Advanced Higher English

Can you choose any author at all for the Dissertation, and can they be plays instead of novels? (i.e. the plays of Oscar Wilde). And do you have to choose from a list of writers what the Literature is based on?

Reply 1

obscurename

1

On a similar note because I don't want to start a whole new thread, has anyone done the book "Sunset Song" for Higher English? We got given it today and it looks terrible :frown:

Reply 2

Henry JW

8

I've never done Sunset Song by Grassic Gibbon but it was voted the best Scottish book ever. So either that's hopeful or it suggests that Scottish Literature isn't all that...

Reply 3

JordanC

I've done Sunset Song.

Originally I thought it looked horrific. However, if you really get into it, can understand the old Scots dialect & persevere you'll really enjoy it; in a strange way.

Reply 4

indigoviolet

Yip you can do plays if you like (prose, plays, poetry, even non-fiction I think), and generally yes you can choose any author, though it is probably best to choose someone off the recommended lists, and someone that your teacher agrees with too. A boy in my AH english class this year chose a random, pretty new author that our teacher had never read or heard of - she advised him to choose someone tried and tested instead but he kept with the random one and his dissertation never got finished...he chucked the course by march. So yea, you have a huuuuuuge number of authors you can choose but I'd recommend choosing someone pretty safe - the dissertation is hard enough to do well in, even with a good, solid set of texts to work with.

Reply 5

ArcadiaHouse

OP

17

indigoviolet

Yip you can do plays if you like (prose, plays, poetry, even non-fiction I think), and generally yes you can choose any author, though it is probably best to choose someone off the recommended lists, and someone that your teacher agrees with too. A boy in my AH english class this year chose a random, pretty new author that our teacher had never read or heard of - she advised him to choose someone tried and tested instead but he kept with the random one and his dissertation never got finished...he chucked the course by march. So yea, you have a huuuuuuge number of authors you can choose but I'd recommend choosing someone pretty safe - the dissertation is hard enough to do well in, even with a good, solid set of texts to work with.

Oh ok ;( Thanks :smile:

I'll ask on Monday. I hope the authors aren't too dry! I'd like to do someone frothy like Stephen Fry, Oscar Wilde, Evelyn Waugh etc.

EDIT: I was going to do Adele Geras for my Personal Study at Higher but my teacher advised me to choose Oscar Wilde since she'd read the book so it'd be easier to mark ... So I see what that teacher meant.

Reply 6

Nonie No

obscurename

On a similar note because I don't want to start a whole new thread, has anyone done the book "Sunset Song" for Higher English? We got given it today and it looks terrible :frown:

There will be far, far more who have done this than have not. It is very popular among teachers - with good reason.

Reply 7

ArcadiaHouse

OP

17

Had my first period of this today and jokingly suggested 'War and Peace', and the teacher said 'yeah, someone did that last year'. :eek:

Reply 8

Jelephant

12

ArcadiaHouse

Had my first period of this today and jokingly suggested 'War and Peace', and the teacher said 'yeah, someone did that last year'. :eek:

A girl in my class dropped English after a few weeks then decided to take it up again a while later, so she didn't have a lot of time to read and decide on a text as it was then decided she wanted to read War and Peace. The teacher spent ages trying to talk her out of it and thank god she managed- the girl still hasn't finished reading it :p:

She barely managed to get her finished dissertation handed in on time

Reply 9

sparklysparkles

Our teacher advised not to do a mix of poetry, prose, or plays, and that fiction prose was probably the easiest.
I did The Magic Toyshop and The Bloody Chamber stories by Carter and really enjoyed it.

It is so much better if you pick books that (1) you like, (2) your teacher has heard of, and (3) have secondary sources (ie lit. crit.) on which you can draw.

Reply 10

ArcadiaHouse

OP

17

I am contemplating doing 'The Importance of Being Earnest', 'An Ideal Husband' and 'Lady Windermere's Fan' ...

Reply 11

Jackie0hh

Where would you find these recommended lists then?

Reply 12

sparklysparkles

Jackie0hh

Where would you find these recommended lists then?

http://www.sqa.org.uk/sqa/29402.html

Reply 13

Electricityscape.`

Would doing something about margaret atwood and the theme of feminism in some books like the handmaid's tale, edible woman etc be quite an over-done topic?
Im really not sure what to do, over the past week i've read so many chapters of all these different books. I love rebecca and would want to do that if i could find something other than other daphne du maurier books to compare it too, any ideas?
Other than that I love books like we need to talk about kevin etc so any suggestions would be welcome :smile:

Reply 14

Jackie0hh

Hey just wondering is it possible to do it on both novels and poetry??
Because then i could compare say "All Quiet on the Western Front" to a war poem??

Reply 15

sparklysparkles

Jackie0hh

Hey just wondering is it possible to do it on both novels and poetry??
Because then i could compare say "All Quiet on the Western Front" to a war poem??

It's possible, but really strongly advised against, as the techniques used to analyse different types of writing should be different.

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