1. With Shakespeare in particular, you might feel inclined to tell the examiner 'what the writer means'. This can be an unhelpful trait - your job is to do more than simply translate the Elizabethan. You have to go beyond simply telling us what a character is trying to get across, or what they are emoting. Remember, all this would be as obvious to a contemporary audience as the plain words of a modern poem are to us. Tell us rather how the writer has constructed the text, what effect is aimed for, and what meaning we can draw from this (you'll be familiar with Mr Smith's 'Three Wise Monkeys' of literary analysis...).
That's all for now.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
IOC Advice
1. Don't spend more than 1 minute on context.
2. Prepare your concluding statement during the 15 min prep time so that your presentation finishes powerfully.
3. Keep your language formal and academic - without exceptions. If you use lots of "like", "yeah" and "er" in your everyday speech, make sure this gets taken out during your IOC.
4. Keep your wits about you at the end. After your 12ish minute presentation, you are not finished. You will be asked questions. Just take a deep breath, address them with confidence and use your knowledge of the text. Don't just repeat what you've already said - if I've asked you a question, it's because I want to patch a hole that you haven't covered.
5. If you freeze in the middle, don't panic. You haven't just screwed up your entire life. Take a deep breath and try to pick up where you left off - and worst comes to the worst, I can get you back on track by asking a question.
6. Conclude your presentation properly - sum up the main ideas of the passage.
7. Use quotations.
8. Reference literary features.
9. Analyse, don't just paraphrase.
10. You can link briefly to other parts of the text - but only if that link is something that informs us about what's in the passage itself.
11. If the passage is a piece of drama, acknowledge the role of the audience.
More later.
2. Prepare your concluding statement during the 15 min prep time so that your presentation finishes powerfully.
3. Keep your language formal and academic - without exceptions. If you use lots of "like", "yeah" and "er" in your everyday speech, make sure this gets taken out during your IOC.
4. Keep your wits about you at the end. After your 12ish minute presentation, you are not finished. You will be asked questions. Just take a deep breath, address them with confidence and use your knowledge of the text. Don't just repeat what you've already said - if I've asked you a question, it's because I want to patch a hole that you haven't covered.
5. If you freeze in the middle, don't panic. You haven't just screwed up your entire life. Take a deep breath and try to pick up where you left off - and worst comes to the worst, I can get you back on track by asking a question.
6. Conclude your presentation properly - sum up the main ideas of the passage.
7. Use quotations.
8. Reference literary features.
9. Analyse, don't just paraphrase.
10. You can link briefly to other parts of the text - but only if that link is something that informs us about what's in the passage itself.
11. If the passage is a piece of drama, acknowledge the role of the audience.
More later.
Even more tips for Paper 1
1. Be varied in your use of language. It's part of the rubric - deliberately look for opportunities to say things in different ways (my Comparative Language sheet might help with this for Paper 2 - email me for a copy).
2. Use line references in your answer, e.g. The "despair" (line 42) felt by Muggins after his brother's death contributes to the sense of...
2. Use line references in your answer, e.g. The "despair" (line 42) felt by Muggins after his brother's death contributes to the sense of...
More Tips on Paper 1
1. You've only got 90 mins. You're not expected to do everything.
2. Personal response is not relating things to your own experiences. It's coming up with an original interpretation - saying what the poem means.
3. There is no one 'right' way to write an answer.
4. You can be explicit about the fact that you don't understand the cultural context of the piece - remember you don't have to! Even the most complex and culturally-specific texts are still stories at heart. Let's say you're a student in Australia and you're given an extract from Martin Booth's 'Gweilo'. You don't know anything about HK, the history, the politics, the racial tensions, colonialism, anything - acknowledge this! But then approach it like any other story - you've got a young boy, lost in a big city he doesn't understand but who has a will to discover. You've got a father who hangs on to his old identity at the expense of his relationships. Etc. Etc. Break each story down into its basic structure, its basic elements, its central ideas. You'll then be able to analyse even if you don't know the specifics of the situation about which the text is written, and you can be open about this to the examiner.
For more on this last point, investigate structuralism as a way of accessing a text.
2. Personal response is not relating things to your own experiences. It's coming up with an original interpretation - saying what the poem means.
3. There is no one 'right' way to write an answer.
4. You can be explicit about the fact that you don't understand the cultural context of the piece - remember you don't have to! Even the most complex and culturally-specific texts are still stories at heart. Let's say you're a student in Australia and you're given an extract from Martin Booth's 'Gweilo'. You don't know anything about HK, the history, the politics, the racial tensions, colonialism, anything - acknowledge this! But then approach it like any other story - you've got a young boy, lost in a big city he doesn't understand but who has a will to discover. You've got a father who hangs on to his old identity at the expense of his relationships. Etc. Etc. Break each story down into its basic structure, its basic elements, its central ideas. You'll then be able to analyse even if you don't know the specifics of the situation about which the text is written, and you can be open about this to the examiner.
