Incoming Fifth Years...

Aoifums

Actually most people I talked to only studied one. And I haven't heard of anyone's poet not being on the paper.

Delta Kilo

It is risky but at the same time the odds of Bishop coming up were huge. Plus, the poetry is only worth 50 marks, the same as a section B in paper 1, which is not half as worried about.

stainluss

One tip for fifth years, Study hard in 5th year.
Even if your friends dont.
You dont have to go around shouting about it but its a good idea to do most of the work in 5th, then you go into 6th year much more confident and the LC will seem like a breeze compared to 5th year:)

How do i know?
Someone told me this last year, i didnt listen and now im not too happy about the heap of sh1t ahead of me next year:mad::eek::p

5th year is nothing to be scared of though.And if your pissed about getting a bad tacher for a certain subject, dont be afraid to ask to switch. Its your future and theyre getting paid to do a job, you shouldnt be shy about getting the best possible teaching.

And good luck to ye!:D:pac:

Fad

Aoifums wrote: »

Actually most people I talked to only studied one. And I haven't heard of anyone's poet not being on the paper.

I know a load of them, banked on Longley, got completely fúcked over in that sense.

Elegance

andyman wrote: »

...here is your prescribed material for English.

SINGLE TEXT

For your exam, you are required to learn one single text inside out and most teachers will pick the Shakespearean text for the simple fact that if you don't do it in this one, you'll have to do it in your Comparative Study and this will require you to learn another Shakespearean text as well as the one prescribed in the Single Text, and learning one of them is tricky enough as it is (although I quite like reading them).

TEXTS
BINCHY, Maeve Circle of Friends (O)
BRONTË, Emily Wuthering Heights (H/O)
IBSEN, Henrik A Doll’s House (H/O)
JOHNSTON, Jennifer How Many Miles to Babylon? (O)
MONK KIDD, Sue The Secret Life of Bees (O)
MURPHY, Tom A Whistle in the Dark (H/O)
O’CASEY, Sean The Plough and the Stars (O)
SHAKESPEARE, William Hamlet (H/O)
STEINBECK, John The Grapes of Wrath (H/O)

Most of you will be doing Hamlet. That's a nice play. Think it's one of the easier ones and you could be able to predict potential questions. An easier play than Macbeth and King Lear (yes, I have read both) imo.

COMPARATIVE STUDY

You are required to do three texts for your comparative. There's a number of texts and films that are prescribed and your teacher will pick three of them. You're only allowed to pick one film at most as part of your comparative study, although some teachers don't do a film at all.

The modes were the most complicated part (for me, anyway) to get my head around at the beginning. You are prescribed 3 modes of comparison and 2 will appear in your paper. These are the headings by which you will compare your three chosen texts. However, if your teacher is covering the Sha

MODES (Higher Level)
Theme or Issue
Cultural Context
General Vision and Viewpoint

Nice and easy ones there. Can't be complaining too much with them. Theme or Issue is self explanatory. Just pick any theme or issue that's common to all three texts and compare them. Cultural Context is the outlook on society of the texts and has a number of sub-headings which you can use in your answer (The setting, Religion, Class divisions, violence, poverty etc. etc.). General Vision and Viewpoint is one I never really understood properly, so what I'm about to say is completely open to correction. From my understanding it's where you explore the themes/relationships and the society of the text and conclude whether the author/director is showing the world of the text in an optimistic or pessimistic light.

MODES (Ordinary Level)
Relationships
Theme
Social Setting

Again, can't complain too much about them. Did Higher Level myself so they'd be a walk in the park for me personally. For an ordinary level student I'd class them as easy as well. All self-explanatory as well.

