"learning off" English Essays

temujin

hi,
I'm doing my leaving cert this year and this term above is driving me crazy!! English isn't my strong point(more of a maths guy. i do maths,applied maths and physics) but i still need about a c1-b2 in English. I have heard from people to take parts from books(e.g key notes, poetry books etc.) because they have everything discussed already. What I'm trying to decide is do i take their paragraphs( lets say themes in Hamlet) exactly word for word from the text(which i find difficult) or summarize them in bullet point form and learn the point off that way or is there another alternative.
thanks

MegGustaa

temujin wrote: »

hi,
I'm doing my leaving cert this year and this term above is driving me crazy!! English isn't my strong point(more of a maths guy. i do maths,applied maths and physics) but i still need about a c1-b2 in English. I have heard from people to take parts from books(e.g key notes, poetry books etc.) because they have everything discussed already. What I'm trying to decide is do i take their paragraphs( lets say themes in Hamlet) exactly word for word from the text(which i find difficult) or summarize them in bullet point form and learn the point off that way or is there another alternative.
thanks

Learning off anything for English that isn't your own work isn't a good idea. Not because of plagiarism or anything, just because if you're writing a four or five page essay and you've paragraphs plucked from different sources scattered throughout, it'll seem uneven and the essay won't "flow". Plus you're unlikely to have an exact paragraph learned off that will refer entirely to the question being asked.

I'm only in 5th Year but these are the general points my English teacher has advised us on for writing essays all the way up, especially this year, and we have written a lot of Macbeth and poetry assignments already!

Don't learn anything off by rote other than your own essays. For poetry, have a good understanding of what each poet and poem is about, consolidate your knowledge of the poetry. Identify poems with similar themes that you might compare/contrast/relate in an essay. Pick out the main ideas of each poem by a poet, as well as looking at how they fit into the general themes the poet writes about. Most importantly, develop your own opinions on the poetry

For Hamlet, review the key moments, characters, quotes, themes. Like with poetry, consolidate your knowledge, ie work out what you do know already and how it fits together. It's no use knowing a whole bunch of facts about the text if you don't have an idea in advance of how you might piece it together into an essay later on. That's where notes and sample essays are helpful, but not if you learn them off word-for-word - use them to get a feel for how to present what you know, maybe how to word your thoughts and structure your ideas. Think of notes and exemplars as a template for you to work from to create your own ideas, which will always read as more authentic work than a regurgitated essay.

Key Notes and Exemplar essays are a great resource. I swear by them. Reviewing a big text like Macbeth or Wuthering Heights is daunting at best, especially if you're not sure where to start. Notes give you that starting point and prompt ideas, picking out the important stuff when you simply don't have the time to trawl back through the text looking for the key points. But don't learn the material off without contributing something yourself. Examiners can probably recognise learned-off material straight away, especially if it seems forced (like if you've learned off a passage and you stick it in even though it mightn't really be answering the question!). You'll probably get better marks for something you wrote in your own style than for a disjointed essay.


G'luck with the exams anyway! For what it's worth, I much prefer Maths and Ap Maths to English too...

RMD

Learn points made by people much more qualified than yourself in English (Notes on internet are good for this) and summarise in your own words. Write short paragraphs then from these points repeatedly throughout the year and find 1-2 quotes to reference your point(s).

You wont be able to properly learn paragraphs word for word, you'll be supplementing Scholar quality paragraphs with your LC quality paragraphs and it will ruin the flow / impression of your points. Learn others' arguments, summarise in your own words, reference it with quotes.

kilianmanning

My english teacher says its not a good thing to do to learn off essays. The examiner will penalise you if the question asked is slightly different than what you have learned off,they will know you have simply learned off an answer which is not what they want.

alleystar

My English teacher told us to learn off a Comparitive Essay and the poet's essays- all you have to do is reference the question on the day and write out the essay as learned. I wouldn't myself advice you to take many notes from keynotes. The examiner wants something different. Every student in the country has key notes. But if you only want a C/ low B I'm sure that's grand.

If you're really struggling to come up with your own opinions get a seperate notes booklet for eg. one on Hamlet- there's hundreds online.

Home that helped!

finality

Have you not written your own essays throughout the year? I have written one essay on each of the poets I'm doing, one on each of the comparative topics and about 3 or 4 for Hamlet, all to A1 standard. These are absolutely invaluable now, because all I have to do is summarise them and learn the points. It's easy to learn because it's all my own opinion, I think it's far easier to remember your own opinion than the opinion of a book.

