expected to know about prostitution in a GCSE exam?

[allinahuddle]

Just wondered if I am a prude or if this is inappropriate? Dd2 sat her English literature exam yesterday and the poetry section as expected had two poems to compare and contrast. The introduction to them said they were both about nature and how it affects the man made world. One poem was about prostitution and the other about mining. She said she found it confusing as the introduction made her think her instincts were wrong. She thought it was about drugs and maybe sex but didn't dare write it as she felt sure it wouldn't be that on an exam paper. I can see how perhaps prostitution could be studied as part of a social question in another subject I suppose but to include it as an unseen poetry question for 15 and 16 year olds seems inappropriate to me. To assume that this age group would feel confident to talk about this in an exam situation seems mad. It aldo seems to put the more anxious and less confident or less streetwise kids at a disadvantage as they felt embarrassed writing about it, especially after being told both poems were about nature. Only a couple of kids in the whole school actually wrote about prostitution or drugs even those on target for an A or an A*. AIBU?

Don't forget this was a higher paper, not foundation, so there would have been the expectation that those sitting it were more able to draw out the underlying themes, which to be honest aren't terribly well hidden.

To those whose kids were too embarrassed to write about the theme of sex, how on earth do they deal with sex in Biology exams where it's far more literal!

Outside some children's frame of reference?

Thats hilarious, one of my DDs set poems is about Salome. It is outside my DDs frame of reference to either sleep around (she's only 16) or chop men's heads off! She can still analyse the poem though. Most poetry is outside a 16 year olds frame of reference - it's a nice safe way to learn about such things.

But a set poem is a different matter. For a set poem she will have been taught about what's going on.

Unseen is a different thing.

Tinkly
To me it is not a nature poem.

From the OP:
The introduction to them said they were both about nature and how it affects the man made world.

Yes, of course unseen is a different matter, that's why they do it presumably . To check that the kids can actually analyze a text not just regurgitate. Also, presumably there isn't a 'right' answer when writing about poetry - surely if the student is able to write coherently about the meaning they derive from it then that will gain marks?

I currently have 400 of those exam papers in my kitchen to mark. Could be interesting by the sounds of it!

Having looked at the poems I think it's highly unlikely that the prostitution thing is crucial. We're really looking for skills here.

For example, 2 years ago there was a poem about an old people's home which referred to 'grey widows'. An astonishing number of students misread it as 'grey windows' and some went into great detail analysing this. While I had to take into account the fact that they hadn't read it carefully enough, I was still allowed to recognise the analytical skill, especially if skill was also shown elsewhere in the response.

And as an aside, I have no idea where the grade boundaries are.

Errol spot on.

. Well to me it ain't no nature poem. I have just googled some crits, and plenty of people with far more education than me also seem to think it is about prostitution.

But I guess that is what poetry is all about. I have no axe to grind, as I say, DD did her Lit last year.

Wow, iheart, that's a hell of a job!

It's OK Errol, I get 21 whole days to do it in

I'm sorry, drudge and Jeanne, but, unless things have very much changed, the allusions to prostitution are intrinsic to the theme and use of language in this poem. Candidates who didn't pick up on it won't get full marks.

Oh, I think that's such a pity, and a very narrow-minded way of looking at poetry.

Why is it necessary?

Btw ... I don't need marianne's post 'for explanation'. I understand the poem fine. But I do not like that a 15/16 year old should have to tick such restrictive boxes, in order to be thought to have given a decent interpretation.

mother - yes, I know it's Trapido.

I am giving an excellent impression of being a blithering idiot who wouldn't know lit'ritcha if it jumped up and hit me, but I promise I'm not.

IHeartKingThistle
Very interesting about the 'grey wi(n)dows'. I read that poem at the weekend (trying to be a helpful parent). Very depressing it was too.

I wouldn't have said it was 'a nature poem' either. It's that darned metaphorical nonsense poets will keep indulging in. Hopefully by the time the kids get to an eng lit exam they've rumbled that.

Marianne's explanation is right in the sense that yes, of course for the higher grades we expect them to look beyond the literal meaning. But unlike what Marianne is saying, at GCSE we do not stipulate what their interpretation should be. And I for one am very glad about that.

I was playing a prostitute in a touring production aged 16. Of course a teenager that age should know about it.

Ah, that's reassuring IHeart.

I'm interested, because I knew this poem, and what's always struck me most are the lines about motherhood. I love that image of love that 'will open for anyone'. I know that line is referring to prostitution and it's a crude colloquialism, but it's surely also about the way weeds crack open the pavement in order to grow, and there's an emotional 'opening' in the relationship between the child and the mother?

I don't know anything about Dunmore's life, but it reminds me of Sylvia Plath's poetry about being a new mother, and that sense she has of it both being wonderful and natural, and also something powerful and even slightly destructive.

You could say the prostitution imagery is really secondary to that imagery of new life bursting through where it can't thrive, or where it has to destroy something to survive.

card

I know it was unseen poems

I was responding to another earlier poster

Poem seems age appropriate IMO.

Your dd is old enough to legally have sex at 16, she shouldn't be so bashful with regards to talking about it!!!!

They probably know more about sex than mining - the subject of the other poem.

A neighbour has a buddleia in full bloom. Some species do flower in late April. I would have thought buddleias were more common in an urban environment. (I wonder if Helen Dunmore is using some poetic license here. I think 'City Buddleias' does not work as well as 'City Lilacs'.)

Found a piece about buddleias in the Guardian - the first paragraph almost feels like it's referencing City Lilacs.

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/jul/06/gardens-buddleja

Buddleia's a bugger to scan though.

Or, to put it in lit crit terms, it would introduce a degree of linguistic resistance to poetic form that would undermine the theme of line 12.