JC English 2025 Short Story!

Are you really for real?? Have you never heard students claiming "we never did this" when the teachers have the "this" in question 100 per cent covered. You have never heard them exaggerate what a teacher might have or have not done, have or have not said?? Really, a bunch of teenagers? You would be a first!

So ok we will follow your logic. In English the specs say "a number" of short stories. And a "variety" of literary texts. No upper quantity on a "number" and a "variety" specified. Can we agree? So perhaps in next year's exam why not ask the students to refer to 2, maybe 3 short stories? And maybe throw in a question on 1,2 or 3 literary texts and make the students be specific? As in give the names and titles of the texts and the specifics. Why not as it's all on the course and that is exactly what they did this year.

And people like you are saying that the English class must now be held ransom to what is on an impossibly wide course and an anyone's guess exam!

Very happy to be called arrogant if that is what it takes to defend myself, younger and as you put it "lesser informed teachers" from extremely unfair criticism. Which is what this is. I have taken great pains in my posts above to explain the exact nature of the course and the almost limitless broadness. Other posters have pointed out the constraints of timetabling, too many subjects,too much material,too little time. In fact too much of everything except time, but yet people will still doggedly blame the teacher when things go wrong. Yet I'm the arrogant one!

The finger of blame needs to be pointed at the NCCA and the SEC. The junior cycle English course needs to be considerably narrowed and the entire exam format needs to be overhauled. There is no set lay out as there is in the current LC exam paper. No set length of sections or questions, just basically a lot of questions of varying marks, each one compulsory, absolutely no choice and all to be answered in a narrow two hour time limit. A stressful experience for a very first state exam, small wonder many can't cope with it. And then throw in something completely random from the vague plethora of unprescribed just to confuse them even more!

Ba ya, sure it's all the teacher's fault!🙄

I've heard plenty of students say that over the years, but also with a healthy dose of 'actually we did do that from other students'. Many students were saying they hadn't done the short story - that is indicative of a problem.

Using your example where you reckon that students could potentially be asked to compare three short stories - is that a realistic English question? Has that ever happened in the old Junior Cert or the Leaving Cert?

This question asked about one short story, yet lots of students were not able to answer it on one short story. I don't believe that they all forgot that they did short stories. I just don't think that's plausible. Some will have done a short story, but also some won't have done one at all, and that should be acknowledged.

I have met plenty of teachers across different subjects over the years who simply did not teach sections of their courses because they could avoid them with choice on their subject paper, but often it left students with no choice. That's changing with the nature of the Junior Cycle papers and to an extent the new Senior Cycle papers, so it will reduce the opportunity to leave something out in terms of teaching and/or revision.

Just re read your first two paragraphs and spot your own contradictions. Because they're laughable. I'm not tech savy enough to copy bits of posts on this newer edition of boards so let me take the touble to actually type what you posted:

"Is this a realistic English question? Has that ever happened in the old Junior Cert or Leaving Cert?"

Just go back and read that again because that is EXACTLY what happened on 4/6/25. A question that NEVER happened in the old Junior or Leaving. That is why I'm so angry with the unfounded and unfair criticism.

It is very plausible that next year they will ask god knows what! So fine every English teacher scurries into class flogging every aspect of a huge course, exhausting their students but covering their asses or god forbid!! And hello! Exam now asks for 2 specific short stories. Or a similarly narrowed down compulsory question on any 2, maybe 3 literary texts. One year they asked for refererence to any 3 poems, not 1 or 2. So yes it can happen!

But hey you are still going around talking to "many students" and summarily condemning your English teacher colleagues deciding it's "indicative of a problem."

I'd say you've not read one of my posts on this whole issue but just enjoying a bit of anonymous teacher bashing! Go into your staffroom when school resumes in autumn and go up to your English dept and attack them as you are doing here. Somehow I doubt you'll do that!

There's no such thing as 'doing the short story.' There's no 'the short story' that you have to 'do.' I'm not sure how you might have carried out this exhaustive survey of your staff but I suspect you misunderstood something.

