English HL Paper II 2012- What will you be learning?

PictureFrame

So I said i'd set up this thread to find out what everyone else is thinking of learning for Paper II this year, I think it would be interesting to see people's opinions on what's too much to learn, what you should learn etc.

So, for the 3 sections on Paper II, i'm learning the following:

Hamlet:

• Deception
• Appearance V.S Reality
• Theme of Love
• Character of Hamlet
• Character of Polonius
• Character of Horatio
• Characterisation of the Women in the play
• Soliloquys
• Imagery

Comparative:

• Literary Genre- Narrative Techniques, Key Moments
• General Vision & Viewpoint- Key Moments, How GV+V is understood and how it effects my response to the texts
• Theme & Issue- My response to how the major theme is illustrated

Poetry:

• Adrienne Rich (5 poems. Major themes, images, language used etc.)
• Sylvia Plath (5 poems. And the same as above)
• Thomas Kinsella (5 poems. " ")
• Seamus Heaney (5 poems. " ")
• Philip Larkin (5 poems. " ")

Gosh, this worries me a bit! :eek: Extremely worried about Hamlet however, the questions are so broad! So, what's everyone else doing?

Chuchoter

Everything.

Lol no but I don't have it split into things so strictly, I'm learning all the quotes and writing a few sweeping essays on the poets covering everything they do. I'm doing 6/7 poems for everyone but larkin.
Few things in hamlet I haven't done properly though, namely horatio, soliloquies and imagery/language. I highly doubt you'd get a whole question on polonius :S
I'm doing theme and literary genre for my comparative, more or less write the same thing for those every time anyway then refer back to the question every now and again.

I don't find theres really a massive amount you can 'learn' for English, you learn the basics and then manipulate it on the day.

PictureFrame

I've absolutley nothing done for Hamlet. I'm actually gonna do so **** in the leaving.

Wesc.

I'm doing the following:


Hamlet

1. Importance of Soliliquays
2. Theme of Deception
3. Themes of Loyalty and Betrayal
4. Appeal to a modern audience
5. An important scene and how it shaped the play (maybe)
6. Should we admire Hamlet?
7. The role of women in the play

The Comparative

1. General vision and viewpoint : Just learning of one big essay I'll fit in, worked well in the mocks!
2. Theme and issure - Key moments

Poetry

1. Kinsella : His theme of death
2. Plath : An essay on her poetic techniques and imagery
3. Larkin : Essay on his poetic techniques and imagery
4. Heaney : Ugh don't know, don't like him, just look over his poems in case disaster happens :P
5. Kavanagh : Just going to look over his poems

Great idea for a thread btw, it'll be very interesting to see what everyone else is doing

Canard

PictureFrame wrote: »

I've absolutley nothing done for Hamlet. I'm actually gonna do so **** in the leaving.

Yes, nothing done at alllll I'm sure despite your A2 :rolleyes: :pac: We're only revising Hamlet in class atm, calm yo tits!

For poetry I'm learning all except Kinsella because poetry is really easy to remember imo Comparative I'm doing Theme and GV+V but mainly GV+V, and for Hamlet, um...not sure.

bobjimmy

Not doing Hamlet..
Im basically just learning off essays.
For poetry im learning Heany, Larkin and Plath, Ill just look over boland aswell
For the comparitive im just learning off a general essay on theme or issue and vision and viiewpoint. Hoping for a C1/B3. Hope this will be enough!

Raeone

I'm doing Plath, Rich, Boland and Heaney. I'm just going to do one essay on each that deals with everything so I can then adapt it to the question in the exam (hopefully). I'm doing five poems on each.

I'm unsure on what to do for Hamlet, I have done nothbing for it so far, only read it in class in fifth year. I'm going to reread it now but just wondering what sort of essays I should focus on as theres not much time left? Someone told me that a question on a charactor always comes up so should I just focus on the charactors rather than themes etc?

