Using Graphs to teach A Level Literature

 In the picture, you can see the wall that my Year 12s used to display everything they know about La Casa de Bernarda Alba as they skimmed the text, read about the text, read the text, and then watched the play. It's not a finished display, more of a "working wall" as they build up their knowledge. And it's there as a visual representation, to make clear the rhythm of where the play has song, story and violence.

The whole board is a great graphic representation, with the black and white framing of "un documental fotográfico". And the colour of the backing reflects the transition from paredes blancas, to blanquísimas, to "azuladas", as the play shifts from a realistic house with pictures on the wall, to something starkly white, and finally to somewhere that seems more of a symbolic or psychological place - an effect of light rather than physical walls.

I don't know if you can quite see, but in the top right hand corner is an actual graph. Early on in their reading and re-reading of the play, the students took a list of key quotes from Act Three. They found them in the text and read around them to give them each a score for Dramatic Intensity. And then plotted them on the graph. This way they have a strong visual reminder of how the dramatic tension builds. It seems to start low, building slowly with some plateaux of calm, and then reach a violent climax.

They did the same for the first two acts. And all three graphs had a remarkably similar shape. Each act starts with more realistic dialogue, everyday social interaction, and then builds through moments of calm and tension in a steady crescendo towards a climax. And a graph for the overall structure of the play is very similar, moving from something realistic, set in Andalucia, to something more symbolic, surrealist, psychological and universal.

This grasp of the play is vital for essay writing. An answer to an essay question needs to reflect the fact that its treatment will not be uniform across the play. Almost any topic the students are faced with in the exam, will be part of this slow and controlled transition from everyday life to nightmare. And if their essays reflect this, then their essays too will have shape and meaning.