English Department

Year 9 Identity Unit

Introductory Phase: Anthology of Texts

Identity

Book One

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Identity

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Identity

Contents Page

Identity Unit: Rubrics 4

Text One: “A Fire Fighter’s Dream” (Poem – Rupert McCall) 5

Text Two: "The Rising" (Lyric – Bruce Springsteen) 6

Text Three: “Sometimes You Can't Make it on Your Own” (Lyric – U2) 8

Text Four: “Father and Son” (Lyric – Cat Stevens) 9

Text Five: “She’s Leaving Home” (Lyric – Beatles) 10

Text Six: “Cats in the Cradle” (Lyric – Harry Chapin) 11

Text Seven: “Fast Car” (Lyric – Tracey Chapman) 12

Text Eight: “The Last of His Tribe” (Poem - Oodgeroo Noonuccal) 13

Text Nine: “I am Australian” (Lyric – Bruce Woodley and Dobe Newton) 14

Text Ten: “Dead and Gone” (Lyric – T.I. and Justin Timberlake) 15

Text Eleven: “Lose Yourself” (Lyric – Eminem) 16

Text Twelve: “Paint It Black” (Lyric – Rolling Stones) 17

Text Thirteen: “The Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination” (Speech – J.K.Rowlings)

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Text Fourteen: “Grief, and its consequences” (Feature Article from The Economist) 23

Text Fifteen: My Place (Website) 25

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Identity Unit: Rubrics

Adolescence is a tumultuous period. Your identity is forming partly as an act of your will and partly in response to the obstacles you encounter. In this unit, you will analyze a number of texts that deal with characters whose identities are challenged.

The core text of this unit is Anh Do’s The Happiest Refugee; yet, you will be required to compare Anh’s experiences with those of others.

When you analyze each text, you may wish to use the following questions to develop your views on identity:

1. With whom does the protagonist identity? (Family, friends, country, culture etc.?)

2. What are her/his values? (What do they fight for?)

3. What actions do they take to realize their values?

4. What obstacles do they encounter?

5. How do they overcome their obstacles?

6. What insights do they have? What wisdom do they learn?

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9/11 Text

Text One

“A Fire Fighter’s Dream” (2010)- Rupert McCall

His voice boomed like a beacon and it echoed in my soulFrom the land of opportunity, reverberations rollAll across the mighty sea to where the Southern Cross stars gleamI was listening…and I heard it…when he said…I have a dream… And the dream I had was beautiful – what more could someone prayThan to wake up in the magic of a perfect summer’s day? An aqua blue-like canopy pays tribute to the skiesAnd there I see this young kid with a hero in his eyes The hero is a humble man and not the type to shirk A proudly spoken fire-fighter on his way to work His profession is his passion, his adrenalin, his sparkThe hat he wears to battle is his way to make a markAnd waving from a window, now the boy begins to cryYou see the hero is his father…and he hates to say goodbye And the dream I had was terrible, from nowhere they appearMonsters in the New York sky that choke the day with fearIt can’t be real – the questions burn with why and who and how?Go and turn your TV on…please…just do it now… An evil cloak in plumes of smoke replaces freedom’s gownThe flames reveal their tragic truth – the world is falling downFalling, sprawling, screaming, calling, crying as they goA fire fighter grabs his hat and flies to meet his foeForward into battle now – he hears a church’s bellForward into no man’s land - Forward into hell And the dream I had was powerful – the best of humankindCourage is a heartfelt word not easily definedIt doesn’t equal ‘fearless’ as some sideline experts claimNo…courage is ‘to be scared…but to go on just the same’To rally in the moment then to rise up through the stairsTo save as many people as an act of courage daresTo dig and dig then dig some more – to be there for your mates To look your leader in the eye and know the end awaitsUnderneath the carnage, when the count is done and saidThe only thing recovered is his hat of ‘firey’ red  And the dream I had was personal – I’ve put my kids to sleepBut the images still haunt me and reality cuts deepI see the faces of the fallen – the tape forever runsI see the mothers and the brothers and the sisters and the sonsAnd the comrades and the colleagues, they are never to returnBut for every face, a candle…and tonight, that flame will burnIt burns for something precious – something every hero gaveIt illuminates ‘ground zero’ and commemorates the braveOf religion, race and rivalry, it burns across that scope  It is pure in its simplicity – tonight, it burns for hope 

Yes the dream we share IS hopeful in our darkest hour of hoursBeams of light now kiss the sky where, once, we saw two towers Of this, be strong and steadfast - Of this, stand tall and say - There are some things that an enemy can never take awayI can feel it through the flag that flies, defiant in the gloom I can see it through the window where a boy waits in his roomHe is waiting for his hero, still, to walk back through that door The hat he holds is scuffed and scratched but this, he knows for sure  One day he will wear that hat and pride will reign supremeBecause his father’s gift was freedom and for that he has a dream. 