I'm much more mathematically minded too, and the thought of sitting down and learning off an essay word for word is horrifying, never mind learning off ten or more. For my comparative, literary genre, all I learned was a 9 letter code which tells me what I need to discuss in the essay, then the specific information about each text comes naturally.

Though I do try, in general, to do the least amount of learning possible. I find just remembering a logical structure/framework for an essay makes it a lot easier than learning off page after page of information.

crazy cabbage

i myself learned off an essay last year and it fitted perfectly (it is a risk). however i spent practly the whole year writing out the same essay/ or something very similar. started out at a high D and ending up being A standerd. everytime i handed it up my teacher would advise and make a few changes for the next time. i have always hated english but by the time i was finished i was quite proud of it. it is a good for people that struggle with english (like me)
like that i needed a high mark in english (more of a maths guy myself) eventhough i am terrible at it. learning an essay (which i wrote myself) proved a good way of getting 90ish of the marks.
learning off something someone else wrote is morrly wrong and even if you are not caught it shows a bad sence of character. if you do that in college you will be thrown out.

my 2 cents

Gumbi

Don't learn off essays. Answer the questions. A lot of people lose marks not necessarily for content, but for not answering the question.

Learning off the comparative is just plain stupid. I would recommend knowing the texts through and through, especially key scenes, which serve as reference points for your comparisons in the essay.

Learnt off work is generally misunderstood; students then attempt to shoehorn their learnt off essays into unsuitable questions, and get heavily penalised for it, as they do not understand the content that they are trying to convey.

alleystar

Gumbi wrote: »

Don't learn off essays. Answer the questions. A lot of people lose marks not necessarily for content, but for not answering the question.

Learning off the comparative is just plain stupid. I would recommend knowing the texts through and through, especially key scenes, which serve as reference points for your comparisons in the essay.

Learnt off work is generally misunderstood; students then attempt to shoehorn their learnt off essays into unsuitable questions, and get heavily penalised for it, as they do not understand the content that they are trying to convey.

It's a matter of learning to adapt your work. Practice with the papers will do that. Many students learn off comparative and poets essays. Hamlet and composition is a different story.

I know plenty of people who learnt of their Comparative and poet essays and came out with A's.

Canard

I'm torn with the composition. I can write to an A or high B standard but my creativity will end up being viewed as a learned off essay :rolleyes: Anyone know how to avoid things like that?

Superbus

Patchy~ wrote: »

I'm torn with the composition. I can write to an A or high B standard but my creativity will end up being viewed as a learned off essay :rolleyes: Anyone know how to avoid things like that?

Why? If the style/standard is consistent through the two papers then that's not true at all really.

Canard

Superbus wrote: »

Why? If the style/standard is consistent through the two papers then that's not true at all really.

Thats a good point, I hadnt actually thought of that. The main thing is that sometimes my stories go a little outside the box and I asked my teacher and he said that it used to be "If it can be relevant to the title, its relevant" but theyre always on the look out for learned off material now apparently.

reznov

Rote learning in English is a cancer. It artificially raises expectation levels from examiners for those who composed on the day, and sadly it defies the whole point of English as a subject. Having remarked on that, I do wholly recommend to memorise comparative! For Hamlet and poets, simply learn key points which are applicable to any question.
Also, if your teacher is doing nothing more in class but handing out essays to learn, practice writing compositions at home.

Coeurdepirate

Gumbi wrote: »

Don't learn off essays. Answer the questions. A lot of people lose marks not necessarily for content, but for not answering the question.

Learning off the comparative is just plain stupid. I would recommend knowing the texts through and through, especially key scenes, which serve as reference points for your comparisons in the essay.

Learnt off work is generally misunderstood; students then attempt to shoehorn their learnt off essays into unsuitable questions, and get heavily penalised for it, as they do not understand the content that they are trying to convey.

I disagree. I don't agree with rote learning for any other area of the English course as it is ineffective the majority of the time, but I think you're forgetting that the leaving cert. is all a game, you just have to be able to play it. It's not about being morally correct or butterflies and rainbows, it's about approaching your study intelligently and learning the correct material.

Every year on the comparative, the questions are virtually identical, so rather than spending days learning the texts inside out I will spend one hour learning a GV+V essay and one hour learning a LG essay.

finality

Coeurdepirate wrote: »

I disagree. I don't agree with rote learning for any other area of the English course as it is ineffective the majority of the time, but I think you're forgetting that the leaving cert. is all a game, you just have to be able to play it. It's not about being morally correct or butterflies and rainbows, it's about approaching your study intelligently and learning the correct material.

