HSC Stuff > HSC English Advanced

How extensive should notes be?

(1/2) > >>

BakerDad12:
Hey guys, as trials are approaching I need to finalise and consolidate my notes for English. However, I'm struggling to find the 'correct' depth of the notes - should my notes be an act by act or scene by scene analysis, or should they be the key elements of the text summarised?

angewina_naguen:

--- Quote from: BakerDad12 on June 30, 2020, 08:11:12 pm ---Hey guys, as trials are approaching I need to finalise and consolidate my notes for English. However, I'm struggling to find the 'correct' depth of the notes - should my notes be an act by act or scene by scene analysis, or should they be the key elements of the text summarised?

--- End quote ---

Hey, BakerDad12!

Great question  :D I'll start off by giving my usual argument for notes based on my own experience. I personally made very limited notes for my texts because I didn't find notes particularly effective for English. I only used my notes to help me start off attempting practice questions and eventually, I found myself remembering all the quotes and techniques I had in them better because I was actually applying them in exam contexts. I've noticed that several students spend an insane amount of time in English making pages full of notes which often don't register in their heads long term, let alone prove useful in the exam.

In answer to your question though, I think act or scene by scene analysis might be excessive at this stage with Trials next term. I would recommend going with a summary of the key elements of the text with textual evidence and analysis. When making your notes, try to find quotes that you can use for multiple themes to prevent you from having to remember as many. I initially had around 30 quotes per text I studied but managed to reduce it all down to 10 quotes per text (6-8 quotes depending on the essay with 2 backup ones in case I got a tricky question) because the examples overlapped across ideas. In short, it's important to make notes with the assessment in mind which, in this case, will be an exam. Make sure you dedicate time to putting your notes into practice and exposing yourself to different types of questions. Hope this helps!

Angelina  ;D

BakerDad12:
Hi, thanks for the response! When you said you notice many students spending a lot of time on notes, I did that for my human experiences text The Crucible. What I am debating is should I do that for my Mod B notes. When you said make it concise, I'm assuming this would include things like quotes, themes, and a character analysis? Just that?

angewina_naguen:

--- Quote from: BakerDad12 on July 01, 2020, 01:11:28 pm ---Hi, thanks for the response! When you said you notice many students spending a lot of time on notes, I did that for my human experiences text The Crucible. What I am debating is should I do that for my Mod B notes. When you said make it concise, I'm assuming this would include things like quotes, themes, and a character analysis? Just that?

--- End quote ---

Hey again!

For Module B, I would try to have quotes, themes and character analysis/text-by-text analysis (if you have poems). I would recommend you structure your notes like this or this to ensure you have enough evidence and examples to work with. With Module B, you might also get asked on a really obscure or specific aspect of the text so be prepared to have three or four extra quotes on hand in the event you might get specified a certain character or theme. Let me know if that helps!

Angelina  ;D

BakerDad12:
Hi, it's me again. I've updated my notes with the advice you've given me and it's starting to look pretty solid. I've got about 10 quotes per text for Adv. but I've also heard some people say they're memorising 20 per text. I'm not sure how many quotes to memorise.  The quotes I do have are long quotes, though, like: “Abigail brings the other girls into the court, and where she walks the crowd will part like the sea for Israel. And folks are brought before them, and if they scream and howl and fall to the floor - the person’s clapped in the jail for bewitchin’ them.”

I'm also unsure on how many themes to discuss. Is doing only 3 broad themes for a text like the Crucible limiting my scope?

Could you elaborate a bit on how you did it?

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page