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9/11 Text

Text Two

"The Rising" (2002)

- Bruce Springsteen

Can't see nothin' in front of meCan't see nothin' coming up behindI make my way through this darknessI can't feel nothing but this chain that binds meLost track of how far I've goneHow far I've gone, how high I've climbedOn my back's a sixty pound stoneOn my shoulder a half mile line

Come on up for the risingCom on up, lay your hands in mineCome on up for the risingCome on up for the rising tonight

Left the house this morningBells ringing filled the airWearin' the cross of my callingOn wheels of fire I come rollin' down here

Come on up for the risingCome on up, lay your hands in mineCome on up for the risingCome on up for the rising tonight

Li,li, li,li,li,li, li,li,li

Spirits above and behind meFaces gone, black eyes burnin' brightMay their precious blood forever bind meLord as I stand before your fiery light

Li,li, li,li,li,li, li,li,li

I see you Mary in the gardenIn the garden of a thousand sighsThere's holy pictures of our childrenDancin' in a sky filled with lightMay I feel your arms around meMay I feel your blood mix with mineA dream of life comes to meLike a catfish dancin' on the end of the line

Sky of blackness and sorrow (a dream of life)Sky of love, sky of tears (a dream of life)Sky of glory and sadness (a dream of life)Sky of mercy, sky of fear (a dream of life)Sky of memory and shadow (a dream of life)Your burnin' wind fills my arms tonightSky of longing and emptiness (a dream of life)Sky of fullness, sky of blessed life (a dream of life)

Come on up for the risingCome on up, lay your hands in mineCome on up for the risingCome on up for the rising tonight

Li,li, li,li,li,li, li,li,li

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Notes on Text Two

"The Rising"

"The Rising" is the title track on Bruce Springsteen's 12th studio album The Rising, and was released as a single in 2002. Springsteen wrote the song in reaction to the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York City. It gained critical praise and earned Grammy Awards for Best Rock Song and Best Male Rock Vocal Performance of the year, as well as a nomination for Song of the Year. Rolling Stone named it the 35th best song of the decade.[1]History and themes

The song was written late in The Rising's development, and was meant as a bookend to the album's "Into the Fire".[2] [3] Springsteen couldn't let go of one of the central images of that day, those who were "ascending into ... what?"[2] Thus, the song tells the story of a New York City Fire Department firefighter, climbing one of the World Trade Center towers after the hijacked planes had hit them during the September 11 attacks.[4] The lyric depicts the surreal, desperate environment in which he finds himself:

Can't see nothin' in front of me,Can't see nothin' coming up behind ...I make my way through this darkness,I can't feel nothing but this chain that binds me.Lost track of how far I've goneHow far I've gone, how high I've climbed ...On my back's a 60-pound stoneOn my shoulder a half mile of line

The choruses are more upbeat, featuring a more pronounced drum part and "Li, li, li" vocal parts that suggest Hallelujahs,[4] but as the song progresses the verses trace the ever more dire situation. Images of fire engines and the Cross of Saint Florian are introduced, and then, in the cemetery-like "garden of a thousand sighs" from Shakespeare's Twelfth Night,[4] a series of final visions: his wife, his children, and all human experience:

Sky of blackness and sorrow (dream of life)Sky of love, sky of tears (dream of life)Sky of glory and sadness (dream of life)Sky of mercy, sky of fear (dream of life)Sky of memory and shadow (dream of life)

The song's religious imagery also includes references to Mary Magdelene meeting the risen Christ on Easter morning ("I see Mary in the garden"), and the Blood of Christ, although Springsteen has stated that the Mary in the song could also be the hero's wife or lover.[3] Writer Jeffrey Symynkywicz evaluates the song as "an Easterlike anthem arising out of the darkness and despair of September 11, a national Good Friday experience if ever there was one."[4]

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rising_(Bruce_Springsteen_song)

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Text Three

“Sometimes You Can't Make it on Your Own” - U2

Tough, you think you've got the stuffYou're telling me and anyoneYou're hard enough

You don't have to put up a fightYou don't have to always be rightLet me take some of the punchesFor you tonight

Listen to me nowI need to let you knowYou don't have to go in alone

And it's you when I look in the mirrorAnd it's you when I don't pick up the phoneSometimes you can't make it on your own

We fight all the timeYou and I... that's alrightWe're the same soulI don't need... I don't need to hear you sayThat if we weren't so alikeYou'd like me a whole lot more

Listen to me nowI need to let you knowYou don't have to go it alone

And it's you when I look in the mirrorAnd it's you when I don't pick up the phoneSometimes you can't make it on your own

(This is it)I know that we don't talkI'm sick of it allCan, you, hear, me, when, I, singYou're the reason I singYou're the reason why the opera’s in me

Well hey now, still gotta let ya knowA house doesn't make a homeDon't leave me here alone

And it's you when I look in the mirrorAnd it's you that makes it hard to let goSometimes you can't make it on your ownSometimes you can't make itBest you can do is to fake itSometimes you can't make it on your own

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Text Four

“Father and Son”- Cat Stevens

It's not time to make a change, Just relax, take it easy. You're still young, that's your fault, There's so much you have to know. Find a girl, settle down, If you want you can marry. Look at me, I am old, but I'm happy.

