This will give a basic idea of what is covered for those who study Coraline in high school.

1. Introduction
to
Coralline

2. What is Coraline?
A young girl walks through a secret door in her new home and
discovers an alternate version of her life. On the surface, this
parallel reality is eerily similar to her real life – only much
better. But when her adventure turns dangerous, and her
counterfeit parents (including Other Mother and Other
Father) try to keep her forever, Coraline must count on her
resourcefulness, determination, and bravery to get back
home – and save her family.

3. What we will be looking at?
We will be studying Coralline and looking at
family relationships. As well as watching the
film we will be reading the book and also
analysing 3 poems to do with family
relationships.
The 3 poems we will be looking at are on the
following slides.

4. Catrin – Gillian Clarke
I can remember you, child,
As I stood in a hot, white
Room at the window watching
The people and cars taking
Turn at the traffic lights.
I can remember you, our first
Fierce confrontation, the tight
Red rope of love which we both
Fought over. It was a square
Environmental blank, disinfected
Of paintings or toys. I wrote
All over the walls with my
Words, coloured the clean squares
With the wild, tender circles
Of our struggle to become
Separate. We want, we shouted,
To be two, to be ourselves.
Neither won nor lost the struggle
In the glass tank clouded with feelings
Which changed us both. Still I am fighting
You off, as you stand there
With your straight, strong, long
Brown hair and your rosy,
Defiant glare, bringing up
From the heart's pool that old rope,
Tightening about my life,
Trailing love and conflict,
As you ask may you skate
In the dark, for one more hour

5. Presents from my aunts in Pakistan – Moniza Alvi
But it was stolen from our car . The presents
were radiant in my wardrobe . My aunts
requested cardigans from Marks and Spencers.
My salwar kameez didn't impress
the schoolfriend who sat on my bed , asked to
see my weekend clothes. But often I admired
the mirror-work, tried to glimpse Myself in the
miniature glass circles, recall the story how the
three of us sailed to England. Prickly heat had
me screaming on the way . I ended up in a cot
In my English grandmother's dining-room,
found myself alone, playing with a tin-boat.
I pictured my birthplace from fifties
Photographs. When I was older there was
conflict, a fractured land throbbing through
newsprint. Sometimes I saw Lahore my aunts
in shaded rooms , screened from male visitors,
sorting presents, wrapping them in tissue.
Or there were beggars, sweeper-girls and I was
there - of no fixed nationality, staring through
Fretwork at the Shalimar Gardens
They sent me a salwar kameez peacock-blue,
and another glistening like an orange split
open, embossed slippers, gold and black
points curling. Candy-striped glass bangles
snapped, drew blood. Like at school, fashions
changed in Pakistan - the salwar bottoms were
broad and stiff, then narrow. My aunts chose
an apple -green sari, silver-bordered for my
teens.
I tried each satin-silken top - was
alien in the sitting-room. I could never be as
lovely as thoseclothes - I longed for denim and
corduroy. My costume clung to me and I was
aflame, I couldn't rise up out of its fire, half-
English, unlike Aunt Jamila.
I wanted my parents' camel -skin
lamp - switching it on in my bedroom, to
consider the cruelty and the transformation
from camel to shade, marvel at the colours
like stained glass. My mother cherished her
jewellery -Indian gold, dangling, filigree,

6. Praise song for my mother – Grace
Nichols
You were
water to me
deep and bold and fathoming
You were
moon’s eye to me
pull and grained and mantling
You were
sunrise to me
rise and warm and streaming
You were
the fishes red gill to me
the flame tree ’s spread to me
the crab’s leg/the fried plantain smell
replenishing replenishing
Go to your wide futures, you said

7. Info about the poems
As part of the poem analysation piece of English,
students are required to read and understand
3 poems in Coralline topic and analyse them
word for word and understand what the poet
is trying to say.

8. Your first and final task
Get into pairs of 2
Then create 1-2 quotes each, these can be
anything for example, “NEVER! I will never
leave with you, you sinister witch.”
Then analyse the quote for example, the word
Never in capitals and with an exclamation
mark says this person is shouting.
This is what you will be doing with the 3 poems
we look at later on.