The freedom in Literautre

[clarke54321]

Hi everyone,

I am currently studying Literature 1/2 and am likely to complete units 3/4 next year. So far in literature I have achieved all A+'s except one B+.

However, is it normal to sometimes feel lost in what you're writing. Before writing any piece I always plan it, but for those of you studying Literature, do you ever have the concern that someone else may not understand what you are writing or trying to say?

I'm not sure if this is an issue which should ring alarm bells for me or whether it is something experienced by all Lit students.

Any advice or past experiences would be really helpful! 

[MightyBeh]

Oh yeah totally. Definitely when starting pieces for texts, but occasionally even when I feel prepared. If I don't think my idea is clear it's really obvious in my writing; I tend to lean on overly long and complex sentence because I'm always trying to explain what I've just written instead of just getting on with the work. Through most of my SACs I've felt pretty in over my head, I think it really is a product of having so much to chose from in terms of what you want to write about. Thankfully nothing's gone majorly awry

I think a good way to combat the feeling is to just ask someone to read your work though. Grab a friend and swap essays and critique the shit out of it unique it's perfect. It's good because you get feedback, but it puts you in the place of someone reading a piece without knowing what it's going to be about, and that helps you to pick out things that don't make sense. If you can't find someone, I'm more than happy to give your work a run through and let you know if something doesn't make sense.

Other than that, practice is probably the way to go. You can't write a perfect essay the first time but you can probably get pretty close on the thirty-ninth. 

[clarke54321]

Oh yeah totally. Definitely when starting pieces for texts, but occasionally even when I feel prepared. If I don't think my idea is clear it's really obvious in my writing; I tend to lean on overly long and complex sentence because I'm always trying to explain what I've just written instead of just getting on with the work. Through most of my SACs I've felt pretty in over my head, I think it really is a product of having so much to chose from in terms of what you want to write about. Thankfully nothing's gone majorly awry

I think a good way to combat the feeling is to just ask someone to read your work though. Grab a friend and swap essays and critique the shit out of it unique it's perfect. It's good because you get feedback, but it puts you in the place of someone reading a piece without knowing what it's going to be about, and that helps you to pick out things that don't make sense. If you can't find someone, I'm more than happy to give your work a run through and let you know if something doesn't make sense.

Other than that, practice is probably the way to go. You can't write a perfect essay the first time but you can probably get pretty close on the thirty-ninth. 

Hey MightyBeh,

Thanks so much for your insight! It's really nice to get some reassurance from a fellow Lit student.

Good luck for the rest of the year in Literature, I'm sure you'll smash it! 

[tim.wells]

Thinking back to when I did Lit, this post resonates with me so much!

With Lit you are given so much freedom of expression and leeway in terms of structure. While I found this made the subject more engaging and interesting it occasionally also made me very lost.

I think sometimes the best way to get around this is would be when doing, say, a passage analysis, to go through the text line-by-line. That way you have a clear goal in mind — methodically explaining how the author is conveying meaning. This is a great way to tackle practise SAC's and build your confidence; and I agree with MightyBeh, Lit requires a lot of practise to refine your technique.

You'll find that when you start analysing the passage line-by-line, the further you go with your analysis, the more connections you'll see between the passages and thus your response will naturally gain in complexity without having to even think about it. Another thing I always did when I got stuck was to re-read the passages three times: once for context, once for the themes and once to see the connections between those themes and the specific language techniques used by the author.

But ultimately I think the best way to ensure what you're writing makes sense is to always keep in mind what you're trying to achieve with your analysis. Something my Lit teacher used to say which has always stuck in my mind is:
"English is about the content of a joke, whereas Lit is about the way you say the joke".

I hope this helps, sometimes it's really useful to have a basic structure to fall back on. Let me know if you've got any questions

[clarke54321]

Thinking back to when I did Lit, this post resonates with me so much!

With Lit you are given so much freedom of expression and leeway in terms of structure. While I found this made the subject more engaging and interesting it occasionally also made me very lost.

I think sometimes the best way to get around this is would be when doing, say, a passage analysis, to go through the text line-by-line. That way you have a clear goal in mind — methodically explaining how the author is conveying meaning. This is a great way to tackle practise SAC's and build your confidence; and I agree with MightyBeh, Lit requires a lot of practise to refine your technique.

You'll find that when you start analysing the passage line-by-line, the further you go with your analysis, the more connections you'll see between the passages and thus your response will naturally gain in complexity without having to even think about it. Another thing I always did when I got stuck was to re-read the passages three times: once for context, once for the themes and once to see the connections between those themes and the specific language techniques used by the author.

But ultimately I think the best way to ensure what you're writing makes sense is to always keep in mind what you're trying to achieve with your analysis. Something my Lit teacher used to say which has always stuck in my mind is:
"English is about the content of a joke, whereas Lit is about the way you say the joke".

I hope this helps, sometimes it's really useful to have a basic structure to fall back on. Let me know if you've got any questions

Thanks for the advice Tim, it's greatly appreciated!

I think that's a great approach to passage analysis. I especially like the quote used by your Literature teacher!