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Anyone doing poetry or history for cultural topic - AQA A2 French?

Hiya,

So I'm studying Baudelaire for the Literature side and La guerre d'algérie for the history side, and wondered, assuming anyone is doing the same, how they're finding it?

I'm also curious, actually extremely curious, to know how its being taught because here it's basically 'ok lets just sit and learn generic vocabulary about poetry and then you go away and learn about the poems and then come back and ask me questions which I, despite being your teacher, am totally unable to answer. Oh and don't ask me about the mark scheme because I don't have a ******* clue how it works either.'

Wow, rant over. But yeah, would love to know how anyone is finding this part of the course. x

Reply 1

Jessie271

I wish I could help you but i'm in exactly the same position. We've been told to pick our own topics and learn them at home, no class work at all.
As for the mark scheme, one lecturer phoned AQA and it appears they don't have a clue either!
All I know is that it is part of both the oral and written exam.
Wish I could help you. Sorry. x

Reply 2

SiaSiaSia

We were going to do La guerre d'algérie or 1968 en France. The latter was chosen!

We're only doing our history topic orally, so for our director topic we actually have no choice but to write the essay on Kassovitz.

Reply 3

EmilyRose1991

I'm not doing History or Literature, but I am having the same problem.
I'm doing a French region (The Rhône-Alpes) and an artist (Claude Monet). What we have done so far is as there are 4 people in my class, we each took a section of each topic to research and then make a powerpoint on it to show the rest of the class and teach them about it. You may not like the idea but it's going okay for my class ^^ Hope I've helped!

Reply 4

xmarilynx

I started self-teaching some of Prévert's poetry for the cultural topic, but my teacher said it was a bad idea so now I have to do the north (aka the most boring topic ever!) with the rest of the class instead :frown:

Like you, I'm not too sure on the cultural topics or how they're assessed :erm:

Reply 5

KaddyKadKad

In my class we've been studying Luc Besson for the work of a director and we're about to move onto poetry by Jacques Prévert. From what I understand, you need to talk about both cultural topics in your oral and write about only one in the paper exam.

Reply 6

fleisch09

Ahhh Prévert and Luc Besson souns really cool - i saw Angel-A a few weeks back and really liked it :smile:

Yeah, so it looks like neither we nor the exam board know what the hell is going on, which is a better position than just me not knowing what the hell is going on - good times.

Reply 7

barefootfiona

We're doing Prevert for poetry. We've covered something like five poems in class and are expected to sudy the rest ourselves :frown:

. But that topic's pretty well taught - we've learnt how to talk about everything the exam board wants regarding poetry/drama/literature:
- the poet's life and context and how this affected his writing
- detailed study of some poems
- knowledge of how he achieves his affect (eg length, rhythm, word choice etc)
- idea of the effects achieved by the poet
- a personal response "I like ... I don't like ... BECAUSE ..."
- the themes, message and intention of the poet in his writing

Our other topic (a region: l'Aquitaine) is REALLY badly taught. I just found out the exam board wants us to study the history of the region, whereas when asked, our teacher flat out denied it!

Reply 8

bkyern

Original post by KaddyKadKad

I'm doing Luc Besson too, and its pretty easy compared to the history topic, which im doing - the 5th republic!
I hate history so i dont do it since year 9 and my teachers wont even bother to at least learn something to teach us!
how do your teachers help ? or how have you been doing your research ... ?
help please :colondollar: