Prayer Before Birth and analysing!• Zoom in on MacNeice’s use of language to

present an idea.• Zoom in on the narrative tense and person used.• Zoom in on the adjectives, nouns, verbs and

adverbs used. • Zoom in on the structural devices (punctuation

marks, sentence lengths and repetition) used.

ZOOM IN!

“I am not yet born; O fill meWith strength against those who would freeze myhumanity, would dragoon me into a lethal automaton,would make me a cog in a machine, a thing withone face, a thing, and against all thosewho would dissipate my entirety, wouldblow me like thistledown hither andthither or hither and thitherlike water held in thehands would spill me”

Comment on the words chosen – look closely at the specific ones underlined

Consider the structural devices used and the punctuation used.

Prayer Before Birth and evaluating!

• Zoom out to show how this links to the cultural contexts of the poem.

• Zoom out to show how this particular quotation contrasts with earlier (or later) ‘events’ in the poem.

• Zoom out to show how this particular quotation supports or develops your reading of earlier or later events in the novel.

ZOOM OUT

• I am not yet born; O fill meWith strength against those who would freeze myhumanity, would dragoon me into a lethal automaton,would make me a cog in a machine, a thing withone face, a thing, and against all thosewho would dissipate my entirety, wouldblow me like thistledown hither andthither or hither and thitherlike water held in thehands would spill me

Does this develop ideas found in the other stanzas of the poem?

Is this sort of imagery or writing style repeated in the poem?

Zone of relevance:In the PAST

SIMPLE Zone of

relevance!

Your notes about the ZOOM OUT

information will go here!

Your notes about the (ZOOM in) language and structural techniques will go here.

Your (TWO)6 word quotes and their connotations will go here.

You will be given baby hexagons to

write up your ZOOM IN analysis of the quotes and your

Zoom out analysis.Draw your circle on

the table.

Mr Peel will take photos of your

completed ZOOM ZONES and reward

great work with HPs

TABLE PLENARY!