SMH article on how shit is HSC English

[kaz1]

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English by numbers - students find formula for HSC success

October 31, 2009 Comments 1

Not so long ago politicians such as Bob Carr were denouncing the dumbing down of the Higher School Certificate curriculum. John Howard, no less, took up the cudgels, singling out HSC English. It was not only dumber than in his day but it had fallen victim to post-modernism and political correctness, he said.
The politicians were wrong about the dumbing down of English in NSW. If anything it is too hard for many willing and able students.
But there is a troubling development in how students approach the study of English, and it was evident in HSC-afflicted households over the past two weeks, with cramming for up to three separate English exams in full swing.
Studying for English is now eerily like learning maths formulae, or a piano sonata. It is a feat of memory and repetition. Students try to memorise line-for-line prepared essays and creative short stories they have refined over the year in the reasonable expectation of being able to replicate them in the HSC exam.
Many a parent from the ''old school'' is aghast at this but complicit if it helps their child inch up the marking scale. Yet they cannot help compare the rote learning with their own study of English that required them to be prepared for questions from left field. None of the parents I have asked said they memorised essays for exams. Rather they read and re-read the novel, play or poems and thought about them from every angle. They might have hoped for a question on the use of symbolism in King Lear but they knew it was just as likely to be on Goneril's character, or ''redemption''.
These days, it seems, students read the book once, and some apparently not even that, and spend their time shaping the template essay for the exam. Working and reworking these essays, students with dedicated teachers, prepared to give detailed feedback, are lucky. Students with tutors, and/or clever parents, count themselves luckier still.
In a maths or physics exam, regardless of the coaching input, students ultimately must work out the problems themselves. But in English it is possible for students to reproduce slabs of text an over-anxious parent or unscrupulous tutor or teacher has written for them.
In past years the English curriculum has become so broad, the choice of texts so varied, that detailed and searching exam questions on a tricky aspect of a play or novel have no longer been possible; rather the questions have become so generic that students and teachers have been able to predict with some accuracy their general thrust.
On the theme of "belonging", which has exercised the minds of tens of thousands of English students this year, teachers could choose from a grab-bag of different texts that range from Charles Dickens's Great Expectations to Baz Luhrmann's movie Strictly Ballroom. As well, students had to find and analyse two other pieces of related material - a newspaper article, even a painting - on belonging to incorporate into an essay.
But only one exam question is asked that must be applicable across all the texts. This makes the question rather broad and predictable. Belonging makes people happy, alienation makes them sad, and many things promote a sense of belonging from good relationships to home. No surprises there.
Last week a flurry of controversy erupted over the first HSC English exam and also over the studies of religion paper for differing in style from previous years. The first English paper, for example, caught many students off guard because it asked them to refer to only one additional text instead of two, as was usual. Many students, it seems, simply reproduced their prepared essays regardless, using two additional texts, one of which will have to be disregarded by the markers.
Thinking on their feet, as in the good old days, is one skill English students don't master. The smarter students learn to manipulate their well-prepared essay to fit the slight permutations of an exam question. The average students pay lip service to the question in the introduction and conclusion of their essay while blithely sticking to the original script for the rest.
For the creative writing exercises, regardless of the exam ''prompt'', students invariably trot out a well-honed short story worked on over the year, possibly by many hands. Who can sensibly ''create'' in 40 minutes?
The regurgitation of prepared essays is clearly worrying the Board of Studies, which is responsible for HSC examination. In response to the recent controversy, its president, Tom Alegounarias, said the HSC was ''not a memorising test. The HSC is about applying knowledge.''
He said exam preparation had become increasingly narrow, which ''may be a danger when students don't get the question they expect''.
The culture of rote learning has evolved in the past decade since the English curriculum was broadened and modernised.
The problem is not that English is too easy or politically correct. What is expected is actually hard. With so much hanging on the HSC, students feel they must leave nothing to chance.
There is a strong argument for another English course for less academic students, and for scrapping creative writing in the exam. And thought must be given to how to encourage in students a greater love of literature, and less rote learning.

Comment by an English teacher:

As a Head Teacher English I must congratulate Adele Horin on her remarks regarding the HSC and particularly HSC English. In all the too and fro about "dumbing down" and the left-wing post modernist slant of the courses few people take the time to look at the nature of HSC English courses. They are complex and very difficult - they place significant demands on 16 - 18 year olds which, for many, can kill any enjoyment that they could get from this subject. Both the Advanced and Standard courses are absurdly over complicated and the choices of texts (only recently introduced) are dreadful and often irrelevant to great majority of young people. The two best courses by far are the ESL course, - which really should be available to all students as it is a very good base level course (thus dispensing with the need for a new base course) - and the Extension 1 course which allows study of specialised areas in depth and encourages creative/imaginative writing. I thought the English papers this year were quite good and did everyone a service by moving away from the pre-prepared response. My only quibble would be with the idea of dispensing with the creative response. Creative/imaginative writing, while difficult to teach, can a very positive experience (for some their only positive experience in HSC English) for students and, in my experience, can help develop the confidence and skills required to write the very complex analytical responses required in the HSC (by a number of courses). But this is a small quibble about an otherwise excellent article - it is so good (and so unusual) to read a clear and coherent analysis of the problems every student and English teacher in the state is grappling with in regard to HSC English.

