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Speeches and Talks | The Language of Persuasion

You are representing ireland in the final of the world youth public speaking championships. write a passionate speech in favour of the motion: “young people should exert their influence by actively engaging with important current issues”..

(2014/English/Higher Level/ Paper I /Section II/Question 2,   Marked out of 100)

·          A talk is a less formal speech. You can be more humorous and less formal. The rest is the same.

• Post author: Martina
• Post published: March 16, 2016
• Post category: Speech

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Subreddit for Leaving Cert students and teachers to request and share resources for all exam subjects. Request resources you need, share files others might need. A link to the shared drive can be found in the stickied post.

Tips for all Sections of English Exams.

First of all, good luck to everyone. I have no idea if this subreddit has actually helped anyone but I hope it has and will in the future once it's had a little time to grow.

Below are the tips I gave my class for the English exams this week. Of course there is much more that could be added but in my experience this is what matters most.

For anyone looking for notes, there are tonnes of English notes in the shared drive for this subreddit also: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Vfd5iQi5ddgE7rxfYb8Oj6cGwR3Ip_Io?usp=share_link

(TLDR: Answer the Question at all Times! Plan responses before writing. Pay attention to timing)

*Make sure to choose Q.A and Q.B tasks from different texts*

Section 1: Q.A: Comprehension

-Understand the Question(s ): Don’t just read the Qs, analyse them. If you misinterpret the questions your answers are worth nothing. Take the time to figure out exactly what they’re asking you before you start writing.

-Answer the Question!: Everything your write needs to work towards the same goal. Anything you write that isn’t linked to the task won’t earn marks so stay on topic and keep everything relevant.

-Timing and Structure: Short intro with one paragraph for every 5 marks (unless Q states otherwise), and one minute spent writing per mark. Answer the Q by getting straight to the point, provide evidence, explain how it supports your point, move on.

-Last Minute Revision: Be familiar with the features of the different language genre; Aesthetic, Narrative, Argumentative, Persuasive, Informative.

Section 1: Q.B: Functional Writing

-GAP: What matters most here is meeting GAP; Genre, Audience, and Purpose.

Genre is about matching the format of the task you are completing. If it’s a speech, introduce yourself and speak to the audience. If it’s an article include a headline/byline. If it’s a letter, make sure you include address/date etc.

Audience links to who the intended reader/listener of your writing might be. If it’s a formal letter you tone would be more serious and stiff. A diary entry would be more informal and personal etc.

Purpose means you have completed ALL of the tasks asked of you. Is your writing achieving it’s intended function? Is your speech persuasive or informative? Is your diary entry reflective and personal? Read the Q and answer it!

-Timing and Structure: You will have about 30-40 minutes to write this. Plan your response carefully and aim to write between 2-4 pages. Focus on GAP above all else and leave plenty of time for the 100 mark composition task coming up.

-Last minute Revision: Look over the layout of different genres like a Diary Entry, Speech, Letter (Formal and Informal), Article.

Section 2: Composition

-Structure and Length: Pay attention to GAP, but put more emphasis on planning here since this essay is so long. You are aiming for somewhere between 4-8 pages here so PLAN your response carefully. Even if you use extra time on the comprehension tasks you need at least an hour for this section. It is worth 25% of your entire Eng result so make it count!

At the start establish GAP , introduce a hook to grab attention, and create a flow by including a thread you’ll use to tie sections together.

Each section needs a clear focus that is fully explored before moving on. Try to use connectives to make your essay follow a logical path as it develops.

Your Conclusion would ideally link back to your opening in some way to create a sense of completion. No cliff-hangers, waking up from dreams, to be continued, or random twists.

-Content: For this section GAP definitely matters, but HOW you write becomes increasingly important. Find opportunities to show off your writing ability by hitting the examiner with a barrage of techniques and devices, descriptive details, personal reflection, use of the senses etc. GAP will get you a good grade, showing off at opportune moments will get you a great grade.

-Last Minute Revision: Look over samples of H1-level Personal/Discursive Essays and Descriptive Essays as they are historically the more dependable options.

*Do not just summarise your texts!*

Section 1: The Single Text (Macbeth)

-Answer the Q: Any moment your refer to, and quote you include, and character you summarise, it all needs to be linked to what the question is asking you. Use the key words from the Q often, but make sure you actually discuss them !

-Likely Topics: There is a lot they can ask, but the most likely topics are on the main Characters (Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, Duncan, Banquo, Macduff, Witches), the main Themes (Ambition, Guilt, Power, Good Vs. Evil), and Style (Symbols/Images, Soliloquies).

- Last Minute Revision: Focus on the key scenes in the play paying attention to how they link to the characters’ development, the play’s main themes, and common symbols/images.

1:3, 1:7, 2:2, 3:4, 4:1, 5:1, 5:5, 5:8. (Not really a “last minute” task…)

Section 2: The Comparative

-2023 Changes:

Texts: Remember that this year you do not NEED to know all 3 of these texts. You can choose to tackle the 70 mark Q on just 2 of your studied comparative texts. If you have studied all three texts I STRONGLY suggest you take the route of answering the 30 mark Q on one of your texts, and the remaining 40 mark Q on the other 2. Statistically, this is the way you are most likely to get the highest marks; It eliminates the complexity of comparing 3 texts at once and it makes your comparative response much shorter/easier.

Modes: Also remember that all 3 of your studied modes will appear. You can use information from the other 2 modes, but keep the focus on the mode you choose to respond to.

-Comparative Essentials: As always, answer the Q. But make sure you are comparing as frequently as possible. Sections should start and end with comparisons at the very least!

-Last Minute Revision: If you’re in a tight spot then pick two texts, and just one mode. Know your key moments (beginning, climax, ending) and choose the 70 mark Q on 2 texts.

Section 3: Poetry

-Biggest Mistake: The biggest mistake is that students often just summarise what each poem is about and throw some random quotes in to prove you’ve learned them. This will lose you massive marks. Answer the Q! Use your knowledge of the poems and the quotes you’ve learned to support a clear argument. Do no fall into the trap of just summarising poems.

-Structure: Aim to discuss 4 poems in detail, 5 if you're good with timing. One paragraph per poem with around 3-7 quotes to support points.

-Last Minute Revision: 4 Quotes from 4 Poems by 4 Poets -Unseen Poetry: This is worth the least amount of marks so leave it until last. If you have time, tackle the 2x 10 mark Qs. If you're short then tackle the 20 marker. This will be somewhat similar to the comprehension Qs from Paper 1; Focus on the Q, support your points with evidence, and move fast.

