‘Please Mrs. Butler’ COURSE: TEACHING POETRY INSTRUCTOR: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Zerrin EREN Prepared by: Rabia İrem DEMİRCİ
Contents 1. Allan Ahlberg’s Biography 2. Please Mrs. Butler Poem 3. Please Mrs. Butler Poem Analysis 4. Warm-up and Comprehension Questions 5. Activities 6. References
1. ALLAN AHLBERG’S BIOGRAPHY Who is Allan Ahlberg? Allan Ahlberg was born in Croydon in 1938, but grew up in Oldbury as an adopted child near Birmingham. From the age of twelve, his dream was to be a writer. Before he fulfilled his ambition, he tried his hand at a variety of other jobs including postman, grave digger, plumber's mate and teacher. Ahlberg was once a very promising young children's writer. Of course, today he is very old and semi-retired," laughs Briggs. "Decades ago he was taken under the wing of the brilliant Janet Ahlberg, who had consented to become his wife in order to help his immigration status. Janet created superb illustrations for 'their' picture books and Ahlberg added several words to fill up the blank spaces between the pictures. He sends you these bits of stuff, then just leaves you to get on with it. Would that there were more like him. Now in his 80s, Ahlberg still crosses the garden to his shed to write most days. "I'm like a dripping tap. As I get older I drip more slowly, but I still come down here. I'm less impatient to spend hour after hour writing, though I like it as much as ever. I don't mind now if it takes me two years to write a few little poems." What Makes Janet and Allan Ahlberg So Special? Janet and Allan Ahlberg are two of the most important names in children's publishing. 'The Ahlbergs belong to the greatest tradition of British children's books, having the kind of genius that can dominate an era' - The Sunday Times (2003)
2. PLEASE MRS. BUTLER POEM Please Mrs. Butler This boy Derek Drew Keeps copying my work, Miss. What shall I do? Go and sit in the hall, dear. Go and sit in the sink. Take your books on the roof, my lamb. Do whatever you think. Please Mrs Butler This boy Derek Drew Keeps taking my rubber, Miss. What shall I do? Keep it in your hand, dear. Hide it up your vest. Swallow it if you like, my love. Do what you think is best. Please Mrs. Butler This boy Derek Drew Keeps calling me rude names, miss. What shall I do? Lock yourself in the cupboard, dear. Run away to sea. Do whatever you can, my flower. But don’t ask me!
3. PLEASE MRS. BUTLER POEM ANALYSIS ‘Please Mrs . Butler’ is the title poem of a collection of poems about everyday life at school. The situations talked about in the poems are recognizable and are put across in a humorous way, often encouraging the reader to see the funny side of situations that seem bad at the time – for example stressed teachers and squabbles between friends. Here is the analysis of the poem stanza by stanza: Please Mrs Butler This boy Derek Drew Keeps copying my work, Miss. What shall I do? In the first stanza, we see the student in question has some problems with a boy called Derek Drew and complains about Derek Derew’s coppying his work and asks for help from the teacher, Mrs. Butler. This kind of speech can be seen in any classroom genereally for young learners. There is no doubt that there exists a bullying case in that classroom. Go and sit in the hall, dear. Go and sit in the sink. Take your books on the roof, my lamb. Do whatever you think. It is seen that Mrs. Butler does not care the student’s complainings and we can understand that she just give answers to make her busy with something else. Whenever receive a direct answer from Mrs. Butler towards the child. As we are going to see in the following stanzas, on the third line of every stanza Mrs. Butler adresses the child in a motherly like tone. She calls the child ‘my lamb, my love, my flower’. Please Mrs Butler This boy Derek Drew Keeps taking my rubber, Miss. What shall I do? In the third stanza, the student keep complaining about Derek Drew’s bad behaviors again and implies that Drek Derew does not give up his bad behaviors and keep doing mobbing on the student in question and ask for help clamantly.
