English Extension 1 Question Thread

[Lumenoria]

Hi, I'm studying Gothic Literature atm for English Extension 1 (prelim) and I have an essay due soon. We have to include a critical/published opinion within our essay, but I'm not sure how to go about this. The essay is about Dracula (compared to my related text) so I was wondering if you have any advice on how to introduce these opinions? Do I incorporate them in my body paragraphs to support my arguments? How exactly do I use them to support what I'm saying? And where do I get them?

[elysepopplewell]

Hi, I'm studying Gothic Literature atm for English Extension 1 (prelim) and I have an essay due soon. We have to include a critical/published opinion within our essay, but I'm not sure how to go about this. The essay is about Dracula (compared to my related text) so I was wondering if you have any advice on how to introduce these opinions? Do I incorporate them in my body paragraphs to support my arguments? How exactly do I use them to support what I'm saying? And where do I get them?

Hey there! To give you some very early pointers:
-These should be included in your body paragraphs! They could fit in your intro or conclusion if they served the purpose of summarising so you can explore them properly in the body, but essentially you'd see them in the body.
-They'd be used  to support your argument, or perhaps even to contradict your argument to show differing opinions. Perhaps it won't be a contradiction, but just a different perspective!
-Google your texts with the words "scholar" "university" "college" "academic" next to it and you'll get different search results each time. I find that doing this kind of thing takes you beyond sparknotes and what not. But you don't just need these opinions for your texts, you can find scholars on the context even! And then you can weave this into your response as well. Unfortunately I'm not familiar enough with Gothic Lit in order to suggest anyone in particular for you to search.
-So when you use them, you simply might use the scholar to support your opinion by bringing weight to it. You might use the scholar to say, "the text evidently was received in a similar way in the context of scholar blah blah as she says..." or, you could say, "In a feminist reading of the poem as provided by blah blah, the metaphor of the blah blah is seen in a new light..." OR, you could use the scholar to talk about the context and the text's reception within that. So many options! Using scholars is fun and I think that even just reading their work elevates your response because you start to emulate the higher order of thinking

[Lumenoria]

Hey there! To give you some very early pointers:
-These should be included in your body paragraphs! They could fit in your intro or conclusion if they served the purpose of summarising so you can explore them properly in the body, but essentially you'd see them in the body.
-They'd be used  to support your argument, or perhaps even to contradict your argument to show differing opinions. Perhaps it won't be a contradiction, but just a different perspective!
-Google your texts with the words "scholar" "university" "college" "academic" next to it and you'll get different search results each time. I find that doing this kind of thing takes you beyond sparknotes and what not. But you don't just need these opinions for your texts, you can find scholars on the context even! And then you can weave this into your response as well. Unfortunately I'm not familiar enough with Gothic Lit in order to suggest anyone in particular for you to search.
-So when you use them, you simply might use the scholar to support your opinion by bringing weight to it. You might use the scholar to say, "the text evidently was received in a similar way in the context of scholar blah blah as she says..." or, you could say, "In a feminist reading of the poem as provided by blah blah, the metaphor of the blah blah is seen in a new light..." OR, you could use the scholar to talk about the context and the text's reception within that. So many options! Using scholars is fun and I think that even just reading their work elevates your response because you start to emulate the higher order of thinking

That was so helpful, thankyou SO much <3 <3

[Lumenoria]

I've written my essay and it's almost 1600 words, but I swear to god I cannot cut anything out of it (limit is 1100). How do you cut stuff out without erasing content? My analysis is fairly long admittedly, but I feel like it's a necessary long if that makes sense. For instance, if I cut out bits from it, not all of the techniques in the quote will be covered if that makes sense. Right now, I swear all of the content is relevant to the thesis so I'm really struggling. All my paragraphs are over 300 words with 2-3 ish quotes in them. Any advice on this? Apologies for all the questions haha

[maria1999]

hey guys
So I need to write a piece of creative writing for after the bomb and I have no idea where to really go with it. We have three stimuluses but if anyone can point me in the right direction in terms of themes to include or motifs that would be applicable to the era, it would much appreciated!
Thank you!!

[bsdfjnlkasn]

hey guys
So I need to write a piece of creative writing for after the bomb and I have no idea where to really go with it. We have three stimuluses but if anyone can point me in the right direction in terms of themes to include or motifs that would be applicable to the era, it would much appreciated!
Thank you!!