Every year on the comparative, the questions are virtually identical, so rather than spending days learning the texts inside out I will spend one hour learning a GV+V essay and one hour learning a LG essay.

I was thinking the same thing, the comparative is the one area where you can pretty much safely learn off an essay. There are so many different texts you can do for the comparative, so they have to keep the questions very general.

Gumbi

alleystar wrote: »

It's a matter of learning to adapt your work. Practice with the papers will do that. Many students learn off comparative and poets essays. Hamlet and composition is a different story.

I know plenty of people who learnt of their Comparative and poet essays and came out with A's.

I agree. I was referring to people who learn other people's work, as opposed to learning off their own.

Gumbi

Coeurdepirate wrote: »

I disagree. I don't agree with rote learning for any other area of the English course as it is ineffective the majority of the time, but I think you're forgetting that the leaving cert. is all a game, you just have to be able to play it. It's not about being morally correct or butterflies and rainbows, it's about approaching your study intelligently and learning the correct material.

Every year on the comparative, the questions are virtually identical, so rather than spending days learning the texts inside out I will spend one hour learning a GV+V essay and one hour learning a LG essay.

Fair enough if the questions are generally the same. If they're not though, you could be in for a bit of trouble. Why take that risk when you can pull an A relatively easily another way? Me? I had done several practise questions with my class. I knew the key points of each story well. In fact, I was lazy and I didn't even read one of the texts (The Lonesome West). Everything I knew about that was picked up in class. I came out with an A2. I did very little work for English.

Namlub

It's not really a risk though, comparative questions might be worded differently each year but not to the point where you can't tweak your answer to fit what's being asked. The sheer variety of possible texts you can study means that the questions could never be overly specific or detailed.

implausible

It's quite straightforward really:

1.Prepare your own essays, especially for paper II
2.Summarise the paragraphs into points
3.Learn off by heart
4.Practise adapting essays to different titles
5.Adapt essay on day of exam.

You won't be penalised for having similar material to the rest of your class, you will be penalised for not answering the question.

Don't try to learn off someone else's essay unless you have a photographic essay, it is far easier to recall something you've written yourself.

Undeadfred

temujin wrote: »

hi,
I'm doing my leaving cert this year and this term above is driving me crazy!! English isn't my strong point(more of a maths guy. i do maths,applied maths and physics) but i still need about a c1-b2 in English. I have heard from people to take parts from books(e.g key notes, poetry books etc.) because they have everything discussed already. What I'm trying to decide is do i take their paragraphs( lets say themes in Hamlet) exactly word for word from the text(which i find difficult) or summarize them in bullet point form and learn the point off that way or is there another alternative.
thanks

You. Are. Me.

I'm in a similar situation this year. I've been getting private grinds in English since the November and it has raised my grade by a lot, but I'm not sure how to approach Poetry this year.
My grinds teacher says to learn off essays but I think that could spell disaster on the day of the exam if the essay doesn't fit the title.
I'm thinking a better idea would be to practise doing poetry essays in the time period you're given in the exam, so by the time the exam comes around, you're used to doing the essays and can do it on the day of the exam no problem. This does take up a good bit of time though and I'm thinking it might be less time consuming to learn off essays and try to adapt them to the question on the day of the exam. However this might not get me as high a grade...

dearbhla edwards

My teacher recommends that it is okay to 'learn off' essays as long as you can adapt them to the questions. He said he himself had only one good idea for the personal essay on paper 1 and he got an a1 so

ViveLaVie

If you know your source material (the texts) well enough and you have a developed understanding of it, there is no reason whatsoever to learn off an essay, your own or otherwise. That's the whole idea.

Gumbi

ViveLaVie wrote: »

If you know your source material (the texts) well enough and you have a developed understanding of it, there is no reason whatsoever to learn off an essay, your own or otherwise. That's the whole idea.

Agreed.

In addition, this culture of learning stuff off by heart is killing people in college, where it simply doesn't work. My lecturer was talking to me the other day about some first who had asked him "what [computer] programmes do we need to learn for the exam?". My lecturerer facepalmed and told them they had missed the entire point if the lectures.

ViveLaVie

Gumbi wrote: »

Agreed.

In addition, this culture of learning stuff off by heart is killing people in college, where it simply doesn't work. My lecturer was talking to me the other day about some first who had asked him "what [computer] programmes do we need to learn for the exam?". My lecturerer facepalmed and told them they had missed the entire point if the lectures.