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Leaving Cert. English, Paper 1 – Part B (Composing Section): The Complete Guide

What are you being asked to do?

In the Part B/ composing sections you are being asked to do two things:

• Use language in one of five ways: to write either argumentatively , persuasively , informatively , narratively or aesthetically .
• Create a written medium aimed at someone (e. g a speech, letter to fellow students, parents). Before looking into these different ways of writing, we need to look at what the marker will be looking for in the answer regardless of what language genre you write in, that you are creating the written medium aimed at an audience asked of you in the question:

PCLM – the method the markers use to grade your answer

Clarity of Purpose (P) : The task is to create the written medium asked of you, whether what you write reads, sounds, etc. like what you are asked to write, e. g. it sounds/reads as a letter, speech to a group of students, world leaders, etc. (the task also here is to use language in one of the five ways mentioned above. Therefore the marker will only view your answer as suitably answering the question also if you identify and use the type of writing that is suitable for answering the question you choose).

Coherence of Delivery (C) : The examples, paragraphs and points you mention in your answer must link together and consistently and continuously answer the question asked of you: they must contribute to creating the written medium required of you – it is such points that should make your piece sound/read like a letter to students, or a speech to parents, etc. (and you need to consistently stick to using one language type throughout).

Accuracy of Mechanics (M) :  Spelling and grammar must be of a decent standard (few mistakes) and suitable for the question and language type chosen. The final part of the PCLM method contains the essential detail that will create the written medium asked of you, which will shape what you talk about and how you talk about this:

Efficiency of language use (L)

Here the marker will be looking for you to decide upon:

Who is the audience: the marker is told to look for evidence that shows you know who your audience is and that the subject matter (paragraph, points, examples, etc.) is suitable for them (AKA it is what they will relate and respond to). In addition, he/she will look to see that you are either formal/informal, humorous/serious, etc. to suit your audience. The written medium (e. g speech, letter, etc.) will always have to be directed towards someone, therefore what you say and how you say it must be suited to who you are talking to. Everything and anything you write will be affected by who your audience is. Finally, you need to write your Part B answer in the manner of what you are asked to write – e. g. shape and sound it like a letter, speech, etc.

THE AUDIENCE: You need to focus on your audience when you are writing. Your essay will be directed at someone, so you need to think about how your audience will be able to respond to your writing, that they can relate to and understand your essay. The best ways to ensure this are:

• Register: Think about your audience and how you should write/speak to them – would they respond better and accept your piece if you spoke formally or informally, humorously or seriously?
• Tone: What tone would your audience respond to best? Conversational, sarcastic, neutral, etc.?
• Vocabulary: Should you use complicated or simple wording in your essay – which would suit the audience more?
• Topics you write on: The topics you focus on should be relevant to your audience, things that they know of or can relate to.
• Concise or detailed topics: Should you be concise (brief) or detailed with what you are mentioning? Which would your audience prefer?

Focusing on such things will ensure that you will create a written medium required of you. As said, all that is left is to make sure your essay sounds like e. g a letter, speech, report, etc.

The key questions you should be asking yourself before you answer the question here are:

• What am I being asked to do/what is the task (and what language type is best for this answer)? (Known as clear appreciation of the task)
• Who is my audience? How should I write to them (seriously/humorously, formally/informally)? (Known as register)
• What should I write about to them?
• Have I written in a suitable quality? Does this read like what the question wanted me to write? (e. g: does it read like a letter, speech to a certain audience, etc?)

As seen in the examples above, regardless of the language type you write in for your answer in the Part B/Essay sections, the marker will always look for evidence that you have focused on what has just been mentioned to see that you have suitably created your written medium. However, as mentioned in the above example, you will need to do so while writing in one of five ways, aesthetically, argumentatively, informatively, narratively or persuasively:

It is essential to know the functions of these types of writing, so you can identify if a question is asking you to write in a certain type of language:

• Aesthetic – the description of feelings and events
• Narrative – telling a (short) story
• Informative – informing someone of something
• Persuasive – persuading someone of something
• Argumentative – trying to convince someone of something

Informative use of language: a good way to think of this is as if no audience is present, as all you are doing is saying what you think. You are not trying to persuade or convince someone of an argument, you are saying something irrespective of whether the audience agrees or disagrees.

Persuasive: This is more force here as you are trying to persuade an audience of something.

Argumentative: Even more force is used to convince an audience of something.

Aesthetic: This involves two steps:

• describing an event
• describing how you felt/feel about it

Narrative: The telling of an event, through the structure of a short story (introduction, complication, climax, conclusion).

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Speech Overview / THREE H1 Examples

• Leaving Cert. English (Higher) 2017: Paper 1 Section II Composing
• Back to the question >

Preparation

• Information
• Clarity of purpose (30%)
• Coherence of delivery (30%)
• Efficiency of language use (30%)
• Mechanics (10%).
• This is a discursive essay. You need to discuss the positive and negative aspects of different types of advertising. 
• Think about the different types of advertising: - Newspapers - Magazines - Posters - Billboards - Social media - Star endorsement - Brand placement.
• Consider some of the advantages of advertising: - Increased product knowledge - Increased competition - Advertisements can be entertaining. 
• Consider some of the disadvantages of advertising: - It is manipulative. - It can be misleading. - It can reinforce stereotypes. - It can put people under pressure. 
• Make sure your essay is entertaining as well as informative. Keep the reader interested.
• Your essay must be descriptive. Concentrate on creating images and atmosphere for the reader. Consider a multi-sensory approach. Aesthetic use of language would be particularly effective in this task.
• Plan this essay carefully. Try to create a fluid piece.
• Try to create a lively and engaging piece for the reader.
• You are asked to give a public speech. It is not a debate speech but it still has an audience and you must use rhetorical devices to keep the audience fully engaged. 
• Think about how democracy can be supported in the world today. Consider the following: - Free speech - Amnesty and similar organisations - The use of social media - Education - The ideas in Text two.
• Consider the following rhetorical devices: - Reaching out to and directly addressing the audience - Rhetorical questions - Humour - Vivid and contrasting imagery. 
• Ensure that you show that it is a public speech from the beginning of the task. The examiner must know that you understand the genre. 
• Thank your audience for their time and attention at the end of the speech.  
• You must write a short story. You can take a variety of approaches but generally, all short stories have a beginning, middle and end, have at least one character, and have some sense of tension, climax and resolution.
• Ask yourself questions to create ideas: - Where? - What? - Who? - Why? - When? - How?
• Beware of creating an over-long timeline. You have limited space and time. It would be impossible to cover a character’s entire life in 2-4 A4 pages.
• Try to stick with 1-3 main characters.
• You have a long time to write this essay. Re-read what you have written quickly to check it for mistakes.
• Create atmosphere and images for the reader — it will improve your writing.
• You must include a tattoo as part of the plot. If you don’t, you will lose a lot of marks. 
• Always ask yourself three questions when approaching the Composing task: - What genre should I be writing in? - Who am I writing for (the audience)? - What is my writing task?
• You are writing the script of a dialogue here. Have your characters’ names in the margin.
• It is a dramatic piece. You could include stage direction as part of your script. 
• In your dialogue you must introduce your sceptical friends and neighbours to your new invention. 
• Be creative and consider what might take place on stage.
• This title gives you the opportunity to take a number of different approaches but remember it must be a personal account. Your ideas should be at the heart of the essay.
• A personal essay should have a degree of personal reflection. You should not just tell a story or present a number of anecdotes. You must personally reflect. 
• Think about moments of insight and revelation that you have experienced. Could they be suitable for your essay? Write down your ideas and organise them for an essay.
• This is an article for a serious publication, so the tone must be serious. Have a headline for your article and possible sub-headings.
• Think about the role of the artist/writer and scientist. Which makes a greater contribution to society? Why? 
• Help us make e-xamit better - e-mail support if you spot any errors!
• The content of this site is the intellectual property of e-xamit.ie
• Legal & privacy information

