5 Common English Extension 2 mistakes that you can avoid!

[elysepopplewell]

Hi Elyse !
Im doing poetry for my major work and my current word count is 3020. My teacher has given me a result of C+ for the poems so far. This is my first draft. I have asked for feedback from her but she hasnt given me anything! If you have the time, would you be able to explain the C mark and how I can get it from a C to an A (E4)

ThANK-YOU so much.

Hey Nadine! Who has left the comments on the side of the document? Is that your teacher?

A few pointers in order to refine your work at this point:

-Be meticulous with spelling and grammar (although the bounds of grammar may be twisted for your poetic purposes)
-Every time you've used imagery, or a word that isn't literal, brainstorm the connotations of this word. This might be an opportunity for you to make greater connections in your work, but it's also a chance to reconcile that you might be putting in more images to a reader's mind than what you intend.

Also, do you have a clear purpose of the poetry in mind? Be critical: do you think you're fulfilling the purpose? I'd ask some friends or peers to have a look at the poems and ask them a few questions afterwards like, "what did it make you feel?" "At what point did you start to feel like that?" This way you can note the way your poetry is influencing people - the volta might be where everyone else thinks it is instead of where you think it is.

[kmiller]

Hey!
I was looking at my calendar this morning and noticed that the ext2 major is due on the final day of my school's trial block! Obviously, this is all kinds of awful and I was wondering if anyone has any tips on how to balance trials and preparing for the final submission for ext 2?

Thanks so much in advanced xx

[elysepopplewell]

Hey!
I was looking at my calendar this morning and noticed that the ext2 major is due on the final day of my school's trial block! Obviously, this is all kinds of awful and I was wondering if anyone has any tips on how to balance trials and preparing for the final submission for ext 2?

Thanks so much in advanced xx

Hey! Be realistic about how much work you need to do on your major work. If you need to knuckle down for two days straight and smash it out, and then you're just left with some editing and refreshing each day for about half an hour each night, then so be it. But it's better to apply the pressure now than apply it during your exam period. How much time do you have before trials begin? And where are you at in your progress for E2 so far? Have you begun the reflection statement - or will you be using the report as the basis for this?

[Mary_a]

I think, just as being friends with someone who made this mistake, picking a topic/form/thesis that does not really excite you. When you aren't passionate about it, or simply picked it because it was supposedly an 'easy' topic, then that is an E2 mistake. I'll tell you this now-there is no 'easy' way out of E2, and absolutely loving what you're doing is the best advice I can possibly give.

I loved my major work so much, even the times it made me cry, my thesis was a culmination of everything I love about English.

Do what you love, and it honestly won't feel like work-or an HSC subject.

[theyam]

Hi people,

Does anyone have any tips on refining a question for a critical response?
And does anyone know how to actually research into this form?

Thanks~

[paigek3]

Hi people,

Does anyone have any tips on refining a question for a critical response?
And does anyone know how to actually research into this form?

Thanks~

Hey!! I also did a critical response and I also found researching into this form hard too. What is your topic so far? I refined mine after I begun writing to reflect what I was truly expressing so don’t worry too much about that now. But yeah let me know what you are thinking thus far and then I can possibly lead you into the direction of critical responses of similar nature

[theyam]

Hey!! I also did a critical response and I also found researching into this form hard too. What is your topic so far? I refined mine after I begun writing to reflect what I was truly expressing so don’t worry too much about that now. But yeah let me know what you are thinking thus far and then I can possibly lead you into the direction of critical responses of similar nature

Hi Ella!

Oh my god, thank you for replying, thought I wouldn't get a reply XD.  I'm completely new to this site, and I am honestly so grateful to know that there are people who are so willing to give advice to HSC students . This world feels so nice and warm now.

Well my topic is really simple compared to what I've heard so these are some dot points I came up with:

- Film to book adaptations: why do some people hate it so much?
- taking into account: the texts ability to retain textual integrity, does the retelling lose its meaning/ "original essence", does the adaptation try to tell a different message to reflect context?, what parts of the original text stay the same/ are changed and for what purpose?
- which links to Mod A: contextual ideas and Mod B: textual Integrity, Ext 1: authors writing for a purpose to criticise something

From theyam

[paigek3]

Hi Ella!

Oh my god, thank you for replying, thought I wouldn't get a reply XD.  I'm completely new to this site, and I am honestly so grateful to know that there are people who are so willing to give advice to HSC students . This world feels so nice and warm now.

Well my topic is really simple compared to what I've heard so these are some dot points I came up with:

- Film to book adaptations: why do some people hate it so much?
- taking into account: the texts ability to retain textual integrity, does the retelling lose its meaning/ "original essence", does the adaptation try to tell a different message to reflect context?, what parts of the original text stay the same/ are changed and for what purpose?
- which links to Mod A: contextual ideas and Mod B: textual Integrity, Ext 1: authors writing for a purpose to criticise something

From theyam

No worries!!

I love your topic so much! It is so relevant as it does seem to be an opinion so many people have so exploring the reason behind this and comparing the two seems so cool!