FinnD

When do they print the lc papers?

finality

Poets
Plath
Heaney
Kinsella
Kavanagh
Rich

5 poems for each, under 3 or 4 themes. I've each poet summarized in two A4 pages, just have to learn those.

Comparative
The Kite Runner - Inside I'm Dancing - Dancing At Lughnasa
Literary Genre
Theme or Issue

Just learning the things I need to compare e.g. dialogue, narration - presuming I can adapt to any question on the day.

Hamlet
Character of Hamlet - tragic hero, soliloquies, why we admire him, etc
Role of women
Revenge/deception

Not sure what else yet. I might write an essay on Claudius over the next few weeks, just in case. I can probably wing it a bit in the exam if something else comes up.


When it's listed out like this, there actually isn't that much to learn for English. It makes it seem more manageable. I was a bit iffy about English before but after the pre I'm determined to do well in it.

PictureFrame

Patchy~ wrote: »

Yes, nothing done at alllll I'm sure despite your A2 :rolleyes: :pac: We're only revising Hamlet in class atm, calm yo tits

Total fluke that Mock was!

Ahhhhhhhhhh.. I NEED this A2.. I have a funny feeling it mighn't happen! . Are ye guys learning essay plans or what for Paper II?

hotfuzz2

Are you guys learning off Hamlet essays? I thought it'd be easier and more skillful to know the text inside out and pick the aspects of the play that relate to the question and elaborate?

PictureFrame

Guys, do you think if I learned a Sample answer off really well for all of the Comparative Modes (LG, GV+V, T/I) do you think i'd get a question on the day where I could morph exactly what I had learnt to fit the question at hand? I'm fairly comfortable with LG, we started GV this week and it seems handy enough and T/I is just ridiculously easy!

hotfuzz2

PictureFrame wrote: »

Guys, do you think if I learned a Sample answer off really well for all of the Comparative Modes (LG, GV+V, T/I) do you think i'd get a question on the day where I could morph exactly what I had learnt to fit the question at hand? I'm fairly comfortable with LG, we started GV this week and it seems handy enough and T/I is just ridiculously easy!

Yes! The Comparative is one of the few aspects of Leaving Cert English that you can learn off, according to my English teacher anyway. Know key events and scenes of each text, answer question at the end of each paragraph, keep to one scene/event per paragraph and you're sorted imo!

Canard

PictureFrame wrote: »

Total fluke that Mock was!

Ahhhhhhhhhh.. I NEED this A2.. I have a funny feeling it mighn't happen! . Are ye guys learning essay plans or what for Paper II?

I'm sure youll be fine My teacher is backing me for an A2/A1 and he doesnt make us learn things off, its a bad idea for English - know your stuff and do it on the day is the best way to do it. However, onto your next post:

PictureFrame wrote: »

Guys, do you think if I learned a Sample answer off really well for all of the Comparative Modes (LG, GV+V, T/I) do you think i'd get a question on the day where I could morph exactly what I had learnt to fit the question at hand? I'm fairly comfortable with LG, we started GV this week and it seems handy enough and T/I is just ridiculously easy!

I didnt do LG but GV+V is so so so easy. I learned off one answer and it came up in my christmas test and mocks, and we did pretty good comparatives so that always helps but I got 64/70 and 65/70 respectively by studying the night before. Its by far the easiest part of the course and for the most marks thats excellent. I dunno, I'd avoid LG if I were you tbh - its so different to the other two and so wishywashy imo.

leaveiton

Single Text - A Doll's House
One of the few schools not doing Hamlet as the single text. It's a short play so there's not much to it really. I'll be focusing on character studies, themes of power, lies and deception, role of men/women, significance of the title, cultural context, things like that.

Comparative - Hamlet, Inside I'm Dancing, How Many Miles to Bablyon
We haven't done LG yet so I'm not sure about that but I'll definitely be learning Theme and GV&V. We do suffering as our theme so a lot of what I can say for that ties in with GV&V as well.