I was once like you are now, and I know that it's not easy, To be calm when you've found something going on. But take your time, think a lot, Why, think of everything you've got. For you will still be here tomorrow, but your dreams may not.

How can I try to explain, when I do he turns away again. It's always been the same, same old story. From the moment I could talk I was ordered to listen. Now there's a way and I know that I have to go away. I know I have to go.

It's not time to make a change, Just sit down, take it slowly. You're still young, that's your fault, There's so much you have to go through. Find a girl, settle down, If you want you can marry. Look at me, I am old, but I'm happy. (Son-- Away Away Away, I know I have to Make this decision alone - no)

All the times that I cried, keeping all the things I knew inside, It's hard, but it's harder to ignore it. If they were right, I'd agree, but it's them They know not me. Now there's a way and I know that I have to go away. I know I have to go. (Father-- Stay Stay Stay, Why must you go and Make this decision alone?)

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Text Five

“She’s Leaving Home”- Beatles

Wednesday morning at five o'clock as the day beginsSilently closing her bedroom doorLeaving the note that she hoped would say moreShe goes down the stairs to the kitchen clutching her handkerchiefQuietly turning the backdoor keyStepping outside she is free.

She (We gave her most of our lives)is leaving (Sacrificed most of our lives)home (We gave her everything money could buy)She's leaving home after living aloneFor so many years.

Father snores as his wife gets into her dressing gownPicks up the letter that's lying thereStanding alone at the top of the stairsShe breaks down and cries to her husband Daddy our baby's goneWhy would she treat us so thoughtlesslyHow could she do this to me.

She (We never thought of ourselves)is leaving (Never a thought for ourselves)home (We struggled hard all our lives to get by)She's leaving home after living aloneFor so many years.

Friday morning at nine o'clock she is far awayWaiting to keep the appointment she madeMeeting a man from the motor trade.

She (What did we do that was wrong)is having (We didn't know it was wrong)fun (Fun is the one thing that money can't buy)Something inside that was always deniedFor so many years.She's leaving home. Bye, bye

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Text Six

“Cats in the Cradle”

- Harry Chapin

My child arrived just the other dayHe came to the world in the usual wayBut there were planes to catch and bills to payHe learned to walk while I was awayAnd he was talkin' 'fore I knew it, and as he grewHe'd say "I'm gonna be like you dadYou know I'm gonna be like you"

And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoonLittle boy blue and the man on the moonWhen you comin' home dad?I don't know when, but we'll get together then sonYou know we'll have a good time then

My son turned ten just the other dayHe said, "Thanks for the ball, Dad, come on let's playCan you teach me to throw", I said "Not todayI got a lot to do", he said, "That's ok"And he walked away but his smile never dimmedAnd said, "I'm gonna be like him, yeahYou know I'm gonna be like him"

And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoonLittle boy blue and the man on the moonWhen you comin' home son?I don't know when, but we'll get together then sonYou know we'll have a good time then

Well, he came home from college just the other daySo much like a man I just had to say"Son, I'm proud of you, can you sit for a while?"He shook his head and said with a smile"What I'd really like, Dad, is to borrow the car keysSee you later, can I have them please?"

And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoonLittle boy blue and the man on the moonWhen you comin' home son?I don't know when, but we'll get together then sonYou know we'll have a good time then

I've long since retired, my son's moved awayI called him up just the other dayI said, "I'd like to see you if you don't mind"He said, "I'd love to, Dad, if I can find the timeYou see my new job's a hassle and kids have the fluBut it's sure nice talking to you, DadIt's been sure nice talking to you"

And as I hung up the phone it occurred to meHe'd grown up just like meMy boy was just like me

And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoonLittle boy blue and the man on the moonWhen you comin' home son?I don't know when, but we'll get together then sonYou know we'll have a good time then

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Text Seven

“Fast Car”

- Tracey Chapman

You got a fast car I want a ticket to anywhere Maybe we make a deal Maybe together we can get somewhere

Anyplace is better Starting from zero got nothing to lose Maybe we'll make something But me myself I got nothing to prove

You got a fast car And I got a plan to get us out of here I been working at the convenience store Managed to save just a little bit of money We won't have to drive too far Just 'cross the border and into the city You and I can both get jobs And finally see what it means to be living

You see my old man's got a problem He live with the bottle that's the way it is He says his body's too old for working I say his body's too young to look like his My mama went off and left him She wanted more from life than he could give I said somebody's got to take care of him So I quit school and that's what I did

You got a fast car But is it fast enough so we can fly away We gotta make a decision We leave tonight or live and die this way

I remember we were driving driving in your car The speed so fast I felt like I was drunk City lights lay out before us And your arm felt nice wrapped 'round my shoulder And I had a feeling that I belonged And I had a feeling I could be someone, be someone, be someone

