Essays please.

Nearly there!

Helllo Y12

Not long to go until the summer holidays!

Because of Activities Day, Wednesday was our last lesson of Y12; I feel it passed rather unceremoniously. I hope that you've enjoyed your learning in English over the last year. It is a steep learning curve from GCSE; the move from AS to A2 is another curve. I think you've all done very well and I have thoroughly enjoyed teaching you this year, which has flown by. I am very much looking forward to see you progress in Y13 and see you move into life beyond school. 

It is essential that you are able to learn independently. The split should be 40% / 60%. 40% input from me; 60% input from you. You need to learn to work independently to prepare for University.

You need to have completed essays to me by next Wednesday morning. If you're going to Florence, that should be before 3am on Saturday. If you've given me a decent chunk of work, I'll get that back to you ASAP. Look at the AOs I gave you. Critical vocab from the lesson will be up as a link here as soon as possible too. 

To be very clear, you are writing an essay (1200-1500 words) looking at National Trust from a Marxist critical perspective. This will be part of your coursework. It will also be useful to get to terms with writing about a text from a critical perspective. 

Let me know if you've any problems.

They'll be another post with a summer reading list so do not check this in September!

Ms :)

Please ensure you bring your coursework to the lesson tomorrow to work on..! This should be an electronic copy. Email it to yourself, email it to me, use a USB etc. Just make sure you bring it!

It is nearly the end of term and then we can all have a break. A reminder that this isn't the time for holidays and watching video lessons; we need to work on our A Level English until the end of term when we then have a break. I know the temptation is to sit back now, believe me, I feel that too, but we need to power through to the end! I'd also like to point out that government cuts mean that you have reduced teaching hours so every second counts...

Right. Lecture over! Last week we looked at historical context, an Assessment Objective of course. The document for this are available ein the Student Shared/ Ms Caldwell/ Y12 English. You can access this via Barracuda.

Your homework is to have at least 900 words of your first draft of your essay:
An analysis of National Trust by Tony Harrison and an evaluation of how it could be related to Marxism. 

Everyone should have this, even if you have been away.

Email me if you have any problems or questions.

BTW: something very weird has happened with the formatting of this post - please ignore.
Ms

National Trust

A Cornish Tin Mine

Hey Y12

This is a bit late - sorry.

In this week's lesson, where you were all present so no need to go over everything that we did, we did a close analysis of National Trust and considered Marxist interpretation of the poem.

We'll develop this understanding next lesson when we look in detail at the context.

For your homework then I would like you to do the same as last week: write a paragraph about an extract from the poem form a Marxist perspective. This should be much easier after last week's lesson. You do not need to sign in you can leave the comment anonymously (as long as you can prove to me that the paragraph is yours). Once you've done these homeworks you've got two excellent paragraphs for your course work. Let's get these posted ASAP!

In next lesson we will look in detail at the context. (AO4)

Let me know if you have any problems.

Happy birthday btw ES!

Ms :)

Welcome Back Y12!

.

Welcome back! You worked really well today.

We looked at the the expectations for the A2 course and what is required of you. I am very excited about this unit and I hope that this is infectious! We will study a range of texts and some critical perspectives. These are in a critical anthology that you'll get next lesson. The specification for the course can be found here; we are doing Unit 4 LitB4 - Further and Independent Reading.

So, in the lesson today, we looked at Tony Harrison's National Trust. We first considered the meanings of National Trust. It first evokes images and thoughts of conservation, parks ans listed buildings. We then dug a little deeper and considered the security in trust; that we trust that this institution will look after the country, the nation's best interests, and preserve what should be preserved. Here then, we considered the polysemic meaning of 'national trust'. After thinking about the title, the poem seemed to undermine our expectations of a thoroughly British, patriotic vision. 

The poem is here. 

Tony Harrison's poems are written to be listened to. The need to be listened to in a Northern accent.

We discussed accents and the associations that we have of people with particular accents.

We did some analysis of the poem. We'll do more of this. 

We then looked at one of the extracts from the critical anthology that you have for Unit 4: Marxism.

We reduced the reading down to a sentence per paragraph, word per paragraph, sentence for the complete reading and then a word. 

The sentences that we discussed in class were:

• Marxism continues to be relevant after the fall of communism as it allows an intellectual perspective that requires us to consider socio-economic circumstances.
• Karl Marx outlined that a person's socio-economic circumstances has a significant impact upon their thought and consciousness.
• Some people, including politicians, say that we are free and the right choices will allow social mobility.
• Money is everything, we are never free from it.
• Capitalism exploits workers by paying them less than they are worth and this creates alienation in a  society driven by profit. 

These aren't great sentences, but they reflect my understanding of the text. The object of the exercise was learning not sentence writing! If you haven't completed this exercise, you need to do it to understand it. 

We then returned to the poem and applied a Marxist critical perspective to it. 

Homework - there are two

I would like you to write a paragraph about the poem from a Marxist perspective. To do this you'll need to take a tiny aspect of the poem and comment on how it relates to the socio-economic circumstances. I want you to write this paragraph in the comment box below. (Probably best if you do this in Word, or similar, and paste.)

Even if you were in the Further Fun exam, I'd like you to still do this homework. (Those of you that missed the lesson will need to find me to get the reading.)

Finally, I would like you to watch this series. What a fabulous homework I hear you cry! You'll have to watch it in 10minute parts though.

If you would like to extend your learning further, have a look at historical materialism.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Good to see you back. You're going to love this Unit!
Ms 

A Leadership Opportunity

Hello all
I expect you are missing English terribly. Poor you. Not long until we'll be back!
In the meantime, I am leading one of the Y12 Leadership opportunities and I was hoping some of you may be interested ...
It will focus on the development of The Cherwell Competencies. It would in involve leading some focus groups; using tutor times and making videos for use in tutor period, Y6 transfer and assemblies. This is your chance to leave a lasting legacy on the school even after you've left!
Best wishes,
Ms