Absolutely. The amount of people I knew who couldn't cope because they were expected to think independently and on their feet in exams was unreal. I know two people who were almost expelled from college for plagiarising because thinking independently was a foreign concept to them and they were overly reliant on the work of others.

The Leaving Certificate is the gateway to college and you should be honing your critical thinking skills now rather than later so that you don't end up totally lost and overwhelmed next year.

aimzLc2

ViveLaVie wrote: »

Absolutely. The amount of people I knew who couldn't cope because they were expected to think independently and on their feet in exams was unreal. I know two people who were almost expelled from college for plagiarising because thinking independently was a foreign concept to them and they were overly reliant on the work of others.

The Leaving Certificate is the gateway to college and you should be honing your critical thinking skills now rather than later so that you don't end up totally lost and overwhelmed next year.

I'd love to agree with you but right now the majority of people,including myself are just worried about the points they need to even get into college , they will go for any method that will get them the high grade.

Personally i find learning off things is sometimes the only thing i can do because i struggle so much with english , if you write your own essay (using a mix of notes) you get it corrected, fix it and learn it ,maybe adding in some of your own stuff i don't see any problem, if you are like me that might be what you have to do for english!

crazy cabbage

ViveLaVie wrote: »

Absolutely. The amount of people I knew who couldn't cope because they were expected to think independently and on their feet in exams was unreal. I know two people who were almost expelled from college for plagiarising because thinking independently was a foreign concept to them and they were overly reliant on the work of others.

The Leaving Certificate is the gateway to college and you should be honing your critical thinking skills now rather than later so that you don't end up totally lost and overwhelmed next year.

That would be all well and good in a perfect system but it isn't a perfect system. I am in college at the min (2nd year) and yes i did learn off english essays (It was my own essay though so not plagerised. I worked on 3 essays for all of 6th year. Each time i would hand up to the teacher she would correct and make a few suggestions and i would go and rewrite.). I was never good at english but needed a good grade in it to get the points.

However in maths and accounting and DCG and pritty every other subject i could think on my feet and did very well. I am a maths guy. However english (the way it is taught in schools) is no good to me whatsoever. I haven't had to write an essay since comming to college. I am just finished 2nd year of engineering.

I havent' plagerised ever and to suggest that just beoucse you learn an essay for a subject you dont like to get points in what quite frankly is an unfair system will set you up to fail college is just ridiculus. I actully got an award based on my 1st year college results.

However if you are learning essays that someone else wrote than that is a completly different story. If you are planing on going into arts or some other english heavy area then it is a different story. If however, like i did, you see that english exam as a means to an end, to get you into something techicnal (science/ engineering / whatever) then i say go for it. Just realise that there is a risk.

The LC is the biggest load of sh1t you will ever do. Once you hit college it is about understanding and not learning off.

Best of luck everyone in exams!!!

ViveLaVie

aimzLc2 wrote: »

I'd love to agree with you but right now the majority of people,including myself are just worried about the points they need to even get into college , they will go for any method that will get them the high grade.

Personally i find learning off things is sometimes the only thing i can do because i struggle so much with english , if you write your own essay (using a mix of notes) you get it corrected, fix it and learn it ,maybe adding in some of your own stuff i don't see any problem, if you are like me that might be what you have to do for english!

I understand where you're coming from. Right now, there just isn't a point as you're caught for time and you are probably up to your eyes studying. Fair enough.

I'm talking more in terms of the entire two years - then you have plenty of time to read the texts, develop your own opinions and write your own essays. Realistically, I can't understand why people need to learn off their own essays - I mean, don't you remember your own opinion and your own thoughts?

I am mainly criticising the people who learn off other people's notes and opinions on the texts and then pass them off as their own. The aim of the English course is to develop understanding and critical thinking and clearly there isn't any there in someone who feels the need to plagiarise. This is also down to problematic teachers - if you have a really good teacher who encourages you think to independently and doesn't allow you to regurgitate others' work, then you have an advantage over those who are actually being told what to write, word for word, by lazy teachers.

As for your comment that learned off essays merit higher grades, I respectfully disagree. The best students in English are usually the ones who can think on their feet, adopt a personalised approach to and have strong opinions on the texts. Sure, some people learn off their own essays and get good marks but generally these qualities will be present in their own essays anyway.

