Tips for learning off English essays?

Pete29

Hey everyone,

I thought I would come on here and ask if anyone has any tips for learning off essays. I wrote my Eavan Boland and Micheal Longley essays and got my English teacher to grade them. She said they were fine; that all I had to do was learn them off.

So, anyone got any tips on memorizing three to five page essays? Thanks a lot in advance.

SligoBrewer

Fail.

dambarude

I don't know how you could learn an essay off word for word. Knowing the layout and gist of it would be sufficient surely? You're unlikely to be asked the exact same question in the LC, so you need to be able to manipulate essays.

Pete29

The only manipulation involved in the poetry essays is to do with purpose. Other than that, there is little to no manipulation necessary if you can remember the outline and points in the essay.:pac:

Don't. Learn points you could use in essays, and can mix and match depending on the question.

NufcNavan

Just learn a poet and 5 of his/her poems. Link them into the question asked and do it well.

discostick12

NufcNavan wrote: »

Just learn a poet and 5 of his/her poems. Link them into the question asked and do it well.

Agree. The best way I found learning my essays for last Years LC was learning the poems. From there I use to do points on each on and linked them up.

The best advice I could give you now is to learn the your chosen poets poems and learn them.

Good luck,

NufcNavan

discostick12 wrote: »

Agree. The best way I found learning my essays for last Years LC was learning the poems. From there I use to do points on each on and linked them up.

The best advice I could give you now is to learn the your chosen poets poems and learn them.

Good luck,

Did you even bother writing out essays or did you just learn the poetry?

KeyLimePie

Don't.

Learn off fancy words instead.

Quixotic.........

Dubs

Deleted User wrote: »

Don't. Learn points you could use in essays, and can mix and match depending on the question.

Do this. If your teacher knows their stuff and says that your essays are good, then learn off the key points and be able to adapt to fit into a few different types of questions.

(and 5 pages seems really long :eek:)

Orlaladuck

The best way I find is using spider diagrams essentially. Write the poem's name, circle it and then write the main points around it, link them etc. Then learn That off rather than trying to learn 5 pages.
Or you can do it for techniques or whatnot. Say for Boland, you can write 'Reactionary Poet' in the circle and span out. What poems show this, how do they show this etc. I find it Extremely useful and it helps to learn of quotes and whatnot as well.

Calum196

Take it from someone who made this mistake last year... ITS A RECIPE FOR FAILURE...

When you write an essay you are bound to leave out some points and aspects to a poets work. So if all you know is whats in your essay - your fcuked.

Take Bishop... you write a very good essay for whats probably a very vague open ended question (which rarely come up) and suddenly your asked a question on just one aspect of her work for which you'd need a good understanding of all of the poems you have done to get enough material.

theowen

Let's face it, a lot of people will learn off essays, including myself. But, you should also prepare for them if the phrasing is awkward so that you'll be able to salvage some sort of a respectable grade. For learning them off, I just write each paragraph out a few times, going back over each as I learn a new one.

IrishKnight

KeyLimePie wrote: »

Learn off fancy words instead.

Never use verbose verbiage...

dambarude

IrishKnight wrote: »

Never use verbose verbiage...

Yup. Nothing is worse in someone's writing than trying to sound smart, using words/verbs incorrectly and inappropriately. Keep it simple folks!

tracker-man

Dubs wrote: »

(and 5 pages seems really long :eek:)

Try 6.5 pages :eek: I gotta cut mine down!

irish_man

hi!
My teach told us that you should read an essay every day
so in your case with 2 essays u could read boland one day kavanagh the next keep doin this for a few weeks nd u will know the essays well
I think reading them out loud helps a lot
hope this helps:)

bealfeirste5

Don't know if it would work for you but I have a good memory so I tend to learn my essays like speech over and over again and then when it comes to the exam you'll definitely be able to remember some phrases and points

Rossie17

Pete29 wrote: »

Hey everyone,

I thought I would come on here and ask if anyone has any tips for learning off essays. I wrote my Eavan Boland and Micheal Longley essays and got my English teacher to grade them. She said they were fine; that all I had to do was learn them off.

So, anyone got any tips on memorizing three to five page essays? Thanks a lot in advance.

If I handed a 5 page essay to my teacher and her feedback was: "fine" I think Id punch her in the face!:D

Crow92

KeyLimePie wrote: »

Don't.

Learn off fancy words instead.

Quixotic.........

My favourite word lol

GA361

I know you're not going to like this, but you're going to have to have a detailed knowledge of at least 5 poets. Two of my poets came up last year, one off which was one of my favourite poets - Walcott. However, I was only able to answer the Keats question as that suited me best and I had a much more detailed knowledge of his work. So what I'm saying here is to have a detailed knowledge of your poets' work and DON'T just learn off a general answer. Otherwise you may not be able to answer the question asked. If you're able to answer an 'awkward' question it shows the examiner that you do have a good grasp of the poetry and you'll score high (provided you answer the question asked) . This worked for me on my Keats' answer for which I scored all but 4 marks.

spurious

Rossie17 wrote: »

If I handed a 5 page essay to my teacher and her feedback was: "fine" I think Id punch her in the face!:D

'She said it was fine' is not the same as 'She said "It's fine".'

