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Edexcel Poetry Anthology

Hi, just wondering if anyone else here is studing edexcel english lit? If so, does anyone know any good resources that can aid annotations for these poems? [Poems include: Romantics i.e. London, A Red Red Rose etc The Victorians: Dover Beach, My Last Duchess etc]

Also, can anyone give me insight as to how to compare poems in AS exams - is this the same as for GCSE? [i.e. compare ideas, attitudes, language, structure & form] It's just that we've had really, really bad teaching for poetry lessons this year, so I have very poor notes... and also no exam or essay practice at all! I mean, I had to find out recently myself, that it was compulsory to compare poems across clusters! Which I hadn't done for my mocks :frown:

help will be very appreciated....cheers! :biggrin:

Reply 1

aminalia89

13

at as level you do not have to compare poems but you can write about the themes they have. never never plan your essay with a paragraph on lang, structure etc like at gcse they hate it. and always plan. i use spark notes for my annotations. www. sp a rk notes.com

Reply 2

schizoFan

OP

cheers for the help! ooh are you sure that you dont have to compare the poems? I'm so in trouble! I did really well in GCSE eng lit, but thats because we were taught very well how to structure the essay in timed conditions. I have no idea how to answer the poetry question for AS level though! :frown:

yep and sparknotes is defintely the way forward.. unfortunately it doesnt cover the majority of the poems I'm studying, but I'll defintely recommend it for its detailed analysis.

Reply 3

username102860

10

Split the essay into 2 main parts, analysing poem 1 and then analysing poem 2. Once done, write up your conclusion on what you now feel to the comment made in the question and this is where, if you want, you can compare the two poems i.e. how one supports the question and the other doesn't.

Anyway, I'm cacking myself about tomorrow's Hamlet exam, if anyone has any past papers or anything, I'd be grateful. Or just tell me how to revise!

Reply 4

tiger90

did anyones teacher tell them that they had too many notes on their anthology?i've just been told that i have too many notes and i was wondering if this was a serious problem, or something that my teachers are just saying to scare me :smile:

i don't want my anthology taken off me in the exam!!

Reply 5

schizoFan

OP

ooh i didnt know that you could be punished for 'over-annotating'! However, I know that you can only write phrases across the anthology not full sentences. Anyone else having any luck revising poetry? :P

Reply 6

Les_Miserables

Basically, for poetry I just keep writing essays and take them to my teachers to mark. They're great about that - and encourage us a lot to do it, seeing as it's the best kind of revision, really.

I've some tips, actually. First of all, apparently we're meant to take a "holistic" approach - don't write about the poems in two separate entities, and comment on their similarities etc.

Then, you should pick up on the tiniest things in the question asked. Use every little bit - like...oof, I don't know how to explain. Like if it says "presentation of characters" you don't just have to focus on the characters and what they represent, you also have to focus on HOW the author presents them (this is a unit 2 example). I know this sounds really obvious, but so many people have "set essays" that they just write the essay they know how to write, and totally ignore the finer aspects of the question.

As to overannotating...our school has a guideline. Apparently, we're allowed three words per line, and none below or above...i.e. we can't write bits under the title, above the title etc. That said, condensing my notes really does help - especially if you comment on the AO3s...

Finally, just write anything and everythign that is relevant. Check that you've covered the AOs...which are, as I recall:

AO1: Clarity of expression - how fluidly you write, how well you integrate quotations, etc.
AO2: How well you know the text
AO3: Language and its effect
AO4: Other interpretations - ie. you're aware that the text can be taken more than one way
AO5 (n/A for Unit 1): Context

These could be wrong...I don't have them with me. Good luck to everyone!!! :biggrin:

Reply 7

schizoFan

OP

cheers for the good advice!

I've also been told that interpretation and your personal judgement about effects of technique is much more important in AS than discussing general ideas and themes... By the way, does anyone suggest writing about more than 2 poems is in any way beneficial?

ooh yeah its true that you don't have write about context of the poems... the teacher only found out after spending the whole term explaining the context of each era extensively!

Oh dear.

:P

Reply 8

Les_Miserables

schizoFan

cheers for the good advice!

I've also been told that interpretation and your personal judgement about effects of technique is much more important in AS than discussing general ideas and themes... By the way, does anyone suggest writing about more than 2 poems is in any way beneficial?

ooh yeah its true that you don't have write about context of the poems... the teacher only found out after spending the whole term explaining the context of each era extensively!

Oh dear.

:P

I don't know about whether interpretatoin and personal judgement is more important - but I guess that the AOs do specifically address them, and not general ideas and themes.

