English literature

Note: Please excuse the profanity in the title. The subject is doing my head in

I have a few questions for anyone that has done their GCSEs and got good grades for englit

-How did you revise? (for macbeth especially)
-Whats your best way of memorising quotes?
-How much time did you spend on the subject when revising?

Thank you, much appreciated :biggrin:

(edited 3 years ago)

Reply 1

Krood

I would firstly go by themes.

So, I'd think up about 5 or 6 strong themes like: vengeance, guilt, gender (centred on Lady Mcbeth), kingship, landscape, the supernatural, tragedy + destiny. (I doubt those are the best ones, its, that's off the top of my head, it's been a while. Have a look at past papers and see which themes crop up).
Have a separate A4 page for each one.

Then I'd go through the book and put 10 or so quotes for each theme on the appropriate page.
You're not going to remember them all so once you've reached the story cut them down to the best 5 or so of each theme.

Drill down closely into the language and poetics of the lines you have chosen. Hopefully you know about rhyme, word order, and metre (iambic pentameter in this case for the most part, when its not free verse). Think about which words have been selected to rhyme, and moments when the metre is thrown off. This adds extra stress to certain words -- why might Shakespeare have tried to emphasize those words? Drilling down into a sentence like this will make sure it sticks in your memory.

Next I'd think about context.
So for each page think about what was going on in Shakespeare's mind. So for kingship, what parallels might Shakespeare have been thinking about from his own time? Try to add two contextual facts to each page theme.

Hopefully you know how to structure an essay and give opinions elegantly.
This stuff is very important and comes with practice.
Saying phrases like 'If we compare this to an earlier scene...'
'this expression is reminiscent of a later scene, when...'
'Here, Shakespeare may have been mindful of xyz occurring in England at the time of writing'
Examiners love that stuff.

Good luck :smile:

(edited 3 years ago)

Reply 2

absolutelysprout

for macbeth i made mindmaps of characters and themes, with flashcards for quotes. then i did lots of practice essays and handed them to my teacher for feedback.
remembering quotes just requires regular, consistent revision. flashcards i found the best as it forced me to recall the quote and also some brief analysis. most people organise quotes by characters and/or themes.
different people will spend different amounts of time revising for the subject as it may be one of their strong subjects or one they struggle with quite a bit. you know your abilities best.