You got a fast car And we go cruising to entertain ourselves You still ain't got a job And I work in a market as a checkout girl I know things will get better You'll find work and I'll get promoted We'll move out of the shelter Buy a big house and live in the suburbs You got a fast car And I got a job that pays all our bills You stay out drinking late at the bar See more of your friends than you do of your kids I'd always hoped for better Thought maybe together you and me would find it I got no plans I ain't going nowhere So take your fast car and keep on driving

You got a fast car But is it fast enough so you can fly away You gotta make a decision You leave tonight or live and die this way

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Text Eight

“The Last of His Tribe”- by Oodgeroo Noonuccal (Kath Walker)

Change is the law. The new must oust the old.I look at you and am back in the long ago,Old pinaroo lonely and lost hereLast of your clan.Left only with your memories, you sitAnd think of the gay throng, the happy people,The voices and the laughterAll gone, all gone,And you remain alone.

I asked and you let me hearThe soft vowelly tongue to be heard nowNo more for ever. For meYou enact old scenes, old ways, you who have usedBoomerang and spear.You singer of ancient tribal songs,You leader once in the corroboree,You twice in fierce tribal fightsWith wild enemy blacks from over the river,All gone, all gone. And I feelThe sudden sting of tears, Willie Mackenzie

In the Salvation Army Home.Displaced person in your own country,Lonely in teeming city crowds,Last of your tribe.

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Text Nine

“I am Australian” (1987)- by Bruce Woodley and Dobe Newton

I came from the dream-time, from the dusty red soil plainsI am the ancient heart, the keeper of the flame.I stood upon the rocky shore, I watched the tall ships come.For forty thousand years I've been the first Australian.

(Chorus) We are one, but we are manyAnd from all the lands on earth we comeWe share a dream and sing with one voice:I am, you are, we are Australian

I came upon the prison ship, bowed down by iron chains.I cleared the land, endured the lash and waited for the rains.I'm a settler, I'm a farmer's wife on a dry and barren runA convict then a free man, I became Australian.

(Chorus)

I'm the daughter of a digger who sought the mother lodeThe girl became a woman on the long and dusty roadI'm a child of the depression, I saw the good times comeI'm a bushy, I'm a battler, I am Australian.

(Chorus)

I'm a teller of stories, I'm a singer of songsI am Albert Namatjira, I paint the ghostly gumsI am Clancy on his horse, I'm Ned Kelly on the runI'm the one who waltzed Matilda, I am Australian.

(Chorus)

There are no words of comfort that can hope to ease the painOf losing homes and loved ones the memories will remainWithin the silent tears you’ll find the strength to carry onYou’re not alone, we are with you. We are Australian.

(Chorus)

There are so many heroes whose stories must be toldThey fought the raging fires of hell and saved so many soulsFrom the ashes of despair our towns will rise again!We mourn your loss, we will rebuild. We are Australian!

(Chorus)

I'm the hot wind from the desert, I'm the black soil of the plainsI'm the mountains and the valleys, I'm the drought and flooding rainsI am the rock, I am the sky, the rivers when they runThe spirit of this great land, I am Australian.

(Chorus)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjkrjYitgeA

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Text Ten (Some course language)“Dead and Gone” – T.I. and Justin Timberlake

Let me kick it to you right quick, manThat on some gangsta **** man, on some real ****Anybody done been through the same thing, I'm sure you feel the same wayBig PhilThis for you pimpin'

Oh, I've been travellin' on this road too long (too long)Just tryna find my way back home (back home)The old me is dead and gone, dead and goneAnd oh (eyyy)I've been travellin' on this road too long (too long)Just tryna find my way back home (back home)The old me is dead and gone, dead and gone, dead and gone

Ever had one of them days wish would've stayed homeRun into a group of niggas who gettin' they hate onYou walk byThey get wrongYou reply then **** get blownWay outta proportionWay past discussionJust you against them, pick one then rush 'emFigure you'll get jumped, hell that's nothingThey don't wanna stop there now they bussin'Now you gushin', ambulance rushin'You to the hospital with a bad concussionPlus ya hit 4 timesPlus it hit ya spineParalyzed waist down now ya wheel chair boundNevermind that now you lucky to be aliveJust think it all started you fussin' with 3 guysNow ya pride in the way, but ya pride is the wayYou could stuff around, get shot, die anydayNiggas die everydayAll over bull ****, dope money, dice game, ordinary hood ****Could this be 'cos of hip hop music?Or did the ones with the good sense not use it?Usually niggas don't know what to do when their back against the wall so they just start shootin'For red or for blue or for blo I guessFrom Bankhead or from your projectsNo more stress, now I'm straight, now I get it, now I takeTime to think, before I make mistakes just for my family's sakeThat part of me left yesterdayThe heart of me is strong todayNo regrets I'm blessed to sayThe old me dead and gone away

