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Author Topic: Lauren's Ask Me Anything  (Read 7768 times)

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caffinatedloz

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Re: Lauren's Ask Me Anything
« Reply #15 on: October 20, 2019, 09:46:45 pm »
+3
You are very welcome! Sucks that EngLang isn't an option for you :'( but I hope you enjoy Literature! I'm sure the creative and heavy text-focused elements of that subject will be fun for you, and I believe most schools get you to do one oral presentation each year (for Units 1&2 and 3&4). Other than that, maybe you could continue debating into VCE and have a fun extra-curricular to break up the studying!
110% going to continue next year! Unfortunately my team got knocked out of finals only two rounds in this year, so my season is over. But I'm coaching 28 year sevens who've never debated before (along with another year ten) so I'm still getting my fix atm. I think our school recently added in an oral presentation for literature (they used not to have one) so I'm very glad about that!

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Re: Lauren's Ask Me Anything
« Reply #16 on: October 20, 2019, 10:14:28 pm »
+7
1732 days ago I attended an English lecture where the lecturer asked the audience to provide a few random words. At the end of the lecture, she wrote a small paragraph on a topic, which had incorporated all of these words.

If I was to say wood, village, and rug, would you be able to do this again for a random topic or text?
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Re: Lauren's Ask Me Anything
« Reply #17 on: October 20, 2019, 10:47:00 pm »
+7
Could you give some tips on how to write a comparative argument analysis essay, where we have to compare two articles instead of one?

QCAAMemes

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Re: Lauren's Ask Me Anything
« Reply #18 on: October 21, 2019, 03:11:13 pm »
+3
Hi, what advice do you have for excelling in literature? I feel like a lot of it (especially the imaginative story IA3) comes down to the teachers personal writing preference, and because of this my marks tend to fluctuate as I never seem to nail it. Also, do you have any tips for writing a good thesis for the IA2?
Edit: IA2* not IA3
« Last Edit: October 21, 2019, 03:14:21 pm by QCAAMemes »

literally lauren

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Re: Lauren's Ask Me Anything
« Reply #19 on: October 21, 2019, 03:51:15 pm »
+8
Thank you!

Aaaand a follow up question, if you don't mind: do you have a puppy/dog of your own?
One day... a girl can dream :'(

Now that we know your favourite books, what are the books that you hate the most? :P
Ooooooooooooooohhh boy. Okay I'm going to limit myself to one, and it's actually a book I had to "study" at school...


This sorry excuse for a book is about a boy who gets a bit sad because his brother goes drunk driving and kills someone (or nearly kills someone, I don't remember) but it's okay because footy and a hot girl make him feel better. *heavy eye roll*

To save everyone the trouble of reading it, it's about a small village that's "torn apart by tragedy"  ::) because some idiot gets drunk and smashes into another car, killing someone innocent before he then hits a hardwood tree that safely stops him so he walks away unscathed. But we don't follow the potentially interesting plotline of a young man coming to terms with the harrowing consequences of his recklessness - we follow his milquetoast brother who has no personality beyond footy and moody scowling.

It's also a book that features my LEAST FAVOURITE TROPE EVER, which is the "that girl is so hot, I've never spoken to her, but I'm in love with her, but she's so perfect, except she's DAMAGED, and if only she could see that what's missing from her life is me, a mediocre idiot boy."  ::) And at the end of the book, this main character (whose name I genuinely couldn't recall even though his name is in the fkin title) is rewarded for overcoming his trauma* (!?) by winning his footy game and getting to have sex with the hot girl on a rock.

* As far as I could tell, his trauma was that he had a sook and threw up on a rug one time.

I bear no ill will against the author, but I have no earthly clue why it was put on our Year 10 reading list. Actually, I kinda do - I think they chose it to get the male students interested in English, and I was thoroughly offended on behalf of every male in my class because this seemed like an utterly, despicably condescending way to be like "yo boys, sometimes books are about footy and sex, how cool is that??" I hated it and it was awful and I have probably suppressed a bunch of other awful details that I don't want to be reminded of. If anyone has any questions, I won't be answering them kthxbai

1732 days ago I attended an English lecture where the lecturer asked the audience to provide a few random words. At the end of the lecture, she wrote a small paragraph on a topic, which had incorporated all of these words.

If I was to say wood, village, and rug, would you be able to do this again for a random topic or text?
See above ;)

also omg it's been 1733 days since the first ever ATAR Notes lecture?? though I have no idea what freak of a lecturer you're talking about 8)

literally lauren

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Re: Lauren's Ask Me Anything
« Reply #20 on: October 21, 2019, 04:08:45 pm »
+8
VCE:
Could you give some tips on how to write a comparative argument analysis essay, where we have to compare two articles instead of one?
Here is a link to something I wrote for the old syllabus (though Argument Analysis has barely changed from its previous incarnation as Language Analysis). The section on body paragraphs might help give you a structure to use to efficiently compare.

