1. A Family Supper
What ideas, questions or problems does this title raise? What does it lead us to believe the story will be about?

2. Kazuo Ishiguro Born November 8th 1954, in Nagasaki, Japan
His family moved to England in 1960
Took a gap year and travelled through the United States and Canada
His stories are written in the first-person narrative style and the narrators often exhibit human failings. Ishiguro's technique is to allow these characters to reveal their flaws implicitly during the narrative. The author thus creates a sense of pathos (sadness) by allowing the reader to see the narrator's flaws while being drawn to sympathise with the narrator as well. This pathos is often derived from the narrator's actions, or, more often, inaction.
Ishiguro's stories often end without any sense of resolution. The issues his characters confront are buried in the past and remain unresolved. Thus Ishiguro ends many of his novels on a note of melancholic resignation. His characters accept their past and who they have become, typically discovering that this realisation brings comfort and an ending to mental anguish. This can be seen as a literary reflection on the Japanese idea of mono no aware.
Mono no aware: "the pathos of things“ or "an empathy toward things” is a Japanese term for the awareness of briefness and transience of things and their deeper gentle sadness about the reality of life.

3. Reading of ‘A Family Supper’
Appearance and reality
Honour
Cultures
Disappointment
Memory
How does Ishiguro establish themes?
E.g. “It’s a miracle, a cosmic miracle” (L78); “They were just an ordinary lonely girl and an ordinary lonely boy, like all the others. But they believed with their whole hearts that somewhere in the world there lived the 100% perfect boy and the 100% perfect girl for them” (L66-8) “The moment I see her, there’s a rumbling in my chest and my mouth is as dry as a desert” (7-8).
Which quotations best demonstrate these themes?

4. Closer exploration of key sections
Choose one of these key features to focus on:
The father’s description of Watanabe (page 32). Why does Ishiguro include this? How does this establish the story’s key themes and ideas?
The significance of the haunted well (page 34) How does Ishiguro use this section to build suspense? Wat could the well be symbolic of?
The significance of the model ship (page 36) What is the model a symbol of? How are sentence lengths used in this section?

5. Writing Skills: How are the key ideas developed in ‘A Family Supper’?
Precise vocabulary
Links to theme
Effective use of quotation for support
Close analysis of language features/ sentencing
Context link
Impact/effects /reader response
Kazuo Ishiguro introduces the theme of …
Overall feelings from the section (e.g. insecurity / suspense / dismantled relationships)
Key quote from the section
How details from the section help to build up the story’s overall ideas
Tone of the section
Language techniques in the quote analysed and linked to key ideas and themes, character and context

6. mind-mapping task How would you respond to these questions?
How does Ishiguro use symbolism in ‘A Family Supper’?
How does Ishiguro present the narrator’s feelings in ‘A Family Supper’?
How does Ishiguro create an effective ending in ‘A Family Supper’?

7. Time to go?
Not until everyone on your table can answer these three questions. Help each other!:
How is the title ‘A Family Supper’ ironic? 1
How does Ishiguro create suspense in the opening paragraphs? 2
Name one skill you need to remember to demonstrate when writing about the stories. 3

8. Groups for ‘Family Supper’ Task
Group 1 (Flo/Alex/Laura/Kitty/Kate/Lucy)
Group 2 (Catherine/Mia B/Mia F/Vicky/Zuzia)
Group 3a and 3b (Charlotte/Amber/Frankie/Alice/Jazz C/Nicole)
Group 4a and 4b(Jazz T/Kiera/Elli May/Katy/Mariam/Yasmin)
Prepare present next lesson – 3 quotes/concise key points to show inference on slides for class notes (5mins approx)