If you're struggling, I can understand how this is all very daunting but a good teacher should have addressed your issues by now. At this stage, it probably is too late to adopt my method, but best of luck all the same and I hope you get what you want.

crazy cabbage wrote: »

That would be all well and good in a perfect system but it isn't a perfect system. I am in college at the min (2nd year) and yes i did learn off english essays (It was my own essay though so not plagerised. I worked on 3 essays for all of 6th year. Each time i would hand up to the teacher she would correct and make a few suggestions and i would go and rewrite.). I was never good at english but needed a good grade in it to get the points.

It absolutely isn't and as I said above the problem is compounded by a lot of teachers who want to churn out good grades and don't bother putting the work into addressing students' individualised needs. It's a one size fits all approach. As before, I am mainly criticising those who steal others' ideas and opinions. You learned off your own essay, so that is different. As before, I think if it's your own work there probably isn't a huge need to actually learn it off word for word as presumably you can remember your own argument, but I understand some people may like to recreate it exactly as before.

crazy cabbage wrote: »

However in maths and accounting and DCG and pritty every other subject i could think on my feet and did very well. I am a maths guy. However english (the way it is taught in schools) is no good to me whatsoever. I haven't had to write an essay since comming to college. I am just finished 2nd year of engineering.

I didn't mean to suggest that somebody who cannot work independently in English is unable to do so in other subjects. You are clearly accomplished in other areas, and seeing as that is where your primary interest lies and you will most likely work in an area that doesn't require the skills I am talking about developing, you will no doubt do very well. However, I am specifically talking of those students who study the humanities in college in which these skills are of paramount importance.

crazy cabbage wrote: »

I havent' plagerised ever and to suggest that just beoucse you learn an essay for a subject you dont like to get points in what quite frankly is an unfair system will set you up to fail college is just ridiculus. I actully got an award based on my 1st year college results.

I did not intend to imply that any student who learns off an essay is a plagiarist. However, students who do learn off others' work are plagiarising. And that is taken very seriously in college and can result in expulsion. Again, you learned off your own work and you're clearly not a plagiarist. I am interested to know, though, why you think the system is unfair?

crazy cabbage wrote: »

However if you are learning essays that someone else wrote than that is a completly different story. If you are planing on going into arts or some other english heavy area then it is a different story. If however, like i did, you see that english exam as a means to an end, to get you into something techicnal (science/ engineering / whatever) then i say go for it. Just realise that there is a risk.

The LC is the biggest load of sh1t you will ever do. Once you hit college it is about understanding and not learning off.

Best of luck everyone in exams!!!

Agreed, once you hit college it is all about understanding and the majority of students who go into the humanities but cannot think independently at Leaving Certificate level will more than likely find themselves completely overwhelmed and struggling.

aimzLc2

ViveLaVie wrote: »

As for your comment that learned off essays merit higher grades, I respectfully disagree. The best students in English are usually the ones who can think on their feet, adopt a personalised approach to and have strong opinions on the texts. Sure, some people learn off their own essays and get good marks but generally these qualities will be present in their own essays anyway.

oh no.. maybe it was implied but i didn't say that you get higher grades for learning off stuff , i just said that for some people if its between learning off an essay or making up their own on the day , learning off will get them a higher grade.
Ideally yes but in my experience, the higher grade students in my class who often produce great essays by thinking on the spot and not learning off things were failed by the marking scheme , in the mocks their results did not reflect their ability and they were actually equal in many cases to the rest of us! i know this could just be in my case but my teacher said that she often saw that happen, the ones that were creative and all were not rewarded , i know thats sad but its the leaving cert

crazy cabbage

ViveLaVie wrote: »

I am interested to know, though, why you think the system is unfair?

"If you judge a fish by it's ability to climb a tree it will spend its whole life thinking it is stupid" - Einstin (i think)

I know a good friend of mine in school. He did all the normal subjects along with DCG, honors maths and applied maths and Physics. He wanted to become an Actuarry (asses risks for insurince companys). He is unbelievable at all the above subjects which are actully relevent to what he wants to do. But English and Irish let him down in exams and becouse of that he had to repeat. He is now doing what he wants though.

How is this fair? He was perfect for his chosen degree (had even done maths type stuff outside of school) but becouse the system is silly he had to repeat. He actully didn't repeat english or irish when he repeated and instead did accounting and something else and flew it.

I dont see the logic.

As for school failing to prepair you for college. Now where is this more true that with this project maths thing. Complete ****. I had a hard time jumping for an honour in honors maths to college maths. How the hell is anybody ment to jump from a dumbed down project maths to college maths.

Sorry slightly off topic