But since the exam is coming up soon, rather than make any changes to your style, here are my three main tips:
   1. Don't stress about comparing. You don't have to "compare two articles," you'll just have to analyse two articles. So you should concentrate on your analytical skills, and don't worry about any comparative analysis for Section C. All you need to do is LINK from one piece to the next using...
   2. Comparative language! Rather than actually comparing, you can just use a simple word or phrase like 'On the other hand, Author 2 instead critiques...' or 'Similarly, Author 2 also suggests that... That's all you need! Use this language any time you need to move from one piece to another, and then let your analysis do the talking!
   3. Note that there might also be more than two articles! You could get three. Or you could get one speech with four comments from the audience. Or you could get six different blog posts and no main piece. Or the examiners might be nice and just give you one main piece  ;) No matter what you get dealt, you should be focusing on how language is being used to create a persuasive argument, so don't let the material throw you off!

If there's anything about a potential comparative task that's worrying you, just let me know and I'd be happy to go into more detail!
« Last Edit: October 21, 2019, 04:18:23 pm by literally lauren »

literally lauren

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Re: Lauren's Ask Me Anything
« Reply #21 on: October 21, 2019, 05:00:59 pm »
+7
QCE:
Hi, what advice do you have for excelling in literature? I feel like a lot of it (especially the imaginative story IA3) comes down to the teachers personal writing preference, and because of this my marks tend to fluctuate as I never seem to nail it. Also, do you have any tips for writing a good thesis for the IA2?
Edit: IA2* not IA3
I'm so excited that Lit seems to be a popular subject in Queensland! I'll do guides for all the IAs asap, but for now...

My Lit teacher used to joke that they assigned the end-of-year exam essay marks by throwing all the essays down the stairs and giving the best marks to the ones that landed closest to their cat.

I don't think they actually did this, but he made a fair point about the subjectivity of the course. Real talk: 75% of your mark is down to your teacher, so if you get on your teacher's bad side, you'll be fighting an uphill battle. And another 25% of your mark will come from assessors who have never met you, and don't know anything about how much effort you've put into your work.

But you can also use this to your advantage, since every assessor in the state, including your teacher, HAS to use the same marking criteria... e.g. for the creative piece:

This can kind of be your checklist when crafting and editing your piece - so long as you have done a decent job in meeting each of these criteria, you'll be in a good spot to earn a decent mark.

But to really ensure a good mark, you should work with your teacher, not against them! Don't try and think of it as battling against your teacher's bizarre preferences (even if that's what it feels like!) - think of it as learning what your teacher's preferences are and how best to cater to them.

For example, if your teacher keeps dropping hints in class that beginning your creative piece 'in media res' (='in the middle of things,' i.e. opening your story in the midst of the plot unfolding, rather than with a conventional narrative orientation), then guess how you should begin your creative piece!? Your teacher might not be objectively right that this is a good way to open all stories, but they're recommending it for a reason, so you should take their advice on board. If they're less direct about their preferences, then you might need to put more effort into getting feedback from them. Try to make time after class or in any spare periods you have to sit down with them and go over your work to work out why your marks might be fluctuating.

Most of my friends in Year 12 had the same problem - and they'd be bouncing from a C+ to an A+ without understanding why. It feels great when you're bouncing upwards! But when their marks plummeted from an A to a D, they'd feel awful. It wasn't until a few months before the exam that we went through all of their essays and worked out where, precisely, they were losing marks that they could consistently score highly. So it's hard for me to say why your marks might be a bit up and down, but hopefully this is something I can help with throughout the year if you've got some sample paragraphs or creative pieces!

As for the specific IAs, I'll be sure to put out an article with creative tips soon! The best one I have for now is to SHOW DON'T TELL! Never write something like "She was upset with her mother" - that's telling us information. Instead, show us this by writing something more descriptive like "She turned her head, her skin prickling as she forced herself not to make eye contact with her mother." Suddenly we have a much more interesting sentence that's subtly revealing information about this character and her relationship dynamics!

