21/2 Starter

Female Identity
Famous feminist Simone de Beauvoir once said:
“One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.”

Copy the statement and answer the following questions:

1) What do you think de Beauvoir means by this statement?
2) To what extent do you agree with her? Justify your thinking here - take
a point of view and argue it.
3) What must one go through in order to ‘become’ a woman? Think about
the rites-of-passage you might include in the journey towards womanhood.
Question the poet

In your groups, come up with three questions you have about the poem
that you would like to ask the poet. They could be questions about
meaning, about what words mean, about who people are, about why
certain techniques were used, about inspiration, etc.

Try and come up with a why, how and what question.

You’ve got 10min max to come up with questions, then you’ll pass your
piece on to another group to see if they can answer them for you - so leave
space for answers.
First reactions

These are just your initial thoughts, it’s okay to be confused at this point.

1) What stands out for you in this poem? (write down the lines you like and why and
write down the lines you dislike or are confused by and why)
2) Who is speaking? Write a brief description of who you think the speaker might be.
3) How did you decide who the speaker was? (write down what your evidence was)
4) Is the language easy or difficult? And does it suit the speaker?
5) Do you notice any language features? If so, what are they? (quote the line and say
what the language feature is)
6) What seems to be the story in your opinion? (Make a bullet point list)