What happens is that you read short stories in first and second year, but you do it as a way to teach the layout of dialogue or effective use of descriptive writing or something. You use the story as a frame to teach something and then you hope they remember the skills and you don't worry about whether they remember the specific story. You don't drill the correct title of the story or the name of the author into them.

This is often done using the short stories that are in the textbook or it could be a resource you have been using for years. It doesn't matter.

We study particular novels, particular dramas and films. We also read from a wide range of other texts and genres - reviews, news reports, ads, information leaflets, letters, essays, celebrity gossip…. almost anything is on the table. You look at these pieces with a view to extracting and synthesizing important features, not with a view to studying the texts themselves.

But you're not teaching the old course now, you're teaching a new one, so you can expect there to be a different style of question on it. And I wasn't referring specifically to a question on the short story, more to the hyperbole from yourself suggesting that if they are asked about 1 short story this year, it could be 2 or 3 next year. That is my question: is comparison of three texts a typical English question?

And I have read all your posts on the issue, I do read posts before I respond, but unlike yourself, I don't respond with aggression.

That makes sense to me and is in the spirit of the new JC as I understand it...

So then turning around and deciding to ask for a specific/particular short story would seem to be a retrograde step....I'd imagine it would encourage more rote learning ...something I thought there was supposed to be less focus on in favour of developing skills or competencies as I heard recently...

I wonder would it be fair to say this is more of a blunder made by those who set the paper rather/moreso than those teaching it.

Again more evidence that you don't read posts and you clearly don't even remember what you have posted yourself.

Because it was YOU who mentioned the old Junior Cert, not me. You asked if a number of texts had ever been asked before in a question and I answered that indeed 3 specific poems had to be referenced one year.

What you think is my hyperbole is your clear ignorance of the English course. Because another thing we are expected to teach them is the ability to compare. We teach them to compare the two novels, the two dramas and some poems. So it is absolutely feasible that a comparative question be asked with reference to any number of texts.

I couldn't care a jot if you find me aggressive. I'm really annoyed at your tone and the implied accusation that we English teachers aren't doing our jobs properly. I'm blue in the face from trying to explain it and several other English teachers have now come on as well explaining the same thing. But you and some other posters are simply not heeding.

I hate the element of mindreading we're supposed to have magically mastered. Nobody will tell us what aspects of poetry/film/fiction/nonfiction/media/advertising we're supposed to have covered but the questions in the exam can be very specific. There's no list of terms that I can look at and say 'Well, we've covered each one of those so I know I have prepared them for the exam.'

I was at one of the utterly pointless cluster day yawnfests a few years ago and the bright little girlie at the front of the room was trying to get us all enthusiastic about teaching the film. One teacher asked if they need to understand mis en scene.

"Oh yes," said the girlie, very decisively.

"Camera angles?" asked another teacher.

"Oh yes," said the girlie again, full of confidence.

"The difference between diegetic and non-diegetic elements?" asked a third teacher.

The girlie shook her head and smiled. "Oh no," she said with unwavering certainty.

So obviously somebody asked how she knew that. What list of terms did she have access that she wasn't sharing with us? How could she be so very, very sure unless there was a list of terms?

She panicked for a moment and then said dismissively, "Well, I've never heard of dijet- whatever you said."

She moved on quickly to explaining how youtube works or something so there were no follow-up questions but she was obviously under the impression that the limits of her (very limited) knowledge were perfectly aligned with the limits of the English syllabus.

And that's the major problem with the exam. I might mention something like iambic pentameter in passing and you might spend a few classes on it. Another teacher might not think to discuss it at all. But there could easily be a very specific question on the exam that requires a full understanding of iambic pentameter. The teacher who didn't mention it might have done a terrific job of explaining how Shakespeare's plays were staged, that class might have a very vivid understanding of the conventions of 16th century stagecraft and the Globe Theatre and the gods and the groundlings and all that great stuff. Until the day of the exam, nobody knows which of us happened to get it right that year.

Because you can't teach it all.

There is no helping those who do not want to understand.

Just to be pedantic.... zero is a number.

JCT and all of its "unpacking the curriculum" nonsense is what leads to situations like the unhappiness at the exam paper this year.

Because she was a silly twit.