Various

Again, a short blog because it was a short class – the first part was taken up with the Personal Study. Congratulations on your mainly very good prelim marks, by the way – though it’s possible that your actual exam marks won’t be quite so starry (though they might – as I explained, paper 2 is a bit of an unknown quantity to us at the moment).

We then read Dylan Thomas’s “Do not go gentle into that good night”, a villanelle (Google it if you’re not sure what this is) which is open to considerable interpretation. The basic message is that we shouldn’t die without protest because there will always be regrets: wise men will regret that they didn’t light up the world with their insights; good men that they didn’t change the world; wild men that they hurt people; serious men that they didn’t have more fun. There are lots of metaphors suggesting these things, for which you may like to find other meanings, and this is fine as long as you can justify them. The word choice is very powerful: particularly words expressing anger and other emotions.

This could be used for questions on a poem which unfolds its meaning only after study (and even then isn't crystal clear) ; a poem about death; a poem with a specific poetic form (you wouldn’t have to explain what a villanelle is, but you’d write about the effect: the almost hypnotic repetition, the musical, chorus-like impression, the emphasis of the limited number of rhymes…), a poem with contrasts, a poem addressed to a person (his father)….

We then went over the 2007 Close Reading, passage 2, about the digitisation of the Bodleian

and the boy sitting in the courtyard of Cambridge University Library. This is homework – and if you didn’t do the first passage then I’d be happy to get both together next week. Or not.

Where was the popcorn?

Today we watched the first act of the rather – very – ancient, scratchy film of “A View from the Bridge”. As you will remember, it started very differently from the play but soon morphed into a fairly accurate, word-for-word version of it. If any of you can bring yourselves to comment, I’d be interested to know whether you want to watch the second half at any point. Failing that, you could just tell me, of course, or email.

Should you be enthusiastic enough to want your own copy, you could get it from http://stores.blowoutdvd1.com/-strse-23/A-View-From-The/Detail.bok

(I was quite sad to think of the actress who played Catherine – I imagine that she thought this was her big break and I don’t think I’ve ever seen her in anything else. However, I’m not much of a film buff so maybe she had a starry career that I’m just not aware of.)

Then we looked at the rather unpleasant “A Study of Reading Habits” by Philip Larkin, in case a question came up on two poems by the same poet. We considered the similarities with “Poetry of Departures” (eg colloquial language, use of rhyme/rhythm, cynical attitude, change of attitude between beginning and end, references to reading) and the differences (eg different “voices”, PD features an adult while SRH features the change from childhood to adolescence to adulthood, SRH much more colloquial, dated language).

SRH could also, of course, be used by itself, as a poem expressing dissatisfaction, unpleasant emotions, a personality…. etc

Then we read “You’re” by Sylvia Plath, a much more positive poem about a mother’s love for her unborn baby. It’s structured as a list of images describing the baby, all very sweet and loving and a bit unusual- comical at times. It could be used for a question on a poem which is happy/positive/image-filled/requiring thought/featuring a relationship – etc. Or it could be used to contrast with a gloomy/negative poem such as “Anthem for Doomed Youth” or SRH.

Homework – 2007 Close Reading, passage 1, about Glasgow University library.

Next week: Personal Study. One hour (plus extra time if relevant); bring in text and up to 2 A4 sides of notes, but not whole essay. Notes to be submitted with essay. For those who have the unit, class starts at 7.30 pm.

Prelim and Personal Study

Not much to write on the blog this week, since the evening was spent on paper 2 of the prelim. Hope you found it reasonably satisfactory. The questios were all actual exam ones from different years, though some of them were slightly tailored to match the SQA’s currently favoured wording. Remember, however, that in the actual exam in May, none of us knows what the questions will be, so there’s no guarantee that there will be a particularly suitable question for any of your texts. In fact I’d be very surprised if there weren’t reasonable ones for “A Patchwork Planet” and “A View from the Bridge”. Fingers crossed.

As far as poetry is concerned, this is far less likely to be the case. For any one poem – or even for any three or four – all we can say is that there might be a suitable question or there might not. Most people find poetry questions more straightforward than drama or prose ones, simply because there’s far less of the problem of which bits of the text to select for highlighting in your essay. However, because the poetry questions are usually much specific, you shouldn’t rely on being able to use one of them. Nevertheless I would try to have a few up your sleeve for use if the opportunity arises.

I hope everyone feels up to speed on the Personal Study. It’s really just a literature answer, with all the usual SECT sort of things, but using your own choice of novel/topic. Remember that you must bring in notes, which will be submitted with your essay. You can consult your text as you write.

No homework. This will start again next week. From now on, we’ll mainly be practising Close Readings and literature essays.

By the way, this blog is regularly visited by readers in Sheffield, Belfast and Brighton. Welcome!

Do some revision, people

This was prelim paper 1 night – which you know, because you were all there (except Iona, who was there in spirit). I hope you weren’t too traumatised by the experience. I noticed that you were all working up to the end, however. This is good – it suggests that you were taking care and considering your answers – but it’s just as well that the SQA has decided to give students an extra quarter hour this year.

Did everyone know what a Luddite was? This is quite a good example of how a good general knowledge (acquired through years of thoughtful reading or watching reasonably educational tv programmes) is helpful for passing Higher English.

