Whats 4U english all about (1 Viewer)

[steban]

Hey, im currently doing prelim 3U english and isn't finding it impossible or anything, and so far is planning on keeping it for the HSC, but i do have in mind may be picking up 4U english, but i only know is as a 'Major Work' and nothing else, may i ask what is the whole Extension 2 course about, other than the major work that is due at the end of the course, what else is to be done, ...and yeah, just, i'd like to know more about the course in general.

And if i was to do like shabby in it, like say 20-30 ish marks out of 50 (of course that wont be my aimed mark) would i get scaled down alot, or would it still be pretty average with its good scaling, because i wont pick it up if i feel that if i was to do average, my mark would be really low, because i wont bother with it.

And what is the level of difficulty..? true its 4 Units of english, and i believe 4U of maths can be stressful, but is the preperation and presentation of a Major work as hard..?

 

[bringbackshred]

Ext2 English is the most amazing thing ever. It is comprised of 3 assessments, the Proposal, the Viva Voce and the Report. The whole course revolves around your major work, and the research and investigation that goes into form and subject matter. It's pretty much total freedom, except with a couple of guidelines.

 

[jimmayyy]

its a great course im enjoying it immensely, but theres pros and cons to picking it up. id advise you against it on the following:

1) the major work (13 minute speech, 8000 word short story, 5000 words of poetry or 5 minutes of film depending on what you choose to do) is due in like august leaving you like 4 months to have it completed, which is a pretty massive task. with that said, if u have something already in mind and can get it done, go for it

2) i dont know if your school has, but my school has already done two assessments - the viva voce and the proposal. you would have to make both of these up some how

3) if you have stacked units already, it is more work. its not a class per say, but u need to take time out from ur schedule which is already probably busy to meet with ur teacher, other teachers, the rest of ur candidates etc etc and it does all add up

with that said, like i say i am absolutely loving it.

id just think carefully about it

 

[jimmayyy]

PS 4) doing it to get only 20-30 out of 50 is a horrific waste of time and energy, the majority of candidates get over 35 and most rest in the upper bands, hence ur scaling would be terrible

 

[Tulipa]

Dude, he's an 08er. He'll be doing it next year.

 

[steban]

thanks for comments, still not sure if i wana do it, plans were

prelim: English 3U
Gen Maths
Music 2
Japanese beg
Bio
Chem

HSC: English 4U
Music 3U
Japanese beg
Chem

or if i think that even 3U is too much (which so far im finding it ok) then ill do advanced english in addition to General maths.

Could someone explain the Viva Voce..?

 

[princesskt]

it varies between schools. basically its like an interview between you and the teacher. for mine, i have the sheet with what i need to talk about. some i guess are surprised and asked questions on the day that they didnt know bout. its just like an update of ur progress if u wanna think bout it that way. ur just talking bout where ur up to, maybe some problems uve encountered, u might be required to read out a section of ur story. um cant think atm.. hope that helps tho :S

 

[Tulipa]

I think you should be less concerned with the marks and more concerned with whether or not you can deal with the Major Work aspect of it and what form you'll do within that specifically.

It's quite different to any English class you'll ever take and you need to have the commitment to stay with it through all the crap it throws you (writers block in particularly). If you don't think you can deal with that, don't do it, if you're absolutely fascinated with the idea of creating something amazing for your MW, well then obviously go for it.

 

[jimmayyy]

Dude, he's an 08er. He'll be doing it next year.

haha oops, my bad

 

[chewy123]

Do I have to do extension 1 and advance if I took 4U?

 

[kloudsurfer]

Yes.

 

[Hallatia]

I should inform you now that performance poetry is an option, now that you know, you have no excuse for not doing it, everybody who is not me should do performance poetry, for the people who are me, they chould do something else, ie critical response, speech, or as my teacher made me; short story

 

[Nyao]

Basically it will be a unit that's offline (I want to meet the school with enough influence for an online ext2 class) so you also need to factor in whether you can drag yourself up to get to school an hour early or stay behind an extra hour or so. Mostly the actual classes -- though of course this will vary from teacher to teacher -- involve crawling into the classroom and dying one lesson at a time. Most work on your MW will be done outside of school, classes in themselves are more for sobbing and desperately waving drafts at your teacher for feedback. Mostly I find afternoon classes degenerate into discussions about whether that Pokemon Oddish, if eaten, would taste like a turnip or flesh.

 

[Hallatia]

Basically it will be a unit that's offline (I want to meet the school with enough influence for an online ext2 class) so you also need to factor in whether you can drag yourself up to get to school an hour early or stay behind an extra hour or so. Mostly the actual classes -- though of course this will vary from teacher to teacher -- involve crawling into the classroom and dying one lesson at a time. Most work on your MW will be done outside of school, classes in themselves are more for sobbing and desperately waving drafts at your teacher for feedback. Mostly I find afternoon classes degenerate into discussions about whether that Pokemon Oddish, if eaten, would taste like a turnip or flesh.

my school is relatively crappy, but the top english class, mine, is the pride and joy of the school, our extension 2 classes are all on-line, they are on the same line as the extension one classes and the extension maths classes, but extension history is off-line.

There are only four people left in my extension two class, but because of the school's stupid terminating line policy, we get to keep this on time table whilst everybody not doing extension gets "study periods" but these periods also help in shifting class times. In my case they didn't so I have to have off-line classes for on-line subects. So I have lunch time, before school and after school classes anyway