A2 Edexcel English Literature 17th June 2016

I really hope they don't come out with a random question for the last year of the specification. Something simple would be nice.

Hi guys, I'm doing war poems + Kite Runner + Ghost Road

I've learned like two poems and done like one essay all year because I'm horribly lazy, but I got a good mark for it, so I'm just going to use those two poems for whatever question comes up if possible and do a very similar essay. The two poems are More Light More Light, and Dulce Et Declorum Est. What do you think of this horrendously lazy tactic? I'm going for a/a*.

A version of said essay I plan to recycle is my answer to this past question https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YYiCYuSs6LLnBXF829kIG4nAdCQSeCDpAXljH4Xnen8/edit?usp=sharing. I would love it if somebody would ask questions and give brutally harsh critique, I should at least know my one area of study well and I'd love to help if anybody else is doing these poems. I feel that I could mould a similar answer to a past question in every year.

Will add Kite Runner stuff in, that's an essay from pretty early on in the year. Think I'd be able to shoehorn that bit in Kite Runner about when Amir returns to Afghanistan in easily, as a description of location, and an example of some poetic bs like ~~~war stays the same throughout the ages~~~

Also does anybody have any ideas of what particular things to look out for in the unseen? I've just done them spontaneously in the past but I should probably figure a sort of plan out. I still have trouble understanding the difference between form/structure lol

Thanks guys, and good luck for tomorrow! Hope we get a nice question which allows us to spread our glorious creative wings

I really hope they don't come out with a random question for the last year of the specification. Something simple would be nice.

Can you share your rapture critics please? Its okay if you dont want to

I have around 10 that I kind of know, but usually I only end up using the same 5 critical quotes. Most of those are for 'Rapture' though, so I need to learn a couple for 'Tess of the D'Urbervilles' and one more for 'The Great Gatsby'

Hey, I had a quick look at that essay you did, if you write like that in the exam I'm sure you'll be absolutely fine! (I also love that you called it 'SA' .)

I need to get an A to get the course I want I'm really hoping the question will be good! Its the last year that the exam is worth 60%, next year its worth 80%... so we got lucky hah

For section A, my teacher says that the question will always ask how structure form and language shape meanings. Form is more like the style or genre of it whereas structure can mean use of time, turning points/ development, setting, voice etc. at least thats what I do. good luck!

Ah english literature, the one a level i havent bothered to revise.

Gatsby, Rapture and Tess. Yaaay.

Anyways, good luck everyone.

Welp, this is the first I've heard of needing to memorize quotes from critics. Then again, I've been writing 'from a feminist/Marxist/etc. perspective...' all year and I've got mostly As. How much cramming do I need to do tonight?

Welp, this is the first I've heard of needing to memorize quotes from critics. Then again, I've been writing 'from a feminist/Marxist/etc. perspective...' all year and I've got mostly As. How much cramming do I need to do tonight?

I was more proud of thinking of 'sa = essay' than I am any actual essay I've written tbh

thanks for the little confidence boost!! Im sure the question wont be too horrid, we have two options after all and they haven't been in the past.

I was thinking more as in things I could sort of tick off, I'm thinking along the lines of

Language:
Simple language devices, e.g metaphors
Semantic fields
General observations on linguistic style and prose

Structure:
Rhyme schemes
Paragraphs/stanzas
Verse style
Pentameter

Form:
Narrative voice
Conventions to genre

...and so on (that's all I can think of right now, if anybody wants to add ideas feel free)

the only thing is I feel like they can overlap, so I think it would be difficult to set the paragraphs as in language/structure/form. Also my language paragraph is always massive, followed by a small structure paragraph, followed by a tiny form paragraph

I'm thinking of maybe separating paragraphs based on a part of the text rather than a section of the essay, but idk

also, as a non-essay relevant question, did you enjoy Spies? I didn't really like The Ghost Road and I sorta wish we'd done Spies. Pacing is weird in Ghost Road and not really in a way I like, it also goes on more about the ways the protagonist has sex than is really interesting (we get it u have weird fetishes)

Anybody do the unseen wedding poem here? How'd you find it if so?

I repeated the same point a little too much, about how average items were being perceived as beautiful in the context of the wedding

rest of it was excellent, thinking maybe got an A, basically just spat out the same essay I wrote earlier in the thread lol

I did it but interpreted it as a mockery perhaps of the wedding otself and how people spend so much on it that it becomes superficial and meaningless um that was the gist of what i wrote but im just afraid that a few of the images analysed werent enough like idk some of the images in the poem were like well you couldnt say thaaat much about them but i stuck in some techniques as well for AO2 . Do you think i should be worried about the whole analysis thing?

I did it but interpreted it as a mockery perhaps of the wedding otself and how people spend so much on it that it becomes superficial and meaningless um that was the gist of what i wrote but im just afraid that a few of the images analysed werent enough like idk some of the images in the poem were like well you couldnt say thaaat much about them but i stuck in some techniques as well for AO2 . Do you think i should be worried about the whole analysis thing?

haha, looks like we took pretty opposite directions. Im sure both interpretations are fine, it was a pretty tough one to write about.

I went on myself about how there is a sort of perfection in how everything fit together in the bit of the poem where there are just items listed, and how the narrator was getting all nostalgic about a sick bucket. Said that the rhyming during the 'listing' section of the poem shows the sort of harmony between the items, or some similar nonsense

I came up with more structural things than I did language things tbh. There was only so much you could analyse once you'd done the basic stuff. It was alright, couldn't think of as much as id have liked to. I'm sure you'll be fine, everybody struggles with the unseen I think