Next week, paper 2: the critical (ie literature) essay.

Don't stay up all night revising but remember that:

* you need to know the texts, including quotations
* you should learn 10 quotations per play/novel, and try to learn your poems off by heart
* you should read my notes, which spoon-feed you what you need to know about the texts for SQA purposes
* you should take care to choose a suitable question – read the first part of the question, which describes the text
* you should follow the instructions – read the second part, which tells you what to do – usually two things, though not necessarily of equal importance – and then write about this
* you should tell the story only as a mini (very mini) introduction and then as the Evidence part of your SECT sequence
* you should remember that the general idea is: Statement, Evidence, Comment, Technique
* the Statement should be relevant to answering the question; the Evidence is a quotation or a retelling of a bit of what happens in the story, to back up your Statement; you may or may not need to elucidate this further with a Comment; and whenever you can, relevantly, you should mention a Technique
* Techniques can sometimes be mentioned implicitly, eg by discussing how characters come across to the reader (without actually calling this "characterisation")
* many students never consider Techniques and therefore fail, because really the main point of literature answers is to show HOW the writer creates the text.
* you should pay attention to your spelling, punctuation and expression – which can easily fail you if they’re not “sufficiently accurate” (typically vague SQA description)
* you should keep an eye on the clock – 45 minutes per essay - about 700 words each, but don’t worry too much about the length – just keep going for 45 minutes, doing the best you can for one and a half hours in total. There’s no point in writing a very long, wonderful essay for an hour and then leaving yourself insufficient time for the second one. The marks you gain on the first won’t make up for those you lose on the second.
* you should try to keep calm! You’re not expected to be a genius. Just answer the questions (keep looking back at them to remind yourself what they are) and remember that it’s hard for everyone.

Prelim time!

This week we thought about the prelim. Remember that you must sit paper 1, since it’s a unit assessment (unless you already have the assessments) and I would advise everyone to do the whole prelim. No pass in the prelim means no possibility of an appeal – and it’s a useful dry run for the exam.

We revised some of the standard Close Reading questions on word choice, sentence structure, imagery and so on and reminded ourselves how to do context questions (though these have varied a bit in recent years) and linking questions. Do look at the “Language Skills” book before next week; it’s basic, but useful.

We also reminded ourselves about literature answers. For the prelim, there will be questions suitable to do on “A Patchwork Planet”, “A View from the Bridge” and a couple of the poems. In the actual exam, who knows? – though it’s very very likely (no guarantees…) that there will be suitable questions on the novel and the play. The poetry is much more of a lottery – the questions are often very specific (“Choose a poem which relies on the reader’s knowledge of historic events…”). However, if there is a suitable question, the poetry ones are more straightforward.

Key for any literature essay – any Close Reading question – any exam in the world, in fact – is to answer the question. That’s it, really. Literature questions and Close Reading Analysis ones will always ask you HOW the writer has done what he/she’s done, so writing about techniques will always be expected.

The class then wrote the answers to the second obesity passage – 2006 passage 2. If you were off, you might like to do this at home and send / email it to me – this also applies if you took it home to finish. If I have it by Monday, I can mark it for Tuesday.

See you next week. We’ll try to start at 6 pm but if you arrive late, don’t worry; you can just start and get extra time at the end. For the exam in May, however, they won’t let you in late!

Obesity and ? romance

Today I got you to write a literature essay on “A Patchwork Planet” in class – in two weeks’ time, after all, it’s the start of the prelim. Remember that you have to write 2 essays in an hour and a half.

Homework is 2006 Close Reading passage 1 on obesity.

The only other thing we covered in this class was Carol Ann Duffy’s “Valentine”, a mainly very unromantic view of love. Though it’s in free verse (ie unrhymed and with irregular rhythm) it does have a structure, pivoting round the central “I am trying to be truthful”. We noticed that the first half is similar in many ways to the second half, but that the second half is extremely unromantic and indeed quite sinister, with the word “Lethal” suggesting the deadly nature of the offered love (if it’s later spurned?) and the last word lingering uneasily in the memory: “knife”. The poem’s effect depends largely on its imagery - mainly about the onion - and that balanced structure that we noticed. Do bear in mind that the “voice” isn’t necessarily that of Duffy herself – she’s not known for killing her former lovers, despite her rather gloomy appearance.

Busy busy busy

Sorry for the late appearance of the blog this week. It’s been a bit frantic (though frankly all you non-commenty people don’t make it feel very worth my while to write it anyway).

Last week was the essay reassessment (you all passed, by the way; well done) so the class proper didn’t start till 7.30 pm.

We revised the three standard Analysis questions and how to do them the SQA way: context, linking and imagery.

Then we discussed Larkin’s Poetry of Departures - a rather nasty poem but a potentially useful one for such questions as one on contrast (language, ideas, etc), one where some knowledge of the poet’s life is useful, one that gives an impression of a personality, one using rhyme in an unusual way…

Homework – yes, I realise it’s a bit late if you haven’t done it yet – 2006 question 2 on “A View from the Bridge”. I gave out an outline showing the sorts of things I’d say if I were writing this essay.

Do ask me for any handouts that you didn’t get and would like.

Prelim in two and three weeks!