The Meehan Podcast: A guide for Leaving Cert English students

Listen to our H1 audio notes on the poet Paula Meehan.

My name is Laura Daly, I'm an experienced English teacher from Dublin and in this podcast, I will bring you through each of Meehan's poems that could appear on the day of your exam.

I will take you through all 10 of Meehan's poems that feature on the Leaving cert syllabus. The Youtube video below is broken into chapters so you can just focus on the poems you are studying. 

What is covered in this podcast?

I cover a range of different topics in this podcast, such as: 

Background to Meehan's life

How to structure your answer

Key images and language

Stylistic features

A breakdown of 10 of Meehan's poems

How to use this podcast to learn

I recommend having each poem to hand while you listen to the podcast. You can find all of these poems by looking them up on Google. I have also included the transcript of this podcast so you can take down the notes you find useful.

Have a listen below, or wherever you get your podcasts!

Or if you prefer, you can watch listen to it on Youtube it instead!

If you have ideas for the Studyclix Explains channel, topics you'd like us to cover, or guests you'd like us to get on, please let us know. You can follow Studyclix on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat and share your ideas with us there.

• Youtube and Spotify: Studyclix Explains
• Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram: @studyclix
• Tiktok: @ studyclix.ie
• Snapchat: study_clix

Otherwise, drop us a line at   [email protected]

Below is a transcript of this full podcast packed full of top tips and H1 notes. Make sure to copy these into your notebook to use on the day of your exams!

Introduction

Hi everyone and welcome to this Studyclix podcast on the poet Paula Meehan. My name is Laura, I’m an English teacher from Dublin, and I’ve been teaching Leaving Cert English for over 15 years. I’m going to be taking you through an exam-focused overview of Meehan’s work today. She is one of Ireland’s most popular, contemporary poets, and a personal favourite of mine, so ensure that you have pens at the ready to be taking down all the H1 top tips, as you listen.

Just like in a Leaving Cert essay, I’m going to follow a structure to give this podcast coherence. First of all, I’m going to tell you a little bit about Meehan’s background, and her cultural and educational context as a poet. I will highlight the key themes that occur as a result of this context and how these themes will most likely inform the style of question that comes up on the Leaving Cert. After that then we’ll look at the overarching structure that your essay should follow and this section is transferrable to all other poets on your course. Then, with possible exam questions in mind, we will go through each of the 10 poems on the course with a view to condensing them into the bitesize elements to make them easy for you to remember. These bitesize elements will include looking at:

So let’s start with looking at Meehan’s life. No artist creates in a vacuum, they are very much products of their social and historical contexts, so it’s important to know a little bit of biographical information about the poets on your course and a top tip is to include this information in the introduction of your essay and scattered sparingly throughout your answer. It adds an extra layer of knowledge that will impress an examiner.

So what do we know about Meehan? She has certainly led a very varied and colourful life.

She was born in Dublin in 1955 and raised in the North inner city, her family were working class and very poor and she lived for a time in a tenement on Sean McDermott Street. Meehan had a love of words from a young age and particularly loved the oral tradition and she said that books were a rare commodity when she was young. We see this oral tradition come alive in the colloquial language we encounter in her poems, such as in the opening lines of ‘Hearth Lesson’.

Despite a difficult time at school, against the odds, Meehan went on to study English, History and Classical Civilisation at Trinity College. This was a phenomenal achievement at the time because of her working-class background. Meehan also travelled widely, so although Dublin is an important character within her poetry, we see this wanderlust coming through also, particularly in her poem ‘The Pattern’.

It’s important to understand the Dublin of the 1980s that Meehan returned to, in order to understand her poetry. 

Dublin was in the grip of a heroin epidemic and Ireland was in the midst of a homelessness crisis and recession, so the socio-economic divide was widening. As well as this the continuing oppression of the Catholic Church, coupled with repressive reproduction laws, meant that socially, Ireland was a very repressed place. Meehan, struck by these injustices became involved in activism and much of her writing from this time deals with these social issues. She strongly believed that poetry was a tool for change. She believed that it could be used to give a voice to voiceless and marginalised people.

One reason you may want to mention in your essay why you like her, is her accessibility to the modern reader, many of the issues she explores are, in many ways, still relevant today – drugs epidemics, homelessness, issues around gender and socioeconomic inequality are all still important social issues. Not to mention that her poems also deal with family conflicts, perhaps an all too familiar topic!

A Top tip to remember is that examiners will look for a personal response from you about your poet, so including a line or two about why you enjoyed studying them goes a long way.

Meehan’s poems are filled with personal anecdotes and are openly autobiographical - full of family, community and dry humour.

So now if you are taking notes a few key bullet points from her biography to jot down now are:

A sense of place permeates her work.

Poverty, class and social justice are key themes.

She explores women’s issues and their oppression in the confines of a patriarchal and religious society.

She is interested in the idea of family and community.