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/societ...1030-hppm.html

[harry4]

who enjoys creative writing?

[cerys]

^ somewhat more so than writing an essay.

[Rockyroad]

I like the article.

Except its criticism should apply to more subjects than english.
though english might be the worst.

[jetblack2007]

I completely agree with the article accept for the postmodernism thing. Yes, the classics should be studied but we have to remember that we are looking forward to the future, and like it or not, this is the time of postmodernism. (THough some argue that we have moved past it.)

[annabackwards]

Originally Posted by jetblack2007

I completely agree with the article accept for the postmodernism thing. Yes, the classics should be studied but we have to remember that we are looking forward to the future, and like it or not, this is the time of postmodernism. (THough some argue that we have moved past it.)

+1

It should be a mixture of both.

[raniaaa]

Originally Posted by harry4

who enjoys creative writing?

mee

[flaminwaffle]

my teacher this year, so is the head teacher for english and a senior marker in the hsc actually apologised to our whole class for having taught us the course at the end of the year.

"This isn't english as i know and loved it. I know many of you hate english, and it's perfectly understandable. If only the toads at the board of studies could pull their heads out of their arses we wouldnt have to vomit on the english hsc every year"

Haha. I might get him a box of chocolates.

[chingyloke]

Originally Posted by flaminwaffle

"This isn't english as i know and loved it. I know many of you hate english, and it's perfectly understandable. If only the toads at the board of studies could pull their heads out of their arses we wouldnt have to vomit on the english hsc every year"

Lol. That really is tragic. Poor guy.
Good article. While I enjoy english I think a major revamp is in order.

[flaminwaffle]

Originally Posted by chingyloke

Lol. That really is tragic. Poor guy.
Good article. While I enjoy english I think a major revamp is in order.

Haha, we asked him and he says he likes his job though. Probably cus he gets to teach ex1 and ex2 english. He's a pretty cool teacher, but i think he's been long enough to see english decline in our highschools

[LordPc]

Originally Posted by jetblack2007

I completely agree with the article accept for the postmodernism thing. Yes, the classics should be studied but we have to remember that we are looking forward to the future, and like it or not, this is the time of postmodernism. (THough some argue that we have moved past it.)

I disagree.

studying classics brings them down.

studying them in school restricts a true appreciation of the text because you are not looking at the text in its entirety. you are looking at it through a filter, like belonging or what the 2008'ers did which was journeys.

i find it hard to appreciate a classic when my personal connection with the text is so heavily influenced by the classroom

if i wrote a book, i could think of no greater insult than for it to be included in a school syllabus

[Jeee]

Originally Posted by LordPc

if i wrote a book, i could think of no greater insult that for it to be included in a school syllabus

I was just thinking the same thing when I was reading over some poems by Peter Skzsmklajfaswhfj.
The syllabus essentially destroys the text.

[Deer]

Great article on every respect- PLEASE GET RID OF CREATIVE WRITING!!

Whatever they do, IMO, the english HSC exam will never be perfect.

An essay should not be written in 40 minutes. Its articifial. Many students who are able to produce a brilliant essay given a few hours are not paid the marks they deserve for their critical thinking and writing skills because they cannot emulate them in the exam setting. But that's just the HSC, and there's nothing we can do about it.

You can learn and love the texts of HSC english, but it's often those who are good at memorising that get the top marks, regardless of their love of literature. Of course there are exceptions, but I see it happen a lot.

[jkdsfsio3458963]

i know it's completely pointless for us, but for future years to come, i'm sending a copy of that article to the board of studies

[jetblack2007]

Originally Posted by LordPc

I disagree.

studying classics brings them down.

studying them in school restricts a true appreciation of the text because you are not looking at the text in its entirety. you are looking at it through a filter, like belonging or what the 2008'ers did which was journeys.

i find it hard to appreciate a classic when my personal connection with the text is so heavily influenced by the classroom

if i wrote a book, i could think of no greater insult than for it to be included in a school syllabus

I didn't mean to imply that I approved of how they are studied, rather I tend to take your view that they should be appreciated, rather than be deconstructed.

That's the one thing I hate about all HSC subjects - you aren't taught to appreciate that subject, you're taught to answer questions in an exam. It pisses me off badly.

But at the same time, we approached the prescribed texts for English Extension in After the Bomb in such a way that we all appreciated them anyway. Everybody in my class (all 13 of us lol) have made comments about the excellent texts we studied.