For more on this last point, investigate structuralism as a way of accessing a text.
Tips for IB A1 Paper 1
(This is mainly for Y12 & 13 but Y8 might currently find it insightful!)
I'm sitting in a great IB training session and I'm going to be blogging some top tips for IB A1. This first session is on Paper 1. Tips are as follows:
1. Practise!
2. Concentrate on the power and significance of individual words or phrases.
3. "The passages are not puzzles, with correct (but hidden) answers".
4. Don't 'over-annotate' during the planning stage. Yes, everything is done for a reason but you only have 1.5 hrs to write about it all. A few points per paragraph will be enough 'fuel' for this.
5. Be aware that some things in texts are deliberately ambiguous - we all like 'correctness' and 'the right answer', but sometimes it's not possible to reach definitive meaning. All you can do is acknowledge the ambiguity and go through the alternatives, demonstrating their likelihood and their implications. It's fine to take this approach.
Some more tips to follow.
I'm sitting in a great IB training session and I'm going to be blogging some top tips for IB A1. This first session is on Paper 1. Tips are as follows:
1. Practise!
2. Concentrate on the power and significance of individual words or phrases.
3. "The passages are not puzzles, with correct (but hidden) answers".
4. Don't 'over-annotate' during the planning stage. Yes, everything is done for a reason but you only have 1.5 hrs to write about it all. A few points per paragraph will be enough 'fuel' for this.
5. Be aware that some things in texts are deliberately ambiguous - we all like 'correctness' and 'the right answer', but sometimes it's not possible to reach definitive meaning. All you can do is acknowledge the ambiguity and go through the alternatives, demonstrating their likelihood and their implications. It's fine to take this approach.
Some more tips to follow.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
[MERITS AVAILABLE] Shroff!
Right... after a massive delay... the blog is BACK!
And we kick off this year with a competition. Merits available for the first three people to contact me with the correct answer to this question:
--
The word 'Shroff' is unique to Hong Kong and a few other nearby places. What does it mean, and what is the story of its origin?
--
Why do I ask? Well, for two reasons. #1 - every time I tell a class to do some 'research', for some reason this word gets magically transformed in everyone's minds and the class seem to think I said do some 'googling'. Guess what - Google won't help you on this one!!!! Mwa-ha-ha-ha! #2 - it's a fascinating example of why we should never just assume that there is one 'correct' form of the English language.
Good luck!
And we kick off this year with a competition. Merits available for the first three people to contact me with the correct answer to this question:
--
The word 'Shroff' is unique to Hong Kong and a few other nearby places. What does it mean, and what is the story of its origin?
--
Why do I ask? Well, for two reasons. #1 - every time I tell a class to do some 'research', for some reason this word gets magically transformed in everyone's minds and the class seem to think I said do some 'googling'. Guess what - Google won't help you on this one!!!! Mwa-ha-ha-ha! #2 - it's a fascinating example of why we should never just assume that there is one 'correct' form of the English language.
Good luck!
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Top Reads for Swine Flu Season
My poor, poor students. Due to the unexpected arrival of a pandemic, they are robbed of their final week of term, tests and teachers - what joy they are missing - and consigned instead to taking their summer holidays a week early. I do sympathise, I really do. :)
Anyway, if you're looking for something to read to pass the time in the absence of your super-exciting lessons, try Ian McEwan's 'The Cement Garden'. Now, I should point out that this book comes with an age warning - I'd say 16 upwards at least - because it contains some very adult themes. This recommendation is for the VI Form, therefore.
What's it about?
Group of kids stuck at home in their house (hence the link with swine flu) - under slightly strange circumstances - no parents around. I won't tell you how that's happened as it would spoil the story, but suffice it to say that the situation is far from 'normal'.
Who would enjoy it?
People who like dark, macabre storytelling and psychologically-driven narrative. You need to be able to deal with the darker side of human nature and what drives us as beings to access this text fully.
Who is the author?
Ian McEwan, from the UK, is probably one of the most widely-read and respected western novellists writing at the moment. A few of his novels have been turned into films - 'Enduring Love' and 'Atonement' are two examples. He tends to write about human nature and how we have aspects of our lives that drive us to do things we ourselves often don't understand. There is also something quite 'interdisciplinary' about his prose, as it were - in an average McEwan book you'll see an above-average number of references to quantum physics, maths, medicine, etc.
Let me know what you think! And if anyone has recommendations for the summer they'd like to share, hit the 'comment' button.
Best wishes for a great vacation! Mr Smith
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