Poetry
Here's where it gets risky So far we've done Plath, Larkin, Heaney, Kinsella and we're halfway through Kavanagh. I'm definitely studying Plath and Larkin, but I find it so hard to study the others because I haaaate them. :pac: I don't know if we'll be doing another poet after Kavanagh, so sadly I'm probably stuck with that lot. I doubt I'll leave any poets out but I'll probably study Plath and Larkin very well, Heaney and Kinsella reasonably well, and then just be able to answer on Kavanagh in case of an emergency. Not the best strategy, I know, but it's probably what it'll come to.

Won't be learning anything off because I feel it's a waste of time. As my English teacher always says, if you know your texts inside out, you can answer on anything they give you.

haro124

Hamlet - Imagery
Poetry- I have a horrible feeling Plath wont come up:(

Canard

haro124 wrote: »

Hamlet - Imagery
Poetry- I have a horrible feeling Plath wont come up:(

Same, apparently its gonna be 2010/Boland all over again :eek:

PictureFrame

Patchy~ wrote: »

Same, apparently its gonna be 2010/Boland all over again :eek:

Or it could be like the 2011 Boland and be a ridiculously hard question that people scored really bad on!

rkeano5

Patchy~ wrote: »

Same, apparently its gonna be 2010/Boland all over again :eek:

Don't say that, If neither Heaney or Plath comes up I'm screwed..:eek:

Canard

PictureFrame wrote: »

Or it could be like the 2011 Boland and be a ridiculously hard question that people scored really bad on!

Do you think it was that bad? My teacher went through it with us and it was the only time I've ever gotten 50/50 and he never gives that :pac: It's so handy, you can trawl through the poems and pick out all the images! But on the spot...that'd be hard yeah. Plaths poetry is so haunting though, youd be grand :P

rkeano5 wrote: »

Don't say that, If neither Heaney or Plath comes up I'm screwed..:eek:

Learn Larkin too!

SureYWouldntYa

FinnD wrote: »

When do they print the lc papers?

Middle of january, they're long done

rkeano5

Patchy~ wrote: »

Do you think it was that bad? My teacher went through it with us and it was the only time I've ever gotten 50/50 and he never gives that :pac: It's so handy, you can trawl through the poems and pick out all the images! But on the spot...that'd be hard yeah. Plaths poetry is so haunting though, youd be grand :P


Learn Larkin too!

We didn't do Larkin... and teaching myself would be far too much like hard work.

JonnyMcNamee

Poetry:
I'm hoping to have five/six poems done for the following poets
Rich, Heaney, Plath, Larkin.. Might do Kavanagh but he's just frustratingly boring!

Comparative:
Gonna do GvvP and Theme or Issue.. We haven't even done Lit.Gen in class but it doesn't look very appealing tbh :rolleyes:

Single Text-Hamlet:
Haven't really studied Hamlet at all but got a good mark on this question in the Mocks. By the end of Easter I'm hoping to have these essays written up and to have at least half studied well:
Theme of Deception
Theme of Revenge
Theme of Love
The Characterisation of women in the play and their dramatic importance.
The Importance of Soliloquys
Character of Hamlet
Character of Claudius
Character of Horatio

Got the highest in the year in English in the mck so really pushing for the A1 in June

hotfuzz2

JonnyMcNamee wrote: »

Poetry:
I'm hoping to have five/six poems done for the following poets
Rich, Heaney, Plath, Larkin.. Might do Kavanagh but he's just frustratingly boring!

