Struggling with HL English?!?

IrishLassie26

Hi everyone!

English has never been my strong point but this year I seem to be struggling all the more. I am usually an A student in all my other subjects but I only ever get low grades in English. I don't know whether it's my teacher that is very picky or me that is terrible at English! He says that I am not direct and my expression is lacking?!?

During the Christmas tests I didn't even manage to get a full poetry question answered in the 50mins I can write a decent essay or answers for homework but when it comes to the exam, everything goes out of my head and I start waffling Any advice?

I am wondering for the poetry question do ye learn off full essays and make slight adjustments in the exam or do you try and write it from scratch in those 50mins?

Also, I know this is a common question but really, how do you study for English personally?

Thanks for your help! Any advice is greatly appreciated as I really want to improve

dwayneshintzy

Do you do any planning before you start writing your essays, or do you go straight into answering? Get some scrap paper in the exam, give yourself 5-10 minutes to jot down some bullet points/ideas. Arrange these into different parts of your essay; intro, argument, conclusion.

Learning off an entire essay is pointless. But you're not "writing from scratch"; you can do some practise essays of course, but also make sure to have "key points" learned off for each poet. Little prompts for yourself that are easy to remember, and can be expounded on into a paragraph.

spurious

Read. All styles and from all centuries.
Then read some more.

nermal15

I second the suggestion to plan your essay in detail before you start and have key points learned. Every paragraph should be directly relevant to the question so planning is essential to stay on topic!