International Writing in Schools
Workshop 3: Magical Realism
Stephen Morton
scm2@soton.ac.uk
Aims and Objectives
• To briefly recap what to do on your first
placement
• To look at two examples of magical realism in
international writing by two major writers
• To write a short piece of imaginative writing in
a magical realist style
What are you going to do on
your first placement?
• Dress in an appropriate way. Bring your CRB form.
• Exchange contact details with the teacher (mobile and email address).
• Start by observing classroom management, lesson structure, student
ability, behaviour management, etc. Reflect on this in your journals.
• Be polite and proactive: suggest ways that you can support the teacher
(don’t present yourself as another problem); but remember they are in
charge.
• Come with a draft outline plan of ideas for the coming weeks (including a
combination of classroom support and learning activities), but be
prepared to revise this.
• Negotiate what you’re going to do with the teacher and once you have
agreed a programme of work, write up a schedule of what you’ve agreed
and suggest that you can bring in more detailed lesson plans for future
weeks.
What to look for during
classroom observation
•
•
•
•
How is the time managed?
What kinds of activities are used?
What kinds of resources are available?
How does the teacher manage disruptive
behaviour? (Notice phrases, positive
reinforcement, body language, etc.)
Magic in Literature
The light was so grey and weak at noon that
when Pelayo was coming back to the house after
throwing away the crabs, it was hard for him to
see what it was that was moving and groaning in
the rear of the courtyard. He had to go very close
to see that it was an old man, lying face down in
the mud, who, in spite of his tremendous efforts,
couldn’t get up, impeded by his enormous wings.
(Marquez p. 203)
What is Magical Realism?
• A term introduced in the 1940s referring to
narrative art that presents extraordinary
occurrences as an ordinary part of everyday
life, but has since become associated with the
writing of Alejo Carpentier, Gabriel Garcia
Marquez, and Salman Rushdie. In the work of
these writers, ordinary events are sometimes
given extraordinary explanations.
Context of Gabriel Garcia Marquez
• Along with Alejo Carpentier (Cuba) and Salman
Rushdie (India), Marquez is one of the leading
writers of a style of imaginative writing known as
magical realism
• ‘A Very Old Man’ set in a rural village in Columbia
and concerns the responses of the villagers to the
arrival of an angel
• An example of a magical realist narrative that
blends elements of the ordinary with the
extraordinary
Activity One
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•
•
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Find four sentences that illustrate the
following ideas:
The location of the story, and what life is like
in that location
Elements of magic and the supernatural
Significant details about the old man
How the villagers treat the angel
How does the angel feel about the way the villagers
treat him? How do we know?
He awoke with a start, ranting in his hermetic
language and with tears in his eyes, and he
flapped his wings a couple of times, which
brought on a whirlwind of chicken dung and lunar
dust and a gale of panic that did not seem to be
of this world. Although many thought that his
reaction had been not one of rage but of pain,
from then on they were careful not to annoy him,
because the majority understood that his
passivity was not that of a hero taking his ease
but that of a cataclysm in repose.
Useful definitions
• Hermetic: protected from outside influences
• Cataclysm: a disaster or catastrophe
Creative Writing Activity
• Write a paragraph from the point of view of
the old man; this paragraph should address
how the old man feels about being an angel,
about the way in which the villagers look at
him and treat him, and what he thinks about
this.
Salman Rushdie ‘Haroun and
the Sea of Stories’
‘He’s got his head stuck in the air and his feet
off the ground. What are all these stories? Life
is not a storybook or a joke shop. All this fun
will come to no good. What’s the use of
stories that aren’t even true?’
(Mr Sengupta in ‘Haroun and the Sea of Stories’)
Context of Rushdie’s Haroun and
the Sea of Stories
•
Written after Rushdie has a death sentence placed on his
head by the Ayotollah Khomeini in 1989 for the publication of
The Satanic Verses, and Rushdie goes into hiding
• Concerned with Haroun’s attempt to release the oceans of the
streams of story that have been blocked by Khattam Shud (a
Hindi word meaning finished/ over and done with)
• Shows that storytelling has an important role to play in
contesting abuses of power by corrupt authority figure, and to
imagine alternative worlds to the existing one
Activity 2
Re-read the extract and identify 3 examples of
the following:
• The political use of stories
• A magical explanation for a real-world event
• A P2C2E
Conclusion
Write a long paragraph (maximum one
page) about an ordinary event, but
describe that event in an extraordinary or
magical way. You may borrow images and
words from the Marquez or Rushdie
texts, but the ideas should be your own.