I personally wouldn't write about more than two poems - it's better to write in-depth about two of them, rather than more broadly and less deeply (that doesn't make sense, but I know you know what I mean) about three...don't forget that you only have about an hour...

Yes, it's true about the context lol. In Unit 2 (pre-1900 prose) and Unit 3 (Shakespeare), context is double weighted. However, in Unit 1 (poetry and drama), context DOES NOT COUNT. Sorry you had to learn that so late... :p:

But it's a relief, right? Personally, I reckon that a LOT of the marks in poetry come from AO3 (analysing language and its effects)...but that may just be me, because they're technically all equally weighted... :smile:

Edit Whoops. Just realised that you knew about Unit 1 and context, albeit a little late :p:

My bad- I didn't read your post well enough :smile:

Reply 9

kingbobjim

I'm really confused about how we are supposed to use AO4 for this unit. Does this mean we really have to find someone else's interpretation for each poem? Should this opinion be used to back up my own? Or is it better to use it to show there are alternative interpretations than my own? :confused:

Reply 10

Les_Miserables

kingbobjim

I'm really confused about how we are supposed to use AO4 for this unit. Does this mean we really have to find someone else's interpretation for each poem? Should this opinion be used to back up my own? Or is it better to use it to show there are alternative interpretations than my own? :confused:

Hehe- one of the major questions, actually. Well, I'll tell you what we've done - or, actually, what I do and my teachers say is OK. I basically put my own interpretation of something, and then say "However, another interpretation could be...." or "This could also be perceived as..." When it comes to the Drama, it pays to have memorised a couple of critical quotations (and preferably their critic), and just stick it in saying, "F.R. Leavis states that this is obviously representative of the persona's emotional turmoil" etc etc. However, I can never remember critics' names, or even specific critical quotations, so I just put, "one critic has said", etc etc.

The point of the above paragraph. Make your own points. And stick some other possible interpretations too, to show that you know that a text doesn't only have one interpretation :smile:

Good luck!! The exam approaches.... :redface:

Out of curiosity, which Drama are you doing? And which sections of poetry have you guys chosen?

Reply 11

schizoFan

OP

oooh I had NO idea that we had to learn other critics interpretations for the exams!! I really need to get cracking on reading the detailed assessment objectives with the sheet we were given lol. There's still time left to learn criticisms though.... phew, but alternatively I suppose you could get away with inventing criticisms? :P

btw, if anyone's interested I have the sheet which shows the specific weighting of each component:

DRAMA:
AO1 - 5%
AO2i - 5%
AO3 - 5%
AO4 - 5%

POETRY:
AO1 - 5%
AO2i - 5%
AO3 - 5%
AO4 - 5%

PRE - 1900 PROSE
AO1 - 5%
AO2i - 5%
AO3 - 5%
AO4 - 5%
AO5i - 10%

+ coursework o course :smile:

The drama text we're studying is A Streetcar Named Desire, Pre-1900 Prose: Frankenstein and for Poetry we're doing the romantics, the victorians, 1900-1950, 1950-present. Im pretty much sorted for the streetcar and frankenstein.. its the poems I'm worried about! Mainly because for some specific poems I have very poor notes for, and there are no resources which I have scoured on the internet for. Basically I'm relying on chances that these poems don't come up in the exam... ! If they do then I'm in serious trouble... Also we have not been given any exam practice at all, and basically I have not written an essay under timed conditions since GCSE! I need to relearn how to structure an essay as well... and I'm sure its different for AS level this time round! hows everyone else coping?? :P

Reply 12

Les_Miserables

I'm actually doing OK. I need to reread my pre-1900 novel (Hard Times) - the good thing is that I have my notes in the actual novel, so I do revision of themes and stuff as I go along, and I have the important stuff underlined. The play I'm OK with, the coursework is sorted out (thank God - I ate, slept and breathed Hamlet for a WHILE), and the poetry...well. I've done a lot of practice essays - it's the drama I have issues with. Essay-writing I mean.

Oh well. We'll see....

Reply 13

kingbobjim

This is actually a retake for me because I did Unit 1 last year. I did Frankenstein for unit 2 and am doing Streetcar and the same sections of poetry as the person above. It's really annoying that they group the poetry and drama together because I don't know which one let me down, or if it was both. For Streetcar I wrote in length about the context of the play and how Williams wrote it as a reflection of his life etc. I looked at the examiners report and I don't think they considered this quite insightful enough, just in case anyone was planning that this year.

Thanks for the help Les Mis :smile:

Edexcel Poetry Anthology

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