Tips for 3&4?

[DylanBurrowes]

Any big tips anyone has got for going into Units 3&4 English?

[Art Vandelay]

This is pretty useful: English FAQs: READ THIS FIRST BEFORE ASKING ANY QUESTIONS

Basically read your texts over the holidays, if you can, make great notes on them. This helps section A (Text Response). If you can, read them once for a narrative understanding of the text (basic understanding), and then again to search for literary techniques/devices/themes/motifs. It's worth googling a bunch of these different techniques!

Start creating a bookmarks folder for your Context (section B), so you have a variety of evidence to draw upon.

Language Analysis (Section C) just requires consistent work - it's useful to do untimed sessions (for all sections) where you can tweak and fine-tune your vocabulary and meta-language.

Read and write for pleasure throughout the holidays - this will help you develop a writing style.

Read sample essays and guides on ATARNotes.

Submit essays you write to the English work submission and marking.

I think if you're in a weak cohort, ATARNotes is necessary, helping one to glean an understanding and appreciation of what it takes to write a higher level response.

Good Luck!

[EvangelionZeta]

Read and write a lot.  Seriously - everything else is just periphery.  You get better at English by having amazing language skills.

(also, read all of the guides that are up, especially the ones compiled in the mega-thread.  Also, check ATARNotes and ask questions :p )

[FlorianK]

Start writing essays early in the year. I personally started writing essays extra to SACs in the middle of Unit4, which was a big mistake. I also regret not touching my books during the summer holidays.

Now my main 3 tips that helped me to improve my writing from 3-4/10 to close to 9 and 10 at the end.
1. Look up basically every single word in a thesaurus and expand your vocab.

2. Get your essays marked by your teacher, but also upload them to the English work submission and marking thread.
I personaly liked the AN feedback way more than my teachers feedback.
And more importantly rewrite your essays a few times as well, especially the ones that you write outsides of swotvac.

3. Also you may consider getting a tutor. I had an English tutor (werdna on AN) for the last 5 or 6 weeks iirc before the English exam and it helped a lot.

In essence, by starting to study for English (or ESL in my case) I learned to love the subject and in the end it was one of my favorite subjects, after methods.
English can be a really fun subject.


Good Luck Next year
 

[brenden]

Yeah EZ is right, language skills is what differentiates people. It's not like the structure of an essay is a difficult concept to grasp etc (although it helps to do it with a little bit of skill) but your language is where it's at. I couldn't write an essay to save my life at the beginning of this year because I never payed attention in Year 11 but a life spent reading books set me up well for anything VCE English could throw at me. Except the eventual failure in the exam but yeah, y'know

Lol hey irony 

language skills is what differentiates people

[pi]

I wrote this a while back, hope it's still relevant

Hi, I got 44 raw last year, here's my advice:

English is a subject that comes down to practice and persistence imo. Simply reading the texts or reading past essays as procrastination is simply not enough, as English needs to be learnt actively through actually writing (with and without timing conditions).


Language analysis
Read and analyse as much as you can as often as you can. You don't have to write a lot of analyses to become good at this, but writing them will help you develop a formula that will help enormously in the exam, it is after all very formulaic.

Try and nail a basic structure for your intro as having a very solid one will impress any examiner early on to leave a good impression. After that, make sure your body paragraphs are organised. Focus them properly and don't over-do one by adding many "techniques" to one para, usually try and focus on one para per "technique" or argument (I prefer the later, but many students did the former with success too) per paragraph.

Whilst preparing to analyse, annotating is essential. But having said that, don't overdo it, save the details for the part that is marked, ie. you actual essay. Highlight/underline key sections that you'd like to tackle and keep it organised (again!). You don't have to go through the piece chronologically if you don't want to either.

Practice writing on cartoons/images too as they can be really tricky if you're not used to them, especially for the SACs.

Where to get practice? Newspapers are NOT the only source! Last year VCAA used a blog (of sorts), so ensure that you use a variety of sources including: newspaper articles (including editorials), newsletter pieces, blogs, letters, etc.


