Novels:
At National 5, pupils may have been taught 'To Kill a Mockingbird' by Harper Lee, 'The Catcher in the Rye', by J.D. Salinger, or 'Lord of the Flies' by William Golding. They will use this text to write a timed essay in the exam.
'Lord of the Flies' is the story of a group of young boys, stranded on a remote island and starting to descend into savagery. In this extract, Simon, the most insightful and helpful of the boys, contemplates a pig's head on a stick, placed there by Simon's hunting-obsessed peers as an offering for a powerful 'Beast' they believe is on the island:
At National 5, pupils may have been taught 'To Kill a Mockingbird' by Harper Lee, 'The Catcher in the Rye', by J.D. Salinger, or 'Lord of the Flies' by William Golding. They will use this text to write a timed essay in the exam.
'Lord of the Flies' is the story of a group of young boys, stranded on a remote island and starting to descend into savagery. In this extract, Simon, the most insightful and helpful of the boys, contemplates a pig's head on a stick, placed there by Simon's hunting-obsessed peers as an offering for a powerful 'Beast' they believe is on the island:
Simon discovered that he had spoken aloud. He opened his eyes quickly and there was the head grinning amusedly in the strange daylight, ignoring the flies, the spilled guts, even ignoring the indignity of being spiked on a stick.
He looked away, licking his dry lips.
A gift for the beast. Might not the beast come for it? The head, he thought, appeared to agree with him. Run away, said the head silently, go back to the others. It was a joke, really - why should you bother? You were just wrong, that's all. A little headache, something you ate, perhaps. Go back, child, said the head silently.
Simon looked up, feeling the weight of his wet hair, and gazed at the sky. Up there, for once, were clouds, great bulging towers that sprouted away over the island, grey and cream and copper-coloured. The clouds were sitting on the land; they squeezed, produced moment by moment, this close, tormenting heat. Even the butterflies deserted the open space where the obscene thing grinned and dripped. Simon lowered his head, carefully keeping his eyes shut, then sheltered them with his hand. There were no shadows under the trees but everywhere a pearly stillness, so that what was real seemed illusive and without definition. The pile of guts was a black blob of flies that buzzed like a saw. After a while these flies found Simon. Gorged, they alighted by his runnels of sweat and drank. They tickled under his nostrils and played leap-frog on his thighs. They were black and iridescent green and without number; and in front of Simon, the Lord of the Flies hung on his stick and grinned. At last Simon gave up and looked back; saw the white teeth and dim eyes, the blood - and his gaze was held by that ancient, inescapable recognition. In Simon's right temple, a pulse began to beat on the brain.
He looked away, licking his dry lips.
A gift for the beast. Might not the beast come for it? The head, he thought, appeared to agree with him. Run away, said the head silently, go back to the others. It was a joke, really - why should you bother? You were just wrong, that's all. A little headache, something you ate, perhaps. Go back, child, said the head silently.
Simon looked up, feeling the weight of his wet hair, and gazed at the sky. Up there, for once, were clouds, great bulging towers that sprouted away over the island, grey and cream and copper-coloured. The clouds were sitting on the land; they squeezed, produced moment by moment, this close, tormenting heat. Even the butterflies deserted the open space where the obscene thing grinned and dripped. Simon lowered his head, carefully keeping his eyes shut, then sheltered them with his hand. There were no shadows under the trees but everywhere a pearly stillness, so that what was real seemed illusive and without definition. The pile of guts was a black blob of flies that buzzed like a saw. After a while these flies found Simon. Gorged, they alighted by his runnels of sweat and drank. They tickled under his nostrils and played leap-frog on his thighs. They were black and iridescent green and without number; and in front of Simon, the Lord of the Flies hung on his stick and grinned. At last Simon gave up and looked back; saw the white teeth and dim eyes, the blood - and his gaze was held by that ancient, inescapable recognition. In Simon's right temple, a pulse began to beat on the brain.
Drama:
For their drama text, pupils may study 'Bold Girls' by Scottish author Rona Munro. This play is set in Belfast in the early 1990s, and involves the lives and relationships of four Catholic women, Marie, Cassie, Nora and Deirdre, against the backdrop of the Troubles. Pupils can use this play to answer textual analysis questions in the exam.
