English Extension 1 Question Thread

[elysepopplewell]

Hii there!
At the moment I'm about half way through the Prelim course and need to do a comparative essay about the values within Beowulf (the  Seamus Heaney translation) and the two adapted texts of Gareth Hind's graphic novel and Robert Zemeckis' film. Not sure if you've done these texts, but any help on how to set up this extended response will be greatly appreciated!

Module: Texts, values and culture
"Gareth Hind's graphic novel 'Beowulf' and Zemeckis' 2007 film 'Beowulf' effectively engage a modern audience while retaining the cultural values and themes of the original text, the Old English poem 'Beowulf'.

Discuss with particular reference to the three battle scenes and use evidence from the text to support your answer."

Thank you! 

Hey! Thanks for posting!
So, I didn't do any of these texts However, I have a few tips for this comparative study.
You need to talk about the time period of the original text as well as the modern context. How? You need to universalise the themes. You should talk about the human condition, the universal cultural experiences of humans, the unchanging nature of human emotions through time, etc, etc. This will be your main connector between the periods.
So, you need to talk about what you relate to in the modern texts that you wouldn't relate to in the original. Is it the setting? The nature of conflict? Then you need to talk about how the modern texts reshaped these things to make the text accessible to you. Then, you tie it all together with connecting human emotions, condition, experience, etc!

Hopefully this will help you out a little. I studied Romeo and Juliet and Westside Story, then Pygmalion and My Fair Lady for this section of the course. I talked about how Romeo and Juliet is inaccessible to the typical modern audience because of its contextual base, its form (Medieval play) and the language. Westside Story is set in New York, in musical theatre, discussing the cultural difference of two colliding families in contemporary language. This only enhances the original themes of Romeo and Juliet, not replaces them. The human experience of conflict and love resonates deeply between the texts.

Let me know if you want to flesh this idea out more!

[blaran]

Hi! I've topped English every year since Year 7, and I'm also topping English Advanced.... but Extension 1 is my downfall. I grasp all the concepts of After the Bomb, but analysin the text and discussing its meaning doesn't seem to be enough. I also need to provide not only context but contextual EVIDENCE (e.g. quotes from Adlai Stevenson or Simone de Beauvoirfor Plath) and discuss the purpose of the author (? why is Sylvia Plath a poet??? idk why don't you ask her) and structural techniques and whatnot.

I was hoping you might be able to help me out with an essay scaffold. Traditionally, I've used PETE or PEAL or Point 1 (topic sentence, context, point, quote, analysis, conclusion) but this seems to be inadequate :/ Any help would be much appreciated!!

[elysepopplewell]

Hi! I've topped English every year since Year 7, and I'm also topping English Advanced.... but Extension 1 is my downfall. I grasp all the concepts of After the Bomb, but analysin the text and discussing its meaning doesn't seem to be enough. I also need to provide not only context but contextual EVIDENCE (e.g. quotes from Adlai Stevenson or Simone de Beauvoirfor Plath) and discuss the purpose of the author (? why is Sylvia Plath a poet??? idk why don't you ask her) and structural techniques and whatnot.

I was hoping you might be able to help me out with an essay scaffold. Traditionally, I've used PETE or PEAL or Point 1 (topic sentence, context, point, quote, analysis, conclusion) but this seems to be inadequate :/ Any help would be much appreciated!!

Hey there! Your teacher is doing you a favour by forcing you to elevate your response by using contextual evidence as well! This isn't such a bad thing. I did it too! Particularly, I focused on philosophical and scholarly quotes.

You can read my own essay here to look at how I structured it, but also how I spoke about Plath. When I was doing my HSC last year, I actually used [url-=http://atarnotes.com/forum/index.php?topic=160266.0]this guide[/url] to help me write the essay. You'll find similarities in our structure!

Any advice I have for you at this stage is completely contained in those two links because one is exactly what helped me, the other is what my end product was! Have you had a look at them before? If not, have a quick squiz

I 100% recommend integrated paragraphs for Ways of Thinking! Are you doing this already? For Extension 1, it isn't just enough to follow your own structure, you have to manipulate scaffolds to present complicated ideas in a succinct way

After looking at the two links, let me know if you have another other questions. But, I think they might help you a lot Or maybe they will give you more questions? hahah! Let me know, always here to help!

