Ugh...

Cheese Head · Tue 08 Feb, 2005 20.18

Grrr...

English coursework, in for tommorrow afternoon 4th period and I'm just at the end of one of two essays that have to be written.

Shakespeare, and Charles Fucking Dickens.

I hate Shakespeare, but i can tollerate it. This essay is coming along quite nicely but atm I'm in a frame of mind thats preventing me from, in plain english, being arsed.

Now, Dickens, I can't fucking stand, and bringing myself to read past the second page is going to numb my mind, possibly more so that analyzing his crappy story about some Signalman.

Just thought I'd share my distressed rant with you all, as I sit here relctantly diciphering/analyzing some dull story written in an arcahic style which I can barely stand.

*cry*

Pete · Tue 08 Feb, 2005 20.37

I find Shakespeare only makes sense if you read it through properly in class (i.e. and act at a time not a scene) or go to see it performed.

Johnny · Tue 08 Feb, 2005 21.08

I hated English, especially when we had to do poetry :roll: , apparently poems don't have to rhyme

nwtv2003 · Tue 08 Feb, 2005 22.01

Johnny wrote:I hated English, especially when we had to do poetry :roll: , apparently poems don't have to rhyme

When I did GCSE English, I was in the top Set 1, which meant alot was expected from us, half of the time I didn't have a clue, but I didn't know how I survived in the that set for all of the GCSE. We got off lucky Shakespeare wise, we only read Romeo and Juliet, even then that was crap, but we saw the film and that made it more interesting.

Though we had to read almost everything out of the 'Anthology', for those who did the English papers on AQA IIRC, they were annoying. It was even more annoying when they said you were allowed to write notes, but not too many! As you could take it into the English Literature exam with you.

My teacher thought that at the rate I was going in his group, he thought that I wouldn't have been able to reach my target grade of C/B. But I did, I got a B at English Language and a C at English Literature. But the Language paper was easy IMO, one of the questions was IIRC....

Compare the style of language used from a 1940's cookbook and the Jamie Oliver cookbook

...there were exerts of both books on the paper, which made it dead easy IMO, another question was 'describe a place you hate', that again wasn't a problem. The sad thing was I knew people who struggled with that paper, I found it really easy. I even remember the Daily Mail published an article about the Question I've just quoted, the DM complaining about the standards of the English Language papers.

iSon · Tue 08 Feb, 2005 22.31

Cheese Head wrote:Now, Dickens, I can't fucking stand, and bringing myself to read past the second page is going to numb my mind, possibly more so that analyzing his crappy story about some Signalman.

I've recently read Hard Times as a part of my uni work, and although it wouldn't have been my first choice of bedside reading material, once you start taking it apart in certain contexts then you realise how clever it is (Although I preferred Trollope's The Way We Live Now) - wouldn't have dreamed of reading and enjoying these books a year ago. It's what uni does for you kids.

Trouble with English full stop is you have to read and learn about things in a very broad context. It doesn't really have an answer with such a wide remit and you have to focus. "Analyse the language" questions are always the worst. And you're always expected to write 1000 words with what could be said in 10. Or 1 (Crap) in most cases.

Thank goodness all that GCSE/A-Level rubbish is out of the way. It's much more enjoyable writing about things you never knew existed, and visiting Southwark Crown Court to see the chavs of South London being sent down. Justice.

Cheese Head · Tue 08 Feb, 2005 23.24

I actually enjoy english, especially when it comes to writing.I'm expected a B, and a B is what I am aiming for. English is acutally one of my strongest subjects.

I aggree about having to analyze the language - I hate doing that. "this word used by that author suggests to us the way that chracter feels, however in conjunction with this word in changes the said definition to show a deeper insight into the character". So tedious... So tedious...

Fireboy · Wed 09 Feb, 2005 00.09

I did my Shakespeare last week. Since I didn't understand "A Midsummer Night's Dream" (written) I did an oral assesment on Macbeth instead, though I didn't have much prior warning and had to do most of the assesment from memory, as I haven't read to book for almost 2 years. It's holiday time in Co. Durham right now though, all the others are next week. Time for the retail therapy.

Oh, are you doing Great Expectations? I did that last year, 2 essays, one for Charachterisation and one for media. Not really hard, we watched the tape beforehand and it all came together.

Fireboy · Wed 09 Feb, 2005 00.22

nwtv2003 wrote:
Johnny wrote: Though we had to read almost everything out of the 'Anthology', for those who did the English papers on AQA IIRC, they were annoying. It was even more annoying when they said you were allowed to write notes, but not too many! As you could take it into the English Literature exam with you.

This year will be the first where the noted Anthologies will not be allowed. Blank copies will be given out. Tsk. :roll:

nwtv2003 · Wed 09 Feb, 2005 00.28

Fireboy wrote:
nwtv2003 wrote:
Johnny wrote: Though we had to read almost everything out of the 'Anthology', for those who did the English papers on AQA IIRC, they were annoying. It was even more annoying when they said you were allowed to write notes, but not too many! As you could take it into the English Literature exam with you.
This year will be the first where the noted Anthologies will not be allowed. Blank copies will be given out. Tsk. :roll:

Lucky you, though all of our Anthology books were confiscated at the end of our English paper, apparently they were sent to the examiners. But we never got them back, I didn't care, but some people just had loads of graffiti in theirs.

I personally hated the English Language paper, it had loads of questions, in the style of 'You Must answer one question from Section A and one from B' etc, there were loads of these, and most of them were irrelevant to us, as it depended on what you studied.

Neil Jones · Wed 09 Feb, 2005 21.57

Though we had to read almost everything out of the 'Anthology', for those who did the English papers on AQA IIRC, they were annoying. It was even more annoying when they said you were allowed to write notes, but not too many! As you could take it into the English Literature exam with you.
This year will be the first where the noted Anthologies will not be allowed. Blank copies will be given out. Tsk. :roll:
Lucky you, though all of our Anthology books were confiscated at the end of our English paper, apparently they were sent to the examiners. But we never got them back, I didn't care, but some people just had loads of graffiti in theirs.

When I did mine, had those English Anthology things as well. We could have handed them in at the end of the exam but we could also keep them. I kept mine, most others handed them in.

Some of the things that are in my Anthology... brilliant. A poem entitled "Sacrifice" has the words "by Elton John" scrawled next to it

Cheese Head · Sat 12 Feb, 2005 14.16

I got my shakespere essay in and the shitty dickens essay in. Thank god for the libary and lunchtimes...

I couldnt be botherd with effort for the dickens essay, so, tbh, i didnt. I'm quite good at english and usually get C-A's in my work, so my theory goes, one D is better than nothing.