Comparative:
Gonna do GvvP and Theme or Issue.. We haven't even done Lit.Gen in class but it doesn't look very appealing tbh :rolleyes:

Single Text-Hamlet:
Haven't really studied Hamlet at all but got a good mark on this question in the Mocks. By the end of Easter I'm hoping to have these essays written up and to have at least half studied well:
Theme of Deception
Theme of Revenge
Theme of Love
The Characterisation of women in the play and their dramatic importance.
The Importance of Soliloquys
Character of Hamlet
Character of Claudius
Character of Horatio

Got the highest in the year in English in the mck so really pushing for the A1 in June

Lucky you! Did you get an A1 in the mocks? Oh and what do you mean by "studying" those essays? Are you going to learn off the main points of each paragraph? I'm not sure if I should be learning essays off like everyone else

hotfuzz2

Would LOVE if Heaney came up

JonnyMcNamee

hotfuzz2 wrote: »

Lucky you! Did you get an A1 in the mocks? Oh and what do you mean by "studying" those essays? Are you going to learn off the main points of each paragraph? I'm not sure if I should be learning essays off like everyone else

No, the English was marked ridiculously unfairly so I only ended up with 78%. Was really disappointed and the teacher offered to recorrect the paper because she said she reckoned from looking through it that it seemed to be A2 standard but I decided against it. The way I look at it the grade I got will give me the kick up the arse I need :pac: I think learning essays off is fairly counter-productive unless you're good at manipulating them because if you go into an exam and spew out a learned answer you might not be answering the question fully. I'm just gonna learn off the main points and structure of my essays and just know all the texts inside out!

hotfuzz2

JonnyMcNamee wrote: »

No, the English was marked ridiculously unfairly so I only ended up with 78%. Was really disappointed and the teacher offered to recorrect the paper because she said she reckoned from looking through it that it seemed to be A2 standard but I decided against it. The way I look at it the grade I got will give me the kick up the arse I need :pac: I think learning essays off is fairly counter-productive unless you're good at manipulating them because if you go into an exam and spew out a learned answer you might not be answering the question fully. I'm just gonna learn off the main points and structure of my essays and just know all the texts inside out!

Yeah thats exactly what I'm going to do. Oh and btw my teacher done the exact opposite. She marked mine ridiculousy easy, she just put ticks everywhere with no comment so now I have no idea where I'm at and she gave me a much-undeserved A2, I should've gotten like a B3!

haro124

Patchy~ wrote: »

haro124 wrote: »

Hamlet - Imagery
Poetry- I have a horrible feeling Plath wont come up:(

Same, apparently its gonna be 2010/Boland all over again :eek:

Wouldnt you love the title to be ' A personal response to the poetry of Sylvia Plath '! I'm learning kinsella seeing that he hasnt come up in years

Canard

haro124 wrote: »

Wouldnt you love the title to be ' A personal response to the poetry of Sylvia Plath '! I'm learning kinsella seeing that he hasnt come up in years

It will never be that again, and thank god! I hate those types of essays...theyre way too broad, I prefer to get one that makes me think and show that I know the poet, not a learned off thing that any old eejit could waffle :pac:

Mysteriouschic

Hamlet
- I'll try and go over all the past papers and write an essay on each.
-I'll definitely learn all the solioquays

The Comparative

-How Many miles to Babylon , Dancing at Lughnasa , Inside I'm Dancing .
-Theme or Issue and General Viewpoint and Vision. I don't like LG.
-Learn off my notes.
-Learn the different compare and contrast words.

Poetry
-Eavan Boland (but she came up last year so not sure shes not on next years course though)
-Adrienne Rich
- Sylvia Plath
-Seamus Heaney (doing him next)
- Patrick Kavanagh(I need to look over his poems as the class had already finished him)
-Maybe Philip Larkin too..

I'll just try an know the 4 poems with the poet and practise different questions.

I haven't sat the english paper mock as I'm repeating and I did ordinary last year . I've done fairly well in my essays quite high grades I just need to learn everything well now. I need a B1.

FaoiSin

Emm

Comparitive:

The Great Gatsby
Dancing At Lughnasa
Casablanca

GV&V and Theme/Issue (There kind of similar aren't they?)