Her poetry is infused with elements of the oral tradition, including colloquial language and peoples’ voices.

Remember, Leaving Cert questions will probably centre around these themes.

Structuring your answer

Now we’ll move to the third section of the podcast - how to create an overarching structure for your essay. 

A top tip is to always be thinking of the overall coherence of your essay, and remember the PCLM marking scheme at all times.

• P is for purpose – am I answering the question asked?
• C is for coherence – am I linking my responses coherently?
• L is the marks awarded for language , ‘lively phrasing’, vocabulary, syntax etc.
• M is for mechanics , spelling and grammar.

Purpose, coherence and Language are all 30% of the essay's marks and the remaining 10% is for mechanics.  

When you’re approaching your individual analysis of the poems in your Leaving Cert essay, a good visual to have in your mind’s eye is an inverted triangle. What I mean by this is that you will move in your discussion from a broad overview of the poem to a more focused analysis of the imagery and techniques and finally you will be focusing on specific words and language of importance in the poem. The analysis is a subtle drilling down that always begins with an overview.  A common error I see when correcting Leaving Cert poetry essays is a student who is so enthusiastic to show their knowledge of quotations and what individual images mean, that they forget to give a bit of an overview of the poem or to contextualise it all, before launching into imagery. 

Pretend the examiner has no knowledge of the poet. 

Finally, a great structural technique to use that will make your essay stand out as exceptional is to use a quote to bookend your answer, and by this I mean in your introduction and in your conclusion, particularly the last line of the essay if you quote something Meehan or a critic, has said about her work this gives a lovely structure and adds greatly to the essay.  If you have your pen there I’ll give you two quotes now that you might like to write down to bookend your essay.  

The first is Meehan speaking about the vital importance of poetry she says that, quote:

Two lines can save a life

While Dr Thompson remarks that Meehan, quote:

gives voice to her people and places 

Two very easy lines to learn, that will have a big impact.

So let’s get going with the real business, now we’ve covered style let’s begin to look at the content and going through the poems individually.  At the end of each poem, I will give a recap of the important things to remember from that poem so have your pens at the ready.   In the exam, you will need to write about four poems in depth and refer briefly to another two for an H1. Skip the poems you haven’t covered with your teacher in class.

1. The Exact Moment I Became a Poet

It seems apt to begin with ‘The Exact Moment I Became a Poet’, as the poem is a reminiscence of Meehan’s early school days and a cutting comment from her primary school teacher, Ms Shannon.  The form is unrhymed tercets, three-line stanzas, short stanzas and short lines, perhaps mirroring the beginnings of a language learner, a young person tentatively finding their voice in writing.  There is also a lot of enjambment in the poem, illustrating that the poem is almost like a stream of consciousness because it is a memory. 

An insult from Ms Shannon has stuck with Meehan and influenced her path in life.  The title, so often overlooked by students, runs into the first line of the poem and pinpoints this exact moment when Meehan’s path towards art and poetry began.  

In the opening stanza the teacher is ‘half obscured by a cloud of chalk’ , she is physically and metaphorically a shadowy embodiment of education to the working class girls before her. For them education seemed intangible, in many ways opaque and therefore, unattainable. 

Meehan gives voices to people within her poems and in this poem it is the voice of Ms Shannon pontificating:

‘Attend to your books, girls, or mark my words, you’ll end up in the sewing factory’.  

At the time this sparked indignation for young Meehan, but with hindsight, there is the realisation that there was an element of truth in her jibe ‘the teacher was right’. The poem explores ideas about class and the cyclical and oppressive nature of poverty, a common theme in Meehan’s poetry. For a lot of the girls in the class, their ‘mothers worked’ in the factory as did Meehan’s aunt.  As an adult looking back, Meehan is able to more fully understand how Ms Shannon’s words ‘end up’ robbed the labour of its dignity, or as she puts it ‘back construction’.

Yet, the poem’s key simile of the women ‘trussed like chickens on a conveyor belt’ acknowledges that, although all work has intrinsic value, not all those who worked are valued in society.  Factory labour can rob women of their individual potential.  The image is repugnant, particularly the word ‘trussed’, which means tied up, and it highlights how restricted the women really were. 

The final image of importance that you must mention, is the final stanza:

Words could pluck you, Leave you naked, Your lovely shiny feathers all gone.

There are two interpretations of this image, choose one, or for an H1 you can mention both! The first is that the condescending words of Ms Shannon have harmed the girls, by exposing the weakness, the cycle of poverty, that they seem unable to escape from. Another interpretation is that the ‘words’ are the words of Meehan’s poems.  The creation of art is an act of vulnerability, exposing your inner thoughts and feelings, to an audience and as a result, the very act of writing poetry leaves her vulnerable and exposed. 

The overall tone is somewhat meditative; the passing years have taken the sting out of Ms Shannon’s words, and Meehan can recall and critique them in a controlled way.

So to recap:

• Themes: the cycle of poverty, education as an escape from poverty, and the act of writing as an act of vulnerability.
• Key images: the cloud of chalk, what Ms Shannon says, the simile of the chickens on the conveyor belt, the plucked feathers in the final stanza.
• Stylistic features: enjambment, Ms Shannon’s voice.
• Tone: meditative and critical of society.

2. The Pattern

Let’s move now to ‘The Pattern’, another poem where Meehan looks back on moments from her childhood. This poem is specifically about Meehan’s mother, and it’s important to note that she had a difficult relationship with her mother. This is a particularly long poem and it can make it more manageable to divide it up into sections in your mind, and then choose one image from each section to ensure you’ve hit all the important points for the exam. I have divided the poem up loosely below. Remember this is just as a study aid, do not mention sections in the exam.

Section 1 - Stanza 1 to 3: Remembering her fraught relationship with her mother and her early death.

Section 2 - Stanza 4 to 6: Memory of her mother polishing the floor with her children around her.

Section 3 - Stanza 7 to 10: Her mother patching the red dress for her and remembering when she wore it herself when she was young, and her grandad dragging her in from the street.

Section 4 - Stanza 11-12:  Meehan wanting to explore the wider world.

Section 5 - Stanza 13:  The photo of her mother in the Phoenix Park.

Section 6 - Stanza 14-17: Her mother knitting by the fire Meehan holding the wool being reeled back in by her mother.

