Middle english, Channel 4, Thursdays 9.30 -9.45am Teachers’ guide Pounds 4.95; poster Love and Death in Romeo and Juliet Pounds 8.50; pupils’ book Pounds 4.99.
The Educational Television Company, PO Box 100, Warwick CV34 6TZ. Lilian Pizzichini is impressed by a refreshing approach to the complexities of language and literary forms in a new five-part series. For the 11 to 14-year-old who has grasped the essentials of literary forms and is now ready to explore an assortment of writing techniques, Middle English is an excellent series to follow. As a starting point it not only examines the short story as a genre but follows its adaptation into a screenplay. From text to moving image, from poetry to television documentary, language is the subject of a thorough examination.
Each of the the first five transmissions approaches the subject from a different angle. The themes range from characterisation, adaptation, story structure and narrative, to presenting an argument. The series ends with a five-part TV version of Romeo and Juliet. The accompanying exercises in the teachers’ guide are diverse and entertaining. Careful planning has gone into this, with pointers to get the most out of class and homework. Each aspect of every issue raised is covered in depth, while still leaving room for digression.
The series starts with a two-part transmission of Janni Hawker’s The Egg Man. Two bored schoolgirls, Jane and Bridget, decide to taunt an eccentric, elderly recluse, rumoured to have murdered his wife. A covert exploration of his house follows. He comes home early and they watch as he tearfully serenades a faded photograph of his dead wife.
Bridget is amused, Jane touched. She decides to befriend him but is frightened off by his bizarre behaviour. Later she finds out that of course he is not a murderer but that his wife left him after an unhappy marriage. Through his confusion and suffering, Jane is given a glimpse of a more complex, adult world that Bridget eschews. This is the fundamental difference between the two and this is what the programme asks the class to consider. Through guided discussion and role-play, students can participate in Jane’s first attempt at growing up. The story exploits children’s fascination with mystery while prompting an analysis of characterisation, scene-setting and prejudice.
Janni Hawker herself appears in the third programme to talk about the mechanics of story-writing as well as the ideas and feelings she conveys through that medium. The objective here is for students to experiment with narrative, viewpoint and flashback using the story of the Egg Man. A daunting task but this series is nothing if not demanding. The only gripe would be that inspiring though the suggestions are, they may not always be practicable. Teachers may have to be a little less ambitious than their guide, or at least be given more detailed guidance.
The fourth programme aims to demonstrate “how counter-arguments can be persuasive and to distinguish argument supported by evidence from emotive arguments and appeals”. This is what makes this series so valuable language can distort as well as illuminate and that the media is not always to be trusted.
No prior knowledge of Romeo and Juliet is advised for the second half of the series as this is an opportunity to re-write Shakespeare. “What happens next?” becomes “Write what happens next”. Familiarity with the play would perhaps block creativity and freshness. Although the guide offers a contingency plan should this be the case, it is somewhat half-hearted. Nevertheless, it offers an original approach to Shakespeare that is worth pursuing.
The class work for Act I focuses on character and interpretation. Fun could be had here with improvisations of the balcony scene and duelling. Language work is uppermost in the next programme and this could really help to make Shakespeare more accessible. Oxymorons, metaphors and malapropisms are analysed in context and set as exercises. The rest of the series is largely concerned with the background work of staging a play, the relative merits of film and theatre, poetic forms found in Shakespeare, mood and structure.
The series only starts to falter towards the end. Its attempts to relate Romeo and Juliet’s story to the present day are rather lame but teachers will have their own ideas for this. As a whole, there is so much to be wrung from Middle English that this can only be a minor quibble. By the end of the series, having adapted the mantle of poet, journalist and short story writer, each student should have a body of work fit to grace any continuous assessment folder.