[William Chen]

Hey, I do ATB and I have an essay and creative in around 4 days. Just wondering how much synthesis or integration you need for the texts. Do you need to have one narrow thesis that applies for all texts, or can you have a broader one, and then talk about every one individually. Also, for the creative, we are given the stimulus (strange I know) of a man looking across the sea. How clear does your creative have to be when linking to "after the bomb? Like I don't want to write some bs about someone looking at a Rocket, or Vietnam or something. But I'm afraid a marker might be really subjective and think my references are too subtle

P.S thanks in advance since I'm not too sure how to reply to your comments. A bit of a noob

[elysepopplewell]

Hey, I do ATB and I have an essay and creative in around 4 days. Just wondering how much synthesis or integration you need for the texts. Do you need to have one narrow thesis that applies for all texts, or can you have a broader one, and then talk about every one individually. Also, for the creative, we are given the stimulus (strange I know) of a man looking across the sea. How clear does your creative have to be when linking to "after the bomb? Like I don't want to write some bs about someone looking at a Rocket, or Vietnam or something. But I'm afraid a marker might be really subjective and think my references are too subtle

P.S thanks in advance since I'm not too sure how to reply to your comments. A bit of a noob

Hey William! Don't worry, we all start as noobs
If you want to reply to someone, you can just do exactly what you did to post her originally, or you can click "quote" at the top of my textbox. Quoting will make a little blue box at the top of your response when it is posted so that users can see who you're talking to.

Okay, so creative first. Your creative writing needs to have direct links to the ATB period. It needs to be set in that period, or it needs to be a reflection of that period, or it needs to adapt the ways of thinking in a new setting. The bottom line is: The ways of thinking of the era have to be ridiculously clear. You seriously need to, more than anything, show that you know several ways of thinking that commonly characterised the ATB era. As for the stimulus, your stimulus incorporation doesn't need to be ATB specific in itself. I mean, you can change the person looking across the sea to simply be your main character. You don't need to make a metaphor of the sea. But, if you want to, you can. If you don't want to change the story you have planned, your best bet is to make the stimulus metaphorical, recurring, a motif, something like that.

As for the essay:
This is difficult to say because so much of it is hear-say. What I mean by this is, some people say that you cannot get a band 6 in Extension unless you write a thoroughly integrated essay. For these earlier assessments, you need to find out what your teacher expects. My own teacher believed that you could write wonderful essays without them being thoroughly integrated in every paragraph. So, for the internal assessments, I worked really hard on making sure that I was linking the texts with WAYS of THINKING. To me, that was more important that anything else. All throughout my internal assessments, this was my aim and I always did really well. It wasn't until I got to the HSC exams that I thought, "ok, time to do this integrated thing." Then I wrote a thoroughly integrated essay that is downloadable on this website. More than anything, you need to link ways of thinking. This is your best bet.

Let me know if this makes sense to you. If you have more questions, post back

[William Chen]

Hey William! Don't worry, we all start as noobs
If you want to reply to someone, you can just do exactly what you did to post her originally, or you can click "quote" at the top of my textbox. Quoting will make a little blue box at the top of your response when it is posted so that users can see who you're talking to.

Okay, so creative first. Your creative writing needs to have direct links to the ATB period. It needs to be set in that period, or it needs to be a reflection of that period, or it needs to adapt the ways of thinking in a new setting. The bottom line is: The ways of thinking of the era have to be ridiculously clear. You seriously need to, more than anything, show that you know several ways of thinking that commonly characterised the ATB era. As for the stimulus, your stimulus incorporation doesn't need to be ATB specific in itself. I mean, you can change the person looking across the sea to simply be your main character. You don't need to make a metaphor of the sea. But, if you want to, you can. If you don't want to change the story you have planned, your best bet is to make the stimulus metaphorical, recurring, a motif, something like that.

