Exam prep

Good luck in your exams folks.

Remember, for the English exam, you will have a close reading paper, and a writing paper.

In the close reading paper, the key thing to remember is to answer the question exactly. Look for the number of marks available and work out what you need to do to get all of the marks. Use the support sheet that I gave you to remind you of the different types of questions. If you want a past paper, click here and choose the General paper. To stretch yourselves, you can do the Credit paper. You should check your answers after you have done it here.

In the writing paper, choose either a creative or a personal piece. Before you start writing, make a decision on the following:

• Plot (where you will begin telling the story, how you present the main event, and where you will end it)
• Characters
• Narrator (1st or third person, and when they are telling the story in relation to the event)
• Conflict (What is the story really about? What does the reader want to know throughout the story?)

Once you are completely clear on all of this, think about how you will build atmosphere and tension, then you can begin writing. Some other key pieces of advice:

• Think very carefully about your opening sentences. You need to raise questions in the reader's mind.
• Try to make your imagery interesting and unusual. Visualise, or imagine very carefully, the thing you are comparing, before comparing it to something else. Try to build your imagery into the action (for example through verb choice), rather than just sticking on a simile.
• Add in descriptive touches throughout the piece.
• Set out speech correctly.
• Vary the lengths of sentences to slow down or speed up action, and to make your writing more readable.

Exam Preparation

Just because you don't have specific things to learn for the English exam, don't think that you cannot do things to help you perform better. As a minimum, do the following:

• Mark your own answers in the close reading paper.
• Write a few openings for different stories.
• Practise a short descriptive passage. Describe the table where you are now.
  As you walk around each day, try to come up with similes and metaphors for things that you see. Personify objects by imagining that they are doing things. Is the empty Coco-Pops packet echoing your hunger? Is the spider plant reaching down to tickle the cat? Is your little sister clowning? Is your mother policing the house? Is your Granny levering herself out of the chair, or plucking information out of you? This is all imagery, and is the sort of thing that will gain you credit in your writing.

Any questions about anything, please come and ask me, or email me (gb@hsog.co.uk).

Creative writing advice

In response to requests, I have put together some links to online resources to help you develop your writing skills. These mostly relate to creative writing, but the basic skills will help you in all of your writing across all subjects.

I have put it on the English department website.

Here are the writing resources.
Here is the English website, which is being developed over time.

RPR

You will be producing your RPRs at home during the week of the 10th March, and handing them in to me on Friday 14th March.

By now, you should have finished reading your text, and be thinking carefully about the key theme(s) and how it is/they are developed. Make sure that the theme you settle on is the best thing to be writing about. Do some background reading to confirm your ideas.

• Sparknotes isn't a bad place to start.
• Wikipedia will also have something for most of your texts.
• You could try the publisher's page, which might be Faber & Faber, Random House, Transworld or another.
• The Guardian Books website has lots of archived articles to search. The Times has a decent books section as well.
• The BBC books website has plenty of stuff, and if you're lucky, you might find an author interview on Open Book.
• If you aren't getting anywhere with that, you could try a Google search, but try to be specific in what you're asking for.
• Lest we forget, there are plenty of good books in the library. If it's a well-read piece of classic literature you're reading, there may well be some study guides there for you. Ask Mrs Grimmond or search Alice.

Read the support sheet carefully, and refer to it throughout your planning and drafting stage. It will answer most of your questions.

Also, please refer back to your first RPR, and the comments that I lovingly made for your continued development. I don't do it for fun.

Find out if anyone else is reading the same text, and see if you can share ideas. It's always good to discuss books.

If you have any questions, make sure that you ask me sooner, rather than later. If you stay on top of this task, it really won't become a major headache.

Have fun.

Here are some decidedly shaky clips of some of the older film versions. They might give you some idea of the different design concepts that directors have had over the years.

As you watch, you can think about how you would direct a film version.


