ADVICE ideas to help a leaving cert ordinary level student with Circle of Friends

Nicole.

Hi, I'm currently involved with providing learning support for a Sixth Year student who is having a lot of problems with Circle of Friends for their single text. I have never done this before as I am only a teaching assistant who is working with an experienced qualified teacher but I am seeking extra advice on how to help the student.

I was thinking of approaching the next few lessons covering a few major themes whist simultaneously reminding them of key moments in the text and character traits. I was going to go over all of the female characters first and how they deal with the obstacles which they encounter such as women's expected role in society, women's status, changing gender roles, and their domestic lives.Following this I was going to examine the presentation of male characters, whether they are shown in an optimistic or pessimistic light, or both! I was going to look at their attitudes towards women.

I thought I'd tie this up with discussing relationships between men and women, changes which were occurring in society at this time, and resistance against these changes. Furthermore, I wanted to consider rural versus urban supposed differences, religion, and social class. Finally, I will look at whether or not this novel has any relevance today for young people especially.

What do you think, have I left anything out? It is a huge task because I only have one class period per week but I hope to get everything reinforced that the student has already learnt in class over the course of a few weeks.

If anyone had any good online resources or anything which may be useful for me please let me know! I just want to help this student reach their goals.

Thank you.

RH149

I haven't taught this in several years but the last time I did it with an Ord. Level group what they found difficult was the sheer volume of text- its a long book for students who generally don't like to read and that is what is most challenging for them. Simplify it....the issues you plan on covering with just one period a week would be fine it she was a HL student or even doing it as part of a comparative study where you need to focus on for example, optimistic/pessimistic views for the General Vision mode but for OL Single Text I would be just focussing on Main Characters, Relationships between these main characters and main themes.


I'd do more than that in class (but not a whole lot more as its easy to flog a book to death with Ord Level and lose their interest) but as extra resource I'd just be reinforcing the basics and focussing on getting her to give personal responses to the characters and themes....lots of 'I statements' on characters and themes will improve her chances of higher marks than the more detailed analysis you expect at Higher level. Spend some of those classes doing past exam questions with her-show her how to plan and structure the answer and avoid just retelling the story (most common pitfall) and weave in lots of personal responses.


Hope that helps!