🗣️ Anchor Quote: The Defiant Conclusion

Part of Checking Out Me History (Agard) · Section 9 of 19

Study NotesUnit: Power and Conflict PoetryGCSE

This study notes covers 🗣️ Anchor Quote: The Defiant Conclusion within Checking Out Me History (Agard) for GCSE English Literature. Revise Checking Out Me History (Agard) in Power and Conflict Poetry for GCSE English Literature with 10 exam-style questions and 15 flashcards. This is a high-frequency topic, so it is worth revising until the explanation feels precise and repeatable. It is section 9 of 19 in this topic. Use this study notes to connect the idea to the wider topic before moving on to questions and flashcards.

🗣️ Anchor Quote: The Defiant Conclusion

But now I checking out me own history / I carving out me identity
Speaker Final lines Identity · Resistance · Power · Language
Why this quote matters: Agard ends the poem with an active, present-tense assertion. “Carving” suggests deliberate, physical effort — identity is not inherited from a curriculum; it is constructed by the individual through their own choices about what history to attend to. Crucially, the claim is made in Creole dialect — the same voice the curriculum tried to replace. Agard positions the dialect itself as the medium of reclamation: the form of the line IS its content. Identity is being “carved out” in the very act of writing this way.
Use this quote when answering: How Agard presents the reclamation of identity as an active process; how dialect functions as both form and argument; how the poem moves from complaint to assertion; comparison with The Prelude (where identity is also shaped by encounter with a powerful force).

Practice questions for Checking Out Me History (Agard)

In 'Checking Out Me History', Agard writes 'Dem tell me' rather than 'They told me'. What does this choice of language represent?

  • A. Caribbean dialect and phonetic spelling, asserting cultural identity through language itself
  • B. A printing error in the original publication that was never corrected
  • C. Ancient Egyptian language, connecting the poem to African history
  • D. Deliberately simplified language so younger readers can understand the poem
1 markfoundation

How does Agard use the poem's alternating structure to challenge colonial education? [2 marks]

2 marksstandard

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