Hi folks,
just to let those of you who are interested in the revision sessions know that Monday's session will be entitled "How to Write the Perfect Critical Essay". This is a session quite a few of you could do with!!
We will be looking at introductions, use of quotations and answering the question!!!
Looking forward to seeing you there!
Friday, January 19, 2007
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Prelim Date
Just to let you know folks that the prelim date has been changed form the 1st of February to the 5th. That gives you a few more days to learn those quotes!!!
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
The Prelim!!!
The prelim (just like the final exam) consists of two papers. Paper 1 is a close reading paper and paper 2 is the critical essay paper.
Paper 1:
You have 90 minutes to read and answer questions on two passages. The examiner will be testing your skills in Understanding, Analysis and Evaluation.
Understanding: In your own words and context questions
Analysis: link question, sentence structure, imagery, word choice.
Evaluation: the last question will always ask you to compare the two passages and show which passage you think is the most effective at conveying the information in a certain way. This question is always worth a number of marks and should be treating like a mini essay. You must comment on both passages if you hope to gain full marks.
Paper 2:
You have to write two essays in 90 minutes (roughly 45 minutes each) on two different genre. You cannot write two essays from the same section.
The examiner will be looking to see your understanding of the text, your understanding of the question, your analysis skills, your evaluation skills and you actual writing ability. You can fail on your own inability to spell, punctuate or structure.
You must finish the essays or you will automatically fail.
Paper 1:
You have 90 minutes to read and answer questions on two passages. The examiner will be testing your skills in Understanding, Analysis and Evaluation.
Understanding: In your own words and context questions
Analysis: link question, sentence structure, imagery, word choice.
Evaluation: the last question will always ask you to compare the two passages and show which passage you think is the most effective at conveying the information in a certain way. This question is always worth a number of marks and should be treating like a mini essay. You must comment on both passages if you hope to gain full marks.
Paper 2:
You have to write two essays in 90 minutes (roughly 45 minutes each) on two different genre. You cannot write two essays from the same section.
The examiner will be looking to see your understanding of the text, your understanding of the question, your analysis skills, your evaluation skills and you actual writing ability. You can fail on your own inability to spell, punctuate or structure.
You must finish the essays or you will automatically fail.
Revision Sessions
I have put time aside after school on the following days for revision sessions. These will last for an hour and I am leaving them open to you regarding their subject matter. At least one of these will be writing an essay and I am leaving the others open to you depending on what you would like to go over. All suggestions should be posted on here by the end of the week.
Dates:
Monday 22 January
Wednesday 24 January
Monday 29 January
Wednesday 31 January
Remember that the prelim is on the 1st of February. These sessions are not compluslory but an option for those of you who are starting to panic!
Dates:
Monday 22 January
Wednesday 24 January
Monday 29 January
Wednesday 31 January
Remember that the prelim is on the 1st of February. These sessions are not compluslory but an option for those of you who are starting to panic!
Monday, January 15, 2007
Church Going
This is a copy of the next poem we will study called "Church Going" and it was written by Philip Larkin.
Once I am sure there's nothing going on
I step inside, letting the door thud shut.
Another church: matting, seats, and stone,
And little books; sprawlings of flowers, cut
For Sunday, brownish now; some brass and stuff
Up at the holy end; the small neat organ;
And a tense, musty, unignorable silence,
Brewed God knows how long. Hatless, I take off
My cycle-clips in awkward reverence.
Move forward, run my hand around the font.
From where I stand, the roof looks almost new -
Cleaned, or restored? Someone would know: I don't.
Mounting the lectern, I peruse a few
Hectoring large-scale verses, and pronounce
'Here endeth' much more loudly than I'd meant.
The echoes snigger briefly. Back at the door
I sign the book, donate an Irish sixpence,
Reflect the place was not worth stopping for.
Yet stop I did: in fact I often do,
And always end much at a loss like this,
Wondering what to look for; wondering, too,
When churches will fall completely out of use
What we shall turn them into, if we shall keep
A few cathedrals chronically on show,
Their parchment, plate and pyx in locked cases,
And let the rest rent-free to rain and sheep.
