warphotographer.notebook November 18, 2015

Transcription

1 During the American Civil War, photography was used extensively, for the first time, to document the horrors of the fighting. What impact would this have on civilians? 1

2 Poetry Discussion In groups have a read through of the stanza you've been given. What do you think this poem is going to be about? What do you feel after reading the stanza? Does it have an effect on you? What poetic techniques are used in these lines? How do they add meaning to what you're reading? Look at all the stanzas...what order should they be in and what image/idea gives you clues to the order of the poem? 2

3 Bloody Sunday Where is the photographer in this picture? Is he/she a part of the action or at a safe distance? What might be running through his/her mind as the photos are taken? 3

4 Bloody Sunday 30 January 1972 in the Bogside area of Derry, Northern Ireland. British soldiers shot 26 unarmed civilians during a protest march against internment. Fourteen people died: thirteen were killed outright, while the death of another man four and a half months later was attributed to his injuries. Many of the victims were shot while fleeing from the soldiers and some were shot while trying to help the wounded. Two protesters were also injured when they were run down by army vehicles 4

5 g Beirut How is the photographer involved in the action here? What impact do you think this kind of job has on a photographer? Why? What message you think he/she wants to send to people at home? 5

6 Beirut Lebanese Civil War broke out throughout the country. During most of the war, Beirut was divided between the Muslim west part and the Christian east. The downtown area, previously the home of much of the city's commercial and cultural activity, became a no man's land known as the Green Line. Many inhabitants fled to other countries. About 60,000 people died in the first two years of the war ( ), and much of the city was devastated. A particularly destructive period was the 1978 Syrian siege of Achrafiyeh, the main Christian district of Beirut. Syrian troops relentlessly bombed the eastern quarter of the city, but Christian militias defeated multiple attempts by Syria's elite forces to capture the strategic area in a three month campaign later known as the Hundred Days' War. Another destructive chapter was the 1982 Lebanon War, during which most of West Beirut was under siege by Israeli troops. In 1983, French and US barracks were bombed, killing 241 American servicemen, 58 French servicemen, six civilians and the two suicide bombers. Hezbollah was formed after the 1982 Lebanon War in 1982, and was primarily formed to offer resistance to the Israeli occupation. 6

7 warphotographer.notebook Phnom Pehn Based on what you now know about the killing fields, what psychological impact would the event have on someone who took the pictures of the events but could do nothing to help? 7

8 Phnom Pehn During the Vietnam War, Cambodia was used as a base by the North Vietnamese Army and the Viet Cong, and thousands of refugees from across the country flooded the city to escape the fighting between their own government troops, the NVA/NLF, the South Vietnamese and its allies, and the Khmer Rouge. By 1975, the population was 2 3 million, the bulk of whom were refugees from the fighting. The Khmer Rouge cut off supplies to the city for more than a year before it fell on April 17, Reports from journalists stated that the Khmer Rouge shelling "tortured the capital almost continuously," inflicting "random death and mutilation" on millions of trapped civilians. The Khmer Rouge forcibly evacuated the entire city after taking it, in what has been described as a death march: Francois Ponchaud wrote that "I shall never forget one cripple who had neither hands nor feet, writhing along the ground like a severed worm, or a weeping father carrying his ten year old daughter wrapped in a sheet tied around his neck like a sling, or the man with his foot dangling at the end of a leg to which it was attached by nothing but skin"; John Swain recalled that the Khmer Rouge were "tipping out patients from the hospitals like garbage into the streets...in five years of war, this is the greatest caravan of human misery I have seen." All of its residents, including those who were wealthy and educated, were evacuated from the city and forced to do labour on rural farms as "new people". Tuol Sleng High School was taken over by Pol Pot's forces and was turned into the S 21 prison camp, where people were detained and tortured. Pol Pot sought a return to an agrarian economy and therefore killed many people perceived as educated, "lazy", or political enemies. Many others starved to death as a result of failure of the agrarian society and the sale of Cambodia's rice to China in exchange for bullets and weaponry. The former high school is now the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, where Khmer Rouge torture devices and photos of their victims are displayed. Choeung Ek (The Killing Fields), 15 kilometers (9 mi) away, where the Khmer Rouge marched prisoners from Tuol Sleng to be murdered and buried in shallow pits, is also now a memorial to those who were killed by the regime. 8

9 Choose a poem in which the poet has created a perfect blend of form and content. Show how the poet achieves this and discuss how it adds to your appreciation of the poem. 9

10 Round Robin Essay For stanza 1: 1. (P) Topic sentence that gives a sense of where you are in the poem and an understanding of what this stanza is about (form). 2. (E) lead into a quote 3. (E) identify any key techniques and explain literal meaning 4. (L) link to second part of task: what idea(s) did this quote help develop/help you appreciate? 5. (P) how does the structure/ content of the stanza go on to explore the theme 6. (E) evidence 7. (E) explain/analyse 8. (L) link to second part of task: overall how does stanza 1 help set up your appreciate of the key theme of the poem? 10