I ain't never been scared, I lived through tragedySituation could've been dead lookin' back at itMost of that **** didn't even have to happenBut you don't think about it when you out there trappin'In apartments, hangin', smokin', and rappin'Niggas start ****, next thing ya know we cappin'Get locked up then didn't even get madNow think about damn what a life I hadMost of that ****, look back, just laughSome **** still look back get sadMaybe my homboy still be aroundHad I not hit the nigga in the mouth that timeI won that fightI lost that warI can still see my nigga walkin' out that doorWho'da thought I'd never see Philant no more?Got enough dead homies I don't want no moreCost a nigga his jobCost me moreI'd took that ass-whooping now for sureNow think before I risk my lifeTake them chances to get my stripeA nigga put his hands on me alrightOtherwise stand there talk **** all night'Cos I hit you, you sue me,I shoot you, get locked up, who me?No more stress, now I'm straight, now I get it, now I takeTime to think, before I make mistakes just for my family's sakeThat part of me left yesterdayThe heart of me is strong todayNo regrets I'm blessed to sayThe old me dead and gone away

I turn my head to the EastI don't see nobody by my sideI turn my head to the WestStill nobody in sightSo I turn my head to the NorthSwallow that pill that they call prideThat old me is dead and goneBut that new me will be alright

I turn my head to the EastI don't see nobody by my sideI turn my head to the WestStill nobody in sightSo I turn my head to the NorthSwallow that pill that they call prideThat old me is dead and goneBut that new me will be alright.

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Text Eleven (Some course language)

“Lose Yourself” - Eminem

Look, if you had one shot, or one opportunityTo seize everything you ever wanted-One momentWould you capture it or just let it slip?

His palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavyThere's vomit on his sweater already, mom's spaghettiHe's nervous, but on the surface he looks calm and ready to drop bombs,but he keeps on forgettin what he wrote down,the whole crowd goes so loudHe opens his mouth, but the words won't come outHe's choking now, everybody's joking nowThe clock's run out, time's up over, bloah!

Snap back to reality, Oh there goes gravityOh, there goes Rabbit, he chokedHe's so mad, but he won't give up thatEasy, noHe won't have it , he knows his whole back's to these ropesIt don't matter, he's dopeHe knows that, but he's brokeHe's so stagnant that he knowsWhen he goes back to his mobile home, that's when it'sBack to the lab again yoThis whole rhapsodyHe better go capture this moment and hope it don't pass him

You better lose yourself in the music, the momentYou own it, you better never let it goYou only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blowThis opportunity comes once in a lifetime yo

The soul's escaping, through this hole that it's gapingThis world is mine for the takingMake me king, as we move toward a, new world orderA normal life is boring, but superstardom's close to post mortemIt only grows harder, only grows hotterHe blows us all over these hoes is all on himCoast to coast shows, he's know as the globetrotterLonely roads, God only knowsHe's grown farther from home, he's no fatherHe goes home and barely knows his own daughterBut hold your nose 'cause here goes the cold waterHis hoes don't want him no more, he's cold product

They moved on to the next schmoe who flowsHe nose dove and sold nadaSo the soap opera is told and unfoldsI suppose it's old partner but the beat goes onDa da dum da dum da da

No more games, I'm a change what you call rageTear this roof off like 2 dogs cagedI was playing in the beginning, the mood all changedI been chewed up and spit out and booed off stageBut I kept rhyming and stepwritin the next cypherBest believe somebody's paying the pied piperAll the pain inside amplified by the factThat I can't get by with my 9 to 5And I can't provide the right type of life for my familyCause man, these goddam food stamps don't buy diapersAnd it's no movie, there's no Mekhi Phifer, this is my lifeAnd these times are so hard and it's getting even harderTrying to feed and water my seed, plusTeeter totter caught up between being a father and a prima donnaBaby mama drama's screaming on andToo much for me to wannaStay in one spot, another day of monotonyHas gotten me to the point, I'm like a snailI've got to formulate a plot or I end up in jail or shotSuccess is my only option, failure's notMom, I love you, but this trailer's got to goI cannot grow old in Salem's lotSo here I go is my shot.Feet fail me not cause maybe the only opportunity that I got

You can do anything you set your mind to, man

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Text Twelve

“Paint It Black”

- The Rolling Stones

I see a red door and I want it painted black No colors anymore I want them to turn black I see the girls walk by dressed in their summer clothes I have to turn my head until my darkness goes

I see a line of cars and they're all painted black With flowers and my love both never to come back I see people turn their heads and quickly look away Like a new born baby it just happens ev'ry day

I look inside myself and see my heart is black I see my red door and it has been painted black Maybe then I'll fade away and not have to face the facts It's not easy facin' up when your whole world is black

No more will my green sea go turn a deeper blue I could not foresee this thing happening to you

If I look hard enough into the settin' sun My love will laugh with me before the mornin' comes

I see a red door and I want it painted black No colors anymore I want them to turn black I see the girls walk by dressed in their summer clothes I have to turn my head until my darkness goes

Hmm, hmm, hmm,...

I wanna see it painted, painted black Black as night, black as coal I wanna see the sun blotted out from the sky I wanna see it painted, painted, painted, painted black Yeah!