Poetry:
Larkin & Kavanagh (Done reasonably well)
Heaney & Kinsella (Working on these as my main 2)
Plath (Haven't done any work on her yet)

4 Poems for each should be enough? maybe 5 or 6 on some of them

Hamlet

Really need help here we haven't done anything but read the play tbh

Character Of Hamlet and the Role of Women maybe?

Got 78 in the mock but I have no real indication of where I am at as I never get any feedback off the teacher

acorn1702

I actually enjoy hamlet.. If you get involved with the play and start to study the characters in detail it actually becomes easy to transfer the information for broader questions.. even somewhat enjoyable! I don't have much done for the comparative unfortunately.. As for poets I will be doing Plath and Larkin in detail and maybe Heaney and Kinsella to a lesser extent.

BTW In Mock I got 78 in paper 1 and 40 in paper two... says it all really :P

skanger

I know 5 poets, just general introduction and theme answers

1. larkin
2. heaney
3. plath
4. frost
5. kinsella

I know all three comparative modes, Keynotes is a Godsend for this section

Hamlet is a slight issue at the moment.
I've covered

1. Polonius
2. Soliliquys
3. Women
4. Deception
5. Hamlet's character

I think it's safe to ignore a Claudius question this year, it's hard to see what else I'd need

Namlub

Anyone doing Laertes for Hamlet? I've suddenly become very paranoid that they might ask some Hamlet/Laertes/revenge question, no idea why...

Reprazent

Hamlet
Deception - Appearance/Reality
Role of Women
Hamlet character question
Revenge
Fillial Duty
I have a heap of notes, I like Hamlet and I find it easy.
Comparative
Casablanca, Wurthering Heights, Oedipus
Literary Genre - just overall points, not hard to structure an answer for this on the day
Gen Vision + Viewpoint - Same as my Lit Genre, I find comparative to be the easiest part of the course

Poetry
Plath - Everything there is
Heaney - Everything there is
Frost - I'll skim over him the night before for safety, wont put a lot of effort in him
Boland - Such a handy poet, Ill revise her enough to answer any question
Kavanagh - Everything there is also.

I'm quids in on Plath, Heaney and Kavanagh!

Paper 1
I read the sunday times every weekend and listen to This American Life every night while I go to bed. I would like to think my language standard is improving but I'm still consistantly getting B's and more so C's in class. Only got a C3 in mocks it was very disappointing.

Hoping for a B at least in the real thing but I'm not to positive about it. Got 310 overall in mocks

PictureFrame

Namlub wrote: »

Anyone doing Laertes for Hamlet? I've suddenly become very paranoid that they might ask some Hamlet/Laertes/revenge question, no idea why...

My Revenge (Theme answer) discusses and contrasts Hamlet, Laertes and Fortinbras as characters and avengers in the play, i'd say I could morph it if it came up!

Mysteriouschic

Any tips with how to learn off Hamlet quotes? an the soliloquies? we don't need to know the whole soliloquy just the important parts right? I haven't seen the play or watched the movie. I have the movie on dvd but always find it boring.

I was thinking of either rewriting them out a few times on a page and learning the others with my notes. I currently don't know any of the quotes as I only picked up Hamlet last year I did fine in the essay but I had the quotes in front of me.

How many essays a week is everyone doing to practice Hamlet or the comparative or the poetry?

PictureFrame

Mysteriouschic wrote: »

Any tips with how to learn off Hamlet quotes? an the soliloquies? we don't need to know the whole soliloquy just the important parts right? I haven't seen the play or watched the movie. I have the movie on dvd but always find it boring.

I was thinking of either rewriting them out a few times on a page and learning the others with my notes. I currently don't know any of the quotes as I only picked up Hamlet last year I did fine in the essay but I had the quotes in front of me.

How many essays a week is everyone doing to practice Hamlet or the comparative or the poetry?

If I get a Comparative Essay for the weekend I only usually do that. If I get any other essay, be it Paper I, Hamlet, Poetry I usually do 2 essays!

