Christmas 50: Year 13 English Literature

If you’re in Year 13 and studying English Literature, here’s what you need to be getting up to as part of your Christmas 50.

You need to be independently reading around the subject to develop your own critical interpretation of texts by understanding other critical schools of thought, focusing on the ideas of critical theorists.

The following tasks will help you produce analysis at the highest level.

1. Read Terry Eagleton’s ‘Marxism And Literary Criticism’ and Raymond Williams’ ‘Keywords’ (both available in the Literature Google Drive) – this will aid your expression and analysis.

2. Go onto The British Library site and:

  • Listen to the short lectures by John Bowen on:The Brontës and the 19th century woman and make bullet point notes on the sections that will be useful for developing AO3 in your essay.
  • Listen to Professor John Bowen’s discussion of the intertwined nature of fantasy and realism within Emily Brontë’s novel and make bullet point notes on the sections that will be useful for developing AO3 for your exam responses.
  • Read the article on ‘The Victorian Reader’ and make bullet point notes on the sections that will be useful for developing AO3 in your essay.

3. Read the Catherine Fry article given in class, annotating points that would help develop your comparative essay.

4. Go to emagazine and log in using ‘englishatlc’ as your username and password. Search for articles on the Brontes, ‘Faustus’, ‘The Bloody Chamber’ and the Gothic. Make bullet point notes.

5. If you are aiming for a B-A grade, you need to also make detailed notes that cover key points for AO4 – identify the social, cultural and biographical influences on the texts you are studying for both of your coursework tasks and for your examination.

Happy Christmas!

 

Christmas 50: Year 12 English Literature

 

If you’re taking English Literature in Year 12, you’ll be working on the first draft of your NEA over the Christmas break.

You all now have an individual question and detailed plan and need to be completing a 1500 word essay for Feminism and Marxism, ensuring that they cover all the assessment objectives.

This must be completed for Thursday 7th of January for the Feminist essay and the following Tuesday 12th of January for the Marxist task.

Merry Christmas!

Shakespeare and poetry controlled assessment intervention

On Tuesday 15th and Wednesday 16th December, we’ll be running two days of off-timetable intervention for students who failed to complete the CA on Shakespeare/poetry last year, or who missed their target by 2 grades or more.

Your English teacher will let you know if you’re on the list, and will give you a letter to show your parents/carers. It’s critical that you attend both days and arrive on time.

You should come to L1A at the start of the day on Tuesday 15th, where Mr Shovlin and Mrs Dalby will be working with you to ensure the CA is completed to the best possible standard.

Prior to the intervention days, you should make sure you’re familiar with the story of Romeo and Juliet.

Here’s the most recent film adaptation:

If you’re shorter on time, you can watch the animated version below. (It’s not going to give anyone at Disney sleepless nights.)

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x272sym_shakespeare-the-animated-tales-01×04-romeo-and-juliet-dvd-eng-subs_shortfilms

If you have any questions about the assessment, see Mr Shovlin in L1A. (Alternatively, click on the Contact your teachers tab at the top of this page for his email address/Twitter username.)

We look forward to seeing you on Tuesday 15th!

 

 

 

English A Team: Year 11

You can find a copy of the letter at the bottom of this post. Return it to the English Staff Room ASAP if you’d like to join.

Our first session is on Tuesday 15th December. Details below, and you can sign up outside the English Staff Room. Be quick: places are first come, first served.

Any questions? Get in touch with Miss Kirkpatrick or Miss Marvin; their contact details can be found by clicking on the Contact your teachers tab at the top of this page.

A Team Letter (Year 11).pdf

The Grammar Police Entrance Exam Results

We had more than 650 applicants wanting to join the Grammar Police; fewer than a hundred met our exacting standards.

The lucky few will receive their certificates this week.

Here is Mr Solly – one of our successful applicants – with his gold certificate.

If you didn’t achieve 10/10, don’t be deterred; applications will open again later in the year.

You can see the results for the exam below. (Click on the image to enlarge it.)

For explanations of the more tricky questions, scroll down.

Questions 6, 7 and 9 tripped up many of our applicants.

For Q6, you were required to place the apostrophe between the n and the s in children’s. Apostrophes of ownership/possession can cause much confusion. You might find this helpful.

A simple rule: find the owner(s), add the apostrophe, and add an s if there isn’t one there already.

In this case, the owner(s) = the children – and so the apostrophe follows the n. We have to add an s as ‘children’ doesn’t end with one.

(If it were a ladies’ section in a clothing shop, the apostrophe would follow the s, as the owner(s) = the ladies.)