Puck's closing speech, re-interpreted:



Act II, sc 1; Puck, Oberon and Titania


Compare with this version (it cuts, suddenly, to the closing scene):



Titania wakes to Bottom:



The 1935 movie; dream sequence before Oberon lifts the spell on Titania:

A puzzle to keep your minds active over Christmas

See if, as a class, you can find the answers to all of these. Use the comments section to post answers as you work them out.

Answers in class during the first week back.

1. 26=L of the A
2. 7=W of the AW
3. 1001 = A N
4. 12= S of the Z
5. 54=C in the D[with the J]
6. 9=P in the SS
7. 88=P K
8. 13=S on the A F
9. 32= D F at which W F
10. 6= S on a H
11. 18= H on a G C
12. 90= D in a R A
13. 200= P for P G in M
14. 3= B M [S H T R]
15. 24= H in a D
16. 1= W on a U
17. 57= H V
18. 11= P on a F T
19. 1000= W that a P is W
20. 29=D in F in a L Y
21. 64= S on a C

Good luck.

Animal Farm essay due Tuesday

Just to reiterate that your essays are due in on Tuesday. I am very aware that you have the Junior Dance on Monday evening, so it's up to you to get the work done in advance. You will have the double period on Monday to get it finished if you are hand writing it. If you are typing it up, you may be able to go to the library to finish it off on Monday, so bring in the work on a flashdrive.

Animal Farm Critical Essay

Here are the instructions which I gave you for the main paragraphs of your essay:

1. Look at the sheet with the class’s ideas for contemporary relevance. Find one way in which you think that Animal Farm is relevant today.

2. Make a clear statement about how a modern reader would relate the issue to Animal Farm.

3. Discuss, using evidence, how Orwell develops the theme or idea in the text. Make sure that you analyse Orwell’s techniques to show how the idea is effectively developed.

4. Pick out aspects, referring to techniques where possible, that make it relevant to the modern reader.

See below a sample paragraph. Try to work out which bits apply to which point above.


Contemporary readers of Animal Farm, aware as we are of the techniques of advertisers and government spin doctors, would immediately respond to the theme of propaganda. Orwell develops the theme mainly through the character of Squealer, who acts as Napoleon’s mouthpiece, persuading, placating and hoodwinking the animals into supporting Napoleon and subjecting themselves to his will. When explaining to the animals, following the destruction of the first windmill, that rations would be cut, Squealer claims that "A too rigid equality in rations...would be contrary to the principles of Animalism". Orwell creates an ironic tone in the phrase "too rigid", making it clear that the principles of fairness are now being subverted by clever language. The narrator goes on: “it had been found necessary to make a readjustment of rations (Squealer always spoke of it as a ‘readjustment’, never as a ‘reduction’)”. Here, the manipulation of language becomes more flagrant. The basic fact, known to all, that less food is being made available is being covered up through Squealer's propaganda, and is being referred to as a 'readjustment'. Contemporary readers, used to budget statements which require specialist knowedge to work out whether we're paying more or less tax, and advertisers who convince us that we can have everything, will recognise the murky intent of Squealer's language. Earlier in the novel, when faced with doubts about the state of the Rebellion, Squealer quashes them with threats of the return of Jones:

"Surely, comrades,’ cried Squealer almost pleadingly, skipping from side to side and whisking his tail, ‘surely there is no one among you who wants to see Jones come back?’...When it was put to them in this light, they had no more to say."

This cynical manipulation might put a modern reader in mind of George Bush's claim, early in the 'War on Terror', that "You're either with us or against us." In both cases, a simple choice is being posed, either complete support for the leadership, or subjection to the opposition.


Clearly, this is a very detailed paragraph, running to over 300 words and containing three separate pieces of evidence and analysis. If you were to write something this detailed, then three paragraphs would be plenty. The important thing is that you pick out Orwell's techniques to show how he develops the themes.

You will notice that I have not indented the longer quote, as I should have done. This is because I can't work out how to do this on Blogger.

For further, general advice on writing critical essays, see this page on the English section of the school website, currently in development.

You may also find it useful to see the assessment criteria which we use to assess your critical essays.

I hope you find this post useful. Please comment.