The poem is in an elegy, in section 1 she mourns the loss of her mother when at the early age of ‘forty two she headed off for god knows where’. There’s so much to unpack in this line alone. The sadness evoked by the young age of the mother when she passed, the tone of regret and loss, and of course the colloquial language we so often see in Meehan’s work, lending an informality, a conversational tone, rooting the poem in the spoken word. Meehan rues the fact that she never got a chance to get to know her properly, as an adult: 

without tags like mother, wife/sister, daughter. 

But she also mourns the life her mother never got to lead, oppressed as she was by class, poverty and indeed her role as a mother. In section two she questions whether her mother ever got a chance to know herself with the list of rhetorical questions. She wonders during her menial tasks, like shining the floor, ‘Did she net a glimmer of her true self?’. There startling image, that one of the few things Meehan inherited from her mother was ‘the sting of her hand across my face in one of our wars’.   The word ‘wars’ here illustrating the truly combative and violent nature of their arguments, a generational violence that has an almost casual nature to it.  This is seen later in the poem in section 3 when the grandfather ‘dragged’ the mother ‘in by the hair’ for secretly meeting Meehan’s father. ‘He shoved my whole head under the kitchen tap…scrubbed every spick of lipstick and mascara off my face’.   The direct speech used in the poem, a common trope of Meehan’s, brings the mother’s voice and her personality to life. In the fourth section , the key imagery lies in the pattern Meehan is making for herself beyond the domestic scene of the mother, she was ‘sizing up the world beyond our flat patch by patch’.   She is breaking the pattern by creating a new one.

In the fifth section , the image of the photo of her mother on a bench in the Phoenix park is important because in the photo it seems ‘as if she had been born to formal gardens’. This idea that the mother had so much unrealised potential haunts Meehan as well as her mother who seems ‘wrapped entirely in her own shadow, the world beyond her already a dream, already lost’. The tone of sadness here evokes great sympathy in the reader.

The final section of the poem juxtaposes perfectly the two contrasting personality of mother and daughter. Once again colour is important, her mother ‘favoured sensible shades, Moss Green, Mustard, Beige’ while Meehan ‘dreamt of a robe of colour’ . The fireplace, another recurring image in Meehan’s poems becomes a place where the mother unsuccessfully tries to tame her daughter’s wild spirit. Meehan uses a playful simile to capture this battle of wills. As her mother knits and young Meehan plays with the wool, her mother drags her back down.

flew like a fish in the pools Of pulsing light she’d reel me firmly Home

The final lines are the crux of the entire poem and should always be quoted in the exam:

One of these days I must Teach you to follow a pattern

She gives her mother the final words of the poem, but she didn’t obey them. 

The tone changes throughout the poem but mostly it is a poem of regret, regret that her mother had such a hard life and that they never got to know each other properly.

• Themes: mother-daughter relationships, carving out your own path in life not simply following a restrictive pattern from the past.
• Key images: the sting of the mother’s hand, the rhetorical questions, 3the grandad pulling the mother’s hair, mending the red dress, a symbol of poverty and an act of love, the exotic lands, the photo in the phoenix park, mother knitting by the fire, daughter at her feet.
• Stylistic features: mother’s voice.
• Tone: regret.

3. Hearth Lesson

The next poem ‘ Hearth Lesson’, like many of Meehan’s poems, is rooted in a place, in the opening stanzas we are placed in ‘Sean MacDermott Street’ and the colloquial phrases ‘money to burn, burning a hole in your pocket’ act as a catalyst to bring Meehan back to her childhood and the trauma of her parents arguing. She uses Zeus and Hera, the king and queen of the gods, as a sort of tongue-in-cheek metaphor for her ordinary parents. The imagery draws on Meehan’s knowledge of the Greek gods from her time studying Classical Civilisation at Trinity. And yet, there may be an earnestness in the imagery too; ‘Hearth Lesson’ is an exploration of family discord through the eyes of a child, and to a young child parents can often seem god–like, in that in a home they wield the most power and they also dictate the overriding mood and atmosphere of a home.  The hearth, usually a place of warmth becomes the battleground in the flat where ‘Zeus and Hera battle it out’.

The classical allusion is replaced with the language of gambling as the parents trade insults and accusations:

she’ll see his fancyman And raise him Cosmo Snooker Hall

The father accuses the mother of adultery, the mother accuses the father of being absent, and gambling all their money away. In sharp contrast with the earlier grandiose imagery of Zeus and Hera, Meehan describes herself in the quirky metaphor ‘I’m net, umpire and court’ as she sits in the middle of this argument, not fully understanding, ‘most balls/are lobbed over my head’, but understanding the root cause. 

Marital discord and the effects of poverty on relationships are the key themes of this lively poem.   ‘Even then I can tell it was money, the of it day after day, at the root of the bitter words’. The poem concludes with a vivid memory. Meehan’s father ‘handed up his wages’ only for the mother to through ‘the lot into the fire’. What follows is a beautiful image of the colour, it is important to pay attention to colour in poems, here the burning money lends colour to the dismal scene, transforming it.

The flames were blue and pink and green, A marvellous sight, an alchemical scene.

The flames in the chimney breast are compared to ‘trapped exotic birds’ , the simile exposing a truth seen also in The Pattern, that her mother in particular was trapped by her circumstances. Keep this in mind, you can use this idea to link the two poems remembering that cohesion in your essay is paramount to achieve an H1. She also has the ‘last astonishing word’, another element we see in ‘The Pattern’, when Meehan uses her mother’s voice in direct speech to have the final word.  

The overwhelming tone, in the final stanzas, when the embattled parents seem to have run out of steam, is of resignation. There is no escape from the poverty, whatever money there is, is not enough and never will be. They are not Hera and Zeus, the bitterness of their impoverished reality permeate the poem. 

So to recap: 

• Themes: the cycle of poverty and the impact it has on relationships.
• Key images and language: Hera and Zeus, the tennis language, the language of gambling, the money burning. 
• Stylistic features: the classical allusions, her parents’ voices.
• Tone: combative, moving to resignation.

4. The Statue of the Virgin at Granard Speaks

The next poem we are going to look at, ‘The Statue of the Virgin at Granard Speaks’, also creates a bitter mood with its dark subject matter.  In the exam, it’s important to contextualise this poem, without tipping the balance too much into a history lesson. As you know, the exam, unfortunately, is a race against time. You have roughly 5 minutes to spend on your introduction and 5 minutes on your conclusion; that leaves 10 minutes per poem, 50 minutes in total. 

