Just for fun...

Reduced Shakespeare Company - Romeo and Juliet part 1


Part 2

Next term

As you know, we will be working on Romeo and Juliet next term. If you're struggling to fill your time over the Winter break, you could do worse than reading up on William Shakespeare and Romeo and Juliet. I have posted some links on the blog, below.

RPR date change

As discussed in class yesterday, we have changed the date for submission of the first draft of the RPR from Monday 5th to Monday 12th November. After the very disappointing rate of returns for the plan, I am really hoping that everyone can use the extra time to produce a well-worked piece of writing.

Essay writing tips

In Standard Grade English, you will produce several different types of writing. As well as creative writing such as short stories, poems and drama scripts, you will also write essays of various sorts. These will include discursive essays, in which you will discuss a contentious issue or persuade your reader of a point of view, and critical essays, in which you answer a question about a literary text.

What is a criticial essay?

~ An organised collection
~ of YOUR IDEAS
~ in answer to a question
~ about literary texts
~ well written in formal language and professionally presented

Your ideas
This is what we are looking for. Without any interesting ideas of your own, you cannot get any marks.


Structure

~ Your essay should have a main idea or argument, with several sub-themes which support the main one.

~ You must clearly answer the question throughout the whole of your essay.

~ The first paragraph, or introduction, should clearly answer the question. You should set out what you intend your main points to be.

~ You can include a short plot summary after the introduction, but make sure that you don't include plot details which do not relate to the point of the essay.

~ The last paragraph, or conclusion, must not say anything new, or include any evidence. You should simply sum up your main points and answer the question again.

The paragraph
~ Quite long: no one-sentence paragraphs
~ Start with a topic sentence.
~ Try to link or contrast the first sentence with the last sentence of the previous paragraph.
~ Opinion differs about whether you can write “In this essay I will…”. It’s probably safest to find another way of doing it.
~ Make each paragraph a solid unit.


Using evidence

~ You must use evidence from the text to back up your arguments.
Mostly these will be quotes, but can also be references to things that happen in the plot (eg "when Curley's wife seems to flirt with the men in the bunkhouse").

~ Use quotations to show evidence of characterisation, setting, style or other techniques. Do not use quotes just to show that something happens in the story; you might as well just tell your reader that it happens.

~ If it’s a short quotation, insert it into the text. If it’s a longer quotation then indent it.

Never write:
X “a quote which shows this is…”
X “this proves…”
X “this piece of evidence…” / “this quote…”

These phrases are clunky, and you should think of better ways to integrate your evidence into your discussion.


Analysis

Analysis is the area where you will gain the most credit in your critical essay. It is the tool that you use to show how your evidence backs up your argument. If you don't analyse your evidence, and show that it relates to the question, your evidence is almost worthless.

Remember that you are writing about how and why the author has written the text in the way that they have. For this reason, you should refer to the author fairly frequently.

Useful phrases for analysis
♥ “This works particularly well (to / in that / because / as)…”
♥ “The author achieves this (effect) by…”
♥ “Here we see…”
♥ “Here, the reader is encouraged to…”
♥ “On balance…”


Presentation

☺ Think of your reader. Present your work in a way that is easy to read, and strictly according to guidelines. Word processing not only makes the checking of spelling and grammar easy, but also makes your writing easy to read. Crucially, it also allows you to easily redraft and improve your work.

It saddens me to write this, but it is an unfortunate fact that if you produce work that is misspelled and/or badly punctuated and/or ungrammatical, however good the ideas are, people will tend to take a negative view of you and your writing. If you tend to have trouble with spelling, grammar or punctuation, take extra time to check your work. Make a note of any mistakes in your writing, and check for them in future. With the exception of spelling in the case of dyslexia, making a mistake more than once is evidence of carelessness.

RPR first draft

As you know, the first draft of your RPR is due this Monday (5th November...remember, remember). Please bear in mind all of the advice given in class about good essay writing. I will post this advice elsewhere on the Blog.

Make sure that you answer your question fully, and that you use plenty of evidence from the text to do so. Most importantly, however, you should be ANALYSING. This means that you should be discussing your evidence and explaing how this goes to prove your key points.

Just because it is your first draft, that does not mean that I will act as your proof-reading service. I am expecting a well-produced and well-presented piece of work.

Close reading cut-off scores

We were so busy working hard in English yesterday that I forgot to give out the cut-off scores for your close-reading paper. They are as follows:

12 and below = 4
13-20 = 3
21-30 = 2
31 and above = 1

If you got a 3, don't worry. You weren't alone, and there is still plenty of time to improve your skills. What is important is that you identify the areas where you went wrong and are able to work to improve in those areas. We will spend time in class working on this before the next close reading test.

RPR update 1

Because of the Close Reading, our RPR dates have slipped this week. We will spend time on Friday 5th refining our questions in class, and we'll keep the 22 October date for submission of detailed plans.
On the 22nd, I am expecting:

• A paragraph plan for your essay. This will lay out how you plan to answer the question.
• For each paragraph, you should have at least one piece of evidence from the text. This doesn't always need to be a quote, and may be a description of an incident or certain aspects of a character.

Your plan may look something like this (this plan is unfinished, as you can see):

Question: "Fiction can be used very effectively to highlight the problems or concerns of society." Show how George Orwell uses fiction in 'Animal Farm' to show the dangers of political dogma.

Introduction: Plot summary; brief description of the political allegory in Animal Farm; 'will show how Orwell uses the characters and their actions to show the dangers of political dogma'.

Paragraph 1: The rebellion /Old Major. Show how the initial ideals were quickly betrayed and twisted. Quotes from Old Major's speech "all men are enemies" vs "Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy". Language can be twisted to do what you want it to do.

Paragraph 2: Napoleon and Snowball - Orwell uses two pigs to show how political rivalry can have a disastrous effect on leadership and ideals. **find evidence**

Paragraph 3 [outline; evidence]
Paragraph 4 [outline; evidence]
Paragraph 5 [outline; evidence]

Conclusion : Sum up main arguments, answer question again.

Look at the BBC Bitesize link on the right, and click through to 'Consider The Lilies'. This gives you some good advice on interpreting a novel.

The Great Depression - videos

Here are a couple of YouTube videos to give you a feel for what some people's lives were like during the Great Depression in the USA. This may help you to imagine how difficult it would be for George and Lennie to find work, and what people of the time were up against.

For further background information, look at the Wikipedia link on the right, from which you can click through to historical information if you like.

RPR

Your RPR dates are as follows:

Monday 1st October: Submit essay question
Monday 22nd October: Submit detailed plan
Monday 5th November: Submit first draft
Monday 26th November: Submit final draft

It is your responsibility to ensure that you meet these dates. If you are having any problems keeping up with this, you must speak to me early enough for us to discuss ways to manage the process.

I will post further advice on each of these tasks as they approach.