Hey Maria, would you mind posting up the stimulus to see what aspects of the rubric they would like you to focus on?
I suggest picking a narrative set clearly in the Cold War as it will definitely help centre your exploration of the ways of thinking. This may seem like super obvious advice but there's really an unlimited number of ways to try and capture, let's say existentialist/nihilistic thought in arenas that aren't explicitly set during the Cold War. So research up on some of the history, see which stories intrigue you and do some digging for what your chosen personality would have felt and how you can weave in the central questions of the time through the personal response you construct for them. I'm sure if you post up a brainstorm of some work that you've been thinking of that we can look over and give you some advice. But as the module is so broad it's hard for us to directly suggest something that you're looking for, especially when we don't exactly know what interests you haha. Do a bit of research, I'm sure you'll have fun and post back a brainstorm, plot summary, whatever you like and we can give it a look.

Hopefully this helped!

[elysepopplewell]

I've written my essay and it's almost 1600 words, but I swear to god I cannot cut anything out of it (limit is 1100). How do you cut stuff out without erasing content? My analysis is fairly long admittedly, but I feel like it's a necessary long if that makes sense. For instance, if I cut out bits from it, not all of the techniques in the quote will be covered if that makes sense. Right now, I swear all of the content is relevant to the thesis so I'm really struggling. All my paragraphs are over 300 words with 2-3 ish quotes in them. Any advice on this? Apologies for all the questions haha

Hey there! You're not the first person to have this issue - don't worry! For me personally, I found the best way to do this was to take a few chunks that seemed to me like they took just a smidge too long to get to the point, and then I'd rewrite that sentence/those sentences. So if I saw there was a three sentence sequence that wasn't completely solid, I'd put it to the side and out of sight, and re-write the essence of those sentences until they fell into a shorter sequence. It's a bit of a tiresome task, but sometimes when you're looking at wording for too long, you just need to put it away, pull it a part, and let it fall back together again. If it doesn't quite make sense, I've used this cordial analogy before. This is the way I saw it essentially! If you aren't already, remember you can deal with two or three techniques concurrently to show how they compound, rather than doing it all one-per-sentence. Hopefully this gives you a hand!

hey guys
So I need to write a piece of creative writing for after the bomb and I have no idea where to really go with it. We have three stimuluses but if anyone can point me in the right direction in terms of themes to include or motifs that would be applicable to the era, it would much appreciated!
Thank you!!

Hey Maria! Welcome to the forums
Ok, I won't comment too much on the stimulus you've been given yet, and I'll just talk about the basics of an After the Bomb creative writing piece.
So, you need to tackle ways of thinking. Consider them in categories (paradigms, if you wish), and then find the ways of thinking within them. So, we can look at a scientific paradigm, a social, personal, political, or religious paradigm. Let's look closely at religious paradigms, for a second, to find ways of thinking within that. Taking 1960s America, per say, we see a Catholic President, JFK. Christianity, or religion in general, was often looked to as a bastion of safety in a very insecure world. So, we could call it a way of thinking, that people thought if they turned to religion, even if it was all they had, they would be saved. We could delve deeper: did they reallllly think that or was it a superficial cover up? But, you get the picture. Looking at political or economic ways of thinking, we can look into, who thought socialism was the best way of thinking? Who thought democracy was the best way of thinking?

In your response, you need to decide which ways of thinking you want to tap into. You can cover a lot, but you need to delve into a few. Alternatively, you could only delve into a few and make it really worth your while. It's not enough to graze over them, you need to explore. What are the implications of the ways of thinking? How do different ways of thinking interact? If it helps, here is my own ATB creative. See if you can identify some of the ways of thinking. I tried to tap into suburbia, womens rights, politics, as well as personal.

This hopefully gives you a starting point, but also probably a lot more questions! Soak this up and make a few brainstorms, and then let me know what your next move is and I'm happy to help

[maria1999]

Hey Maria, would you mind posting up the stimulus to see what aspects of the rubric they would like you to focus on?
I suggest picking a narrative set clearly in the Cold War as it will definitely help centre your exploration of the ways of thinking. This may seem like super obvious advice but there's really an unlimited number of ways to try and capture, let's say existentialist/nihilistic thought in arenas that aren't explicitly set during the Cold War. So research up on some of the history, see which stories intrigue you and do some digging for what your chosen personality would have felt and how you can weave in the central questions of the time through the personal response you construct for them. I'm sure if you post up a brainstorm of some work that you've been thinking of that we can look over and give you some advice. But as the module is so broad it's hard for us to directly suggest something that you're looking for, especially when we don't exactly know what interests you haha. Do a bit of research, I'm sure you'll have fun and post back a brainstorm, plot summary, whatever you like and we can give it a look.

Hopefully this helped!

Hey Maria, would you mind posting up the stimulus to see what aspects of the rubric they would like you to focus on?
I suggest picking a narrative set clearly in the Cold War as it will definitely help centre your exploration of the ways of thinking. This may seem like super obvious advice but there's really an unlimited number of ways to try and capture, let's say existentialist/nihilistic thought in arenas that aren't explicitly set during the Cold War. So research up on some of the history, see which stories intrigue you and do some digging for what your chosen personality would have felt and how you can weave in the central questions of the time through the personal response you construct for them. I'm sure if you post up a brainstorm of some work that you've been thinking of that we can look over and give you some advice. But as the module is so broad it's hard for us to directly suggest something that you're looking for, especially when we don't exactly know what interests you haha. Do a bit of research, I'm sure you'll have fun and post back a brainstorm, plot summary, whatever you like and we can give it a look.

