Do we HAVE to have a mentor? (1 Viewer)

smik11

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Like somebody to look over our major work.
 

Shadowdude

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You should, because you want as many people reading your work as possible - thus getting as much feedback as you can.
 

alex.leon

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It's not a requirement anywhere in writing, but if you can find someone I'd highly recommend it. Shop around...ask people you know if they know someone who'd be genuinely interested in helping out a student with a creative piece. I never really set out wanting a mentor, but it just so turned out my drama teacher's husband was a publisher and was happy to help out. I don't think I would've achieved my 49/50 if I didn't have his services. There are also lots of people online who are willing to help...I did a suite of poetry and published a couple of mine on some popular poetry-sharing sites and got really good feedback.

Good luck with ext 2. It's such a great subject if you throw yourself into it.
 

soporific

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Generally speaking, you don't really *need* to.

If you have a private tutor for english already, I would suggest asking him/her to read over your work once every 2 weeks or something to give you feedback.

Like a few people have already mentioned, you should get as many people to read your work as possible. Friends, teachers, relatives.

Personally for me, before handing over my final work, I paid a qualified teacher/4U marker from a different school to get some feedback (he basically took my work for the weekend and checked for *minor* spelling/grammar mistakes, suggested I cut down content that I felt I should've kept). Looking back, I wish I hadn't asked him for help, it was such a waste of $350... especially because my 4U teacher at school was the head teacher of the english department, and she was absolutely fantastic.

In the end, I didn't actually change my work according to his advice (as in cut down my work, which was short enough as it was).
 
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airblitz7

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^paid* you kinda do 4u english, you should be able to get those.

/trolling

/grammar nazi'ing
 

soporific

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^paid* you kinda do 4u english, you should be able to get those.

/trolling

/grammar nazi'ing
Thanks ^_^ I've fixed it. Sorry for the brutal *typo* ... I was in a rush. Meh. That's no excuse though, huh? :p

Not to be trolling or anything, but the common/standard/correct practice is to use hyphen not apostrophe in "nazi-ing" ... at least most of the time anyway =)
Apostrophes are only used to indicate contractions or possession/ownership.

Damn I have too much time on my hands :-/

Ahem. ANYWAY, to the OP: I forgot to mention that you should also get other english teachers that you know from your school english department to read your work. I asked my advanced english teacher to read my work, as well as my teacher from Yr 10. This way, you'll get a rough idea of what other teachers prefer or look upon favourably which comes in handy especially during 4U internal assessments (particularly if you know who's marking your work).
 

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