Well said!
Is this applicable to a Year 10 student? I've been trying to do what you've stated above and tried using their language used within their essays but I find that I'm trying to drastically write an essay that I'm capable right now. I also find that I can't fully understand interpret VCE study guides and then applying the knowledge becomes essentially impossible.
Additionally, I have an english exam in a week and it's a text response. I've decided to prepare earlier than my class since I don't think I'll be prepared if I go at my teachers pace. I've found a T.R structure Essay Formula- Text Response and will probably just follow this until the end of VCE. Good idea?
I've also lost my trust in my teacher and now find myself disregarding her information about essay structure as I think she's just trying to teach us how to write like a normal Year 10 student. Although, this could obviously work against me, should I just listen to her?
This was intended for year 12 not year 10, but it's always an important thing, to take control of your own learning
However, you don't have to be at year 12 level until guess when... year 12. Until then, you should be building up a solid foundation of smaller skills, rather than trying to jump beyond yourself immediately. Don't try and be impressive before you've learnt the basics, this is what I did because I couldn't bear to turn out something boring/shallow/substandard. It doesn't work.
These could include:
- Read more. In general, i.e. I'm not telling you to read a million year 12 English essays.
- Vocab, expression, grammar etc. Build up a vocab you're totally familiar with - i.e. you know exactly where it should be used and the shades of meaning. Get teachers to criticise clunky or unclear expression.
- Writing with conciseness. Learn to express yourself clearly and neatly; an exercise I found fun was writing a normal essay, recording the wordcount, and then editing it, trying to get the word count down as low as humanly possible while still retaining the same ideas. You get to this mindset of 'come on, just onnneee word more...' and you learn lots of tricks for expressing things more concisely.
- Learn to embed quotes nicely. (1-6 words only).
- Learn effective methods of learning quotes, annotating a text, and researching and generating ideas.
- Analysis. Make your stuff less descriptive and more meaty/insightful. Develop skills with analysing quotes, characters, themes, literary techniques, and authorial values.
- Develop good time management.
I'm sure that formula is fine, but there's no set-in-concrete way. Be willing to be flexible. In the future, you'll learn a lot from reading other essays with different structures. You can do whatever is best for you as long as it covers all aspects of the topic and involves deep analysis. But for now, I'd stick to whatever structure your teacher gives. Instead, make your essay stand out through deeper
analysis (e.g. analyse literary techniques/structures, the author's values and message, and make more insightful discussion round themes and characters).
So, 'when in Year 10, do as the Year 10s do.' There's no specific 'Year 12 Structure', and you're probably just learning a 'yes-yes-no' formula with TEEL in each paragraph. That's fine. It's not like that's a "wrong" structure and you'll need to do a sudden snap change when you hit year 12; you'll probably gradually develop your own more complex style of dealing with topics over time
.
Hope I kinda answered your questions, I don't think this really did everything you asked
... anyway, if I'd had your perspective back in year 9-10, my year 12 life might have been a bit different.