I remember this being a common catch-phrase when I was growing up.

“Mom, can my pocket money be increased?”
“Dream on.”

“Dad, I wish we were going to the sea for Christmas…”
“Dream on.”

And even to myself…”I want to run away from home… dream on!”

So, it was with some trepidation that I undertook to write the study manual for a book with “Dream” in the title! And ironically, there is that same sense of ennui that goes with the catch phrase.

But there’s also so much more.

Labouring through Tess of the D’Urbervilles in matric is the reason my husband proffers for not reading novels today.  He describes the book, one which for many is a great classic, as a boring book about a milkmaid who falls pregnant and dies. I often reflect on his response to literature when reading the latest novel set for matric, especially if it’s a classic.

The truth is that I really didn’t expect to enjoy Elizabeth Gaskell’s novel, North and South, as much as I did.

A teacher recently asked me why she should subscribe to the ‘Ratpack Resources’ if she already has a text book to use in class. I immediately thought about my first high school English teacher who assured us that she had learnt English despite only having one single book. (How thankful I was that I had been able to enjoy a wider choice of books to develop my love of the English language.) The question about subscribing, however, is a valid one and I wanted to respond by providing five of the most compelling reasons why English teachers should subscribe.

Three decades ago, Herman Northrop Frye, whose contributions to cultural and social criticism earned him widespread recognition as a literary theorist, described Antony and Cleopatra as ‘the Shakespeare play most likely to feel essential in the 21st century’.

This seems a remarkable prediction when we consider what type of world we live in now – a world of rapid globalisation and with an ever-increasing speed in the flow of information; a multi-cultural world in which we can eat Swiss muesli for breakfast, Italian pizza for lunch and Japanese sushi for dinner; a world in which we can stay at home but still witness the opulence of a first-world resort, the decadence of a casino, the devastation of a real-life war zone or the aftermath of a terrorist attack on TV.

So why would Frye predict that this play would ‘feel essential’?

Are eBooks still the rage that they were 3 years ago?

To celebrate the Ratpack’s 21st year in production, Macrat plans to honour our regular contributors by including a short biography in this year’s issues. One of our contributors responded with the following message: “21 years of the Ratpack! Can it be? I have every issue from the first volume, filed in lever-arch binders in my study at home. While paging through the various Ratpacks, I am struck by the wealth of material that is available for English teachers.”

• A cold, domineering father
• A gentle, compliant daughter
• A mercenary, manipulative suitor
• An eccentric aunt in love with the idea of love
• A plot filled with betrayal, cruelty, suffering …
  
  The ingredients of a soapie? They certainly could be ... but they refer to a novel set for IEB 2017 ...

Looking for more language exercises for revision? Do you find that your textbooks do not have sufficient exercises to ensure that the basic rules have been understood?

Macrat has the solution …