AQA ‘POWER AND CONFLICT’ POETRY @SPryke2 ‘TISSUE’ BY IMTIAZ DHARKER

How many different things do you use paper for in an average day? YOUR STARTER How many different things do you use paper for in an average day? Come up with another list of its uses. Today’s key questions: Can I read, understand and respond to the text? Can I analyse language and structure, explaining WHY the writer has used a particular technique and its effect? Can I discuss the social and historical context of the poem?

Today’s key questions: DID YOU THINK OF THESE? Today’s key questions: Can I read, understand and respond to the text? Can I analyse language and structure, explaining WHY the writer has used a particular technique and its effect? Can I discuss the social and historical context of the poem?

With these uses in mind, what could paper be symbolic of? ORACY TASK With these uses in mind, what could paper be symbolic of? Discuss on your tables and be prepared to share! Today’s key questions: Can I read, understand and respond to the text? Can I analyse language and structure, explaining WHY the writer has used a particular technique and its effect? Can I discuss the social and historical context of the poem?

Today’s key questions: YOUR TASK: SUMMARISE INTO FOUR BULLET POINTS Imtiaz Dharker was born in Pakistan, raised in Glasgow and now lives in Britain and India. ‘Tissue’ is from her 2006 collection called ‘The Terrorist at My Table’. The collection questions how well we know the people around us. She has written five collections of poetry and often deals with themes of identity, the role of women in contemporary society and the search for meaning. She draws on her multi-cultural experience in her work. Today’s key questions: Can I read, understand and respond to the text? Can I analyse language and structure, explaining WHY the writer has used a particular technique and its effect? Can I discuss the social and historical context of the poem?

LET’S READ THE POEM Paper that lets the light shine through, this is what could alter things. Paper thinned by age or touching, the kind you find in well-used books, the back of the Koran, where a hand has written in the names and histories, who was born to whom, the height and weight, who died where and how, on which sepia date, pages smoothed and stroked and turned transparent with attention. If buildings were paper, I might feel their drift, see how easily they fall away on a sigh, a shift in the direction of the wind. Maps too. The sun shines through their borderlines, the marks that rivers make, roads, railtracks, mountainfolds, Fine slips from grocery shops that say how much was sold and what was paid by credit card might fly our lives like paper kites. An architect could use all this, place layer over layer, luminous script over numbers over line, and never wish to build again with brick or block, but let the daylight break through capitals and monoliths, through the shapes that pride can make, find a way to trace a grand design with living tissue, raise a structure never meant to last, of paper smoothed and stroked and thinned to be transparent, turned into your skin.

In silence, read the poem again. Today’s key questions: YOUR TASK: FIRST IMPRESSIONS In silence, read the poem again. On your third read, highlight all the words that relate to POWER and FRAGILITY. Today’s key questions: Can I read, understand and respond to the text? Can I analyse language and structure, explaining WHY the writer has used a particular technique and its effect? Can I discuss the social and historical context of the poem?

Today’s key questions: SO WHAT IS ‘TISSUE’ ABOUT? Paper that lets the light shine through, this is what could alter things. Paper thinned by age or touching, the kind you find in well-used books, the back of the Koran, where a hand has written in the names and histories, who was born to whom, the height and weight, who died where and how, on which sepia date, pages smoothed and stroked and turned transparent with attention. The first few quatrains create a sense of the power of something fragile like paper. The first way in which she makes paper seem important is its use in books and religion. The second way that a paper product becomes important is when a family history is recorded on it: births, lives and deaths etc. Summaries provided by i-mod on TES Today’s key questions: Can I read, understand and respond to the text? Can I analyse language and structure, explaining WHY the writer has used a particular technique and its effect? Can I discuss the social and historical context of the poem?

Today’s key questions: SO WHAT IS ‘TISSUE’ ABOUT? If buildings were paper, I might feel their drift, see how easily they fall away on a sigh, a shift in the direction of the wind. The second few verses create a sense of the apparent weakness of paper. Paper may be seen as unsuitable for building anything substantial in the real world. Maps and receipts are part of the geopolitics and economics of public life, recording human existence in fragile materials vulnerable to sun and wind. Maps too. The sun shines through their borderlines, the marks that rivers make, roads, railtracks, mountainfolds, Fine slips from grocery shops that say how much was sold and what was paid by credit card might fly our lives like paper kites. Today’s key questions: Can I read, understand and respond to the text? Can I analyse language and structure, explaining WHY the writer has used a particular technique and its effect? Can I discuss the social and historical context of the poem?

