In Mrs Tilscher's Class

• The poem begins with a journey – foreshadowing the metaphorical journey that will take place in this poem. Duffy clearly remembers Mrs T taking them on an educational journey along the river Nile in Africa.
• "You could travel up the Blue Nile" - ‘Blue’ is the beginning of the vivid sensory observations, showing how bursting full of life this class was. Sensory details help to bring the classroom memory to life.
• "With your finger" - Enjambment, ‘with your finger’ is withheld from line 1 to show that the children feel as if they were travelling up the Nile.

  Captures the long, engrossing discussions and engaging lessons experienced by the children.
• "while Mrs Tilscher chanted the scenery." - Word choice of ‘chanted’ shows Mrs T’s enthusiasm – she is injecting life in to the children’s learning experience.
• "Tana. Ethiopia. Khartoum. Aswan." - Holophrastic sentences used to list the places they pass on their journey up the Nile. Through the use of the full stops we can imagine the pause/chanting. Duffy can still remember all of these places showing how memorable Mrs T’s teaching was.
• "That for an hour, then a skittle of milk" - Metaphor: the bottles of milk in

  their crate look like skittles. Connotations of fun and happiness; but also ready to be knocked over.
• "and the chalky Pyramids rubbed into dust." - Literally, Mrs Tilscher has

  rubbed a drawing of the pyramid from the chalkboard. The fact that these ancient and exotic structures can be created and destroyed by Mrs Tilscher shows her almost magical powers.
• "The laugh of a bell" - Bell signals the end of the lesson. Personification injects a playfulness into the poem and captures the joyous mood of the classroom - even the bell is laughing.
• "swung by a running child." - Assonance of ‘swung’ and ‘running’ shows there is an energy present even at the end of a lesson.
• "This was better than home." - Praises the classroom & implies that for

  many children it provides an escape from the difficulties of an unstable home environment.
• "Enthralling books." - Minor sentence: these books are a source of

  genuine excitement for these children. The abruptness of the sentence underlines how gripping they are.
• "The classroom glowed like a sweetshop." - Simile suggests the classroom is a bright, colourful and enchanting place. By linking the classroom with a place many children associate with happiness, it becomes clear that children relished being in Mrs Tilscher’s class.
• "Sugar paper. Coloured shapes. Brady and Hindley" - Shocking and jarring juxtaposition as Brady and Hindley’s names are positioned beside the bright classroom decorations. Brady and Hindley, the notorious ‘Moors Murderers,’ infamously murdered several children in

  Northern England in the 1960s inciting fear in parents and children.
• "faded, like the faint, uneasy smudge of a mistake." - The joy of Mrs. T’s classroom almost manages to erase the horror of these atrocities, but not quite, a smudge remains. Although ‘faint’, the horrors have not receded. Simile effectively conveys the shadow cast and the fractured lives left behind. Effective word choice in ‘smudge’ - the murders are a blemish on this otherwise joyful, sunny period.
• "Mrs Tilscher loved you." - The short sentence at the beginning suggests a maternal, caring, and committed teacher. This is further developed by reference to the ‘gold star’. She make the pupils feel wanted and treasured.
• "The scent of a pencil slowly, carefully, shaved." - The listing structure of

  ‘slowly, carefully, shaved’ emphasises how much care Mrs T put in to what she does.
• "A xylophone's nonsense heard from another form." - Transferred epithet in ‘Xylophone’s nonsense’ suggests the children aren’t playing for learning, just to have fun. Contributes to the joyful mood of the

  classroom.
• "Over the Easter term" - Turning point. Stanzas get slightly shorter mimicking the idea of time running out in Mrs T’s class: Easter term is the second half of the year. Spring time when new life begins to grow/develop. This marks the beginning of movement from innocence to maturity: childhood to adolescence.
• "the inky tadpoles changed from commas into exclamation marks." - Metaphor conveys the idea of swift and inevitable change, not only in the animal kingdom but in the real world and the children who are entering adolescence.
• "freed by a dunce, followed by a line of kids, jumping and croaking away from the lunch queue…" - Three frogs have been “freed” presumably from a classroom tank and they are now the focus of attention for other children who follow the frogs, imitating their “jumping and croaking” when they should have been queuing for lunch. Word choice suggests disorder and the beginning of chaos.
• "…A rough boy told you how you were born. You kicked him, but stared at your parents, appalled, when you got back home." - Word choice: the “rough boy” introduces the subject of human reproduction. The

  child’s shock is conveyed by her inability to cope with this information as she “kicks” the boy and later “stares” at her parents “appalled”. The word choice of “appalled” conveys her horror and distress.
• "That feverish July," - Pathetic fallacy of ‘feverish’ shows us July was hot

  – but it is clearly not just the temperature that is making the children this way. The mood changes again to indicate the increasing awareness of sexuality that comes with the onset of adolescence.
• "the air tasted of electricity." - The tension in the air is like ‘electricity’.

  Listing of adjectives emphasises the sense of discomfort the pupils feel: ‘untidy, hot, fractious, heavy, sexy’
• "A tangible alarm" - word choice highlights the confusion the children feel at this point in their life.
• "fractious under the heavy, sexy sky." - Transferred epithet – it is not the sky that it is sexy, it is the thoughts and hormones and feelings of these young people at the point of sexual maturation.
• "You asked her how you were born and Mrs Tilscher smiled, then turned away…" - Child turns to her most trusted Mrs T for firm answers. Enjambment of ‘then turned away’ surprises the reader as it may have surprised the child. Once a source of infinite wisdom and a fixture of her life, she must now move on without Mrs Tilscher.
• "…Reports were handed out." - signifies the end of primary school.
• "You ran through the gates, impatient to be grown," - Word Choice, “ran” implies the child leaves primary school and Mrs Tilscher without regret and with eager anticipation, whilst “impatient to be grown” speaks to a child’s desire to always be older. She may not have known how much she would treasure the memory and safety provided by

  Mrs Tilscher.
• "as the sky split open into a thunderstorm." - Poem ends with ominous pathetic fallacy –the ‘heavy’ sky opens and there is a thunderstorm. Thunderstorm symbolises the power and overwhelming rush of emotions and hormones. Signals the end of the protective bubble surrounding Mrs Tilscher’s class. The real world can be uncompromising, uncomfortable and terrifying, but also exciting, exhilarating and thrilling like a thunderstorm.