This is going to be amazingly helpful!! In your opinion, what is the single most important thing you need to do well in English? Can you also give a quick comparison of english, lit and eng lang?
At the risk of oversimplifying it, the most important thing you can do for English is
Read widely in general. Read the news. Read online resources. (Read ATAR Notes
) Read past students' essays. Read your peers' essays. Read all the class handouts your teacher gives you. Read all of the recent assessor's reports. Read over your own past essays. Read all the essay feedback you get.
And most importantly, read your set texts. Read them truly, madly, deeply! Once you've read them, read articles and reviews and essays and analyses about them.
Technically, writing is also an important part of this subject, but personally, I found writing essays was just a form of testing what I already knew. They way to EXPAND what I knew was by reading.
However, if you're someone who genuinely does learn by writing, and by putting things into practice, then WRITE!
Write practice pieces for all your assessment tasks and exams. Write practice paragraphs so you can get specific feedback. Write template sentences that you can memorise to conduct high-quality analysis. And get general writing practice by keeping a journal, or better yet, do creative writing and learn how best to express yourself.
To make things more mathematical, English is all about
input and
output - if you're ever unsure what to write, it means you need more input for your brain, which means you need to read more! If you're ever unsure of how to write something, it means you need more practice doing the outputting, so write some sample paragraphs or mini-analyses to help get you started!
VCE:The three English options in VCE are as follows; I'll include some general thoughts about each of these, but please let me know if you have any questions!
-
English: a.k.a. mainstream English that approximately 50,000 students across the state enrol in. This is most people's default (and at some schools is the only option available
). If I'm brutally honest, I don't think this is a good subject, and I'm hoping they refine some things for the new study design in 2022. But for now, VCE English consists of two main things: Text Response essays, and Analysing Argument essays. Technically you do a wide range of SACs, including creative writing and a persuasive speech, but the bulk of the course boils down to these two things. As such, your enjoyment will probably depend on whether you like analysing news articles, and whether you are assigned texts that you enjoy unpacking. Beyond that, most people make their English subject choices based on how they feel about the other two options, so let's get into those...
Literature: a.k.a. the best one. Period. (...sorry, I'll try and be unbiased
) Literature is for the lit nerds. It rewards close analysis skills, and every aspect of the course comes down to how well you can explain
how language creates meaning. In short, only pick Literature if you enjoy studying texts, since that's 100% of what Literature is. You don't get a break to analyse a persuasive news article, or construct your own argument about a contemporary issue for an oral presentation. Literature is
all about the books, which, if you like books, is great!
Beyond that, Lit is considered somewhat harder than mainstream English, and the standards are certainly higher, since you're in a cohort with more
lit
people (sorry). But for real, over half of the students doing English won't be putting in much effort - they're only doing it because it's compulsory, whereas Lit students have usually chosen the subject for a reason. Overall, Lit was the one I found most enjoyable, and Literature skills can help you out in English, but there isn't much cross-over between your three options anyway.
-
EngLang: a.k.a. the forgotten third child
EngLang is the rarest of the bunch, and seems to be offered in fewer and fewer schools nowadays (they're apparently no longer offering it through Distance Ed either!?) But in essence, EngLang is the "science-y English," and it's a shame it's not more popular because of it. You can do a similarly 'close' analysis of language as you would in Lit, but here it's about the
construction and reception of language. For instance, you might analyse a political interview and discuss how a politician's use of euphemisms are constructed in order to obscure the unappealing elements of a policy proposal, or you could examine a transcript of a conversation between friends and talk about how one of them is trying to ingratiate themselves with the other after they've had a fight, so they're carefully wording very polite and deferential message that they hope will be received well. Technically, English Language should just be called 'Social Linguistics,' since that's what it is! As such, researching 'linguistics' will give you a good sense of what to expect from this subject.
In short, English is about authorial intent, Englang is about the contextual reception of language, and Literature is about books books and more books
For all you Queensland students...
QCE:General English: this is the 'mainstream' subject that most students will 'choose' by default, since doing an English subject is compulsory, though it does not have to count towards your ATAR
(Trust me, this is cause for celebration - every other state in the country makes English count in the ATAR, so you're pretty luck by comparison!)
General English is a bit of a hodge-podge mix of tasks, but can be summarised as having four key components:
1. Writing an expository piece comparing two texts
2. Delivering a persuasive speech
3. Composing a creative piece
4. Analysing a text in the exam
Each of these contributes 25% of your mark, so you need to make sure you hone each of these skillsets for each assessment task.
(For a more detailed overview of these, you can download the October headstart lecture slides here!) ;)-
Literature: this is like the English exam but on steroids! Literally, your first assessment task in Literature is basically the end-of-year English exam, and it only ramps up from there! As in other states, I would anticipate that Literature would appeal to the more
lit
people (sorry) - as in, those who have deliberately chosen the subject because they like books, or they know English is their strong suit. Personally, I think the QCE Lit course is one of the best in the country! Unlike mainstream English, things aren't split four ways; instead, you basically only have two key skills to worry about:
1. Imaginative writing
2. Analytical writing
Everything will revolve around those two basic tenets,
(Lit resources will be coming soon, I promise!) -
English and Literature Extension: so if Literature is like English on steroids, Extension is like Literature on steroids (or English on double steroids).
Basically...
This subject is basically university-level Literature. You make "defensive readings" of texts just like tertiary academics do, and you conduct thorough research in order to write literary analysis papers that are akin to post-graduate theses. It's
intense, and I'm super jealous I wasn't able to study this in Year 12! This is sure to be incredibly rewarding to anyone who wants to pursue further study in Arts at uni, and I hope the end of year scaling will reward the effort that this subject seems to be demanding.
I'll also try and put together some guides for those of you brave enough to have taken on this subject!
(Please don't be scared, it legit seems like a lot of fun!! And I'm not just saying that as an English nerd!!)
Home
Help
Search
Login
Topic: Lauren's Ask Me Anything (Read 7806 times)