The Histort Boys - AO Notes

AO1 - Are you answering the question and focusing on the task?

Are you using literary term?

AO2- analyse a piece of language

Refer to the play as a piece of literature

Referred to the chronological sequence of events

AO3- context of novel

Time and setting

Sparks background

AO4- alternative interpretations

AO5- film versions

AO1

“Compare how far and in what ways spark and Bennett present the idea that education is dangerous”

The dangerous acts hector committed:

  • groping the boys on the back of a bike

  • Could be perceived as his grooming them into like him so much (contradict with AO5 Bennett comments about sympathy for hector)

Dangerous acts Irwin has committed:

  • Damaged the boys self esteem

  • Teaching about the holocaust

AO2

  • temporal disorder - at the start of each act it starts with Irwin now crippled and a historian on the television and as a spin doctor. What is the importance?

  • What is the importance of jumping back and fourth throughout the play and telling the audience what has happened yet also showing them in the form of a flashback?

  • The History Boys is a play and not a novel

  • SMARTPERSON language analysis

AO3

Context is only worth 20%

  • cultural capital

  • Cultural advantage and disadvantage

  • Cultural deficit

  • The introduction to league tables

  • The national curriculum

  • A state school in the 80s in Sheffield all boys

  • Bennett background

AO4

  • the boys are more mature than the girls because of age

  • They have a different outlook and understanding of sex

AO5

  • Bennett says we should feel sorry for hector

  • Bennett says knowledge and teaching is an erotic act