Prayer Before Birth and analysing!
• Zoom in on MacNeice’s use of language to
present an idea.
• Zoom in on the narrative tense and person
used.
• Zoom in on the adjectives, nouns, verbs and
adverbs used.
• Zoom in on the structural devices
(punctuation marks, sentence lengths and
repetition) used.
Comment on the
words chosen –
look closely at
the specific ones
underlined
ZOOM IN!
Consider the
structural devices
used and the
punctuation used.
“I am not yet born; O fill me
With strength against those who would freeze my
humanity, would dragoon me into a lethal
automaton,
would make me a cog in a machine, a thing with
one face, a thing, and against all those
who would dissipate my entirety, would
blow me like thistledown hither and
thither or hither and thither
like water held in the
hands would spill me”
Prayer Before Birth and
evaluating!
• Zoom out to show how this links to the
cultural contexts of the poem.
• Zoom out to show how this particular
quotation contrasts with earlier (or later)
‘events’ in the poem.
• Zoom out to show how this particular
quotation supports or develops your reading
of earlier or later events in the novel.
Does this
develop ideas
found in the
other stanzas
of the poem?
ZOOM OUT
Is this sort of
imagery or
writing style
repeated in the
poem?
• I am not yet born; O fill me
With strength against those who would freeze my
humanity, would dragoon me into a lethal
automaton,
would make me a cog in a machine, a thing with
one face, a thing, and against all those
who would dissipate my entirety, would
blow me like thistledown hither and
thither or hither and thither
like water held in the
hands would spill me
In the PAST
Zone of relevance:
SIMPLE Zone
of relevance!
Your (TWO)6 word quotes
and their connotations will
go here.
Your notes about the (ZOOM in)
language and structural techniques will
go here.
Your notes about the
ZOOM OUT
information will go
here!
Mr Peel will take
photos of your
completed ZOOM
ZONES and reward
great work with HPs

You will be given
baby hexagons to
write up your ZOOM
IN analysis of the
quotes and your
Zoom out analysis.
Draw your circle on
the table.
TABLE PLENARY!