The second last post

Revision!

We went over the some of the main things to remember about Close Reading, from a little crib sheet made up by one of my colleagues. Email me if you want this (though it doesn’t have anything new; it’s just a handy reminder, to be propped up against the Corn Flake packet on the morning of the exam).

We also discussed the suitability for our texts of various exam-type questions made up by another of my colleagues, and I suggested that you should have a go at one or two and email them to me by Monday at the latest, to give me a chance to mark them.

We looked at, and tried to assess, another couple of the Critical Essay workshop essays for which the SQA supplied answers. Again, we were not too stunned by their brilliance and therefore encouraged to feel we could all do at least as well.

Finally, we looked at student answers from the 2005 Close Reading workshop and considered the marks awarded.

Next week, as I said last week, I’ll be there and will be happy to do any revision/marking/advice on demand.

Meanwhile, revise your texts! Learn quotes! Despite the evidence from the SQA workshop, I’d still recommend trying to get at least 5 relevant quotations into each essay (many more for essays on poetry) – so this means learning 10 for each of the play and the novel, since the relevance will depend on the question.

Feel free to email me if you have any problems with which you feel I could help: pdonaldson@stevenson.ac.uk