Unfamiliar Texts - Limestone & We are the tenants

S - State a strong case - write an introductory sentence or two addressing the question and clearly stating your argument. 

T - Technique - Identify and explain in detail the writer's use of one significant technique.

E - Example - Provide a range of relevant evidence and supporting quotations

E - Effectiveness - Make a judgement about the effectiveness of the feature in conveying meaning and achieving the writers overall purpose

L - Make links to the other parts of the text, and go beyond the text to make links to the world, society, human nature. What insights have you gained?

"Limestone":

Explain how contrasts of ideas are important in the passage. Give details from the text to support your answer.

The author uses contrast through the passage to convey different ideas and portray different imagery for Ireland and New Zealand and the way she views them. In the first paragraph, this is apparent when she describes the view from the window seat on the plane, as it goes over Europe. She uses multiple positive connotations and adjectives to create vivid imagery of the beautiful view she sees from 30,000 feet. She talks about the snow-topped mountains and the forested hills. Contrast is then tied in when she discusses how the view from above doesn't show the rusted cargo, chemical spills and human destruction, making it not the place it seems to be from the view above. She uses listing and negatively connotated words to paint a picture of the place she is leaving, as it isn't what it seems. This is very effective as the reader can see in their mind what she describes, and achieves the relatable feeling of false reality, the expectations vs reality. 

In the second paragraph, the author deepens this contrast when discussing how she remembers and dreams of New Zealand, compared to how it actually is, and the true reality of the country. She once again uses adjectives and an appreciative tone to create beautiful imagery of how she remembers New Zealand and its scenery. "Primeval beaches scattered with driftwood, dark forests and plains burned to a tawny hide." She states it's a dream that is already corrupted by the reality of the landscape. She then describes the truth, with subdivisions instead of beaches, trees threatened with clear-felling, and tawny plains changed due to the vanishing trees. This paints a picture of modernisation and how humans impact the world and its naturally beautiful state. The contrast she creates of what she dreams and reality creates intense imagery for the reader and gives them something to reflect on, how industrialisation and the evolving of humans and technology can impact the environment and change something that was once untouched and beautiful.

'We are the tenants':

With close reference to the text, discuss the poet's use of imagery to describe the North. 

In "We are the tenants", the poet uses imagery to showcase their dislike towards the North and to paint a picture of the unpleasant place. They discuss things like "cemeteries lush with centuries of flesh", and large seagulls "hungry for lost souls". This makes the place sound scary and unpleasant, rather offputting. The author also says "We wake up with the cockroaches" and "..smell the hopes, the disappointments of months before" These metaphors and implied metaphor really send home the message of how nasty and disappointing the North is and uninspiring. This really puts off the readers from the North and gives them a picture in their mind of how bad the place is.

Compare and contrast the attitude to departure and arrival presented in each text. Give details from the texts to support your answer. 

The two texts have very different perspectives, despite one discussing departure and the other arrival.