John Howard Hates the HSC English Syllabus (1 Viewer)

[_dhj_]

I disagree, I think one of the problems with post-modernism is that it does assert absolute indeterminacy. What you seem to be describing sounds much more like Critical realism.

Critical realism is one theory, whereas postmodernism is a cultural/social/philosophical period in history. You cannot compare the two.

 

[Not-That-Bright]

I'm pretty sure post-modernism is also a theory?

 

[_dhj_]

I'm pretty sure post-modernism is also a theory?

The term is more commonly used to describe the trend in developments in philosophy rather than an actual theory.

As the term suggests, it's the general period after Modernism in the history of philosophical thought.

 

[xeuyrawp]

wikiwki's totally correct.

I'll add the fact that I hate catchphrases. Postmodern seems to be one, I'm afraid.

 

[walrusbear]

wikiwki's totally correct.

I'll add the fact that I hate catchphrases. Postmodern seems to be one, I'm afraid.

it's a pretty imprecise interpretation though, because it assumes some unitary and very hardline idea of 'postmodernism'
primarily it at least suggests the relationship between author - language - and the receiver is problematic, which isn't ultimately 'false'

 

[elparto]

English makes me Angry.......
The Syllabus is crap.....
Truth is a pretty sucky module. All it talks about is how truth is represented and its your own interpretation of how the truth is represented so it really doesn't teach you anything except for how to explain how you intepret the texts.
The module with all the different intepretations was pretty crap to, you know postmodernism, marxism, feminism and all that. When i read a book i dont interpret it in a marxist or postmodernist way and i hope no one else does either cause you would have to be a total loser. Instead I interpret it the way i want to and i enjoy it because i do. I dont ruin a book or movie by pulling it apart frame by frame.
But english does teach some good stuff. Like how to explain yourself in heaps of different formats and all that so English isn't a total failure but it does suck.

 

[jarro_2783]

I personally think the english syllabus is pathetic. I came out of the HSC not having very good "basics" skills, I can spell and write a proper sentence, but as far as expressing my ideas in essays, I'm not that good. I was never taught how to write an essay at school. I actually got a tutor for a few months and I learnt more from her than I did in the whole HSC. During the whole course all we did was sit around and talk about Cloudstreet and those other books we did, how are we supposed to critically analyse Cloudstreet and do a proper comparison of Hamlet and R & G if we can't even write properly?
Fortunately I passed english and got a high enough UAI to get into Software Engineering. But unfortunately, we have to write huge reports (40 pages or so) and I don't have sufficient english skills to be able to write a good report.
If they taught the basics better instead of all this analysis junk then maybe I would do a whole lot better.