My Teacher's a bit of a joke though, 3 of us gave her a General Vision essay on Monday (the other 17 people were too lazy too even attempt it). I was hoping to get it back before the Holidays so I could revise over my mistakes etc. I said it to her today had she got them corrected yet? 'I'm far too busy these, days I haven't even looked at the beauties' was her reply! Thanks for that! :P

Mysteriouschic

PictureFrame wrote: »

If I get a Comparative Essay for the weekend I only usually do that. If I get any other essay, be it Paper I, Hamlet, Poetry I usually do 2 essays!

My Teacher's a bit of a joke though, 3 of us gave her a General Vision essay on Monday (the other 17 people were too lazy too even attempt it). I was hoping to get it back before the Holidays so I could revise over my mistakes etc. I said it to her today had she got them corrected yet? 'I'm far too busy these, days I haven't even looked at the beauties' was her reply! Thanks for that! :P

That reminds me of my geography teacher I handed him a copy of work 2 weeks ago to correct hes still not given it to me back...

Oh my teacher usually just gives us 1/2 essays as we complete each poet , comparative , Hamlet etc. Then thats all she gives us. She usually gives us a week or sometimes a few days. Most of the time I'm one of the only few people who hand work up even though I sometimes go over the deadline she sets I always hand work up. The comparative essay takes me too long to write the 70 marks question. My teacher isn't focusing on paper 1 until we come back. I probably need to try and learn Patrick Kavanagh as I wasn't in the class when she did those poems.

Haha maybe she'll give it to you by Friday. What essays are you going to do over Easter?

LoonyLovegood

Hamlet
Role of women
Hamlet
Hamlet's relationship with Claudius
Hamlet's relationship with Gertrude
Hamlet's relationship with Ophelia
Deception
Revenge
Love
Polonius/Ophelia/Laertes

Comparative
Emma, The Great Gatsby, How Many Miles To Babylon

Poetry
Heaney, Kinsella, Plath, Rich, Larkin.

I'm going to learn Plath and Larkin REALLY well (despite my two favourite poems by each of them not being on the course), Heaney fairly well, and be able to answer on Rich and Kinsella just in case.

haro124

RIP Adrienne Rich !:( I don't no if theyre able to change papers this late but if they are very high chance she'll come up

Namlub

Did she just die today? :eek:

haro124

Namlub wrote: »

Did she just die today? :eek:

Yep and in no way am I trying to be disrespectful to her! She was a great poet!

Chuchoter

Just wondering, how do you guys study for English? I write essays but I feel its really timeconsuming :S

Wesc.

Just wondering, what type of questions are ye studying by a Hamlet character question? Like his change, is he a noble hero, but what else?


Oh and is everyone using key notes? I really hope not but from what I've heard half the country use it! :eek:

Wesc.

Chuchoter wrote: »

Just wondering, how do you guys study for English? I write essays but I feel its really timeconsuming :S

Yeah I'm the same but its got to be done innit.

Well, for poetry I just learn off an essay on poetic techniques and/or the main theme and that's it. For comparitive I learnt off an essay on V&V and just fit it in . For hamlet I (admittedly copied PictureFrame's idea) write out essay plans.

God that probably didn't help much but dinner's ready so I had to write quick. :pac:

Mysteriouschic

Wesc. wrote: »

Just wondering, what type of questions are ye studying by a Hamlet character question? Like his change, is he a noble hero, but what else?


Oh and is everyone using key notes? I really hope not but from what I've heard half the country use it! :eek:

I haven't got key notes was going to get it but they didn't have the version I wanted when I went to look they just had Macbeth. I just use the notes my teacher gave me and other sample essays that I have and try and use certain points.
I must be one of the few that hasn't got key notes.

Mysteriouschic

Does anyone else use Poetry Notes? I find this book to be really helpful when writing answers. I use it a long with my poetry book.