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Text Thirteen

“The Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination”

Harvard University Commencement Address by J.K. Rowling

President Faust, members of the Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers, members of the faculty, proud parents, and, above all, graduates, the first thing I would like to say is 'thank you.' Not only has Harvard given me an extraordinary honour, but the weeks of fear and nausea I've experienced at the thought of giving this commencement address have made me lose weight. A win-win situation! Now all I have to do is take deep breaths, squint at the red banners and fool myself into believing I am at the world's largest Griffindor reunion. Delivering a commencement address is a great responsibility; or so I thought until I cast my mind back to my own graduation.

The commencement speaker that day was the distinguished British philosopher Baroness Mary Warnock. reflecting on her speech has helped me enormously in writing this one, because it turns out that I can't remember a single word she said. This liberating discovery enables me to proceed without any fear that I might inadvertently influence you to abandon

promising careers in business, law or politics for the giddy delights of becoming a gay wizard. 

You see? If all you remember in years to come is the 'gay wizard' joke, I've still come out ahead of Baroness Mary Warnock. Achievable goals: the first step towards personal improvement. 

Actually, I have wracked my mind and heart for what I ought to say to you today. I have asked myself what I wish I had known at my own graduation, and what important lessons I have learned in the 21 years that has expired between that day and this. 

I have come up with two answers. On this wonderful day when we are gathered together to celebrate your academic success, I have decided to talk to you about the benefits of failure. And as you stand on the threshold of what is sometimes called 'real life', I want to extol the crucial importance of imagination. 

These might seem quixotic or paradoxical choices, but please bear with me. 

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Looking back at the 21-year-old that I was at graduation, is a slightly uncomfortable experience for the 42-year-old that she has become. Half my lifetime ago, I was striking an uneasy balance between the ambition I had for myself, and what those closest to me expected of me. 

I was convinced that the only thing I wanted to do, ever, was to write novels. However, my parents, both of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing personal quirk that could never pay a mortgage, or secure a pension. 

They had hoped that I would take a vocational degree; I wanted to study English Literature. A compromise was reached that in retrospect satisfied nobody, and I went up to study Modern Languages. Hardly had my parents' car rounded the corner at the end of the road than I ditched German and scuttled off down the Classics corridor. 

I cannot remember telling my parents that I was studying Classics; they might well have found out for the first time on graduation day. Of all subjects on this planet, I think they would have been hard put to name one less useful than Greek mythology when it came to securing the keys to an executive bathroom. 

I would like to make it clear, in parenthesis, that I do not blame my parents for their point of view. There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction; the moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you. What is more, I cannot criticise my parents for hoping that I would never experience poverty. They had been poor themselves, and I have since been poor, and I quite agree with them that it is not an ennobling experience. Poverty entails fear, and stress, and sometimes depression; it means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is indeed something on which to pride yourself, but poverty itself is romanticised only by fools. 

What I feared most for myself at your age was not poverty, but failure. 

At your age, in spite of a distinct lack of motivation at university, where I had spent far too long in the coffee bar writing stories, and far too little time at lectures, I had a knack for passing examinations, and that, for years, had been the measure of success in my life and that of my peers. 

I am not dull enough to suppose that because you are young, gifted and well-educated, you have never known hardship or heartbreak. Talent and intelligence never yet inoculated anyone against the caprice of the Fates, and I do not for a moment suppose that everyone here has enjoyed an existence of unruffled privilege and contentment. 

However, the fact that you are graduating from Harvard suggests that you are not very well-acquainted with failure. You might be driven by a fear of failure quite as much as a desire for success. Indeed, your conception of failure might not be too far from the average person's idea of success, so high have you already flown academically. 

Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria if you let it. So I think it fair to say that by any conventional measure, a mere seven years after my graduation day, I had failed on an epic scale. An exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded, and I was jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless. The fears my parents had had for me, and that I had had for myself, had both come to pass, and by every usual standard, I was the biggest failure I knew. 

Now, I am not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun. That period of my life was a dark one, and I had no idea that there was going to be what the press has since represented as a kind of

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fairy tale resolution. I had no idea how far the tunnel extended, and for a long time, any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a reality. 

So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had already been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life. 

You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default. 

Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations. Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way. I discovered that I had a strong will, and more discipline than I had suspected; I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above rubies. 

The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more to me than any qualification I ever earned. 

Given a time machine or a Time Turner, I would tell my 21-year-old self that personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a check-list of acquisition or achievement. Your qualifications, your CV, are not your life, though you will meet many people of my age and older who confuse the two. Life is difficult, and complicated, and beyond anyone's total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes. 

You might think that I chose my second theme, the importance of imagination, because of the part it played in rebuilding my life, but that is not wholly so. Though I will defend the value of bedtime stories to my last gasp, I have learned to value imagination in a much broader sense. Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathise with humans whose experiences we have never shared. 