Shall we avoid them as unlucky places?
Or, after dark, will dubious women come
To make their children touch a particular stone;
Pick simples for a cancer; or on some
Advised night see walking a dead one?
Power of some sort will go on
In games, in riddles, seemingly at random;
But superstition, like belief, must die,
And what remains when disbelief has gone?
Grass, weedy pavement, brambles, buttress, sky,
A shape less recognisable each week,
A purpose more obscure. I wonder who
Will be the last, the very last, to seek
This place for what it was; one of the crew
That tap and jot and know what rood-lofts were?
Some ruin-bibber, randy for antique,
Or Christmas-addict, counting on a whiff
Of gown-and-bands and organ-pipes and myrrh?
Or will he be my representative,
Bored, uninformed, knowing the ghostly silt
Dispersed, yet tending to this cross of ground
Through suburb scrub because it held unspilt
So long and equably what since is found
Only in separation - marriage, and birth,
And death, and thoughts of these - for which was built
This special shell? For, though I've no idea
What this accoutred frowsty barn is worth,
It pleases me to stand in silence here;
A serious house on serious earth it is,
In whose blent air all our compulsions meet,
Are recognized, and robed as destinies.
And that much never can be obsolete,
Since someone will forever be surprising
A hunger in himself to be more serious,
And gravitating with it to this ground,
Which, he once heard, was proper to grow wise in,
If only that so many dead lie round.
Once I am sure there's nothing going on
I step inside, letting the door thud shut.
Another church: matting, seats, and stone,
And little books; sprawlings of flowers, cut
For Sunday, brownish now; some brass and stuff
Up at the holy end; the small neat organ;
And a tense, musty, unignorable silence,
Brewed God knows how long. Hatless, I take off
My cycle-clips in awkward reverence.
Move forward, run my hand around the font.
From where I stand, the roof looks almost new -
Cleaned, or restored? Someone would know: I don't.
Mounting the lectern, I peruse a few
Hectoring large-scale verses, and pronounce
'Here endeth' much more loudly than I'd meant.
The echoes snigger briefly. Back at the door
I sign the book, donate an Irish sixpence,
Reflect the place was not worth stopping for.
Yet stop I did: in fact I often do,
And always end much at a loss like this,
Wondering what to look for; wondering, too,
When churches will fall completely out of use
What we shall turn them into, if we shall keep
A few cathedrals chronically on show,
Their parchment, plate and pyx in locked cases,
And let the rest rent-free to rain and sheep.
Shall we avoid them as unlucky places?
Or, after dark, will dubious women come
To make their children touch a particular stone;
Pick simples for a cancer; or on some
Advised night see walking a dead one?
Power of some sort will go on
In games, in riddles, seemingly at random;
But superstition, like belief, must die,
And what remains when disbelief has gone?
Grass, weedy pavement, brambles, buttress, sky,
A shape less recognisable each week,
A purpose more obscure. I wonder who
Will be the last, the very last, to seek
This place for what it was; one of the crew
That tap and jot and know what rood-lofts were?
Some ruin-bibber, randy for antique,
Or Christmas-addict, counting on a whiff
Of gown-and-bands and organ-pipes and myrrh?
Or will he be my representative,
Bored, uninformed, knowing the ghostly silt
Dispersed, yet tending to this cross of ground
Through suburb scrub because it held unspilt
So long and equably what since is found
Only in separation - marriage, and birth,
And death, and thoughts of these - for which was built
This special shell? For, though I've no idea
What this accoutred frowsty barn is worth,
It pleases me to stand in silence here;
A serious house on serious earth it is,
In whose blent air all our compulsions meet,
Are recognized, and robed as destinies.
And that much never can be obsolete,
Since someone will forever be surprising
A hunger in himself to be more serious,
And gravitating with it to this ground,
Which, he once heard, was proper to grow wise in,
If only that so many dead lie round.
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