As for the essay:
This is difficult to say because so much of it is hear-say. What I mean by this is, some people say that you cannot get a band 6 in Extension unless you write a thoroughly integrated essay. For these earlier assessments, you need to find out what your teacher expects. My own teacher believed that you could write wonderful essays without them being thoroughly integrated in every paragraph. So, for the internal assessments, I worked really hard on making sure that I was linking the texts with WAYS of THINKING. To me, that was more important that anything else. All throughout my internal assessments, this was my aim and I always did really well. It wasn't until I got to the HSC exams that I thought, "ok, time to do this integrated thing." Then I wrote a thoroughly integrated essay that is downloadable on this website. More than anything, you need to link ways of thinking. This is your best bet.

Let me know if this makes sense to you. If you have more questions, post back

Ah thanks. Also, just to clarify, writing with absurdist elements like WFG would be seen like a form of cheating by the markers? E.g having an overall vague plot (like Maralinga bomb testings or something), but having traces of absurdist messy bits all around to show mental turmoil, uncertainty, that sort of stuff. Bad idea?

For the essay, I'll emphasis on linking to context, but include some integration at the end of every second paragraph. I might work on integration later after I get the half yearlies out of the way, since I did fairly well in my first assessment last term so I'll just use that as a blueprint and edit it

Thanks
PS Also how much can you write in an hour?

[elysepopplewell]

Ah thanks. Also, just to clarify, writing with absurdist elements like WFG would be seen like a form of cheating by the markers? E.g having an overall vague plot (like Maralinga bomb testings or something), but having traces of absurdist messy bits all around to show mental turmoil, uncertainty, that sort of stuff. Bad idea?

For the essay, I'll emphasis on linking to context, but include some integration at the end of every second paragraph. I might work on integration later after I get the half yearlies out of the way, since I did fairly well in my first assessment last term so I'll just use that as a blueprint and edit it

Thanks
PS Also how much can you write in an hour?

I mean, it's not cheating. My concern for that is if you have a fragmented plot, in an exam conditions (rushed, messy writing, etc) then it becomes difficult to follow. It is easier to follow absurdist pieces when they are acted or in print because it is so visually clear. You can definitely do this in an exam, but I can't promise that it will be effective because of the way it is delivered. I don't think it is a bad idea, but your execution would have to be very clear in order to convey this to a marker well.

That sounds like a perfect plan for your essay! Once the half yearly is out of the way, you have some more time to play with structure before the next assessment!

Typically, I wrote about 30-35 words per minute. So when it came to an hour, I could write almost 2000 words. This depends on whether or not I'm making up the words as I go, if I'm writing from memory, if I'm in an exam (adrenaline kicks in and I write quickly), how neat I'm being, etc. With all of those factors in mind: I'd write about 1900 words an hour.

I hope your studying is going well!

[Acing]

Hi,

I'm in year 11 and our topic is "Existentialism", and our prescribed texts are: "Brazil" (film) and "The Trial" by Franz Kafka. I have an assignment coming up that is worth 40% and I need a related text for it. I found some I liked but unfortunately they were on the HSC prescription list. Help! I need to find a related text!

[elysepopplewell]

Hi,

I'm in year 11 and our topic is "Existentialism", and our prescribed texts are: "Brazil" (film) and "The Trial" by Franz Kafka. I have an assignment coming up that is worth 40% and I need a related text for it. I found some I liked but unfortunately they were on the HSC prescription list. Help! I need to find a related text!

Hi there! You could actually study the work of Jean-Paul Sartre himself by using his own publications as an ORT. It would be tricky, but I think it would definitely be rewarding!

I haven't read it myself, so I'm not sure of the length, level, anything like that, but I do know that some friends of mine have read The Stranger by Albert Camus. He has another book called "The Plague." Existentialism isn't an easy topic but it's very interesting. Plus, if you are studying After the Bomb in year 12, you'll have a great understanding of one of the major ways of thinking!

[Acing]

Hi,

We have a tutorial-style assessment coming up. The task is:

Discuss how elements of Existentialism are seen in ONE text of your choosing.

You discussion of the text is to be presented in a 5-6 minute tutorial. After each tutorial there will be the opportunity for questions. The use of teaching aids and text extracts are welcome.