One of the greatest formative experiences of my life preceded Harry Potter, though it informed much of what I subsequently wrote in those books. This revelation came in the form of one of my earliest day jobs. Though I was sloping off to write stories during my lunch hours, I paid the rent in my early 20s by working in the research department at Amnesty International's headquarters in London. 

There in my little office I read hastily scribbled letters smuggled out of totalitarian regimes by men and women who were risking imprisonment to inform the outside world of what was happening to them. I saw photographs of those who had disappeared without trace, sent to Amnesty by their desperate families and friends. I read the testimony of torture victims and saw pictures of their injuries. I opened handwritten, eye-witness accounts of summary trials and executions, of kidnappings and rapes. 

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Many of my co-workers were ex-political prisoners, people who had been displaced from their homes, or fled into exile, because they had the temerity to think independently of their government. Visitors to our office included those who had come to give information, or to try and find out what had happened to those they had been forced to leave behind. 

I shall never forget the African torture victim, a young man no older than I was at the time, who had become mentally ill after all he had endured in his homeland. He trembled uncontrollably as he spoke into a video camera about the brutality inflicted upon him. He was a foot taller than I was, and seemed as fragile as a child. I was given the job of escorting him to the Underground Station afterwards, and this man whose life had been shattered by cruelty took my hand with exquisite courtesy, and wished me future happiness. 

And as long as I live I shall remember walking along an empty corridor and suddenly hearing, from behind a closed door, a scream of pain and horror such as I have never heard since. The door opened, and the researcher poked out her head and told me to run and make a hot drink for the young man sitting with her. She had just given him the news that in retaliation for his own outspokenness against his country's regime, his mother had been seized and executed. 

Every day of my working week in my early 20s I was reminded how incredibly fortunate I was, to live in a country with a democratically elected government, where legal representation and a public trial were the rights of everyone. 

Every day, I saw more evidence about the evils humankind will inflict on their fellow humans, to gain or maintain power. I began to have nightmares, literal nightmares, about some of the things I saw, heard and read. 

And yet I also learned more about human goodness at Amnesty International than I had ever known before. 

Amnesty mobilises thousands of people who have never been tortured or imprisoned for their beliefs to act on behalf of those who have. The power of human empathy, leading to collective action, saves lives, and frees prisoners. Ordinary people, whose personal well-being and security are assured, join together in huge numbers to save people they do not know, and will never meet. My small participation in that process was one of the most humbling and inspiring experiences of my life. 

Unlike any other creature on this planet, humans can learn and understand, without having experienced. They can think themselves into other people's minds, imagine themselves into other people's places. 

Of course, this is a power, like my brand of fictional magic, that is morally neutral. One might use such an ability to manipulate, or control, just as much as to understand or sympathise. 

And many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are. They can refuse to hear screams or to peer inside cages; they can close their minds and hearts to any suffering that does not touch them personally; they can refuse to know.

I might be tempted to envy people who can live that way, except that I do not think they have any fewer nightmares than I do. Choosing to live in narrow spaces can lead to a form of mental agoraphobia, and that brings its own terrors. I think the wilfully unimaginative see more monsters. They are often more afraid. 

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What is more, those who choose not to empathise may enable real monsters. For without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it, through our own apathy. 

One of the many things I learned at the end of that Classics corridor down which I ventured at the age of 18, in search of something I could not then define, was this, written by the Greek author Plutarch: “What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.”

That is an astonishing statement and yet proven a thousand times every day of our lives. It expresses, in part, our inescapable connection with the outside world, the fact that we touch other people's lives simply by existing. 

But how much more are you, Harvard graduates of 2008, likely to touch other people's lives? Your intelligence, your capacity for hard work, the education you have earned and received, give you unique status, and unique responsibilities. Even your nationality sets you apart. The great majority of you belong to the world's only remaining superpower. The way you vote, the way you live, the way you protest, the pressure you bring to bear on your government, has an impact way beyond your borders. That is your privilege, and your burden. 

If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped transform for the better. We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better. 

I am nearly finished. I have one last hope for you, which is something that I already had at 21. The friends with whom I sat on graduation day have been my friends for life. They are my children's godparents, the people to whom I've been able to turn in times of trouble, friends who have been kind enough not to sue me when I've used their names for Death Eaters. At our graduation we were bound by enormous affection, by our shared experience of a time that could never come again, and, of course, by the knowledge that we held certain photographic evidence that would be exceptionally valuable if any of us ran for Prime Minister. 

So today, I can wish you nothing better than similar friendships. And tomorrow, I hope that even if you remember not a single word of mine, you remember those of Seneca, another of those old Romans I met when I fled down the Classics corridor, in retreat from career ladders, in search of ancient wisdom: “As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.”

I wish you all very good lives. 

Thank you very much. 

Speech on YouTube

Part One: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkREt4ZB-ck

Part Two: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kh_tSiqL1U&feature=related

Part Three: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqGotirF20w&feature=related

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Text Fourteen

The Economist, Sep 10th 2011 Grief, and its consequences

By Bagehot

PUBLIC grief can be hard to express in a holiday town, built around the promise of heedless fun. Yet late last month, the seaside resort of Weymouth put on a remarkable, heartfelt homage to James Wright, a 22-year-old local man killed fighting in Afghanistan.

