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March 29, 2024, 07:40:35 am

Author Topic: Will the HSC specifically tell us to write a specific poem for MOD B  (Read 3006 times)

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moon_princess

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Hi, im studying T.S Eliot's poems at school for Mod B but i was wondering what if they would specifically tell us to write a specific poem of Eliot e.g Journey of the Magi with another poem of our choice?

angewina_naguen

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Re: Will the HSC specifically tell us to write a specific poem for MOD B
« Reply #1 on: August 03, 2020, 02:35:51 pm »
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Hi, im studying T.S Eliot's poems at school for Mod B but i was wondering what if they would specifically tell us to write a specific poem of Eliot e.g Journey of the Magi with another poem of our choice?

Hey, moon_princess!

Welcome to the forums and hope your revision is coming along well  ;D This is a really good question that I have (slightly) long answer to that I hope will not only help you out, but also any other students doing poetry for Module B!

The short answer is yes, they can definitely specify a poem in your Trials and/or in the HSC. The ones they have specified in the past, and I won't put it against them to do it again, are Journey of the Magi and The Hollow Men because very few students choose to discuss them in their essays. The other three poems are fairly popular so the likelihood of them being specified is low; if I was to put forward the one that might be specified of those three, I would probably say Rhapsody on a Windy Night.

While this might seem a bit unfair for T.S Eliot students from first appearance, there are two reasons for this. The first is that this is a way to equalise the playing field for everyone else. Module B is a critical study which implies that students are required to engage deeply with a whole text that is representative of a composer's oeuvre. For the students who have a full-length novel like Emma or a Shakespeare text like King Henry IV Part 1, they are expected to know the entirety of the text inside out in case they get asked anything from an essay question that discusses the broader purpose of the text, to something specific like a scene, theme, form feature or character. To make sure that they are not disadvantaged for having to work with a lengthy text, NESA has chosen poems that, together as a whole, are representative of T.S Eliot and David Malouf and can, therefore, be specified to present a similar challenge for students studying them.

The other reason this has happened in the past is to throw off students from using pre-prepared essays and to challenge them to respond more directly to the question. Module B is the most unpredictable of the modules because it is a critical study. This is why it is important that you have analysis and examples prepared for all of the poems in the event they ask for one so you know what to use and how to respond to them.

Do I think they will specify one for the Class of 2020 in the Trials/HSC? I have no clue. One side of me thinks they will because they didn't last year for the HSC and a poem may be specified either a) in Trials to prepare students for the possibility of it being asked in the HSC or b) in the HSC as a way to test students as I have mentioned above. The other side of me though is believing that they will not because this year's cohort has already suffered enough with COVID-19 affecting their study experience. I would recommend being safer than sorry and having at least six quotes (which should be enough for two bodies with three quotes each) for every poem ready on hand  :) Hope this helps and let me know if you have any further questions!

Angelina  ;D
-HSC 2018-

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Bachelor of Music (Music Education) at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music