JUNIOR CERT ENGLISH PAPER

MrJones1973

Just had a quick look at both levels. Its certainly a shake up. I was glad the novel appeared at Ordinary level and the Play at Higher level but I think its a fundamental flaw of the curriculum that you can spend a huge amount of time covering Shakespeare and it might not come up. Thus temptation might be not to spend much time on the great master?

I found it hard to cover the course. I had a mixed group. Both levels. Wide disparity.

Eireann88

My son did ordinary level English paper and answered the novel question about war horse, does that mean that he will not get any marks for his answer or because war horse is a novel as well as adapted for screen play will he be able to get marks for his answer

MrJones1973

Eireann88 wrote: »

My son did ordinary level English paper and answered the novel question about war horse, does that mean that he will not get any marks for his answer or because war horse is a novel as well as adapted for screen play will he be able to get marks for his answer

It depends whether warhorse is a prescribed novel. They just can't do any novel. Goggle prescribed texts JC English (new)

maynooth_rules

Multiple choice questions have no place whatsoever on a higher level paper.
Much too much importance given to media studies in the exam and its shameful for teachers to spend so long on novels and then students have no opportunity to show their work on it.

Eireann88

It's not on the novel list it's on the play list - that's the issue
One teacher said that it depends on the examiner but surely the examiners have certain criteria to follow when correcting a paper i.e. If the child writes about the play instead of the novel is it a straight 0

Crazyteacher

I would say that's a zero all right. I corrected mocks and we were instructed to give a zero is cases such as that. maybe the sec will be kinder but I doubt it.

MrJones1973

Don't panic too much. They will mark rest pretty easy and his LC teacher should take it into account when deciding levels.

Amber 123

I spent so long on Mockingbird and then spent ages on comparing it to their 2nd year novel because of those two pesky comparative questions on the sample papers. It's difficult not to think of that as wasted time. Shakespeare question and poetry question were both very straightforward - manageable for lots of different abilities but also gave scope for stronger students to show off their knowledge.

MrJones1973

Amber 123 wrote: »

I spent so long on Mockingbird and then spent ages on comparing it to their 2nd year novel because of those two pesky comparative questions on the sample papers. It's difficult not to think of that as wasted time. Shakespeare question and poetry question were both very straightforward - manageable for lots of different abilities but also gave scope for stronger students to show off their knowledge.

Having done the course once I will still focus on the play and books because If they give an exam with both gone then we truly are doing a Mickey mouse education system.
I found it hard to finish course so I think I will start being exam focused from first year. Ie start the poems they will focus on in third year. Perhaps even the novel. My students are weak. Out of 23 students I really only have five honours and even they won't go much beyond a C