For Q7, you needed to identify the subordinate clause. Don’t forget that a subordinate clause cannot be a sentence on its own, whereas a main clause can.

For Q9, the answer was a comma, as you need a punctuation mark that could separate a subordinate clause from a main one. A semicolon would not be appropriate here, as they are used to separate main clauses. More information on semicolons can be found here.

The only question more students got wrong than right was Q10. When thinking about whether to use I or me in a sentence, a quick and easy rule is this: use the word you’d pick if the other person were removed from the sentence.

Take our example, Would you like to come and see a film with Jenny and ___. If we remove Jenny from the sentence, our options are:

Would you like to come and see a film with I?

and

Would you like to come and see a film with me?

Clearly, the second one is the one that sounds ‘right’.

This video, from Oxford Dictionaries, helps to explain why this is.

Thanks again to all of our applicants.

Chief Superintendent Shovlin

The register of recipes

Year 12 Language students: if you can prise your eyes from the beautiful Jamie Oliver, you may find the following bits and bobs useful when writing your essay on the three recipes we’ve studied in class.

  • The exemplar essay attached below should give you an idea of the appropriate length/style – though it’s by no means perfect.
  • Use the mark scheme to focus your attention on what is required of each level.
  • Use the other sheets to ensure your work is correctly formatted and that you use quotations accurately and effectively.

Deadline details and hand-in information can be found on SMHW.

Any questions? Ask!

Exemplar Recipes Essay.pdf

Recipes Essay Mark Scheme.docx

Recipes Essay Details.docx

Essay Formatting Guidelines.pdf

How to Use Quotations (A Level).pdf

It’s or its?

This is one of the most common mistakes we see in students’ writing – and it’s so easy to get right if you follow this simple rule.

If you’re shortening ‘it is’ or ‘it has’, use it’s.

If you’re not, use its.

That’s all there is to it.

So:

The dog sat on its tail. No apostrophe, as its isn’t short for ‘it is’ or ‘it has’.

It’s been a long day. Apostrophe in it’s as this is short for ‘it has’.

Got it?

Good!

Now put yourself to the test by clicking here.

When your results are emailed, print them off and pop them in to your class files.

Dont you hate it when people misuse apostrophe’s?

So, a few years ago, Waterstone’s decided to get rid of its possessive apostrophe in order to become Waterstones. According to an article in The Telegraph, the decision provoked ‘outrage’. Outrage along the lines of this:

and, my personal favourite, this:

Waterstone’s (or rather, Waterstones) justified the decision by saying the apostrophe-free spelling is more ‘versatile’ and suited to modern URLs. Here’s The Telegraph on the subject, and you can find a smart article from The Guardian here.

The Kill The Apostrophe campaign puts forward a rather convincing argument here. The Apostrophe Protection Society make a similarly persuasive case here. A couple of items in The Telegraph: one on a council abolishing apostrophes on its signs; the other by Christopher Howse arguing that we perhaps take it a little too seriously.

You may have noticed Land’s End (or is it Lands’ End? Or Lands End?) in the news recently after Cornwall Council decided it needed its apostrophe after all.

No language debate would be complete without a contribution from our resident deity Mr Crystal, debating apostrophes with none other than Paxo on Newsnight…

And here’s Crystal again on the Waterstones/Waterstone’s furore. And let’s not forget you can’t go wrong with a bit of Lynne Truss, who explores the history and current use of the apostrophe in the first episode of her Cutting a Dash series, which you can listen to below:

At the bottom of this post, you’ll find Dr Julia Gillen in an article taken (surprisingly enough) from The Sun, as well as a perceptive and well-informed article from eMagazine.

When you’ve had a look at all of the texts to which I’ve linked, I’d like you to to answer the following question in the comments sections of this post: Should we abolish the apostrophe?

Guidance:

  • You should aim to write 200-300 words, and support your point of view with careful argument.
  • You should make reference to the arguments presented in the clips/texts linked to in this post.
  • Oh, and if you’re still struggling with apostrophe usage yourself, you could do a lot worse than this site to brush up. After all, Crystal may not judge you – but I certainly will.

Mr Shovlin

Dr Julia Gillen on Apostrophes (from The Sun).pdf

eMag – Long Live the Apostrophe.pdf

Are YOU fit for the force?

Grammar Police VLE Link

Clicking on the Grammar Police logo above will take you to the entrance exam.

Take your time. There are only 10 questions, but one mistake will cost you your place on the force – and your chance at winning a £10 bonus!

Good luck!