A good tip for this is to use the five senses: sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell. Rather than telling us a character is upset, think about what 'upset' looks like, sounds like, feels like... or tastes/smells like... (the last two can be a little weird, but sometimes they work! e.g. "The last time she spoke to her mother, she had a bitter taste in her mouth for hours, and the stench of parental guilt seeped into her furniture and didn't leave for weeks" :P )

Finally, regarding coming up with a good thesis, is this in relation to the creative (IA2)? Or for the analytical essays? Assuming you mean the creative, in general, the best thing you can do is expand upon and complexify the author's thesis. So take the thesis from the set text you're doing for that unit and then add a new dimension to it in your story. This would ensure you still have adequate connections to your source material, but are effectively augmenting it (and aren't just retelling part of the narrative, or reiterating the same points that the author is making).*

*The syllabus only talks about a thesis in relation to the analytical essays, but I could totally understand why your teacher might use this term for the creative as well - could you let me know what you mean here? Sorry, I'm just not sure what each school is doing, haha!


Also, to turn this AMA back around - how are you finding Literature so far?? I'd love to hear what you've thought of the Units 1&2 course ;D

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Re: Lauren's Ask Me Anything
« Reply #22 on: October 21, 2019, 05:21:36 pm »
+3
VCE:Even though Views and Values essays seem like regular English Text Response pieces (i.e. you usually respond to a prompt that's about some thematic ideas in the text), you should still maintain a focus on LANGUAGE! Try to do some 'close analysis' and unpack key literary devices and quotes, since this is the foundation your teacher will be looking for!
...
I hope this helps, but please let me know if you have any follow-ups. I know schools can do all sorts of crazy things in Year 10 English and Lit, so please tell me if any of this doesn't make sense! :)
Thanks Lauren, that really helped!
I also wanted to ask for the Views and Values essay (written under test conditions), we're allowed a quote sheet.
1. How do you distinguish/extract good quotes from the novel and literary criticism?
2. How many quotes should I use per paragraph?
« Last Edit: October 21, 2019, 05:29:51 pm by Snow Leopard »

QCAAMemes

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Re: Lauren's Ask Me Anything
« Reply #23 on: October 21, 2019, 08:05:02 pm »
+3
QCE:I'm so excited that Lit seems to be a popular subject in Queensland! I'll do guides for all the IAs asap, but for now...

My Lit teacher used to joke that they assigned the end-of-year exam essay marks by throwing all the essays down the stairs and giving the best marks to the ones that landed closest to their cat.

I don't think they actually did this, but he made a fair point about the subjectivity of the course. Real talk: 75% of your mark is down to your teacher, so if you get on your teacher's bad side, you'll be fighting an uphill battle. And another 25% of your mark will come from assessors who have never met you, and don't know anything about how much effort you've put into your work.

But you can also use this to your advantage, since every assessor in the state, including your teacher, HAS to use the same marking criteria... e.g. for the creative piece:

This can kind of be your checklist when crafting and editing your piece - so long as you have done a decent job in meeting each of these criteria, you'll be in a good spot to earn a decent mark.

But to really ensure a good mark, you should work with your teacher, not against them! Don't try and think of it as battling against your teacher's bizarre preferences (even if that's what it feels like!) - think of it as learning what your teacher's preferences are and how best to cater to them.

For example, if your teacher keeps dropping hints in class that beginning your creative piece 'in media res' (='in the middle of things,' i.e. opening your story in the midst of the plot unfolding, rather than with a conventional narrative orientation), then guess how you should begin your creative piece!? Your teacher might not be objectively right that this is a good way to open all stories, but they're recommending it for a reason, so you should take their advice on board. If they're less direct about their preferences, then you might need to put more effort into getting feedback from them. Try to make time after class or in any spare periods you have to sit down with them and go over your work to work out why your marks might be fluctuating.

Most of my friends in Year 12 had the same problem - and they'd be bouncing from a C+ to an A+ without understanding why. It feels great when you're bouncing upwards! But when their marks plummeted from an A to a D, they'd feel awful. It wasn't until a few months before the exam that we went through all of their essays and worked out where, precisely, they were losing marks that they could consistently score highly. So it's hard for me to say why your marks might be a bit up and down, but hopefully this is something I can help with throughout the year if you've got some sample paragraphs or creative pieces!

As for the specific IAs, I'll be sure to put out an article with creative tips soon! The best one I have for now is to SHOW DON'T TELL! Never write something like "She was upset with her mother" - that's telling us information. Instead, show us this by writing something more descriptive like "She turned her head, her skin prickling as she forced herself not to make eye contact with her mother." Suddenly we have a much more interesting sentence that's subtly revealing information about this character and her relationship dynamics!

