‘The Rwandan Girl Who Refused to Die’

1. ‘The Rwandan Girl Who Refused to Die’ By Fergal Keane

2. Yesterday we answered some general questions on the text. To make us think about text and some of its main concerns. • You then wrote a summary paragraph at home.

3. Yesterday you asked if you could see a non-fiction question from a Past Paper. Here is the 2007 example. Try to decide what essay you pick from your knowledge at this point.

4. An Example of non-fiction Questions • Answers to questions on prose non-fiction should address relevantly the central • concern(s)/theme(s) of the text and be supported by reference to appropriate techniques of • prose non-fiction such as: ideas, use of evidence, selection of detail, point of view, stance, • setting, anecdote, narrative voice, style, language, structure, organisation of material . . .

5. Must be from the non-fiction section • 9. Choose a work of non-fiction which deals with travel or exploration or discovery. • Discuss to what extent the presentation of the text reveals as much about the writer’s • personality and/or views as it does about the subject matter. • 10. Choose a biography or autobiography in which the life of the subject is presented in • an effective and engaging way. • Show how the writer uses techniques of non-fiction to achieve this. • 11. Choose an essay or piece of journalism which appeals to you because it is both • informative and passionate. • Explain what you learned about the topic and discuss how the writer’s presentation • conveys his/her passion.

6. Techniques of non-fiction • Point of view • Mood • Symbolism • Ideas* • Evidence* • Selection of information* • Choice of detail* • Anecdote* • Organisation* • Examples* • Description* • Language* • Style*

7. Learning to: look at techniques of non-fiction • I can understand the relevance of the content and ideas of the piece of journalism. • I can understand the POV in this piece and analyse it as a technique of non-fiction. • I can understand the relevance of factual inclusion and why the writer has chosen specific facts to make the reader feel a certain way.

8. Content and Ideas • You comment on ideas in Close Reading , particularly the last question. • What ideas are contained within the text? Discuss this with your group. • Give evidence for your answers.

9. Keane’s Point of View • When we talk about POV what do we mean? • What is Keane’s POV? • Is he just a writer? Or is his POV more than just this? • Quote to convey your answer.

10. Factual Inclusion • It is what the title suggests: the facts which have been included. • Each fact is there to prove a point or to illustrate a specific example. • Each fact is there to create a specific emotion from the audience. • Choose what you think are the most striking facts and why you feel the writer has included these. Consider what these prove. How the writer has conveyed these and how they make you feel.

11. : This has often been portrayed, this genocide as mindless tribal violence. The New York Times, within days of it starting, called it "mindless tribal violence." You don't believe that? • A: No, and I can also put a good word for my friend Alison Deforgeswho wrote an op-ed piece saying this is absolute nonsense, so some people write immediately, I could say this is not mindless tribal violence. • By the way Hutu and Tutsi are not tribes, tribes speak different languages they have different societies, customs, religions, whatever, and they usually do not intermarry. Tutsis and Hutus speak the same language, they live side by side, they have the same religion or they had rather before the white man came, and they intermarry, frequently, there are many people whose parents are ... one parent is Tutsi, the other is Hutu, it's very common, but they have never created "Hutsis" because you go by your father's side, so if your father is a Hutu, you're a Hutu, if your father is a Tutsi, you're a Tutsi, never mind the mother. And you know these are not tribes. So it couldn't be mindless tribal violence, it's more like the caste violence we see in India where people who speak the same language and live in the same part of town are just killing each other over questions of jobs and so on, which by the way is an essential part.

12. Information taken from a private ‘posh school’ • You will need to be able to quote extensively from one or two essays to show your understanding of the writer’s style; such things as word choice, connotations, metaphor, simile, symbolism, narrative voice, structure, purpose and theme are likely requirements. The quality of analysis relating these features to author’s purpose is what gains best grades.

13. Organisation and Structure • Organisation of text and its effect? • Consider: is the text chronologically organised? • Or is it organised in a different way? • Quote and explain your answer. • Consider: the beginning of the piece of journalism and the end...Quote and explain the similarities. • What is the author’s purpose of doing this?

14. Audience What audience is Keane trying to get? Is it only for other journalists? Consider and explain your evidence- it doesn’t need to be a quote we just need reference to text. How does the audience link to the purpose of the text?

15. People involved Valentina : description and personal reaction to her.... She seemed more shadowlike than human’ What is the author’s purpose in including her? Keane: description and personal reaction to him..... Why does he include himself as a character in the story? How could people butcher children? What kind of man can kill a child? Bagaruka: description and personal reaction to him. enthusiastic killer.’. ‘Enthusiastic’ suggests that he that he enjoyed the massacres. What purpose does Bagaruka have in this piece of non-fiction?

16. Style: the area you should be most familiar with Imagery Word choice tone Setting Punctuation Rhetotical Questions Sentence structure Symbolism

17. Setting • Setting • Set in Rwanda 1990’s during friction between the Hutus and the Tutsi people- during which mass genocide was completed. • Keane examines the abrupt change in the country within a period of 3 years.

18. Setting • Now the government was preserving them, replete with skeletons and mouldering corpses, as a memorial to genocide.’ • Look at the how this is relevant to the setting.

19. Style: Theme • Explain in your own words the themes which are revealed through these quotations: • In a few weeks I had witnessed brutality and evil on a terrifying scale • How in God's name can you help to kill a child?’ • The story of what happened at the church of Nyarubuye is more than a straightforward commentary on humanity's capacity for evil • What does more than relate to?

20. The use of rhetorical • Look at specific rhetorical questions. Why are they used?