This poem in a broader sense deals with the stranglehold that the Catholic Church had on Irish society, to the detriment of women in this society.  To illustrate this, Meehan uses the harrowing, true story of Anne Lovett; a 15-year-old girl who concealed her pregnancy and gave birth on a cold November night in 1984 to a baby boy, beside a grotto of the Virgin Mary.  Both subsequently died, and it caused outrage and shame that this could happen. Meehan tells the story from the point of view of the Virgin Mary, at times veering into blasphemous territory, with the Virgin Mary denouncing her virginity and craving:

to be incarnate, incarnate, maculate and tousled in a honeyed bed

This sexualisation of the Virgin Mary is the very antithesis of what she represents in Catholic doctrine.   

As the title suggests, the narrative of the poem traces a monologue of the Virgin Mary; she discusses the passing seasons as she observes them from her place in the grotto. The November night with ‘seeds of ice’ at the opening of the poem eventually leads her to recall the plight of Anne Lovett on a similar dark winter’s evening ‘On a night like this I remember the child/who came with fifteen summers to her name’. The opening imagery is ominous with the onomatopoeia of the ‘howling’ wind and the ‘trees cavort in agony’ , ‘wild things gone to earth’. All of this imagery of nature in chaos, foreshadows the awful events detailed later in the poem. 

An important part of the poem is the scathing comments the Virgin Mary makes about society, particularly patriarchal society and how religion is often invoked to justify violence:

where men hunt each other and invoke ‘ the various names of God as blessing / on their death tactics.

She also accuses the people of the town of turning a blind eye to the realities around them. A top tip when revising a poet is to anticipate the types of questions that are likely to come up on the Leaving Cert, Meehan is a poet with a social conscience and therefore, the question may focus on this, ‘The Statue of The Virgin at Granard Speaks’ lends itself perfectly to such a question. She is deeply critical of Irish societal attitudes, the repetition of ‘tucked up’ in the poem highlights the wilful ignorance of everyday people towards girls like Ann.  Through the voice of the Virgin Mary, Meehan captures the lack of empathy and compassion that society exhibited:

And though she cried out to me in extremis I did not move I didn’t lift a finger to help her.

The Virgin Mary examines her position as a deified figure in such a heartless society, ‘ They fit me to a myth of a man crucified’ and ‘They call me mother of all this grief’, and she appears to reject it. The Virgin Mary of Meehan’s poem is not the one we see represented in the Catholic Church, the tone is unfeeling and detached, she lacks the maternal empathy to help a child in need.  The simile ‘ their prayers/ fly up like sparks from a bonfire /that blaze a moment, then wink out’ illustrates the futile nature of prayer and faith. She has sexual desires and appears to be a pagan, praying in the final stanza to the Sun. ‘O sun…molten mother of us all/hear me and have pity.’ 

The final line resounds with self-centeredness, and the mood we are left with is one of utter desolation.

• Themes: patriarchy, our shared responsibility for the damage religion does to society.  
• Key images and language: the passing seasons, the November night and nature in chaos, the unfeeling Virgin Mary, Mary’s sexual desires, the oblivious town and the desperate image of Ann asking for help and being abandoned. 
• Stylistic features: the unconventional voice of the Virgin Mary.
• Tone: bitter, callous, judgemental.

5. Prayer for the Children of Longing

The desolation seen at the end of ‘The Statue of the Virgin at Granard Speaks’ is also seen in the next poem we are going to look at; ‘Prayer for the Children of Longing’. This poem is another elegy, commemorating the young people of Dublin’s inner city who died as the result of drug addiction during the heroin epidemic of the 1980s. Meehan was commissioned to write it and read it at the lighting of the Christmas tree on Buckingham Street. The poem has the language and chant-like rhythm of a prayer, as indicated by the title but the deity she appeals to throughout is the Christmas tree:

Great tree….grant us the clarity of ice

She asks the tree for ‘comfort’, ‘silence’, and ‘quiet’.   She longs for this silence to ‘catch the breath of the children of longing’ , she wants to somehow save them, those children already lost to addiction. This description of addiction as ‘a longing’ is particularly poignant, the reader questions, what longing did the drugs alleviate for these young people, and how did society let them down by not providing for them as we should have?  This is perfectly depicted by the image:

The streets that couldn’t shelter them…the streets that promised them everything that delivered nothing

The personification of the streets here as a menacing influence is particularly effective. 

The short, sharp images depicting the savage nature of addiction is chilling in the poem, ‘the scream, the siren’. The onomatopoeia here adds to that chilling tone which is evoked throughout with the refrain, ‘Here at the heart of the winter’.  

Meehan does something beautiful in this poem which is to venerate those most often demonised in our society, addicts who have succumbed to their addiction.  She uses anaphora of ‘Let their names…let their names…let their names’ contributes to the sense that these young people should not be forgotten, we owe them that at least. 

• Themes: addiction, reframing how we see addiction.
• Key images and language:  the personification of the streets, the great tree, the heart of the city, the heart of the winter. The respectful silence and quiet.
• Stylistic features: the onomatopoeia, the repetition, the anaphora.
• Tone: reverent, regretful, sad.

6. My Father Perceived as a Vision of St. Francis

The next poem is another poem about Meehan’s family, this time though it is about her father, and it is a much more forgiving portrait than the one depicted in ‘Hearth Lesson’. There is an intimacy in this poem from the outset because of the images from the comfortable family home, ‘my brother’s room…full of ties and sweaters and secrets.’ She listens to her father as he goes about his early morning, domestic routine, ‘I heard him rake the ash from the grate’. When she sees him in the garden the colloquial language Meehan so often uses, interrupts her observations, ‘What’s he at?’.

As alluded to in the title, the theme of the poem is how our perceptions of people are in flux. She admits she is anchored to an image of her father from the past, ‘He was older than I had reckoned’ until confronted with the physical realities of her aging parent in the sibilant image, ‘for the first time I saw the stoop of his shoulder, saw that his leg was stiff’. Then later in the poem he is once again transformed by his actions, the early morning ritual of feeding the birds imbues with him with a renewed youth and vigour, deserving of adulation:

He was suddenly radiant A perfect vision of St. Francis, Made whole, made young again, In a Finglas garden

We’ve seen this type of juxtaposition before; in ‘Hearth Lesson’, when Zeus and Hera are in Sean McDermott Street trading insults, and here St. Francis is in Finglas garden, feeding the birds. This sense of place pervading her poems, roots Meehan in an Irish context, she stands in contrast to the likes of Dickson or perhaps Plath, whose poems are more abstract and find their universality in that abstraction, Meehan’s finds her universality in the ordinary and the everyday people and places. 