I have found a few things for you:

Writing a literature review http://www.jstor.org/stable/4132319 - although it doesn’t technically say a critical response, it still relates a bit to what you are doing

Writing the critical response http://write.siu.edu/_common/documents/handouts/writing-the-critical-response.pdf - extremely short but a bit of a how to guide. I used a small snippet of this in my reflection statement when I spoke about how the article assisted with my structure and blah blah, basically just to make the markers happy shhh

http://uwf.edu/media/university-of-west-florida/colleges/cassh/departments/writing-lab/word-documents/Critical-Response-Paragraphs.docx - this is basically a longer version from the one above if you’d rather use this, or even quote the original source at the top of the piece!


My final tip and is one of the most important is to research into iconic people who wrote non-fiction pieces of writing and their style, maybe even some in similar genres to the texts you are looking at, or even better yet, if their authors have done a critical response! This allows you to get inspiration for the style of writing


I’m sorry this wasn’t extremely helpful, I had a very hard time finding information on this part also. I ended up mainly using the style of a sport historian (as I did mine on the language we use to express sport) who had done critical response type articles, so hopefully you can be lucky to find an author of a similar kind!

[elysepopplewell]

Hi Ella!

Oh my god, thank you for replying, thought I wouldn't get a reply XD.  I'm completely new to this site, and I am honestly so grateful to know that there are people who are so willing to give advice to HSC students . This world feels so nice and warm now.

Well my topic is really simple compared to what I've heard so these are some dot points I came up with:

- Film to book adaptations: why do some people hate it so much?
- taking into account: the texts ability to retain textual integrity, does the retelling lose its meaning/ "original essence", does the adaptation try to tell a different message to reflect context?, what parts of the original text stay the same/ are changed and for what purpose?
- which links to Mod A: contextual ideas and Mod B: textual Integrity, Ext 1: authors writing for a purpose to criticise something

From theyam

Piping in to say this is an AWESOME idea so far. Film adaptations are really polarising, so you'll not be short of anything to look at. I've just typed "film adaptations of books" into my University online library and so many things have come up, so there's no shortage of readings available on the topic, but you've already identified the hard part: research into form. Thanks Ella so much for helping out

[theyam]

Piping in to say this is an AWESOME idea so far. Film adaptations are really polarising, so you'll not be short of anything to look at. I've just typed "film adaptations of books" into my University online library and so many things have come up, so there's no shortage of readings available on the topic, but you've already identified the hard part: research into form. Thanks Ella so much for helping out

Hi Elyse!

Thank you so much for your input! Do you mind if I message you my somewhat refined ideas?

Thank you!
From theyam

[hilaryl]

Hi Ella! I've decided to pick up extension two english as i really truly do value texts and love writing. However, my english teacher isn't so great and hasn't given me a direction to head towards, so I wanted to ask where i should start? I know I'm pretty firm on doing short stories but that's about it. Thankyou

[paigek3]

Hi Ella! I've decided to pick up extension two english as i really truly do value texts and love writing. However, my english teacher isn't so great and hasn't given me a direction to head towards, so I wanted to ask where i should start? I know I'm pretty firm on doing short stories but that's about it. Thankyou

Hey!! Just wanted to firstly say I am simply a HSC 2017 student, Elyse is the expert here, however, I am more than happy to supply advice from my point of view

You honestly sound like me! I had the year from hell for extension 2, my teacher left us for Europe for 6 weeks with no replacement, and he was quite unclear in his directions & also a bit un approachable at times, so myself and my classmates honestly had to figure a lot of it out ourselves. However, it made me much more well equipped to hopefully help other Extension 2 students!

I’m glad you’ve found a form you wanna do, and I think you should definitely stick to that as you seem to be good at it & comfortable with it, that is of course if nothing else is of interest

Now you need to begin to come up with a key concept/idea, or even a few, that you want to write about in your short story. Remember, you need to be able to link your major work back to the advanced or extension 1 course so maybe you could even draw inspiration from there to make linking them easy! But honestly, if you have an idea in mind already, begin with that and the links can come later

Feel free to write back with any concepts you are wanting to explore!! But yes, my main point is planning planning planning at this stage. Draw mind maps, do research - do anything and everything you can do to make your piece as authentic yet sophisticated as it can be

Also, start writing in your journal! If you haven’t been explained what that is yet, it is basically your extension 2 bible, you should record every idea or information you discover, as you will most probably need to hand this into your teacher at every assessment due. You can enter it whenever you want, I personally did it as a weekly reflection, but I think entering in it every time you have a new idea is just as effective

I loved Extension 2 so much because you are so free on what you can do. It was extremely tough but I was proud of what I produced in the end. Do not give up regardless of how poor your teacher may be, because I promise you it will be worth it

Looking forward to hearing your ideas!

[elysepopplewell]

Hey!! Just wanted to firstly say I am simply a HSC 2017 student, Elyse is the expert here, however, I am more than happy to supply advice from my point of view

Just here to echo the brilliant advice you've given here Ella! I'm no expert, just an ex-HSC student I support all of the advice you've given here!

[paigek3]

Just here to echo the brilliant advice you've given here Ella! I'm no expert, just an ex-HSC student I support all of the advice you've given here!

Well, you are the Extension English God soooo 

[hilaryl]

Thankyou so much!! Would you be able to shoot me your email by any chance in case I need help