Today’s key questions: SO WHAT IS ‘TISSUE’ ABOUT? An architect could use all this, place layer over layer, luminous script over numbers over line, and never wish to build again with brick or block, but let the daylight break through capitals and monoliths, through the shapes that pride can make, find a way to trace a grand design Weighing up the fragility and the substance, the writer sees a living power in something as delicate as skin. From thin paper, mighty forms can grow: it is the tissue which a thinker (writer?) can draw up plans like an architect to trace a grand design and build a structure never meant to last. (A bit like a poem?) with living tissue, raise a structure never meant to last, of paper smoothed and stroked and thinned to be transparent, turned into your skin. Today’s key questions: Can I read, understand and respond to the text? Can I analyse language and structure, explaining WHY the writer has used a particular technique and its effect? Can I discuss the social and historical context of the poem?

YOUR TASK: ANALYSE THE POEM What are the connotations of ‘light’? Add some ideas as annotations in your anthology. Paper that lets the light shine through, this is what could alter things. Paper thinned by age or touching, the kind you find in well-used books, the back of the Koran, where a hand has written in the names and histories, who was born to whom, the height and weight, who died where and how, on which sepia date, pages smoothed and stroked and turned transparent with attention. How is the paper in the Koran powerful? What are the connotations of religious texts? What does ‘thinned by age or touching’ suggest? In the second stanza, Dharker emphasises the theme of history and an emphasis that this text has been handed down. What is the significance of this? What do you think the speaker wants altered? Identify the rule of three in the third stanza. What is its significance? Identify the enjambment and end-stopping in these quatrains and explain the effect.

How does Dharker show how paper controls our lives in these quatrains? YOUR TASK: ANALYSE THE POEM ‘See how easily they fall away on a sigh’ – What modern historical event could this be referring to? Why include this evocative reference? If buildings were paper, I might feel their drift, see how easily they fall away on a sigh, a shift in the direction of the wind. What can the sun be symbolic of? Discuss the connotations in your anthology. Maps too. The sun shines through their borderlines, the marks that rivers make, roads, railtracks, mountainfolds, Fine slips from grocery shops that say how much was sold and what was paid by credit card might fly our lives like paper kites. Pick three word from the fourth quatrain and discuss their connotations. How does Dharker show how paper controls our lives in these quatrains? Look at the fifth quatrain. Where is the metaphor that suggests the poet is hoping for a less divided world? Look at the sixth quatrain. How does Dharker represent capitalism and our reliance for material goods? What is she saying about our reliance on these things? What else could you say about these quatrains? Make notes in your anthology.

YOUR TASK: ANALYSE THE POEM There is an emphasis on the idea of building something in these final stanzas. What exactly do you think the speaker wants to see built? An architect could use all this, place layer over layer, luminous script over numbers over line, and never wish to build again with brick or block, but let the daylight break through capitals and monoliths, through the shapes that pride can make, find a way to trace a grand design ‘Find a way to trace a grand design with living tissue’ – What does the speaker say humanity has done and what do you think they are saying humanity SHOULD do instead? Look at quatrains seven and eight. Look at what the speaker says daylight can ‘break through.’ What do you think the speaker is criticising? Who do you think the speaker addresses us at the end of the poem? with living tissue, raise a structure never meant to last, of paper smoothed and stroked and thinned to be transparent, turned into your skin. Identify the enjambment here. Explain why it has been used. Why is ‘turned into your skin’ isolated?

Today’s key questions: TEACHERS ON TES ‘My students read it as a commentary on how our lives are mapped by pieces of paper: receipts, maps, diaries etc with references to different points in our lives being linked to different pieces of paper. The fragile paper mirrors the fragility of our lives.’ ‘I think there's a religious angle too. In the same way that we build and create (and record) things using paper, so too does God, using the "paper" of skin to do so.’ ‘The poem is about the possible power of something as thin and fragile as paper.’ Link to comments on TES Forum: https://community.tes.com/threads/imtiaz-dharker-tissue-new-aqa-poetry-anthology.714030/ Today’s key questions: Can I read, understand and respond to the text? Can I analyse language and structure, explaining WHY the writer has used a particular technique and its effect? Can I discuss the social and historical context of the poem?

Freedom Loss Control Creation Fragility YOUR TASK: THE THEMES OF ‘TISSUE’ Find quotations to support each of these key themes. Freedom Loss Control Creation Fragility Today’s key questions: Can I read, understand and respond to the text? Can I analyse language and structure, explaining WHY the writer has used a particular technique and its effect? Can I discuss the social and historical context of the poem?

TO FINISH: CHOOSE A NUMBER Today, I have learnt... An impressive comment made by someone in the class was…… The most im-portant thing I have learned today is... Today, I was successful when...... An interesting idea about the poem that I heard today was….. 1 2 3 4 TO FINISH: CHOOSE A NUMBER 5 6 7 8 Choose a student to start the plenary. Give him/her a choice of number. Click on the number, and one of the speech bubbles will change colour. The student then reads out the sentence and completes it in an appropriate manner. He/She may then choose who goes next! The hardest thing to understand about the poem was... The activity which most helped my learning was... The most enjoyable activity was...