In Mrs Tilscher’s Class - Carol Ann Duffy

Question 1

“You could travel up the Blue Nile”

Answer 1

“You” - personal pronoun, makes it a real experience for the reader too. Bringing the reader into the memory too. Everyone has experienced this.

“Travel” - active not passive speaker, making the journey with her. Memory of childhood. Power of learning/teaching.

“Blue Nile” - exotic. Calm. Beautiful. Contrast to classroom. Teacher using skills to make it real for students. Repetition of “oo” sound, flows easier, happy memory, remembering.

Question 2

“With your finger,”

Answer 2

Sense of touch. Actively engaged in lesson. Memory is very powerful.

Question 3

“Chanted the scenery.”

Answer 3

Sense of sound. Connotations of singing. Remembering. Happiness. How she teaches and how they learn. Repetition of ways to learn.

Question 4

“Tana. Ethiopia. Khartoum. Aswân.”

Answer 4

Real places. Brings the settings to life. What Mrs Tilscher did for her she is doing for the reader. Short, non-sentences. Stopping to take stock of each place.

Question 5

“Skittle of milk”

Answer 5

Sense of sight. Metaphor, glass bottle of milk shape of a bowling skittle, helps us imagine, bowling is fun and so is school.

Question 6

“And the chalky Pyramids rubbed into dust.”

Answer 6

Literally Geography is done and rubbed off the board. Sense of sight. Tapping into memories, that memory is disappearing. That chapter of education is over, she has to move on.

Question 7

“A window opened with a long pole.”

Answer 7

Details of her memory. Gives us the impression she is small (young) by comparison.

Question 8

“The laugh of a bell swung by a running child.”

Answer 8

Personification. Bringing everything to life. Classroom full of life and joy. She felt as if everything in the class was alive. Bringing our memories to life.

Laugh: Enjoyment, happiness. Loves school at that point.

Question 9

“This was better than home.”

Answer 9

Short sentence. Her memories are short and snappy. She is excited, happy.

Question 10

“Enthralling books.”

Answer 10

Enthralling: all encompassing in the most positive way possible. Couldn’t get enough of the books. Love for learning and Mrs Tilscher’s class.

Question 11

“The classroom glowed like a sweetshop.”

Answer 11

Connotations: Happy, shiny, exciting, enticing.

Simile: one of the most exciting things for a primary kid. Happiness, joy, enticing. Building memory. Mrs Tilscher’s classroom for her was the best place in the world. Tapped into all of her senses.

Question 12

“Sugar paper. Coloured shapes.”

Answer 12

Non-sentences, good memories, things she loved in the class.

Question 13

“Brady and Hindley faded,”

Answer 13

First hint of the outside world. True crime, moors murders, killed kids. Outside world was scary but when she is in the classroom she forgets about the encroaching outside world, becoming more prominent. No longer shielded. Could become more important. Faded because we are back in Mrs Tilscher’s class. Enjambment.

Question 14

“like the faint, uneasy smudge of a mistake”

Answer 14

Faint: Negative thing, will lessen as time passes.

Smudge: Classroom term, link to education, memory of classrooms. Not perfect, hard to erase, can move on.

Question 15

“Mrs Tilscher loved you.”

Answer 15

Short sentence. Happiness, contentment, relaxation, safety, reliable, trustworthy, dependable.

Question 16

“a good gold star”

Answer 16

Alliteration of ‘g’ sound. Guttural sound brings emphasis, prominent happy memory. Achievement. Enjoyment. Mrs Tilscher really cared about them.

Question 17

“scent of a pencil”

Answer 17

Sense of smell. More relatable for reader. Engage reader in memory.

Question 18

“slowly, carefully, shaved.”

Answer 18

List. Trivial things, when you love something they begin to matter. Deliberate, sensual. About love and warmth she remembers from school. Every day.

Question 19

“A xylophone’s nonsense heard from another form.”

Answer 19

Nonsense: Creativity. No pressure or stress, relaxed atmosphere. Joy in this place. Inviting. Sense of sound.

Question 20

“Over the Easter term”

Answer 20

Change, birth, sexual awakening. She is growing up, learning more about life.

Question 21

“The inky tadpoles changed from commas into exclamation marks”

Answer 21

Olden day ink wells from pens, nostalgia.

Focus of the stanza. Change in her education and her personally as she grows up.

‘Commas to exclamation marks’ Shape of tadpoles, links to education. Exclamation marks tall, young, small children to tall young adults. Growing up. Commas ae there to slow things, no drama, breaks in sentences. Exclamation mark, frantic emphasis. Maturing. Young calm growing into frantic young adulthood. How quickly it happens and how you feel as it happens.

Question 22

“Three frogs hopped”

Answer 22

Continued metaphor, positive, playful experience

Question 23

“freed by a dunce”

Answer 23

Free not positive, backed up by ‘dunce’ (class clown) stupidity. Nostalgia - positive connotations of school questioned. Contrast. Outdated.

Question 24

“followed by a line of kids, jumping and croaking away”

Answer 24

Awkward hypersensitivity of being an adolescent.

‘Croaking’ - Boys voices change.

Positive, playful stuff contrasted with ugly behaviour.

‘Away’ - Movement away from order and rule following adolescents word conform or follow rule.

Question 25

“A rough boy”

Answer 25

Unnamed. Unidentified. Came violently into her feelings of security and protection.

Question 26

“told you how you were born”

Answer 26

Childish language. Child trying to make sense of the adult world. Childs way of speaking.

Question 27

“You kicked him, but stared”

Answer 27

‘Kicked’ - Confused, scared, horrified, wants to reject the idea, childish reaction.

Question 28

“at your parents, appalled, when you got back home.”

Answer 28

Enjambment. She does not believe it, she is realising there is more to the world. ‘Staring’ - Realisation that her parents had intimate relations, she doesn’t like it but she knows that it is true, new knowledge disturbing to her. Home brings anxiety now, confusion.

Question 29

“A tangible alarm made you always untidy, hot, fractious”

Answer 29

Describes speaker, sensitivity. Very aware and uncomfortable. ‘Hot’ - Danger, fear.

Question 30

“heavy, sexy sky”

Answer 30

World has become overwhelming, pressing down on her now, what she has learned, she doesn’t know how to deal with it.

Question 31

“You asked her how you were born”

Answer 31

No longer afraid of it or horrified by the nation. Element of wanting reassurance. Person she trust.

Question 32

“and Mrs Tilscher smiled, then turned away.”

Answer 32

Symbolically no longer has the answers for the speaker. ‘Smile’ - She knows the answer and chooses not to share, not heartlessly, recognition that her job is done. Child is moving on to the next stage of life.

Question 33

“Reports were handed out.”

Answer 33

Short sentence, abrupt, final, impersonal. Tone is cold and flat. Mrs Tilscher has changed from a beloved, nurturing, inspiring figure to someone that just hands out reports.

Question 34

“You ran through the gates,”

Answer 34

Complete contrast to stanza one, running away from school, desperate to escape the playground.

Question 35

“impatient to be grown,”

Answer 35

Urgency, learning experience of the classroom isn’t enough any more, wants to experience the world intrigued by it, not afraid of it anymore. Desperate to be an adult.

Question 36

“as the sky split open into a thunderstorm.”

Answer 36

Powerful, destructive energy. Climax of the poem. Child moving from one stage to another. Uncertainty of the future. She needs to grow up and to experience the world, classroom isn’t enough. Growing up is terrifying but it is inevitable.