English or Literature?

[vexx]

What are the main differences? Is Lit meant to be harder?

I know that English is doing language analysis, media, context writing, and so on, whereas Lit is just language analysis.
What else? Is this correct?

[mystikal]

ummm lit scales up by abit and english scales down until 42+(i think)

i think lit is heavily based on books so if you like reading then this is good for you,

lit is obviously seems to be harder but there are some people who find it the opposite since they have an affinity to that style of english.

i only do normal english (and im hating it), so i cant really tell you the lit side.

[EvangelionZeta]

You're almost correct, except Lit isn't exactly "just language analysis" per se, and the type of language analysis you do isn't the same as the type you do in English.

1. The actual course structure is completely different.  English is broader in its focus and is more "conventional" (ie. introduction, body paragraphs, conclusion style essays), whereas in Lit you'll be mostly writing in specialised essay forms you won't see anywhere else at VCE level.

2. English is more "practical" (media analysis, expository, opinion pieces, etc.), whereas Lit is borderline pretentious in that you just study literature (lolol) and a small amount of film.

3. Ignore the thing about scaling, since the difference is negligible anyway.  I'm assuming that Lit has a generally tougher cohort, since it'd be mostly people who are actually interested in it doing it, whereas English is done by pretty much everyone. 

4. Scoring well in the two subjects depends on different writing styles.  English favours a more direct, "simplicity is good" style (most of the time), whereas most of the top scoring responses in Lit are verbose as hell.

[vexx]

You're almost correct, except Lit isn't exactly "just language analysis" per se, and the type of language analysis you do isn't the same as the type you do in English.

1. The actual course structure is completely different.  English is broader in its focus and is more "conventional" (ie. introduction, body paragraphs, conclusion style essays), whereas in Lit you'll be mostly writing in specialised essay forms you won't see anywhere else at VCE level.

2. English is more "practical" (media analysis, expository, opinion pieces, etc.), whereas Lit is borderline pretentious in that you just study literature (lolol) and a small amount of film.

3. Ignore the thing about scaling, since the difference is negligible anyway.  I'm assuming that Lit has a generally tougher cohort, since it'd be mostly people who are actually interested in it doing it, whereas English is done by pretty much everyone.  

4. Scoring well in the two subjects depends on different writing styles.  English favours a more direct, "simplicity is good" style (most of the time), whereas most of the top scoring responses in Lit are verbose as hell.

Lit sounds better if you put it that way, since i hate the conventional style of writing.

Except the scaling slightly matters since getting 35 in lit=38 in english (based on lasts years results).

But thanks:)

Which one did you personally like better and why?

[Eriny]

I liked Lit much more, I felt that it was less formulaic and much more geared to people with a natural feel for language, whereas in English, everything felt like in needed to be extremely structured and made explicit almost to the point of simplification. However, they are both similar in that they both get students to write a lot. In that sense, it is good to do both.

[vexx]

I liked Lit much more, I felt that it was less formulaic and much more geared to people with a natural feel for language, whereas in English, everything felt like in needed to be extremely structured and made explicit almost to the point of simplification. However, they are both similar in that they both get students to write a lot. In that sense, it is good to do both.

Awesome. I lose so many marks on the assessment pieces we do in English just because of my structure is poor >_> Which is one good reason to do Lit next year? Does lit study more books and have a larger exam? Or is it the same.

[simpak]

I am better at lit than I am at English.
If you like to critically analyse the intentions of a writer when he/she creates their text, and talk about how they do these things, then you should pick lit.
If you like, however, scratching the surface and talking in general about the themes and ideas that are presented to the reader through the creation of a text, and their greater meaning, then you should pick English.

I do both.  We are not allowed to pick Lit over English.

In answer to your question:
In the lit exam, you write two essays.  You choose two texts from the lists provided to you from two different areas or genres, for example a play and a novel, or poetry and short stories.
Each text has three passages that are selected from anywhere in the text.
You have to analyse these passages and reference at least one when you formulate a "discussion of the given text".
So basically, you're talking about what the writer is saying and how they go about saying it with reference to literary techniques, using what you are given as a basis for example.  In lit you will probably study around five or six texts, one of which will be a text you cannot choose for your exam.

The English exam is longer, because it contains an extra essay.  You do study fewer texts, because you have the language analysis component which takes up a third of the exam.  There are three components to the exam: Language Analysis, Text Response and Context.
Your school chooses your context for you, and you study texts related to that context.  My context is horrible, it is Identity and Belonging, which is part of the reason I'm typically disinterested in English for the most part.

[EvangelionZeta]

I also prefer Lit over English, primarily because the media sort of stuff generally disinterests me and most of the fun stuff that Context covers is also in Philosophy already because we do Whose Reality.  There's also the fact that the texts we do in Lit are generally far better than the ones in English.  I also have the same problem with Eriny in regards to feeling constrained by English's essay structures.

[vexx]

Thanks everyone.

I am better at lit than I am at English.

...


which is part of the reason I'm typically disinterested in English for the most part.

Thanks heaps for all of this (i edited down the quote >_>) so far lit sounds so much more appealing-- i reckon i will do it next year now!

[samuch]

i have the same issue and i was leaning toward lit but then i asked some teachers and they don't recommend doing lit without also doing english..... so im not sure what to do :S and sorry if i just confused you again

[vexx]

i have the same issue and i was leaning toward lit but then i asked some teachers and they don't recommend doing lit without also doing english..... so im not sure what to do :S and sorry if i just confused you again

No it's fine. haha, why do lit only in conjunction with english??

[Eriny]

There's no real reason that you shouldn't do Lit without English. It would be the equivalent of someone doing English without Lit (which the majority of the state does). The two are definitely helpful to do together, but Lit isn't dependent on English at all.

[vexx]

There's no real reason that you shouldn't do Lit without English. It would be the equivalent of someone doing English without Lit (which the majority of the state does). The two are definitely helpful to do together, but Lit isn't dependent on English at all.

Oh -phew- thanks. Well i'm close to deciding on doing Lit instead of English.

[simpak]

A lot of teachers recommend that you do Lit and English simultaneously because of the required English in the top four.
It is something to consider, I suppose.
You could do much more terribly than you thought in literature, and then you're stuck with that score in the top 4.
If you do two English subjects, there are two possible scores that could be placed in the top four.

Also, a lot of people just don't perform well enough in Lit for it to be beneficial in their top four.
You won't actually know until the day you get your results, though.
Our school is notoriously bad at teaching lit.  So, A+ English students ended up with like, 34s in Lit last year.

[vexx]

^ Thanks mavis! For some reason i didn't see this and i just read it then.

I actually thought about doing Literature and English next year instead of just one and a enhancement subject.
Since i am quite poor at English in all aspects (B average Student & i did unit 1 lit in grade 10 and didn't do so well), would doing both of them increase the chance of me getting a higher English score on at least one to add to my top 4? Or is this a bad idea and i could be doing another subject which will benefit me more? Thoughts?