How should I effectively analyse my texts for English? (1 Viewer)

[impulsebro89]

Hi everyone,

How should I effectively analyse my prescribed and related texts for English (so I can use them in like an essay)? Like, when I'm reading a novel should I draw up a table and write down quotes so that I can go back and analyse them later? Are chapter summaries important in your study notes? What do you even put in your study notes?! >.<

Thanks in advance!

 

[jazz519]

I've written a lot of advice for English here: http://community.boredofstudies.org...y-creative-writing-piece-plz.html#post7266365

Specifically to your thing basically all you should do is like decide on a topic sentence (since this will have a concept/theme), then find quotes relating to those ideas/themes, find a technique in them, analyse them in terms of the rubric, collate this into a paragraph by use of connective language and fixing the flow of one idea to the next and then end of the paragraph link back to the rubric and question as well.

Repeat that for a whole essay and then get feedback from a teacher/tutor and make changes based on what they say and keep doing that throughout the year and hopefully by then you have band six material.

Chapter summaries are useless for notes, since the essay should all be analysis and the story is described through the quotes rather than saying like what happens.

I made essays, memorised them and made up stuff on the spot to adapt it in the exam (maybe practice helps for that for me did zero past papers for English still did good, so just depends on the person and how they learn)

All the best and if you have any other questions on the posts I linked you above let me know

 

[impulsebro89]

Thank you so much for the advice! I will definitely follow your advice about deciding on a topic sentence and finding quotes relating to ideas and theme etc etc

 

[jazz519]

Thank you so much for the advice! I will definitely follow your advice about deciding on a topic sentence and finding quotes relating to ideas and theme etc etc

No worries good luck

 

[pikachu975]

Hi everyone,

How should I effectively analyse my prescribed and related texts for English (so I can use them in like an essay)? Like, when I'm reading a novel should I draw up a table and write down quotes so that I can go back and analyse them later? Are chapter summaries important in your study notes? What do you even put in your study notes?! >.<

Sorry if it's a lot but I really want to do well in English this year cuz it's an important part of the HSC and if I don't do well then it will definitely affect my ATAR T.T

Thanks in advance!

I mainly did topic sentences to get an idea of what my paragraphs were about (not memorised) plus quotes and analysis for each (analysis not memorised) but english is so versatile in studying methods that everyone has different ways.

When analysing my texts I highlighted key stuff with an annotation that could be used later as a quote.

 

[impulsebro89]

Yup I'm reading my text now and I underline quotes I could maybe use in pencil (don't want to highlight XD). But yeah I should probably find a topic sentence to use so that I can insert quotes and analyse them. That's what I should have done in year 11

Thanks for the advice!

 

[jazz519]

Yup I'm reading my text now and I underline quotes I could maybe use in pencil (don't want to highlight XD). But yeah I should probably find a topic sentence to use so that I can insert quotes and analyse them. That's what I should have done in year 11

Thanks for the advice!

For how to make a topic sentence look in the rubric (take like key words from that and combine that into a sentence and add some type of meaning relevant to your text). This way instead of writing a memorised essay based on a specific question you are writing it based on the rubric so have a greater chance of that being applicable to the question since they take aspects of the question straight from the rubric especially in discovery you can see the questions from 2015-2017 have all been straight sentences from the rubric.

 

[highshill]

For how to make a topic sentence look in the rubric (take like key words from that and combine that into a sentence and add some type of meaning relevant to your text). This way instead of writing a memorised essay based on a specific question you are writing it based on the rubric so have a greater chance of that being applicable to the question since they take aspects of the question straight from the rubric especially in discovery you can see the questions from 2015-2017 have all been straight sentences from the rubric.

So how many paragraphs do you have to make, i have to memorise my essays(because my teacher is an extremely strict marker, so i need the marks) is there any guides on how to write generic essays on BoS.

 

[pikachu975]

So how many paragraphs do you have to make, i have to memorise my essays(because my teacher is an extremely strict marker, so i need the marks) is there any guides on how to write generic essays on BoS.

Memorising essays doesn't guarantee good marks, as if you don't adapt well you could still get like 13/20.

Also usually 4 body paragraphs is the most used essay structure

 

[impulsebro89]

so should I memorise part of my essay (for sentence structure, vocabulary, quotes - not the entire essay word for word) and adapt it to as many past papers as possible?