Keep it in your hand, dear. Hide it up your vest. Swallow it if you like, my love. Do what you think is best. It is seen that whenever the child ask Mrs. Butler a question, she always gives some absurd or weird answers like ‘swallow if you like’ or ‘ run away to sea’ an d then ends with do whatever you think is best’. This shows us that teacher fed up with the student’s complains about Derek Drew and Mrs. Butler again suggests some other absurd things to do for the student. Please Mrs Butler This boy Derek Drew Keeps calling me rude names, miss. What shall I do? In the fifth stanza, the student’s exposition to bullying is evident. The student is bullied by Derek Drew and still asks help from Mrs. Butler although she does not care at all. Lock yourself in the cupboard, dear. Run away to sea. Do whatever you can, my flower. But don’t ask me . In the last stanza, to make an overall analysis, we can see that there is also repetition in this poem. The repetition gives the reader an expectation on what happens next. Ahlberg uses a constant repetition pattern where the child complains about Derek Drew and then asks Mrs. Butler and get absurd advice. For example ‘lock yourself in the cupboard, dear’ and ‘run away to sea’, however; in the last stanza it switched, instead of having a kind tone Mrs. Butler had an annoyed tone instead.Overall, I think this poem has a humorous tone because of absurd comments that Mrs. Butler and her annoyed tone. In the classroom, all ambiguous points will be discussed one by one with the reasons behind them although the paper gives surface information about the poem. “ T his poem has something to do with the psychological state of teachers. Imagine you’re a child in a class and you ask your teacher five questions during the day – that’s not very many is it, five – but if there are thirty of you that makes 150 questions a day, 750 questions a week, 3000
questions a month, and if we say ten months in a year, thats 30,000 questions a year. If a teacher teaches for ten years, that’s 300,000 questions. And this of course explains the situation which most children understand whic h is that all school teachers are crazy.” 4. WARM-UP AND COMPREHENSION QUESTIONS The place o asking questions and stimulating students’ background knowledge covers the two third of the lesson. Therefore, the following questions are designed to foster interest and understanding of students. A. Warm- Up Questions 1. What do you think about what happens in the poem? 2. What else could happen in the classroom? 3. Were there any really annoying kids in your class? What did they do? 4. Why do a student misbehave in the classroom? 5. Have you ever bullied in the classroom? What did you do? 6. What kind of questions did you ask your teacher? Did s/he help you? 7. Should we tell all the things happened in the classroom to the teacher? B. Comprehension Questions 1. Could you list the things that Derek Drew has done? 2. What are the suggestions of Mrs. Butler for the problems? 3. Do you think that Mrs. Butler is serious while giving suggestions? 4. Could you list the repeated lines in the poem? Why do you think the poet has chosen to repeat these lines? 5. What do you think about the last ‘Don’t ask me!’ line?
5. ACTIVITIES A) Pre- reading Activities Pre - reading activities help students prepare for the reading activity by activating the relevant schemata and motivating them to read . Pre - reading activities can also help learners anticipate the topic, vocabulary and possibly important grammar structures in the texts. 1) Match the Pictures with the Words This activity aims to make students familiar with the target wods in the poem. First, students are asked to describe the shown pictures, then asked to match pictures with the vocabulary given on the board. B) While-reading Activities While - Reading Activities are defined as activities that help students to focus on aspects of the text and to understand it better. The goal of these activities is to help learners to deal as they would deal with it as if the text was written in their first language. 2) Put the Stanzas into Correct Order This activity was designed to keep students’ attention and interest alive while reading poem and the other goal of this activity is to enhance students’ ordering skills and to help them follow the ideas within a given context. 3) Perform the Poem in Peers: Colorful Hats This activity aims to teach students turn taking and collaboration in a context of reading; however, it is aimed to make students personalize the context by making them act out the poem. Two students are chosen based on voluntariness; red hat, referencing Mrs.Butler, and blue hat, referencing the boy who asks for help, are worn by each student. When the teacher jingles the stimulator turn taking occurs in the course of reading aloud.
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