Text response
For preparation, I'd recommend these readings for your texts in this order:
1) For fun - ideally in the summer break to get the storyline down, don't even think about deeper meanings unless it's obvious
2) When studying it in school - you can also read study guides in conjunction here and make sure you annotate your book
3) Before the SAC (one week before) - read the texts and your annotations, try and remember vital passages (quotes - maybe highlight as you go), make more annotations as you think deeper into the novel
4) Before the exam (one or even two full readings) - read the text and all annotations, don't read study guides at all (!!!! important !!!) as you want to use your original ideas for the exam not some from a study guide

Other readings are up to you, but I'd say those four are the essential ones.

Quoting: the arch-nemesis for VCE students for years. My tip is to have a list of the ones you highlighted in stage 3) of readings and simply rote-learn them. It's tedious, but when you are confident with quotes, you will feel comfortable with the text too. In essays, keep the quoting to a maximum of 20 quotes for an essay (around 15 is good if used effectively). Having said that, I'd recommend you know at least 40 quotes (ideally 50) for the text you plan to write on for the exam.

Ideally, you'd want to be writing essays during stages 3) and 4) of those reads, don't write any essays during stage 1), it's pointless. Make sure you get all your essays marked as you go on, as feedback is very valuable in refining your technique and skills. Practice in this regard also means practice with a variety. Tackle tough prompts as well as the easier ones.

Finally, please do not totally neglect your other text. Know it well enough to be able to write a 7/10 essay if need be because you'll never know what VCAA might throw at you for your primary text, so having some familiarity with another text will just ease the mind and help a lot if VCAA is tough on the day. Don't go over-the-top, maybe know ~30 quotes and do 2-3 essays for it before the exam (whilst you do 7+ essays for your primary text).


Context
Context is all about using your text and external resources to produce something captivating and original. But as a student, it's also about planning and getting a handful of adaptable pieces made and written to perfection before the exam. I say that last part because it is very difficult to think of something so original during the pressure of the 3hr allocation that is the dreaded English exam.

So how to prepare? I had two pieces (both adaptable) ready and written prior to each SAC, and therefore, four adaptable pieces ready for the exam. It is important to decide what type/form of piece you are suited to early on int the year, so you can proceed to work on those for the rest of the year. The three main forms are creative, expository and persuasive and hybrids of the three are also valid possibilities. Personally, I found creative/expository hybrid to be the best option for me. It is also important to decide on a format. For example, I chose to write all my pieces as interviews, other options include journal articles (probably the most popular), newspaper articles, plain essays (not recommended by me), stories, letters (may be a few letters), etc. There are literally limitless options for format, just make sure you decide on your format and form early on.

With all my pieces, I used both external and internal material where internal refers to inter-textual references and external refers to material that is relevant to the prompt but has been drawn from sources other than the prescribed text. It's vital that you incorporate both, with your piece having slightly more internal references than external ones (maybe a 40-60 split).

With the internal references (ie textual), there is no need to follow the method that I outlines for the text response texts, as your goal is to only "draw" from the texts rather than write on them in the exam. So, only one or two readings are needed for the year, it may be useful to make a list of the general ideas (thematic ideas) and useful quotes (all thematic).

For external resources, surf the internet, it's the easiest and probably the best source for such references. Look for interviews (as video clips or transcripts), other videos, news stories on your theme, philosophical ideas, quotes for famous people, etc. It's also worth checking out scientific journals and reading/watching the other texts for your context for ideas.


Revision
As for revision lectures: I wouldn't. In the summer break, I went to the TSFX lectures which were honestly horrible and a waste of time. I also went to a summer program run by KL_tutor, which was excellent (although that was a one-off program run by him). I also watched the Texts in the City - The Wheeler Centre videos (free) for my texts, which was alright for revision. I'd recommend the AN English guide too, written by shinny and EZ (very helpful and skilled users from here), it's an amazing resource that I wished I had in my year.

Make sure you've had a good read of the relevant parts of these too, very helpful:
English Work Examples Directory
English FAQs: READ THIS FIRST BEFORE ASKING ANY QUESTIONS
Essay Topics Megathread
EvangelionZeta's Guide to Preparing for the English Exam

Also utilise the AN English Essay Submission sub-forum, I used it to get valuable feedback on a few of my pieces. Most of revision is just reading and writing tbh. Practice makes perfect, as anecdotal evidence, I raised my B's and B+'s in yr11 to consistent A+s in yr12

Good luck!