A good tip for this is to use the five senses: sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell. Rather than telling us a character is upset, think about what 'upset' looks like, sounds like, feels like... or tastes/smells like... (the last two can be a little weird, but sometimes they work! e.g. "The last time she spoke to her mother, she had a bitter taste in her mouth for hours, and the stench of parental guilt seeped into her furniture and didn't leave for weeks" :P )

Finally, regarding coming up with a good thesis, is this in relation to the creative (IA2)? Or for the analytical essays? Assuming you mean the creative, in general, the best thing you can do is expand upon and complexify the author's thesis. So take the thesis from the set text you're doing for that unit and then add a new dimension to it in your story. This would ensure you still have adequate connections to your source material, but are effectively augmenting it (and aren't just retelling part of the narrative, or reiterating the same points that the author is making).*

*The syllabus only talks about a thesis in relation to the analytical essays, but I could totally understand why your teacher might use this term for the creative as well - could you let me know what you mean here? Sorry, I'm just not sure what each school is doing, haha!


Also, to turn this AMA back around - how are you finding Literature so far?? I'd love to hear what you've thought of the Units 1&2 course ;D

Very helpful, thank you very much! Apologies for the incorrect use of the IA#, I thought that it was the same for everyone in grade 11 this year haha. For my school, IA1 was a multimodal presentation about filling in gaps and silences, IA2 was an analytical essay response to a question and IA3 was an imaginative piece of the chosen genre (gothic).
I think I speak for myself and most people I know when I say Literature is a great subject. It is entertaining, challenging yet somewhat relaxing. However, an inevitable problem is that of which I have described - it becomes difficult to achieve highly when the marking can be so sporadic. I find the ISMG for literature especially very difficult to dissect and it is super subjective. I wouldn't say no to listening to your take on it, however, as it appears to be almost the same ISMG for every assessment piece!
Thank you again for answering!

literally lauren

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Re: Lauren's Ask Me Anything
« Reply #24 on: October 26, 2019, 12:57:16 pm »
+7
Thanks Lauren, that really helped!
I also wanted to ask for the Views and Values essay (written under test conditions), we're allowed a quote sheet.
1. How do you distinguish/extract good quotes from the novel and literary criticism?
2. How many quotes should I use per paragraph?

Ooh, okay, so your standard for a "good" quote from the novel should just be something you can analyse. Anything you can use as the foundation for an interesting idea or interpretation is valid. And I'd highly recommend finding a wide variety of different quotes from across the text - both chronologically (i.e. from each chapter or scene) and in terms of the characters/themes they relate to. I'm also a big fan of picking some 'left-of-field' quotes that might not be the most obvious kinds of textual evidence, but nevertheless offer you a 'way in' to the text.

As for getting "good" quotes from literary criticism, look for something that is articulated in the best possible way. Basically, you want to find quotes that are so perfectly expressive and succinct that there's no point in paraphrasing them, because the critic has just distilled the essence of an idea impeccably. (If something's not worded as good as it could be, then there's no point quoting it - you should just put this into your own words or use this as a springboard for your own, better idea!) Hope this helps!

Re: "how many quotes per para" - obvs depends on paragraph length, but I would aim for:
- minimum of 3 CLOSELY ANALYSED quotes
- minimum of 3 other BLENDED quotes
So you should have three moments of really close analysis where you are unpacking a language feature and using metalanguage to comment on how meaning is created, but also at least three other moments were you are just integrating language in the text to talk about ideas, or perhaps quotes from other sources like literary critics.

You're not going to get a straight up 0/10 for only including 5 quotes instead of 6, but this would just be my recommended threshold for ensuring you're doing enough analysis! Hope this helps! :)

literally lauren

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Re: Lauren's Ask Me Anything
« Reply #25 on: October 26, 2019, 01:41:24 pm »
+4
Very helpful, thank you very much! Apologies for the incorrect use of the IA#, I thought that it was the same for everyone in grade 11 this year haha. For my school, IA1 was a multimodal presentation about filling in gaps and silences, IA2 was an analytical essay response to a question and IA3 was an imaginative piece of the chosen genre (gothic).
I think I speak for myself and most people I know when I say Literature is a great subject. It is entertaining, challenging yet somewhat relaxing. However, an inevitable problem is that of which I have described - it becomes difficult to achieve highly when the marking can be so sporadic. I find the ISMG for literature especially very difficult to dissect and it is super subjective. I wouldn't say no to listening to your take on it, however, as it appears to be almost the same ISMG for every assessment piece!
Thank you again for answering!
No worries at all - the IAs for Year 11 are a little more fluid, but it sounds like your school gave you some great tasks to prepare you for Units 3&4!

