovely quirky details that Pullman puts in is the reference to the Penny Dreadfuls. One character has a real penchant for those early comics,” says Gareth.
Gareth uses the background detail to underpin the work on the book and to enrich the understanding of the pupils. Those working online had headings given to them: research on Penny Dreadfuls; finding out about the Opium wars; exploring the lives of children in Victorian England; studying trade and exporting in the British Empire. “They had opportunities to look at Encarta and other reference material but found it much more stimulating to go online to find information. They enjoyed the challenge of finding something new.”
Keen to ensure that work is not simply downloaded and printed out, Gareth makes sure that once students have acquired the information they have to use it. “One task was to do a spider diagram with five different points about the British Empire. They had a choice of whether to do that with a pen or with the computer. Three quarters of them chose to use a simple wordprocessing package for that task. Others had to design covers for a Penny Dreadful. They had to borrow some of the imagery and iconography that they found in the originals that had been located. One effective technique was to take images off the internet and put them at the centre of the spider diagram. There is plenty of material on Victorian London with some terrific sites. Flowcharts, PowerPoint, posters and spider diagrams are all used for the final presentations.”
Gareth argues that the increased understanding that comes from the research improves learning and deepens the appreciation of the book. Opening up the classroom is the same as opening up minds.
Jack Kenny is a freelance writer and chair of examiners for English for one of the major GCSE examining boards The following sites could help with a deeper understanding of The Ruby in the Smoke:www.penrithcity.nsw.gov.auusrpagescollectpenny.htmwww.pbs.orgkqed demonbarberpennyindex.htmlwww.slv.vic.gov.auslvchildrengirlsannualhttp :nene.essortment.comstereoscope_rqwy.htmhttp:learningcurve.pro.gov.uks napshotssnapshot14snapshot14.htm The Ruby in the Smoke is published by Scholastic