In the final stanza, the urban, or should I say suburban, landscape collides with the natural world as birds come flocking to be fed by her father. St. Francis is the patron saint of animals, and her father takes on this spiritual persona in this ordinary act of benevolence. The remarkable vividness of the image of the sun cresting ‘O’Reilly’s chimney’ at the moment her father ‘threw up his hands’ is an image of benediction and love. There is a sense of ambiguity, how much do we really know about the people in our lives even those closest to us?  This small act of kindness by Meehan’s father baths him in a new light for her, this theme of renewal permeates the poem.

• Themes: renewal, aging, our perspectives on people.
• Key images and language: the comparison with St. Francis, the birds, the sun cresting the chimney. 
• Stylistic features: the colloquial language 
• Tone: intimate, sense of awe at the small act of kindness.

7. Buying Winkles

‘Buying Winkles’ is a lyric poem, a tale of a late night childhood adventure through the streets of Dublin. It has allusions to the quest motif of Classical literature, and the tone is more light and playful than some of her poems on the course.  

Meehan is sent to buy winkles, a type of shellfish, by her mother, and although warned in the opening lines ‘Hurry up now and don’t be talking to strange men on the way’, the streets hold little menace in the eyes of the girl and the overall atmosphere is one of warmth, and the vibrancy of life that existed in the tenements. The poem acts in opposition to stereotypes held about the tenements and their occupants, and they are remembered with tenderness by the poet. She shows us the lives of the men and women of her childhood, her mother and the other women are tending children, staying at home or working, while the men are out socialising and drinking. 

Meehan enjoys the freedom of the expedition and her simple, straightforward language reflects the voice of the child:

even in the rain I was happy

There are lovely images familiar to all childhoods dotted throughout the poem; her ‘dash from the ghosts on the stair’ or the invisibility of a child as she would ‘weave a glad path through men heading out for the night’. She envies the adults their grown up lives when she catches a glance through the door of the pub, ‘I envied each soul in the hot interior’.   

The poem is filled with contrasting light and darkness; the blown-out bulb on the stair, the moon, the light from the pub, the simile of the winkles themselves like ‘blue little night skies’, the final image of the torches.  Sibilance is another important technique employed by Meehan, we often tend to think of sibilance as creating a menacing tone, but here the s’s lend a lovely softness throughout the poem, creating this cosy feeling as we are immersed in the scene.  

The winkles represent something exotic in the impoverished landscape of the tenements and Meehan is only too happy to seek them out. 

The closing simile of the poem again touches on the child’s naivety, her ‘prize’ filling her with pride; she has accomplished her mission.

I'd bear the newspaper twists Bulging fat with winkles proudly home, like torches

• Themes: childhood adventure, the vibrancy of tenement life, gendered roles of her childhood.
• Key imagery and language: the winkles, light and darkness, 
• Stylistic features: colloquial language, voice of her mother and the winkle seller.  Assonance and alliteration lend a musicality. 
• Tone: excitement, at the end pride, proud of her area and of her accomplishment.

8. Cora Auntie

This poem is yet another elegy, divided in three sections.  It is a beautiful tribute to the indomitable nature of her aunt, her mother’s sister. The poem’s appeal also lies in the universality of its subject matter, someone going through illness, particularly cancer is something a lot of readers can relate to. The idiosyncrasies of Cora’s personality are evident from the outset:

Staring death down with a bottle of morphine in one hand, a bottle of Jameson in the other

The harsh alliterative ‘d’ sound mirroring the fact that Cora is made of hard stuff.  

This opening section of the poem deals with the aunt’s attitude towards her terminal cancer and in doing so it focuses very much on the personification of Death.  Meehan describes her aunt’s relationship to death as a sort of reluctant courtship, ‘laughing’, ‘teasing’ and ‘grinning’ at him. Sadly she eventually succumbs to his advances:

It was time to go and leave her In the arms of Death who desired her so

But her irascible spirit is what shines through, the imagery both irreverent and edifying at the same time. 'Scourge of Croydon tram drivers and High Street dossers on her motorised invalid scooter.' The second section is a flashback to Cora’s youth and her mother and sister’s sewing sequins to her dress for her twenty-first birthday, Meehan uses the vibrant similes to capture the red of the scene, a colour of youth and coming of age:

Sequins red as the lips of maids…as blood on the bedsheet

Meehan does something unusual in this poem that we don’t see elsewhere that is worth mentioning. She writes about the fact she is writing the poem, in the poem; 'This red pen on this white paper I’ve snatched from the flux To write this poem.'

We are made aware of the suddenness of her artistic inspiration as she writes. Like many of Meehan’s poems this has a feminist edge and we see this in the naming of the matriarchal line, her grandmother, her mother and her aunts and her realisation of their vibrancy only reaching her in adulthood. She uses a metaphor to compare them to stars:

The light of those stars Only reaching me now

The final section explores the theme of emigration from the point of view of those left behind. We see the poet has grieved her Aunt twice because she left for England shortly after her twenty-first birthday. The sequins left scattered around the house act like a trail for her, a way to recall her aunt’s presence. ‘All that year I hunted sequins in the house’.

The final image of ‘an emigrant soul’ is poignant and loving, we empathise with Meehan’s loss. A loss keenly relevant to a country with so wide a diaspora.

• Themes: love, emigration, a community of women.
• Key images and language: personification of death, sequins, the aunt on her motorised scooter. 
• Stylistic features: alliteration, colour red.
• Tone: humour, admiration, love, grief.

9. Death of a Field

‘Death of a field’ is yet another poem with a social commentary and it is about the loss of green spaces for the development of ‘44 houses’. The poem is filled with bitterness, Meehan describes how we lose so much more than just a field, we lose the nature that fills the field and the future of that nature. We lose our connection to the land.

The field itself is lost the morning it becomes the site

Repetition is an important technique in the poem the words, ‘memory’ and ‘lost’ are repeated throughout, as the poet tries to capture what she knows will be destroyed.

And the memory of the field disappears with its flora

The use of anaphora is another key technique that is important to mention in the exam. In the eighth stanza she lists all the flora and fauna that will be destroyed when the houses are built and the chemical cleaning products that will replace them: ‘The end of dandelion and the start of Flash’ this creates a particularly oppressive atmosphere in this part of the poem. 

Before the inevitability of the construction Meehan goes once more at night ‘barefoot’ to ‘know the field through the soles of my feet’.   She craves connection with what will soon be lost: ‘That I might possess it or it possess me’. The poem is a stark warning to humanity about the natural world and our relationship to it. 

