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| You surveying coursework choices, aka 'Wanderer Above The Sea of Fog' |
Thanks for the essays I’ve received so far. I’ll be doing
feedback and writing my own today. If you haven’t done it yet, please make sure
yours is with me asap. Remember, it's just a 30 minute essay - and it's probably the last one of the year! You can find the title, plan and guidance here.
Today, we’ll turn our attention to coursework. Most of the
stuff I’m about to show you is stuff you’ll have seen before, but as the first
of the in-school catch-up meetings is on Monday, I thought it would be a good idea if you’d
already given it some consideration.
Before we get to the tasks, here’s a quick reminder of what your
coursework involves:
Click here
for a more detailed explanation.
In terms of the prose coursework, you need to choose either
a novel, a novella or some short stories (by a single author). I suggest that
you read a few texts over the summer to make sure you have options and to give
yourself a chance to find a text and task that you really love. Usually, I end
Year 12 by getting students to make a written pledge to read at least 3 or 4
books. We’ll do the same over the next few weeks.
WARNING: The prose coursework is particularly
challenging and can go badly wrong. It
differs from the poetry coursework in that you have to write a short essay
about a much bigger text. It’s easy to bite off more than you can chew. It’s vital
to be selective and get the balance right between your assessment objectives.
Too often, I get first drafts that ignore the writer’s methods because students
try to cover everything in little depth and don’t know the text well enough to
be selective and focused on details. Every year, I have a few students who get
completely lost, or who write such terrible first drafts that they have to
start from scratch. A few years ago, I had two students (who were aiming for A
grades) whose coursework was an E grade until they did a late, complete
re-write. One of them even chose a new text and question with just a month to
go. I’m getting palpitations just thinking about it - they did both get As in the end, though. 😅 Every year, I tell myself
that the coursework is so painful that next time I’m not going to give you as
much freedom. However, this unit is called ‘Theory and Independence’, and I
think it’s important to offer you that independence. But here’s my warning:
a) if you think you’ll need a
lot of support, choose something on my list or something I know well, and…
b) choose something fairly
short, or…
c) choose a narrow focus for
your question
This is why the 1984/Feminism
question has worked well; even though it’s a big text, the focus is narrow
(there is only one major female character and a handful of significant minor female
characters) – and I know the text inside out.
If you choose a text that I don’t
know or that hasn’t been done before, you have to convince me that you know
what you’re doing – and then you have to accept the burden of responsibility.
Okay, warning over.
Here’s your work (for Monday):
1) Reacquaint yourself with these two documents…
Make a note of anything that sounds appealing and do some research into any texts that you like the sound of. You might want to get hold of some texts for summer reading in preparation for the coursework.
2) Have a browse through my old coursework posts for
more prose coursework inspiration.
3) Read the ‘narrative theory’ section of your Critical
Anthology, plus one other section that interests you. If you’ve mislaid your anthology, there’s a digital copy here:
4) On or before Monday, give me an idea of what kind of texts/tasks sound appealing to you. These are just tentative early ideas. There's no pressure to make up your mind until September. If you are meeting me on Monday morning, you can tell me about it then. If not, drop me a brief email with your thoughts about what you think you might read or what caught your eye. Failing that, just let me know what kinds of books you find appealing, or other things that you've read that you liked. From there, I can give you further guidance.
Okay?
Next week, you’ll continue your
coursework thinking / researching/ reading, and I’ll give you a couple of
revision tasks to get on with too.
Get in touch if you have any
questions about coursework – or if you just need someone to bounce ideas off.
Mr M
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