TEXTS
AUSTEN, Jane Emma
BINCHY, Maeve Circle of Friends
BOWEN, Elizabeth The Last September
BRONTË, Emily Wuthering Heights
CHANG, Jung Wild Swans
COETZEE, J.M. Boyhood: Scenes from Provincial Life
DICKENS, Charles Hard Times
FRIEL, Brian Dancing at Lughnasa
GAGE, Eleni North of Ithaka
HARRIS, Robert Pompeii
HOSSEINI, Khaled The Kite Runner
IBSEN, Henrik A Doll’s House

ISHIGURO, Kazu Never Let Me Go
JOHNSTON, Jennifer How Many Miles to Babylon?
KEANE, John B Sive
MacLAVERTY, Bernard Lamb
MARTEL, Yann Life of Pi
McDONAGH, Martin The Lonesome West
McEWAN, Ian Atonement
MONK KIDD, Sue The Secret Life of Bees
MOORE, Brian Lies of Silence
MURPHY, Tom A Whistle in the Dark
NGOZI ADICHIE, Chimamanda Purple Hibiscus
O’CASEY, Sean The Plough and the Stars
PETTERSON, Per Out Stealing Horses
PICOULT, Jodi My Sister’s Keeper
ROSOFF, Meg How I Live Now
SHAKESPEARE, William Hamlet
SHAKESPEARE, William The Tempest
SHIELDS, Carol Unless
SOPHOCLES Oedipus the King
STEINBECK, John The Grapes of Wrath
TREVOR, William The Story of Lucy Gault

Only one of my texts is in there (Plough and the Stars) but I've read some of them and while the stories themselves aren't the best and extremely predictable, there's still plenty to write about under the modes of comparison.

FILMS
BRANAGH, Kenneth (Dir.) As You Like It (Film)
CURTIZ, Michael (Dir.) Casablanca (Film)
DALDRY, Stephen (Dir.) Billy Elliot (Film)
MEIRELLES, Fernando (Dir.) The Constant Gardener (Film)
O’DONNELL, Damien (Dir.) Inside I’m Dancing (Film)
RADFORD, Michael (Dir.) Il Postino (Film)

I've seen all of them and I can easily say that is a nice set of films to choose from. Would have liked to have seen Billy Elliot as part of my Comparative Study as it would have fit in well with the Father-Son relationship theme I covered as part of Theme or Issue.

POETRY

In Higher Level, you are given eight prescribed poets with 10 poems from each poet. In the Higher Level paper, four of the eight poets will appear and you are only required to answer the question on one of them. However, you are recommended to learn at least 6 poems per poet to use and quote from in your answer. I only used 4 in my answer which most seem to do.

HIGHER LEVEL PRESCRIBED POETS
Eaven Boland
Emily Dickenson
Robert Frost
Gerard Manley Hopkins
Patrick Kavanagh
Adrienne Rich
William Wordsworth
William Butler Yeats

Boland, Kavanagh, Rich and Yeats are on the 2010 course as well whereas Dickenson, Frost, Hopkins and Wordsworth replace TS Elliot, John Keats, Michael Longley and Derek Walcott (:eek:! No more Walcott ). 4 changes is a bit harsh imo. I know the 2010'ers have that as well. I'm a 2009'er and we only had two different poets from the year before which has me thinking that I was one of the lucky ones.

Anyway, no idea why I posted this considering it doesn't really effect me tbh. I found it and I thought I'd tell people

Sorry, where did you get this? thanks.

Elegance

Piste wrote: »

You have Wuthering Heights on your course, you're sorted

Why do you say that?

it's a bit of a long book -

what makes it so easy?

tootyflutty

Not so much easy, as it has a lot of choice and events to work with. Plenty of key moments and evets to talk about.
Good book to use, the equivilant of Jane Eyre for us

jumpguy

-JammyDodger- wrote: »

If you do three of the favourites you'll be fine.

And yes, it would be a horrible feeling if the poet didn't come up, but the feeling is so very good when your one poet comes up. (I had a spare subject, anyway, so it didn't make a huge difference).

Favourites? Oh jeez....5th year won't be fun...