The delights of the English language.

H2student

I looked up Quixotic in the dictionary. That's my study done for the day. I agree with the people who said learn with spider diagrams. Easy to write in the exam and covers your material well. From studying in the Mocks I found out that we have the ability to remember sentences from just seeing a few key words, that would've save me a lot of time if I knew that in the last 5 years.

Orlaladuck

H2student wrote: »

I looked up Quixotic in the dictionary. That's my study done for the day.

That made me giggle. As said learn of key words, not sentences. You'd be amazed what you can link to one keyword.

Ruski

Have you been listening to your English teacher or do you just sleep in class? The LAST thing that you do is learn off full essays. You most definitely should never have to learn off long pieces of writing.

Just learn key points and expand on them. Like a 5 page essay could be condensed to about a page of bullet-points, then produced again.

Bucklesman

spurious wrote: »

'She said it was fine' is not the same as 'She said "It's fine".'

The delights of the English language.

It is, actually. Indirect speech versus direct speech accounts for the change in tense.

/pedantry

gf89

I agree that you're not supposed to learn off essays but I guess it does the trick for some people. Pretty sure the only stuff I made up on the day of my english exam was my single text answer (based on main points and quotes i had learnt) and the section A comprehension.. still managed an A2 (was generally a B/C student)

For the poets I kept rewriting until i had an A1 answer for "a personal response" kinda question for each poet. I found the best way to learn them was rewriting them and learning off as a speech, then I broke them down to main paragraphs, highlighting the key word for the paragraph. By the end I had a flash card for each essay with "Paragraph 1: key word (and any other words i kept forgetting).. Para 2: key word.. etc" and could recite pretty much all of them. Did the same for other essays.

As I said though if you can write a good essay in the exam by just knowing the main points then thats definitely the way to go. Hope some of that helps and good luck!

fufureida

Pete29 wrote: »

Hey everyone,

I thought I would come on here and ask if anyone has any tips for learning off essays. I wrote my Eavan Boland and Micheal Longley essays and got my English teacher to grade them. She said they were fine; that all I had to do was learn them off.

So, anyone got any tips on memorizing three to five page essays? Thanks a lot in advance.

Ignore the retarded '' fail '' comment because it was completely unneeded and does nothing but highlight the posters impotency and lack of thoughtfullness. I think you just worded what you meant wrong.

You cant exactly memories essays off by heart but you CAN memorise various phrases and the layout of your essay. Like, lay out a sheet of the main points in your essay on however many essays you are studying, and whichever opening phrases sticks most, learn them. Thats how I do it, just learn bits that will help make up the rest of your essay. Right a plan and memories it, learn the basic things about the poetry you are studying. Eventually it will develop a grasp of the poet and you will be able to write essays freely without having to brain storm too much.

DyldeBrill

As someone mentioned above, learn points.You would be wasting your time learning off a whole essay....you'd actually be mad to do something like that.

Build up on grammer and phrases and fit them into your essay to suit the topic in hand.

briankirby

Ruski wrote: »

Have you been listening to your English teacher or do you just sleep in class? The LAST thing that you do is learn off full essays. You most definitely should never have to learn off long pieces of writing.

Just learn key points and expand on them. Like a 5 page essay could be condensed to about a page of bullet-points, then produced again.

Absolute bull****

Crow92

Hows that absolute bull??

Who learns off essays? It's completely stupid, cop on and understand your texts/poetry to mould any answer obviously plans are good but a whole essay???

Thats complete bull

Professional Griefer

Learning off essays is a really stupid idea. Our teacher reckons that since this has been happening for a while the department are getting sick of it so the questions are gonna become more specific, as they clearly are. Obviously learn the quotes needed but I'd say learn the structure, but be able to change its shape quite easily. Honestly, theres no way around it really. I read my essays as much as I can and I make a structure for them(ie, take out a sheet and write down the main point that I'm making and relate it). Most importantly(as I just said) read the damn question and relate your answer to it. Any ole fool could learn a essay from a book and recreate it in a exam.

briankirby

Crow92 wrote: »

Hows that absolute bull??

Who learns off essays? It's completely stupid, cop on and understand your texts/poetry to mould any answer obviously plans are good but a whole essay???

Thats complete bull

You are correct.well done

Crow92

briankirby wrote: »

You are correct.well done

Did I miss some underlying sarcasm :rolleyes:
I saw no /sarcasm tags

implausible

briankirby wrote: »

Absolute bull****

What a helpful and well-supported post:rolleyes:

OP, most people can't learn off 5 pages of an essay and even if they could, it's not recommended with the way the exam and its marking are going. It's very frustrating to mark excellently-written essays that just don't answer the question asked.

As others have said, summarising your paragraphs down to a series of bullet points and learning off these is a much better way to go. Your comparative can be turned into a one-page table to make this easier.