Nearly there...

The class just began at 7.15 and we looked at critical essays: the markers’ instructions from 2008 and some actual students’ essays. I gave out 10 essays and we looked at 2, finding ourselves surprised but (I hope) encouraged by the leniency of the marking. We’ll look at the rest next week; we'll also go over the marking of those close reading answers that was the homework for this week.

If you weren’t there yesterday – not many were – and would like these exemplar essays, do email me and I’ll send them as an attachment. I’d really like you to read them and think about them before the class rather than spending time reading them during the class.

I also, cruelly, made the class write a critical essay in 45 minutes. If you weren’t there, please do this for next week, again in a strict 45 minutes. If you were in class, you might like to do the other one at home; or any essay or close reading.

Here are the titles:

Choose a play in which a character is at odds with one or more than one of the people around him or her.

Show how the dramatist makes you aware of the character’s situation and discuss to what extent this led to a greater understanding of the concerns of the play.

and

Choose a poem which presents a character to whom you react with sympathy, dislike or laughter.

Show how the poet arouses this response from you and discuss how important it is to the overall impact of the poem.

Do come along next week if you can.

The final week, the 12th, I imagine you might prefer to stay at home and revise, but I will be there as usual at 5.45 and available for any tuition on request, so do feel free to come that evening too if you want. If no one turns up by 6.15, then I’ll go, but I’m happy to stay if anyone wants to discuss anything to do with English.

Happy Christmas

A one-subject post today since I’m busy, you’re busy, we had a fairly one-subject class and you’re probably not even reading this.

We discussed critical (literature) essays and I tried to impress on you the idea that you must:

* Answer the question (both bits – there are usually two parts)
* Bear in mind that the whole point of the essay is to show HOW the writer has written the text
* Show that you’re doing this by using terms that describe techniques (theme etc)
* Write as fluently and correctly as possible.

Most of what we call “questions” don’t actually have a question in them at all. They’re really arguments – you’re arguing that the author has indeed done what’s mentioned in the description, and showing how he/she has done it.

The “questions” will be in the form:

Description of text: “Choose a novel which is influenced by the presence of a powerful or overbearing character.”
Instruction: “Show how the writer creates the impression of this character and discuss to what extent you felt you could sympathise with him/her.”

And at the top of each section of the exam you’ll also find a little box reminding you to write about the literary techniques.

So you might like to think of the question as if it said:

“Show how (ie by his/her use of theme, language, setting, characterisation) the writer creates the impression of this character and discuss to what extent you felt (through his/her use of theme, characterisation, structure) you could sympathise with him/her.”

You don’t need to discuss all the techniques. You do need to discuss some. But there’s no point in just regurgitating the notes. You need to discuss literary techniques only as far as they’re relevant to the particular argument of the essay.

You can assume that the marker will have read the text, but – as far as the exam is concerned – may have a hazy memory of it, so do tell little bits of the story to make points about them. Don’t tell bits of the story merely to fill up the page.

You MUST quote to back up some of your points. In a exam, five quotes would be the minimum for novels and plays – lots of quotes needed for poems. Using direct evidence (ie things that happen or a paraphrase of what people say) is good too.




While answering these “questions”, it’s useful to keep a little formula in mind and to follow it – not necessarily slavishly and not necessarily in this order, but as a possible approach if you feel yourself waffling off the topic – as is so easy to do:

SECT – this means

Statement – say something about the text
Evidence – give evidence from the text to back up what you say
Comment – say a bit more about your evidence if necessary
Technique – try to link this to a literary technique.

Eg

S. Anne Tyler shows us that Barnaby is unsure about his trustworthiness.
E On the very first page, he mentions that his customers see him as “a man you can trust”, while he himself is not so sure.
C This shows the lack of self esteem which troubles him throughout the novel
T and introduces the theme of trust, which is a central issue.

Certainly a lot of unsupported statements will not gain very many marks.

I then showed you a sample essay on “A Patchwork Planet” and asked you to write in class (how cruel! in the last class before Christmas!) the following essay:

Choose a novel in which a central character’s experiences lead to a deeper understanding not only of others but also of himself or herself.

Discuss the ways in which the character is made to attain self-knowledge and a better understanding of other people.



There’s no homework other than to do this essay if you weren’t there, to redo it if you feel you want to and to raise a glass to the SQA on January 1. Think about Barnaby and his year of change…

If you want the SECT handout, the “PP” notes or the sample essay, please email me: pdonaldson@stevenson.ac.uk

See you on January 6, clutching in your hands a copy of Miller’s “A View from the Bridge” and your past papers. Santa will provide, I trust. Hope he brings you lots of other good things too.

The four ages of Santa
1. You believe in Santa
2. You don’t believe in Santa
3. You are Santa.
4. You look like Santa.

Critical essays and Barnaby again

First of all, I gave back the Textual Analysis assessments, which most people passed. I’ve now decided to delay the reassessment for one week, so it’ll be on 2 December. Next week, therefore, I’m going to finish the class at 8 for those who passed and spend the later part of the lesson doing some intensive revision with those who didn’t quite pass. Then on 2 December, class will begin at 7.30 pm for those who don’t need to resit.

We then considered poetry as a subject for a critical ( ie literature) essay in the exam. I said – because it’s certainly true for me – that it’s easier to learn a poem and (more or less) everything there is to say about it than it is to do the same for a novel. To that extent, it’s easier to write about a poem in the exam than about a novel or a play. For novels and plays, you must – while sitting in the exam room - select extracts and aspects to write about which are relevant to the question. For poems, assuming that the poem is relevant to the question, you’re writing about the whole poem – or most of it – so the selection process is largely avoided.

The downside of this is that while the novel and play questions are usually fairly general (“Choose a novel where the main character learns something about himself” – this is the case in almost all novels), the poetry questions are much more specific (“Choose a poem about an animal” or “Choose a poem with a sinister tone”). This means that you’re very likely indeed to get a novel and play question that you can answer but you're much less likely to get a poetry question that’s appropriate to any one poem.

If you do get such a question, however, then (in my opinion) poetry questions are easier - for the above reasons.

We looked at the poem “Museé des Beaux Arts” (the Museum of Beautiful Arts) by W H Auden, which is partly about the painting of Icarus by Brueghel,/Bruegel / Breughel (variously spelt) in this museum in Paris. I then gave you an exemplar of an essay on the subject of a poem which showed contrast.

In “A Patchwork Planet”, we just had time to look at chapter 10, in which Barnaby sells the car to Len Parrish and hands over the money to his mother. He’s very reluctant in the end to let the car go, which shows us its importance to him. To his disappointment, the handover of the money falls flat: his mother is suspicious as to where he got it and his father is shocked that he has sold the Corvette.

Then the reader finds out that Mrs Glynn has found the money that she thought was stolen – she’s just misplaced it. Barnaby is very forgiving, but Sophia seems surprisingly upset. It turns out that she has withdrawn her savings and put them in the flour bin to protect Barnaby.

He immediately realises that this seems to be proof that she really thought he’d stolen the money, but he’s disarmed by Sophia’s reference to the O Henry (above) story in which a young married couple each secretly sell their most prized possessions (the girl’s long, beautiful hair and the man’s pocket watch) to buy presents for each other (a clasp for her hair and a chain for his watch). Sophia likens this to her pointless sacrifice of her savings, and Barnaby is distracted from her obvious lack of trust in him by the romantic way she puts this: “You are your gift to me, Barnaby”.

Is anybody reading this, by the way? Comments would be good, as proof!