I've chosen my text and I'm happy with it, but I don't know how to start it. It is 5-6 minutes and I don't want to bore everyone six feet under, but I don't want to loose marks by not hitting the criteria. I was wondering if you could help me set the structure so I can maximise interactivity (umm, how did I do this?!) and hit the criteria.

Thank you!

[elysepopplewell]

Hi,

We have a tutorial-style assessment coming up. The task is:

Discuss how elements of Existentialism are seen in ONE text of your choosing.

You discussion of the text is to be presented in a 5-6 minute tutorial. After each tutorial there will be the opportunity for questions. The use of teaching aids and text extracts are welcome.

I've chosen my text and I'm happy with it, but I don't know how to start it. It is 5-6 minutes and I don't want to bore everyone six feet under, but I don't want to loose marks by not hitting the criteria. I was wondering if you could help me set the structure so I can maximise interactivity (umm, how did I do this?!) and hit the criteria.

Thank you!

Hello! Thank you for posting your question You've got such an amazing task right here because you are delivering a tutorial, and teaching something is one of the best ways to learn and understand it. So there is a lot of merit to this task!

A tip: A big part of these speaking tasks is to be super engaged and prepared. People might even look at you thinking that you're over prepared or just being a total actor, but your teacher will be looking at you and then looking at their marking sheet and giving you top marks. The reason is, in these tasks, actually knowing your stuff is just one section of the assessment. You need to extend yourself physically (actions, tools, etc) and also verbally (a funny accent of a professor? loud and confident? Take on a character, even if that character is just a teacher version of yourself! If you can really take a leap here, you set yourself apart from the other people in your class immediately. I'm saying all this and assuming you're not a drama student. Maybe you're a natural speaker and you know all of this already 

A possible way to start is perhaps by taking a quote from a famous existentialist, and then laughing at how bizarre it sounds, then in fact breaking it down and applying it to your text. Then at the end, round it back up to the quote again and show your readers a thinking like, "Hey! Existentialism can make sense when you put the right thinking hat on."

Similarly, another way to start is by using an important quote from the text, and then fleshing it out throughout, and then finishing with that quote again in a way that shows your students that you have totally enlightened them because they don't see the same quote now, the way they did at the start.

Enough about quotes, another idea is to perhaps ask the class what they understand about a certain part of the text. Whether it be about the text specifically (this depends on whether or not your class have read the text) or about a situation in the text, totally lifted from its context. Perhaps ask them what they would do in this context, etc. Then bring it to the text and talk about how an existential way of thinking determines so much of a lifestyle.

Describing sources of existentialism is an impressive way to show your knowledge of the topic. This could be anything from existentialist scholars, to actual real life historical circumstances that lead to the rise of existentialism. What failed that lead to existentialism rising? Is existentialism appealing today? What prompted the writer to write about this?

To be engaging, throw yourself out there, ask questions (rhetorical or real), use hand actions, maybe use a slideshow, some posters (old school), or any of that kind of stuff.

Try to invite the audience into it a lot, whether that be through questions or laughter.

I hope this gives you a bit of an idea. It's a little difficult without knowing your text, but ultimately, this may only give you an idea, and then it's up to you! I'm sure you'll do wonderful. The fact that you've reached out for some ideas shows that you really care about this!

[elysepopplewell]

Hi,

We have a tutorial-style assessment coming up. The task is:

Discuss how elements of Existentialism are seen in ONE text of your choosing.

You discussion of the text is to be presented in a 5-6 minute tutorial. After each tutorial there will be the opportunity for questions. The use of teaching aids and text extracts are welcome.

I've chosen my text and I'm happy with it, but I don't know how to start it. It is 5-6 minutes and I don't want to bore everyone six feet under, but I don't want to loose marks by not hitting the criteria. I was wondering if you could help me set the structure so I can maximise interactivity (umm, how did I do this?!) and hit the criteria.

Thank you!

Hello! Thank you for posting your question You've got such an amazing task right here because you are delivering a tutorial, and teaching something is one of the best ways to learn and understand it. So there is a lot of merit to this task!

