Holiday Homework

[sin0001]

Hey,
I was wondering if it is recommended to start writing essays and think about the themes for the texts, during the holidays. From your past experience with year 12 English, was it really necessary to do this before the start of school? Also, did you guys finish writing up your speech in the holidays?
I'm aiming for around 40, but I'm confused as to how I should prepare for this subject in the holidays (or what's remaining of them...)
Would appreciate any opinions from past or present English students

[saba.ay]

I don't know about the essays and how far you should get into preparation for your text responses or context pieces, but I'd suggest you get your oral/speech written up. The more you get done now, the less you'll have to do during school time, when you have pressure piling on from all your subjects. Also, even if you don't want to write the entire speech now, maybe starting a draft so you're slightly ahead would be a good idea.

[pi]

Essays is a bit excessive imo, but I would definitely read all your texts once or twice and start to think about themes, characters, etc.



edit: 10,000th post lol, yay

[Special At Specialist]

It's important to read your novels before school starts, but practice essays aren't really necessary until about February.

edit: 10,000th post lol, yay

You will never delete this screenshot:

[EvangelionZeta]

Definitely notes, and maybe even start doing essay plans and that sort of thing too.  You mostly want to get ideas flowing.  Also read some guides on how to structure essays though, just so that you don't get overwhelmed by structure in the school term

[Dejan]

Recommend reading novels twice, you can finish writing your oral up or have most of it done, notes you can definitely do and just one essay should be sufficient

[Stick]

Hey,
I was wondering if it is recommended to start writing essays and think about the themes for the texts, during the holidays. From your past experience with year 12 English, was it really necessary to do this before the start of school? Also, did you guys finish writing up your speech in the holidays?
I'm aiming for around 40, but I'm confused as to how I should prepare for this subject in the holidays (or what's remaining of them...)
Would appreciate any opinions from past or present English students

I've finished my oral and now I'm reading/watching my texts a second time. While I'm doing this, I'm just taking down a few brief notes so I can remember what happens in each chapter/short story/essay.

[AllAboutTheLGs]

I think essays is too over the top. What is your first assessment on? Most schools have their oral first so I suggest getting that under control. After that maybe try to read all your texts at least once before the school term begins

[platypus]

Our oral was in June and we had to choose the topic from a pre-selected list which was only available around then, so I couldn't do any sort of preparation speechwise.

However I agree with everyone that essays are excessive as your understanding of the novels/context is simply not enough at this stage and you want to see what teachers like before determining a form/style for your essays (if you're doing conext). I know that you're supposed to write to whatever style you feel the most comfortable in, but a lot of teachers/schools mandate students to write in a certain way and if you deviate from that you will be unfairly marked down.

Also once you start attending class, you'll be exposed to a disccusion-debate style environment where your peers and teacher will have many ideas that you would not have thought of. I found that listening to my peers really helped me formulate new ideas, extend existing ones further so I was ultimately able to decide on which writing style suited me the best. Assuming that you analyse at least two different texts for text response, the same also applies since each teacher/school has a slightly different way of how they prefer students to write a text response.

As for themes I would definitely make as much notes, tabs, highlights of the books as I can because you can bring these into class and share it with your peers to receive feedback and use it to help you write preliminary essays or drafts in class.