Lockdown Literature 13.2

Oh hi,

Thanks for the coursework questionnaire responses last time. There are lots of interesting ideas and it’s pleasing to see that many of you are already reading with the coursework in mind. It’s still here if you haven’t done it yet. At the bottom of this blog, I’ve answered a couple of your recent questions.

Remember, next time I’m going to be asking for you to make a solemn pledge and confirm to me what you will read over the summer. This is an important step as you MUST have done some coursework-related reading by September as we’ll be having one-to-one meetings to plan coursework. It’ll be too late by then for you to start reading.

 

Anyway, here’s your work (for Monday):

1) Do this short tragedy recap.

2) Do the Othello extract annotation task from last time. I’m still waiting for quite a few of them. If you want another one, here’s one!

Just follow these steps:

1. Click the link above and make your own copy of the extract doc.
2. Without your copy of the text, annotate the extract as you would in the first 10 minutes of the exam.
3. In particular, you need to make notes on a) aspects of tragedy; and b) Shakespeare’s methods
4. When you’ve done what you can, open up your text and see if you’ve missed anything important.
5. Send me a link to your annotated doc.
6. Optional extra task: have a go at the question!

3) Continue to do some research, reading and thinking about coursework options. All the info and docs you need can be found in Lockdown Lit 11.

Optional extras:

4) Want another great short story? Let’s try The Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

You can read the story here:

5) Prep for September by watching the 1985 movie adaptation of Death of a Salesman, starring Dustin Hoffman and John Malkovich. It’s brilliant.

That’s all for today. We’ll probably just do one final post next week before the summer. Apart from that, I’ll just be chasing up a few of you who have gone quiet! In the meantime, let me know if you need anything.

Mr M

Your questions answered:

Q) If a second spike occurs what will happen closer to exam season?

A) We don’t know yet, but contingency planning is under way.

Q) What proportion, if any, of next year will be set aside for revision?

A) In the first term, we have to do Death of a Salesman and coursework. There will probably be a bit of finishing of off these after Christmas, but hopefully not much. From late Jan/early Feb, we’ll do Lamia and revision. So we should have a good three months of revision and exam prep in class.

Q) Should we get a copy of Death of a Salesman?

A) Yes. We’ll be starting Salesman in September. The best thing to do is annotate your copy as we read, so you’ll need one if you want to do this.

Q) When should we start writing the coursework?

A) NOT YET. At the moment, all you have to do is read, read, read. In September, we’ll do task-setting and we’ll talk about the planning process. The writing will be done in focused stages to ensure that you are in control of your word count. We’ll have mini-deadlines for the intro, the first 500 words and a first full draft so that I can see that you’re on the right lines. Please don’t take it upon yourself to write a draft before September. Someone did this last year and had to a) write it again, and then b) start from scratch with a new text, task and question.

Q) How does the re-creative task work?

A) Good question. Here’s AQA’s explanation, with an example task:

And here are two exemplar student responses to have a look at:

Ulysses

Pride and Prejudice

I’ve only had a handful of re-creative pieces over the years, but they usually work quite well. If you’re a bit essayed out, why not give it some thought?

That’s all. Hit me with questions if any more occur.