A tip: A big part of these speaking tasks is to be super engaged and prepared. People might even look at you thinking that you're over prepared or just being a total actor, but your teacher will be looking at you and then looking at their marking sheet and giving you top marks. The reason is, in these tasks, actually knowing your stuff is just one section of the assessment. You need to extend yourself physically (actions, tools, etc) and also verbally (a funny accent of a professor? loud and confident? Take on a character, even if that character is just a teacher version of yourself! If you can really take a leap here, you set yourself apart from the other people in your class immediately. I'm saying all this and assuming you're not a drama student. Maybe you're a natural speaker and you know all of this already 

A possible way to start is perhaps by taking a quote from a famous existentialist, and then laughing at how bizarre it sounds, then in fact breaking it down and applying it to your text. Then at the end, round it back up to the quote again and show your readers a thinking like, "Hey! Existentialism can make sense when you put the right thinking hat on."

Similarly, another way to start is by using an important quote from the text, and then fleshing it out throughout, and then finishing with that quote again in a way that shows your students that you have totally enlightened them because they don't see the same quote now, the way they did at the start.

Enough about quotes, another idea is to perhaps ask the class what they understand about a certain part of the text. Whether it be about the text specifically (this depends on whether or not your class have read the text) or about a situation in the text, totally lifted from its context. Perhaps ask them what they would do in this context, etc. Then bring it to the text and talk about how an existential way of thinking determines so much of a lifestyle.

Describing sources of existentialism is an impressive way to show your knowledge of the topic. This could be anything from existentialist scholars, to actual real life historical circumstances that lead to the rise of existentialism. What failed that lead to existentialism rising? Is existentialism appealing today? What prompted the writer to write about this?

To be engaging, throw yourself out there, ask questions (rhetorical or real), use hand actions, maybe use a slideshow, some posters (old school), or any of that kind of stuff.

Try to invite the audience into it a lot, whether that be through questions or laughter.

I hope this gives you a bit of an idea. It's a little difficult without knowing your text, but ultimately, this may only give you an idea, and then it's up to you! I'm sure you'll do wonderful. The fact that you've reached out for some ideas shows that you really care about this!

[Jimmy Barnes]

I recently read your article on memorising english essays for your HSC and you said you did it for extension 1 as well. I currently memorise all my essays but I was wondering how you did it for extension 1 as the course is notorious for creating questions that are very difficult to memorise for? What was your approach?

[elysepopplewell]

I recently read your article on memorising english essays for your HSC and you said you did it for extension 1 as well. I currently memorise all my essays but I was wondering how you did it for extension 1 as the course is notorious for creating questions that are very difficult to memorise for? What was your approach?

This is a super valuable question! I approached it by committing the body paragraphs to memory. By this I mean, the quotes, the techniques, the analysis, the links, etc. I always try to pick my quotes to be VERY important to a text - this way they aren't just a little side comment that doesn't reveal much, but in fact the quote can be analysed from all kinds of perspectives. So, universal quotes made this a lot easier when adapting to the essay question. I think I also took a leap with the idea that it would be about the personal or the political, and I was going to do my best to agree/but disagree with the question if I needed to. So I made sure there were personal elements and political elements so that I could argue something like, "Yes the political is important, but the personal provides the foundations for what becomes political" (definitely in language a whooooole lot better than that). The last thing I suggest, which I know isn't as relevant to you studying comedy, was I knew my "ways of thinking" (the module) and exactly which ones I wanted to discuss, so I was ready to slide them into the introduction, no matter what the essay question was.

Basically, I think that you need to identify what the most definites are for a question. By this I mean, there will be a stimulus, it will be about ways of thinking (for my module), and so on. Then identify what is likely: key words from the rubric. Then the rest you need to luck out on, or you need to prepare your evidence to various possibilities to try and be as best prepared as possible.

I worked out my essay question fairly well but definitely not directly - this was just based on researching past papers and reading the rubric. So it took some pretty definite researching, but I was a lot more clued in with a memorised essay after I had tried to approach the question earlier on

[arleee]

Hey,
I'm trying to get ready for Trials at the moment and I have no clue how to study for this subject! Do you have any hints about how to make them? Also, what are your tips for writing essays in exams - its my downfall!
Thanks a bunch,
Arlee