• Themes: ecological destruction for human benefit. Loss of connection to the land. 
• Key images and language: the flora and fauna the familiar brand names, memory and loss.
• Stylistic features: anaphora, contrast nature and chemicals, repetition.
• Tone: despair, bitterness, grief.

10. Them Ducks Died for Ireland

The final poem on the course is the sonnet ‘Them Ducks Died for Ireland’ and it is a meditation on those whom history has forgotten. The irreverent epigraph serves as a reminder that many were sacrificed during the 1916 Easter rising.

The poem opens with an image of startling beauty ‘Time slides slowly down the sash window puddling in light on oaken boards’ , the soft sibilance adding to the atmospheric nature of the image of the condensation on the windowpane. The metaphor of St. Stephen’s Green as ' a great lung, exhaling’, and the enjambement throughout, lends to the slow meditative atmosphere as Meehan is reminded of the ‘smoke and fire’ during the Rising.

She explores how the passing of time means we can now remember those overlooked during the conflict

When we’ve licked the wounds of history, wounds of war, We’ll salute the stretcher bearer, the nurse in white The ones who pick up the pieces, who endure’

Her final image is that the ‘breathmark on the windowpane’ is perhaps as fragile as our statues ‘commemorating heroes in bronze and stone’.

• Themes: commemoration, war, passing time and changing perspectives
• Key images and language: the green, the nurse, the windowpane, the statues in bronze and stone. 
• Stylistic features: compound/portmanteau words – blood price, moonset, enjambment, sonnet.
• Tone: meditative, contemplative.

Now we’ve recapped all the poems a final tip, about preparing for the poetry section, which is 12.5% of the overall exam is to write a sample essay and go over the essay with a highlighter. Any time you see a word of poetic terminology or a quote from the poet, highlight it. 

By poetic terminology I mean; theme, image, simile, metaphor, personification, all the sound techniques; alliteration, assonance, sibilance, onomatopoeia, or words like hyperbole, contrast etc. If your essay is covered in highlighter you are on track for an H1! 

To conclude, Meehan is a fantastic poet, relatable, accessible and yet full of depth, her sense of social justice, her colloquial voice, her naming of places - all contribute to poems brimming with vibrancy and relevance.  

I hope you’ve enjoyed the podcast and this recap of Meehan and best of luck in the exam!

An English teacher with over 15 years of experience, Laura teaches at St Benildus College, Co. Dublin. She is also a graduate of UCD, Trinity and taught at the European School of The Hague in the Netherlands.

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Language of Persuasion

Persuasion = ♥ Argument = ☺

Examples: Advertisements, competition entries, sermons, inspirational speeches.

Comprehensions – sample question

“ In your opinion, does the writer succeed in persuading us that… ”

“ Identify four features of persuasive writing used in this passage and comment on their effectiveness ”

Look for the following features / techniques:

Vivid imagery (adjectives/similes/metaphors/symbolism)

Emotive dramatic language / sensationalism

Humour / wit

‘ Expert’ reports / Scientific language

Urgent references to time

Rhetorical questions

Emphatic words

Use of ‘I’ / ‘we’ / ‘our’ to connect to the reader or audience

Repetition of key phrases

Reference to ‘big ideas’ – God / justice / truth / right / wrong / future generations.

Question B – sample questions

The above text is based on a series of public lectures delivered by various writers on the topic of influence. Young people today are subject to many influences. Write the text of a talk you would deliver to your class in which you consider some of the positive and negative influences on young people’s lives today and how they respond to these influences.

Your class had decided to produce a book about “un-heroic” or ordinary people as a fund-raiser for a local charity. Write the text for the introduction of this book, in which you explain the purpose of the book and why your class thinks it is important to celebrate ordinary people.

Your student’s School Council is currently discussing the issue of school outings, educational trips, theatre visits, etc. Write a persuasive article for your school website supporting or opposing such events.

Write a feature article for a travel magazine about a place you have never been but would like to visit. In your article explain what you find fascinating about this place and why you would like to go there.

Write a short speech in which you attempt to persuade a group of parents that older teenagers should be trusted to make their own decisions.

Write a letter to a famous writer or celebrity or sports personality of your choice offering your services as a ghost writer for a future book. In your letter you should outline the reasons why you believe you would make a successful ghost writer for your chosen author.

Write a letter to a photographic magazine in which you propose one of the four images for the award “Best War Photograph of the Year.”

Write a letter to one of the people from the collection of visual images in this text, indicating what appeals and/or does not appeal to you about the work which that person does.

Family Home and Contents for Sale

Drawing on the detail in the above text, and its accompanying illustration, draft the text of an advertisement that offers the home and its contents for sale.

Sample Essay Titles

Write a persuasive speech about the importance of literature in people’s lives.

You have been asked to speak to your class about what you think is indispensable in your life. Write the text of the talk you would give.

Write a persuasive speech in praise of science and technology.

Write a personal essay on the topic of daydreams.

Write the text of a talk you would deliver to your classmates on the topic: Appearances can be Deceptive.

Write a speech in which you attempt to persuade an audience that the past should not be glorified.

Write the text of a talk, serious or humorous, to be given to your peers, entitled: “How I intend to change the world!”

Write a magazine article (serious or light-hearted) in which you outline a get-rich idea of your own.

Write the speech you would deliver to a group of world leaders in which you persuade them to deal with one or more of the world’s problems.

Write a speech in which you attempt to persuade an audience that today’s obsession with the lives of the rich and famous has gone too far.

You are responding to a radio competition to find an ordinary person whose life story will inspire others. Entries should include an account of the person’s life and the reason(s) why it is inspirational. Write your competition entry.

You have been asked to give a talk to your class on the importance of not taking life too seriously. Write the talk you would give.

Write a persuasive article or essay in which you attempt to convince people of the meaning and importance of heroes in life.

You have been asked by the school principal to give a talk to your class group on the importance in life of “understanding the system”. Write out the talk you would give.

“Hope is a sustaining human gift” You have been asked to deliver a speech on this theme to a group of classmates. Write out the speech you would give.

You have been elected President of Ireland. Write the first speech you would make to the Irish people.

Write an article intended for inclusion in the sports pages of a newspaper in which you attempt to persuade your readers of the value of sport in our lives.

Write an article for your school or local magazine in which you explore your feelings about the place of music and/or songs in your life.

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