 

[pikachu975]

so should I memorise part of my essay (for sentence structure, vocabulary, quotes - not the entire essay word for word) and adapt it to as many past papers as possible?

It's different for everyone - some people memorise word for word and some do quotes, it's good to test in year 11 and see what works.

Adapting isn't that useful since they won't ask the same question I guess it's only good if you need practice writing in 40 mins.

 

[30june2016]

If you're planning to memorise your whole essay, or even just small snippets of your essay..

MaKE SuRe YOu HaVE BaCkUP qUOteS for BACkup themes

And make sure you know the basic ideas that come out of those quotes too!

e.g. for Mod A, my prepared essay was on themes of oppression and degradation of humanity, but I had backup quotes to fit other themes such as gender, control, technology etc

It's good to brainstorm with your friendz about possible themes that could be asked!! Try and practise manipulating your topic sentences to different themes !! They could ask something that requires thinking completely out of the box!!

Here's a screenshot of examples of themes I tried to practice with: https://imgur.com/a/e9tjE
Keep in mind this is just a list of random themes, not all of them may necessarily be applicable for your text!!!

 

[impulsebro89]

Did u have backup themes and quotes for every single module?? :O

 

[30june2016]

Did u have backup themes and quotes for every single module?? :O

ya pretty much

didn't want to risk it came in handy during trials!! we were given the biggest curveball question but I was able to remember stuff from when I brainstormed similar themes

 

[impulsebro89]

yup don't want to risk it either so i should do that

Thanks for the advice as well! ^.^

 

[jazz519]

So how many paragraphs do you have to make, i have to memorise my essays(because my teacher is an extremely strict marker, so i need the marks) is there any guides on how to write generic essays on BoS.

Depends on the essay I guess. For the discovery, mod a, c since only had two texts I did two paragraphs on each text and for mod b Yeats did three (one for each poem - these were much longer so still came out with the same words for each essay roughly)

 

[jazz519]

Did u have backup themes and quotes for every single module?? :O

Nope lol (any essay can be adapted to the question if you are good enough since practically all the themes are linked so you can bullshit links between them). For instance this year's HSC was about ‘Whether motivated by need, wonder or curiosity, discovery has the power to be transformative.' so if this was me and I had an essay say on like discoveries being intensely meaningful and needing a catalyst. you can make a link between the two by stating the discoveries are intensely meaningful because of the fact that they have the power to be transformative, and the catalyst for a discovery often being the 'need, wonder or curiosity' to explore the unknown. For mod b though since I did Yeats I guess its a backup sort of thingy because each poem I analysed and memorised seven paragraphs on (seven was the amount of poems) would have different themes and ideas. So on the day whatever ones related to the question I chose those.

 

[jazz519]

so should I memorise part of my essay (for sentence structure, vocabulary, quotes - not the entire essay word for word) and adapt it to as many past papers as possible?

tbh this is all dependent on the person as pickachu said. I personally did zero past papers for English the whole year, and just memorised essays and was good at making stuff up on the spot to link the essay to the question. However, some of my other friends liked to memorise essays and then practice adapting to qs. the reason why I didn't do any of that or like any short answer practice was because what are the chances that the practice essay u did is going to be similar to the HSC question and then you have to remember how u linked it, and that is just messy in my opinion since u won't be like writing an essay and trying to answer the question based on exam pressure making your mind think faster and smarter and just letting it naturally flow, since u will probably be trying to remember how u already answered it. Also, unless u have a tutor or teacher who is bothered to read these practice essays then its practically useless as u will be building up and making the errors in ur writing more prevalent and probably lose time studying other subjects since each essay is like forty min of practice. So only way I would do this memorising and practice approach is if at least some of those essays are being marked by someone with experience.

 

[pikachu975]

yup don't want to risk it either so i should do that

Thanks for the advice as well! ^.^

Yep just do whatever. I tried memorising essays then got 17/30 in half yearly but swapped to memorising quotes and got 87/105 which means I was bad at adapting the essays so just test out different methods and see how you go.

 

[jazz519]

yup don't want to risk it either so i should do that

Thanks for the advice as well! ^.^

Yeah thats fair enough too just find out what works for you and stick to it