As for the ISMGs, you're totally right in that lots of the details are the same across the board (...though on the plus side, that's because there are lots of transferrable skills in Literature!) To translate the example from above from Teacher Jargon into Actual Human English Words:

1. This is a catch-all for the task as a whole, and refers to how you use language to write a believable creative piece that is based on your prescribed text. To do this, you'll need to deconstruct the text and then make decisions about how and why you are going to link things. It's not enough to just write a piece that "explores a character's perspective in more detail" or "changes the setting for a contemporary audience." You have to think about things on all four levels of the text...
For example: link to structural features by mirroring the imagery and foreshadowing in the set text, but use it to create a more ominous effect; link to characters by taking foregrounding a secondary character and giving the audience a more robust view of their perspective; link to themes by taking a key idea from the set text like 'the naivety of youth' and subverting it by showing that sometimes young people can actually be quite wise and enlightened in spite of their lack of experience; and link to V&V (Views and Values) by considering the author's core message (=views) and what their text conveys as important (=values), and either reaffirm or challenge this yourself.

2. This is about constructing a valid and consistent persona - for instance, if you are someone reading aloud a letter to a dying relative, you should communicate suitably solemn emotions, and hence evoke the intended response from your audience of sympathy and sorrow.

3. Does your piece have a clear sense of themes, characters, and settings, all communicated through your creative writing? If yes = ✓ :D

4. This means you have to do something to CHALLENGE the set text so that, if a reader read the original and then your piece, they would know that yours came second because it was building off of the original in some way. This is usually easier to do when you have an older text (e.g. set in the 1920s) which you can "modernise" and perhaps highlight how various cultural norms have changed. However, you could also achieve this by changing something about the original, and thus creating meaning by subsequently changing the themes and messages (e.g. King Lear but the genders are reversed; The Quiet American but set in Russia instead of Vietnam; Heart of Darkness but from the perspective of the mistress, etc.)

5. Similar to points 8/9, this is about your use of language features, but here we're specifically talking about the emotional and critical responses you elicit. In other words, your piece should be ~evocative~ and leave your reader thinking about things, or feeling a certain way. (I know this sounds really abstract, but it's basically just about how much thought you put into crafting the piece.)

6./7. This is about the logical sequencing (i.e. progression of your ideas), and the balance of points across your piece. If it feels 'top heavy,' or as though you'd run out of time by the end and just rushed the conclusion, you might lose marks here.

8./9. Key word here is choice - everything you do should be deliberate, so you'd need to think about the register (i.e. formality) of your writing, your use of any symbols/metaphors/imagery etc. and even the nature of the words you choose (i.e. why did you describe the main character as 'anxious' as opposed to 'highly-strung'?)

10. Is your piece grammatical? If yes = ✓ :D

11. This just means you have delivered your piece in an appropriate way, making use of oral presentation or multi-modal techniques (like vocal inflection, facial expressions, and body language).


Since this is the first year this is being implemented, I wouldn't be surprised if this was subsequently refined to be a bit more specific. And although this is more of a resource to help teachers understand how to give you marks (as opposed to something super useful for students on the surface), a basic grasp of the marking scheme can help you understand the perspective of assessors, and then just write to cater to them!

Hope this makes a little more sense - please let me know if you have any requests for Lit guides or resources you'd find helpful :)

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Re: Lauren's Ask Me Anything
« Reply #26 on: October 26, 2019, 02:17:41 pm »
+1
hi lauren!

do you have any suggestions on what can be done to prepare for unit 1/2 mainstream english? i want to have consistent progress throughout next year, and hopefully improve my writing skills by a lot. what can i do to ensure i am doing this?

thank you!

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Re: Lauren's Ask Me Anything
« Reply #27 on: October 26, 2019, 03:46:55 pm »
0
Hi Lauren,

Unlike a good majority of students on this forum, I would consider myself to be a mediocre, run-of-the-mill student in every single one of my Year 12 subjects. Back in Year 12, would you have considered yourself to be a pretty average student?

I haven't really had a particularly outstanding year in terms of results, and in some subjects, I've flopped and broken down many times. But I don't even need a 90+ ATAR. Did you even need an ATAR that high for your course? Or did you just love learning and studying so much that you just went for it anyway? Because unfortunately I've lost the drive to do anything related to studying. :'(

I am essentially in a period of swotvac (is that what uni students call it? lol), and it sucks. The numerous uncompleted and unattempted practice exams that lie on my desk are becoming more and more intimidating as the days pass.

For English (VCE), is there much more I can do between now and Wednesday, other than getting a load of prompts for Section A and B, planning three body paragraphs and getting some good quotes? It's kind of getting tedious and unremarkable. And timed practice exams. Yeah let's not talk about those. I'm in a cycle of, 'I should probably get started' and 'Stuff this', you get me?
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