Hopefully this helped!

Hey!
I'm so so sorry about this hella late reply! This was such an awesome answer thank you so much! I'm literally a sad excuse for a human being and student and forgot completely about this task as its still a few weeks away. I will most definitely post the stimuli (when i figure out how to do that ahahah) I definitely want to look into the 1950's image of the suburban house wife as I think that's the most interesting idea yet and one of my prescribed text's is Sylvia Plath's poetry. I'll have a little brainstorm into that and definitely post back soon. Thanks again!

[bsdfjnlkasn]

Hey!
I'm so so sorry about this hella late reply! This was such an awesome answer thank you so much! I'm literally a sad excuse for a human being and student and forgot completely about this task as its still a few weeks away. I will most definitely post the stimuli (when i figure out how to do that ahahah) I definitely want to look into the 1950's image of the suburban house wife as I think that's the most interesting idea yet and one of my prescribed text's is Sylvia Plath's poetry. I'll have a little brainstorm into that and definitely post back soon. Thanks again!

Awesome, no worries!

Your outlined idea sounds great, you should be really excited! Make sure you do lots of research to pick up the subtle details of the time (think clothing, technology, street scenes) and include them as you go
I had a creative writing task due last term and honestly, if I have any advice it would be to start NOW. It's so easy to push it into the back of your mind but the longer you have to refine, the better (and you also have the chance to upload your piece and have it marked by the awesome AN team) Also with uploading the stimulus - take a photo on your phone and attach it via the AN app, it's a handy little trick I often use

Anyway, if you have anymore questions then just send them through, I'm sure someone will be able to share their wisdom - good luck

[scienceislife]

Is having two related texts, outside of the prescribed, enough for the HSC or should you have a 3rd just in case its a curveball kind of question?

[bsdfjnlkasn]

Is having two related texts, outside of the prescribed, enough for the HSC or should you have a 3rd just in case its a curveball kind of question?

Hey there,

At my school, the expectation is that we have 3 related texts that cover all the paradigms described in the EX1 syllabus (philosophical, religious, personal and economic - I think ). I think if you have 2 really great relateds that have connections across your prescribed texts then that obviously saves you some work, but since the course is so complex you might even want to study more texts (I know, outrageous) as there's just so much to learn and say about your elective

[elysepopplewell]

Is having two related texts, outside of the prescribed, enough for the HSC or should you have a 3rd just in case its a curveball kind of question?

Just adding my own experience - I studied lots of related texts throughout the year (I've listed them here) so I was ready to draw on an older one if I needed. But, in the weeks leading up to the exam, I only studied two main related texts and went in guns blazing with them. It was good to have a back up on hand to draw on from a previously studied text, even if I didn't know it as well, but I was confident in my two related texts!

[maria1999]

hey guys!
I've a creative writing task coming up pretty soon and it's based around after the bomb. I was thinking about writing a story that centers around the image of the typical suburban housewife that starts to rebel from her role in society and in the home through small and subtle acts almost. Does this sound like something somewhat relatable to the era?. I also need it to link to the stimulus "They could not have known the horrifying truth"

Does this sound alright to start, or if anyone has any points with how to even remotely begin it would be muuuuuch appreciated! Thank you so much!

[elysepopplewell]

hey guys!
I've a creative writing task coming up pretty soon and it's based around after the bomb. I was thinking about writing a story that centers around the image of the typical suburban housewife that starts to rebel from her role in society and in the home through small and subtle acts almost. Does this sound like something somewhat relatable to the era?. I also need it to link to the stimulus "They could not have known the horrifying truth"

Does this sound alright to start, or if anyone has any points with how to even remotely begin it would be muuuuuch appreciated! Thank you so much!

I see no problem with this! It sounds great If it helps, I wrote a speech for my creative that followed a housewife after she's decided to rebel, it might give you some ideas! You can download it here (I used the same one for discovery with some adjustments, that's why it's in the discovery section Happy to explore ideas with you if you'd like!

[maria1999]

I see no problem with this! It sounds great If it helps, I wrote a speech for my creative that followed a housewife after she's decided to rebel, it might give you some ideas! You can download it here (I used the same one for discovery with some adjustments, that's why it's in the discovery section Happy to explore ideas with you if you'd like!

Yep, I'll definetely have a read of the creative for ext. as well as advanced! I'll post back when i have something written for sure!! Thanks Elyse!!