Mourners report, with pride, how the town’s main church was filled to capacity by his family, school friends and neighbours, as well as by his comrades from the Royal Marines. Several hundred more people gathered outside.

Military traditions were observed. A Royal Marine firing party offered a three-gun salute, a bugler the Last Post. Elsewhere though, the personal and the informal reigned. A cannon fired from a Victorian fort on Weymouth Bay signalled a minute’s silence throughout the town, organised not by the authorities but by a caretaker at Marine Wright’s former secondary school. Further calls for quiet were broadcast at Morrisons supermarket and at the town’s department store. Along the faded Regency seafront, souvenir stalls halted trading, led by staff at a sweet shop where Marine Wright once worked. Oblivious to the grieving around them, tourists chattered, some—it is said—thinking that the cannon’s boom marked a lifeboat launch. Townsfolk lined the pavements in silence, in places three or four deep. Later, the funeral procession was applauded by those along its route.

In Britain, public sympathy for the military has not been this intense for many years, arguably since the Falklands conflict of 1982. It was headline news in late August when hearses bearing casualties of the Afghan conflict stopped driving down the high street of Wootton Bassett, a market town that for four years has saluted the war dead with tolling bells and flag-bearing veterans. The prime minister, David Cameron, thanked Wootton Bassett on the nation’s behalf, and vowed to monitor whether mourning families felt welcome on a new route to be used by funeral cortèges (chosen after a change of the airbase used for repatriations).

Set against that intense support for the troops, polls consistently show the British opposed to the war in Afghanistan (though only a minority want the troops home immediately, with a larger number hoping for a swift-ish exit that denies the Taliban total victory). A 2011 poll by YouGov found the “cost in human lives” the top reason for opposing the war.

A single column cannot offer a scientific survey of this phenomenon. Nor can it offer adequate memorial to Marine Wright, by all accounts a remarkable athlete, soldier and family man, whose death stunned friends who thought him “invincible”. Instead, hopefully, some broad hints can be drawn from the response of one southern English town to a military death (the 378th in Afghanistan since 2001).

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Graham Winter is mayor of Weymouth and the neighbouring isle of Portland, and he taught James Wright at primary school. Mostly, he ascribes the turnout at the marine’s funeral to the young man’s popularity and high profile in a small community. But he also notes a trend of rising attendance at veterans’ events. There were large crowds at a homecoming parade in July for Royal Tank Regiment troops back from Afghanistan. The underlying cause, he suggests, is growing awareness of the dangers faced by troops overseas, rammed home by press reporting. That awareness should not be confused with endorsement of government policies, the mayor says: if asked why troops were in Afghanistan, many “would find it hard to answer”.

On the Esplanade, Hazel Coleman, a sixth-form student with a part-time job at a souvenir shop, observed the minute’s silence for Marine Wright. But she says—not unreasonably—that the war has “gotten more complicated over the years”, so she only “vaguely” knows why troops are still in Afghanistan. To her, the public mood is “about respect, and people dying”.

The Wootton Bassett effect

During interviews in Weymouth, the example of Wootton Bassett comes up a lot. Locals needed no persuasion to organise a minute’s silence, says the school caretaker behind the tribute, Geoff Bright. But, he admits, there was a sense of: “If Wootton Bassett can do it, so can Weymouth, no getting away from it.”

Whatever the model is, it is not Falklands Britain. Trawl through archive copies of the local newspaper, the Dorset Evening Echo, covering the period of that conflict, and a barely-recognisable country swims into view. In 1982 deaths are reported briskly, and upper lips are still stiff. Opening a large Falklands homecoming fete, a naval officer declares tersely: “I wish you could have seen how our chaps behaved under not ideal circumstances.” Returning troops are greeted with a mixture of amateurish cheer, bunting and alcohol: there are endless reports of “champagne welcomes”, an improbable “sherry reception” for commandos, and—in Dorchester—1,000 free pints of beer.

Three decades on, a new tolerance for public emotion has strict limits, however. One of Marine Wright’s former teachers, now retired, caused anger by telling local reporters that, as well as pride, he also felt sorrow at a “futile waste of a young life”. A “totally inappropriate” comment, retorts a serving school colleague.

Yet if the current public mood is patriotic, it is not deferential. Phil Thomas, headmaster of Marine Wright’s old school, senses local communities sending a message to the government: “We are recognising these individuals, they are dying on your behalf, make sure you have your policies right.”

Such talk alarms British military commanders. They yearn for public support for the troops, not sympathy, and fret about a debilitating focus on individual losses. A visit to Weymouth suggests they are too late. Overt grief is part of life now, stoked by a public and media hungry for human interest. Will it make future wars harder to fight? Probably. But there is no going back.

From http://www.economist.com/node/21528604

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Text Fifteen

My Place (Website – opportunities for creative writing)

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