Do some revision, people

This was prelim paper 1 day – which you know, because you were all there except Katherine. I hope you weren’t too traumatised by the experience. I noticed that you were mainly 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 – remember that the second part of the "question" 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.

Darkness and love

Today we looked at the first 2002 Close Reading, about music. Iin my opinion this is the most difficult passage there has been in recent years, mainly because many students whose work I marked that year didn’t really have the background knowledge (about the Dark Ages, Guido Monaco, Gregorian plainsong and so on) to make them feel comfortable with the topic. Also, there’s that rather odd image of the 1000-year-long corridor with those Dark Age people cowering from the sun (why the sun rather than our bright lights and music?) at the other end.

Anyway, the questions are normal enough, and this is homework for the next class. Remember that there’s no class next week, since it’s the February holiday, so can I suggest that you do a literature essay on “Valentine” as well as this as next week’s homework? See below.

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 alarming appearance above.

I’d suggest as a poetry essay - though feel free to choose another question/poem/play/novel

Choose a poem which deals with some unpleasant or sinister issues. Show how the poet communicates these unpleasant or sinister ideas and comment on what final impression is left in the mind of the reader.

Rushing on...

Sorry – the blog is rather rushed and rather late this week. Life has been busy!

We finished reading “A View from the Bridge”, with magnificent final performances from the actors (thank you for this) and discussed the dramatic techniques. I handed out notes (please ask me for these if you weren’t there). Homework is to do a critical essay on “View”– 2006 question 2 on a play which leaves you with mixed emotions. I would assume that these would be that you would feel at least a bit sorry for everyone, and would be able to discuss this in terms of the themes, the language, the setting, the structure, the set and so on – not necessarily all of these but certainly some of them.

We then studied the poem “Cynddyllan on a Tractor” by RS Thomas about Cynddyllan (pronounced Cun-thullan) the Welsh farmer, on his very first tractor.We decided that this would be suitable for a question on (among other things) the world of work, modern life, technology, contrast, colloquial language, imagery, a person…. We looked at an essay which was about a poem based on the world of work – fitting “Cynddyllan” nicely – and noticed how it kept referring to the question, as is the whole idea. Remember that you don’t necessarily have to be subtle; just keep reminding the marker that this is you, answering the question, as you show your mastery of the text.

Remember too that for poetry essays you must quote a lot – the essays are always going to ask you to discuss the poetic techniques, which you can’t discuss for long without quoting. The usual way to deal with poetry essays is to go through the poem more or less line by line – NOT by doing what the SQA calls a “guided tour” (of everything about the poem with nothing made relevant to the question) BUT by picking out things relevant to the question and making this relevance quite obvious.

We then started reading the first 2002 Close Reading about music, but ran out of time. We’ll get back to this next lesson.