CSEC ENGLISH

Hello there! School starts back this week, and we want to encourage you to make up your mind to settle in quickly and start thinking towards those exams next May/June. If you work steadily all year, you will do much better than if you leave everything to the last minute. Get going on those SBAs, and do your reading for English B. We always recommend that you keep a journal to help with your writing skills for English A (and, indeed, for all your subjects). And get yourself a small notebook to jot down new words (plus meanings) and any problem spellings. Here at Stabroek News we want to help you as much as possible, so make sure you get your CSEC English page every Sunday. Now read on, and enjoy!

ENGLISH B—SHORT STORIES

Our second Caribbean story that focuses on a collision of cultures is Paula Marshall’s To Da-Duh—In Memoriam. The story’s narrator (a second generation immigrant to the USA) remembers a visit she paid when she was nine, to her maternal grandmother in Barbados. The little girl dislikes much of what she sees on the island, and is arrogantly dismissive of everything her grandmother cherishes. The grandmother, on the other hand, is amazed at how brash and bold the girl is, and quite horrified by much of what the girl tells her about New York.

From the moment they meet, the two (grandmother and granddaughter) are locked in a contest to determine whose lifestyle is better. Da-duh is so proud of her land, fruitful with all kinds of crops; the canefields reaching up to the very windows of the tiny homes; the dignity she feels in being ‘colonised’ (a word that, to her, seems to mean ‘civilised’); and the towering majesty of the royal palm she shows to her granddaughter.

For her part, the little girl brags about the snow, the modern dances and songs she knows, the electricity that lights their homes, the various technological gadgets that fill her world, and the fact that she beat up a white girl.

The canes that Da-duh finds so beautiful seem terrifying to the child: she sees them as ‘giant weeds’ that have taken over the island—weeds with ‘stiletto blades’ that could pierce you, or great plants ‘clashing like swords’ above her head. Da-duh, in contrast, is terrified by machines, as she shows when she clutches the girl’s hand in the truck that brings them from town. She is certainly not impressed to hear that there are so many machines in New York. Da-duh’s trump card is the majestic height of the royal palm near her home, but her granddaughter can quickly trump even that by telling her how high the Empire State building is. Da-duh is crushed to know that her wonderful world does not impress her town-bred granddaughter. Steeped in her colonised way of thinking, Da-duh is horrified to learn that her granddaughter has had the temerity to ‘beat up’ a white girl, when she, herself, aspires to the goal of ‘whiteness’ and prefers her fairskinned grandchildren to the darker ones.

What we see in the story, then, is the way of life of two different generations and two different cultures: the rural life of the grandmother in Barbados, and the high-tech world of the girl from New York—and their different attitudes towards colonization.

The last four paragraphs of the story deserve careful study. Now an adult, the narrator leaves her story-telling and moves to the present. She tells us how Daduh died in her Berbice chair in the ‘show of force’ in 1937, when British planes flew low over the island, frightening the people. She relates, too, how she spent some time painting landscapes of Barbados in a loft above a noisy factory in downtown New York, with the floor beneath her shaking from the rumble of the machinery below. The image is a splendid one: try as she will to recapture the idyllic lifestyle that her grandmother enjoyed, she finds her reverie disturbed by the presence of modernity and its machines. We cannot turn back the clock: Daduh’s world is gone, and the machine has won.

Narrative devices. These will include ● The first person narrative, and then of her adult self

● Imagery of contrasting light/dark, black/white paragraphs, suggesting the contrasts in Da-duh herself

The

weapon imagery which takes the point of view first of the child

used to describe the canes in the opening

The ubiquitous contrasts between the world of Da-duh’s generation and the world of her granddaughter

● The device of the narrator’s journey back to her origins—a journey that lets her learn that she has gained much by coming to the USA, but has ALSO lost much of value M and M’s All the words below begin and end with the letter M. Use the clues to help you find the other letters. 1. M—M to cripple 2. M——-M institution for displaying art or other exhibits force of movement polite title for a woman theory and practice communism commercialism silent least amount peculiarity of speech or behaviour greatest amount 3. 4. 5. M———M M——M M———M

6. M—————M 7. M-M 8. M——-M 9. M————M 10. M———M

SUBORDINATION

of All sentences contain a MAIN CLAUSE—that is, a clause that makes sense on its own and could therefore stand alone. Here are some examples: ● The teacher came late. ● Jim found a baby bird. ● Simone invited me to her party.

Another type of clause is called a SUBORDINATE CLAUSE—that is, a clause that does not make sense on its own, and so cannot stand alone. Here are some examples: ● ● ●

Because those subordinate clauses do not make sense on their own, we need to combine them with a MAIN CLAUSE. Look— 1. Cherries will not make you put on weight contain fat. Because we did not understand, the point again. They had lunch in the airport restaurant 2. 3. whereas avocados we asked the lecturer to go over while they were waiting.

Notice that our subordinate clauses now make sense! Notice, too, that if the subordinate clause comes BEFORE the main clause, it has to be followed by a comma as in (2).

For you to do a) Look at these two lists (A) and (B). Take a main clause and a suitably matching subordinate clause and make a sentence. Remember that if you put the subordinate clause first, you will need to insert a comma separating it from the main clause.

MAIN CLAUSES (A)

Sam preferred wearing long pants Sam loves to play chess Sam came first in Maths Sam let the doctor extract his tooth Sam gave her roses

SPELLING

Whereas avocados contain fat. Because we did not understand. While they were waiting.

SUBORDINATE CLAUSES (B)

when Marcia passed her driving test because he had skinny legs whereas Carl topped the class in Spanish although he seldom wins before the pain became unbearable

Here are 15 words that are frequently misspelt. Ask someone to test you and see if you can spell all of them correctly. Write out any words that you couldn’t spell, and make sure they will never catch you again!

Approximately, argument, assassinate, attendance, benefit, bruise, budget, buoyant, burial, casualty, cemetery, chaotic, committee, concede, conference.