English Is Such A Mess

TheBigRedDog

Is anyone else in this situation or is it just my class?

We've only covered 3 poets, Donne, Mahon and Boland which we haven't really done properly.

We spent a grand total of 45 mins on the unseen poem (how to analyse etc..)

And we've covered the most bizarre texts to compare namingly Cinema Paradiso, Curious Incident... and Philadelphia which have barely relationships to compare and havent been covered properly in class. We only got a sample essay style question of C.C that compares all 3 texts! The rest are just talking on one text.

To top it off the commision shoved chemistry on the same day...

Whats your story?

lobsterstag

i'm doing c.p and phily for the comparative, i think they're class for it!!!

Lit Gen- both use flash backs to tell the story, in c.p it's more or less the whole thing while in phily there are only two, the aunt lizzie one and the kathy doogan marriage one.
Both texts also use multiple protagonists, three acters play toto in c.p, this can be to show passage of time, but can have bad sides i.e everyone obviosly prefers the cute young toto to the sappy tenager. Different acters play public and private gar, gives us an insight into gars thoughts and feelings because he can't talk properly to "screwballs" or his "ignorant bloody louts" of friends!!
Talk about the use of camera work for c.p, e.g long close up shots of totos' face to see what he's thinking, while in phily he talks to private gar.

theme/issue im going for the them of escape, they both leave rural areas for big cities to fufil their dreams, both escape from broken hearts (elena and kathy) and they both escape emotionally, toto with film and gar with his fantasy land and music and poetry reciting.....

that should be enough to keep you going, you only really have to discuss two in depth generally and just lash in a paragraph or two about the curious dog at the end!!
good luck!!:pac::pac::pac::pac:

Rich89

A good theme or issue essay for Cinema Paradiso and Philedelphia, Here I Come is the Father-Son relationship!

cian1500ww

Rich89 wrote: »

the Father-Son relationship!

If had a euro for the amount of times I've been told that I'd be a rich man

Cost Boy!!

I'm not too hopefull for english either. I possibly had the worst english teacher for the past 2 years she was out at least one day every week! We spent the entire of LC1 doing our single text! And some how she managed to cover the poetry of boland in two classes which I was out for so I'm hoping she wont come up. oh and a lad from my class handed up and essay answer on a poetry question which he had took off the internet that had been prepared by an english examiner and she said it was rubbish!!

Holly Golightly

For CP & Philadelphia, both have relationships which end or don't come to fruition because of social/money matters, etc (Kate/Elena). Also contrast father/son relationships - the good one with Alfredo & Toto and the bad one between Gar & SB; also there's a surrogate parent in each (Madge and Alfredo).

cian1500ww

Definetly have a look at Literary Genre. It hasn't come up since 2005 and should come up this year hopefully. Its a very straight forward question in my opinion.

Kathy_x_x

we had the best english teacher ever for LC english

Literary Genre : just use Imagery, plot, characters, resolution and setting

theme and issue : introduction, develo[ment, complication and resolution

our teacher told us the following things which have lead to me doing brill in comparative.. hope they help :

you can suggests any comparison between your texts once you can support it!!

make sure you dont go 7 lines without a comparison

dont concentrate on one text for a whole paragraph, compare the texts throughout your essay

your timing is also important.. you have as much time for a question as you get marks


cant help with poetry... but we were told to do Boland and Mahon... but we were told to do more aswell

you'll be fine... just concentrate


good luck!!

Mark200

I'd just like to tell yous all that I have the best English teacher in the school, and he is also an experienced Leaving Cert examiner

Ino112

I'm thinking of changing the father-son relationship to parental-relationships, that way I can compare the mother figures also. This is acceptable yeah?

Texts: Philadelphia, How Many Miles to Babylon, My Left Foot.

EDIT: For Paper 1, Question B: How many pages should we be writing?

eoin2nc

Oh how happy am I that Im doing pass English. I can sit back and laugh at everyone, but then after Thursday the real LC starts for me

Peleus

TheBigRedDog wrote: »

Is anyone else in this situation or is it just my class?

We've only covered 3 poets, Donne, Mahon and Boland which we haven't really done properly.

We spent a grand total of 45 mins on the unseen poem (how to analyse etc..)

And we've covered the most bizarre texts to compare namingly Cinema Paradiso, Curious Incident... and Philadelphia which have barely relationships to compare and havent been covered properly in class. We only got a sample essay style question of C.C that compares all 3 texts! The rest are just talking on one text.

To top it off the commision shoved chemistry on the same day...

Whats your story?

hey cliff,

ye i know how you feel, only started studying English on Friday. haven't even started studying my single text. At this point i'm just learning off quotes because i can easily rant on about the texts since i do know them all quite well.

If you can rattle on about them, then just get out a sheet of paper and write the theme down. then write down the three texts and put down bulletpoints of how that theme is in that play and where in the play.

eg Father-son P.H.I.C ---> lack of communication between them
kitchen scene and last scene together.

do that for all the texts and then on a separate page put down one quote for every point and try learn those quotes. quotes are grand cos they're already sorta in your head. i did that last night and it really helped.good luck cliff!

blue-army

Would just doing Larkin, Mahon and Boland be a big risk?

Erica-smiley

If it helps I think Eavan Bloand is definitely gonna come up.......She's not been on it in years and I'm fairly sure she's not on next year's course!!!!

I'm in the same situation my english teacher is crap..... We're doin wuthering heights, Othello, the plough and the stars and how many miles to babylon!!!!!

Paper 1 can really bring up your marks so mayb just work at that because I know myself that paper 2 is my downfall!!!!!!!

Good luck anyways!!!!!!!:D:D

alan4cult

blue-army wrote: »

Would just doing Larkin, Mahon and Boland be a big risk?

Thats all I'm doing well (I have Frost and Plath on the backup). At least one of them three has got to come up! Good Luck!

Peleus

alan4cult wrote: »

Thats all I'm doing well (I have Frost and Plath on the backup). At least one of them three has got to come up! Good Luck!

i'm only doing Mahon Boland and Rich with no backups

TheBigRedDog

I hope your right guys! If I was doing a theme/Issue question, does it have to be focused on one relationship or can you talk about all relationships formed like mother, father, love interest etc? Thats the kind of thing we've been focusing on!