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Today 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 and were surprised but (I hope) encouraged by the leniency of the marking.

If you weren’t there and would like these exemplar essays, do email me and I’ll send them as an attachment, together with the marks awarded. You’ll also find handwritten versions of these on the SQA website, under Services for Learners, NQ subjects (choose English), English Higher Critical Essay workshop – the marking instructions are there too.

I also, cruelly, made the class write a critical essay in the second part of the class, which wasn’t quite 45 minutes, so the homework is to finish it and do another one. If you weren’t there, please do this for next week, again in a strict 45 minutes. If you were in class, please try to do the other one at home; or any essay or close reading. If you email it to me then I can mark it in advance, but on the other hand it's better practice for the exam to use handwriting.

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.

Next week I’d like to have suggestions of what you want to do: go over texts? Do a class critical essay? Some more close reading?

The final week, the 13th, I imagine you might prefer to stay at home and revise, but I will be there as usual at 1.15 and available for any tuition on request, so do feel free to come then if you want. If no one turns up by 1.30, then I’ll go, but I’m happy to stay if anyone wants to discuss anything to do with English.

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.

Peg that tent

I was going to do some poetry yesterday but attendance was rather small, so I didn’t, but be ready for some on the first day back – and also we’ll start “A View from the Bridge”, so do have this with you.

In this week’s class we thought about that literature essay (please do hand it in if you haven’t yet…) and I gave out an exemplar essay (written by me, so obviously I think it’s quite good).

The essay question was:

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.

So it means:

Show HOW (ie talk about the writer’s techniques) the writer shows us that …

Barnaby comes to understand himself more (which involves saying what he thought of himself at the beginning, when this changes and what he thinks of himself by the end…)

and how she shows us that…

Barnaby comes to understand others (eg Sophia, his mother, Martine – not necessarily all of these)

The best way to do it, in my opinion, is simply to start at the beginning of the novel and stop at the end – not telling the story apart from when necessary - though some minimal storytelling will be helpful - but picking out ONLY the bits about not understanding (himself/others), beginning to understand (himself/others ) and then understanding (himself/others).

And you need to remember all the time to keep SECTing or something along these lines, and especially to keep pinning the essay down to the question.

I said yesterday – and it’s an analogy that I find quite helpful – that you might like to think of your essay as a tent that keeps trying to fly away (this is when you waffle off the subject).

Read over what you write as you write it, and pin it down to the question by brief comments to MAKE it relevant, eg “Here we see another example of conflict… This shows vivid creation of character…. This shows a turning point…” – depending on what the question is, of course. Use the words of the question, or variations of them as tent pegs! And these “pegs” can be added afterwards if you forget to put them in at the time - as long as you can squeeze them in.

(You have no idea how hard it is to find pictures of tents flying away. For some strange reason, most people don't seem to stop to take photos of this. Presumably they're busy chasing the tent.)

Remember that you may know why you wrote something, but the marker isn’t a mind reader. Be very definite about making the relevance of what you’ve written very obvious to the dimmest examiner.

If you weren’t at class, email me and I’ll send you the sample essay.

Do some revision after New Year but have a good holiday and I’ll see you on January 7.

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 (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.

Homework is to do this essay 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

There is a class on December 17, by the way, despite what this post used to say. Christmas confusion had set in slightly.


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.