Happy Easter

Sorry that this is rather a late post.

In our most recent class, we mainly looked at two pieces of writing: one on garden birds and one on Wikipedia. The first was humorous and the second more serious; but both used sentence structure, word choice, imagery etc. Do pause in your reading over the next weeks and ask yourself the sorts of questions that the SQA does – just to give yourself confidence that you do, indeed, know how the question setters will have been thinking.

I’m writing this at home without my record of work with me, but I’m sure I must have given you homework. If not, download the 2008 paper from the SQA website (http://www.sqa.org.uk/) and do that – at least passage 1. But as well as this, you must revise – look at the Language Skills book if you’re at all uncertain about Close Reading, but also re-read the novel and the play and learn – well, I’d suggest four poems, ideally, off by heart and memorise what there is to say about them. Do also read my notes on the novel and the play and look up the internet – you’ll find lots of other things there, for inspiration and reassurance. Learn quotes: 10 per novel, 10 per play and lots and lots for the poems (which is why it’s easier to learn them off by heart, in my opinion).

And then do one or more essays from the past papers. Limit yourself to 45 minutes per essay and force yourself to ignore distractions. Remember, if you get the mark you need in a few weeks’ time you never have to do this again!

Remember too that you must be able to write about the literary techniques of the novel, the play and the poem without even thinking, when May 15 comes. There will be no time to sit trying to work them out from first principles: you’ll be too busy concentrating on answering the question.

See you on the 22nd. Have a good Easter.