In this extract, tensions mount between Marie and her best friend Cassie, as they discuss men in general and Marie's dead husband Michael in particular:
For their drama text, pupils may study 'Bold Girls' by Scottish author Rona Munro. This play is set in Belfast in the early 1990s, and involves the lives and relationships of four Catholic women, Marie, Cassie, Nora and Deirdre, against the backdrop of the Troubles. Pupils can use this play to answer textual analysis questions in the exam.
In this extract, tensions mount between Marie and her best friend Cassie, as they discuss men in general and Marie's dead husband Michael in particular:
MARIE: Cassie, don’t talk like that; you know you’ve not done half the wild things you make out.
CASSIE: Not a quarter of what I’ve wanted to Marie, but enough to know it doesn’t work. Grabbing onto some man because he smells like excitement, he smells like escape. They can’t take you anywhere except into the back seat of their car. They’re all the same.
MARIE: If that’s what you think of them that’ll be all you’ll find.
Cassie gets up to stand, looking at Michael
CASSIE: They are all the same, Marie.
MARIE: No.
CASSIE: No, not Michael. (Sarcastically) Wasn’t he just the perfect man, the perfect saint of a man.
MARIE: He was no saint.
CASSIE: He was not.
MARIE: I never said he was a saint.
CASSIE: Not much perfect about him.
MARIE: We cared about each other! We were honest with each other!
CASSIE: Honest!?
MARIE: We were. He was a good man!
CASSIE: Good!? He was a lying worm like every one of them.
There is a pause
MARIE: I think you should go home, Cassie.
CASSIE: Not a quarter of what I’ve wanted to Marie, but enough to know it doesn’t work. Grabbing onto some man because he smells like excitement, he smells like escape. They can’t take you anywhere except into the back seat of their car. They’re all the same.
MARIE: If that’s what you think of them that’ll be all you’ll find.
Cassie gets up to stand, looking at Michael
CASSIE: They are all the same, Marie.
MARIE: No.
CASSIE: No, not Michael. (Sarcastically) Wasn’t he just the perfect man, the perfect saint of a man.
MARIE: He was no saint.
CASSIE: He was not.
MARIE: I never said he was a saint.
CASSIE: Not much perfect about him.
MARIE: We cared about each other! We were honest with each other!
CASSIE: Honest!?
MARIE: We were. He was a good man!
CASSIE: Good!? He was a lying worm like every one of them.
There is a pause
MARIE: I think you should go home, Cassie.
Poetry:
Pupils may also study a group of poems by a specific Scottish author, such as Carol Ann Duffy, Jackie Kay, Edwin Morgan or Norman MacCaig, to give them another option for the textual analysis paper. For instance:
Basking Shark
by Norman MacCaig
To stub an oar on a rock where none should be,
To have it rise with a slounge out of the sea
Is a thing that happened once (too often) to me.
But not too often - though enough.
I count as gain
That once I met, on a sea tin-tacked with rain,
That roomsized monster with a matchbox brain.
He displaced more than water. He shoggled me
Centuries back - this decadent townee
Shook on a wrong branch of his family tree.
Swish up the dirt and, when it settles, a spring
Is all the clearer. I saw me, in one fling,
Emerging from the slime of everything.
So who's the monster? The thought made me grow pale
For twenty seconds while, sail after sail,
The tall fin slid away and then the tail.
Pupils may also study a group of poems by a specific Scottish author, such as Carol Ann Duffy, Jackie Kay, Edwin Morgan or Norman MacCaig, to give them another option for the textual analysis paper. For instance:
Basking Shark
by Norman MacCaig
To stub an oar on a rock where none should be,
To have it rise with a slounge out of the sea
Is a thing that happened once (too often) to me.
But not too often - though enough.
I count as gain
That once I met, on a sea tin-tacked with rain,
That roomsized monster with a matchbox brain.
He displaced more than water. He shoggled me
Centuries back - this decadent townee
Shook on a wrong branch of his family tree.
Swish up the dirt and, when it settles, a spring
Is all the clearer. I saw me, in one fling,
Emerging from the slime of everything.
So who's the monster? The thought made me grow pale
For twenty seconds while, sail after sail,
The tall fin slid away and then the tail.