MRS TILSCHERS CLASS POETRY ANALYSIS

Question 1

You could travel up the Blue Nile with your finger -

Answer 1

-you/your addresses the reader and involves us. -Image of travelling makes it feel like an adventure suggesting that the pupils love the class.
-Blue is appealing to our sight and tracing appealing to touch.

Question 2

Mrs Tilscher chanted the scenery -

Answer 2

-Implies she is singing and it is exciting.
-She has a musical voice and it is nice to listen to her. Appeals to sound

Question 3

That for an hour, then a skittle of milk -

Answer 3

skittle reminds us of bowling suggesting the class is full of games,
-it’s playful and fun to be there. (image)

Question 4

The chalky Pyramids rubbed into dust. -

Answer 4

magical classroom and sense of setting

Question 5

A window opened with a long pole -

Answer 5

creates sense of historic setting

Question 6

The laugh of a bell swung by a running child -

Answer 6

-image. Child is so happy and everyone is enjoying themselves.
- the bell is happy.
-Class is full of happiness and an overall great place to be.

Question 7

This was better than home

Answer 7

• short sentence emphasises how much the children enjoy being in the class and they want to be there.

Question 8

Enthralling books -

Answer 8

minor sentences emphasises how fascinating it is to be there and everything they do is interesting.

Question 9

The classroom glowed like a sweet shop. -

Answer 9

image.
-Appeals to sense of sight and taste. Just as a sweet shop is colourful and where kids want to be, so too are kids wanting to be there and attractive for children.

Question 10

Sugar paper. Coloured shapes. -

Answer 10

-Minor sentences. Emphaiseses how attractive the class is as its bright and colourful.
-Sugar paper reminds us of something sweet and bright.

Question 11

Brady and Hindley faded, like the faint, uneasy smudge of a mistake -

Answer 11

dark contrast.
-All the horror of the outside is gone.
-Smudge suggests the fears are not completely gone, the knowledge of the sad outside world still there.

Question 12

Mrs Tilscher loved you. -

Answer 12

short sentnces emphasise the relationship. Caring and feeling valued.

Question 13

Some mornings, you found she’d left a good gold star by your name.

Answer 13

GG alliteration emphasises the pleasure and excitement they get when being rewarded.

Question 14

The scent of a pencil slowly, carefully, shaved. -

Answer 14

sense of smell.
-Helps us remember what a classroom setting was like.
-Commas slow the pace and show the care that the kids take

Question 15

The inky tadpoles changed from commas into exclamation marks -

Answer 15

image. Mixed metaphor compares how tadpoles become frogs and the same way a comma is small and exclamation mark is tall.
-Image suggests they are getting physically bigger. Echoes the physical change in the child. Exclamation mark suggests shock.

Question 15

A xylophone’s nonsense heard from another form. -

Answer 15

nonsense emphasises that they are having fun and just learning.

Question 16

jumping and croaking away from the lunch queue. -

Answer 16

refers to the idea that the children’s voices are breaking and physically changing.

Question 17

You kicked him -

Answer 17

violent and immature reaction suggests she is horrified.

Question 18

A rough boy told you how you were born. -

Answer 18

Mental change.
-rough implies it was not subtle and in a mean way

Question 19

But stared at your parents, appalled -

Answer 19

appalled suggests disgust and horror.
-Parenthesis emphasises shock and horror she feels as she loses her innocence.

Question 20

That feverish July, the air tasted of electricity. - July

Answer 20

= end of school year. Feverish suggests an irritable mood.
- Electricity makes us think of a threat in the air as it is dangerous.

Question 21

A tangible alarm -

Answer 21

warning and being afraid, emphasises the stress that teenagrs feel

Question 22

made you always untidy, hot, fractious -

Answer 22

something is breaking and it represents puberty.

Question 23

under the heavy, sexy sky -

Answer 23

heavy has connotations of something being a burden or a weight.
-New knowledge is a burden.
-Sexy is sexual awakening as physical changes.

Question 24

You ran through the gates, impatient to be grown -

Answer 24

kids are super excited. Contrast to school being better than home as now they want to get out there.