Creative Writing Competition

Feeling creative? What about entering AQA's Creative Writing Competition athttp://web.aqa.org.uk/becreative/about.php. Closing date 28th Feb 2013.

Jubilee Journal

Schoolchildren on Constitution Hill celebrating Victoria's Jubilee

" A never to be forgotten day... passing through those six miles of streets, the crowds were quite indescribable and their enthusiasm truly marvellous and deeply touching. The cheering was quite deafening, and every face seemed to be filled with realy joy."

This description of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee celebration was penned by the Queen herself, in her personal diary, 22nd June 1897. Check out more diary extracts, footage of Victoria's Diamond Jubilee procession.

This will lead to an essay comparing the Victorian period with today. See www.queen-victorias-scrapbook.org.

How to use one of your five-a-day for the perfect essay

How to use one of your five-a-day for the perfect essay

Take a closer look at a pear. You can use it to impress the examiners. Think:

1. Point
2. Evidence
3. Analysis
4. Refer back to the question

and ensure you really look closely at an essay question to show off your skills.

How To Revise Successfully - From Media EduSites

How To Revise Successfully

Jeremy Orlebar | Friday April 27, 2012

Categories: Revision, A2 Revision, AS Revision, GCSE Revision, Hot Entries

When the exam is looming up it is always a struggle to get started with revision. Here is a strategy that works.

Revision Kit

Make yourself your own personalised revision kit. You need a special pen or pencils. I like a new pack of sharpened HB pencils and a pencil sharpener. Marker pens / highlighters – three colours. Yellow sticky back notelets – you will need very small ones and larger notelets. You can also have a portable audio recorder – or iPod - so that you can record quotes and other material you want to learn on the move. Keep your revision kit next door the place where you will do your revising – it just needs to be a quiet room with a desk or table. Yes you can have music but choose it very carefully so as not to be a distraction.
Using the kit you are going to mark up the files you already have for the subjects you want to revise. For example you need to revise a book for an English exam. You will have a file with quotes, teacher’s handouts and your essays and other written material.

You only need to revise and learn some of this material. That is what the yellow notelets are for.
Look through your file and put a notelet sticking out at the top of the page for each page which has something you need to revise.
Write on the notelet one or two words to remember it by such as Witches Prophecy (from Macbeth).
On the file page highlight the one or two sentences or paragraphs you want to remember. You can’t revise everything so select the most important things you need to know. If the exam is on Macbeth there are key moments in the play that you will want to learn for the exam – the witches prophecy is one of them. There is no need to learn the quote just the gist of what they are saying. You also need to highlight why the witches are important in the play and their role in setting the tone and atmosphere of the drama: dark, evil and Godless.
Marking up and highlighting has two purposes:

1. As you are selecting and highlighting you are revising at the same time – what a good idea.
2. Making your selection of relevant material will make your revising a lot more focussed.

So what have you done? You have made a decision on what you need to revise, you have located it and you have marked it. Well done, you are on your way, it wasn’t very hard was it? And feel that sense of achievement. This process is a very good way into a topic and can be summed up as: Find - Select - Mark.

Memory Patches

This is an easy way to remember difficult ideas, concepts quotes or equations. Write them on a large yellow sticky back notelet and post them up on a wall, mirror or anywhere in your bedroom AT EYE LEVEL. As soon as you wake up you should see a yellow sticker with something useful on it such as 1789 French Rev.
When you go to the bathroom put up another yellow with 1917 Russian Rev.
You have learned two things this morning – backup these simple facts with more info on each event. So your eye meets a new fact or idea each day.
TIP | Keep the French revolution material in the bedroom and the Russian revolution material in the bathroom, or on different walls in your bedroom. When you test yourself go in your mind to the wall / mirror in each room and relate it to the set of facts that you have put up there: Bedroom = French, Bathroom = Russian.
Choose different areas in your room for different subjects: wardrobe = English, desk wall = geography, mirror = maths. The connection between the area and the subject will help you remember the notes better.

Revision Strategies

Everyone devises their own method of revising. It’s best to stick to the same method for each subject. Here are some methods of working that really do work.

Revise – Test Yourself – Rest

This sounds really hard until you break it down into:

1. Revise for a short period – just 25 mins
2. Test yourself for just 5 mins by saying: ‘What have I learned just now?’
3. Rest for at least 10 mins with a walk, some music, texting, videogame (only 10 mins) or by doing very little – go and talk to a friend, your sister or Mum.
4. This way you are working in 40 minute blocks which is what you are used to, because an average lesson time is about 40 mins. Stop after three 40 min sessions and have something to eat or drink. Brainpower uses calories.

Revise Difficult Work First

Nobody said life was easy. You have to revise those difficult equations or that subject you find hard when you are at your freshest. Put it another way, leave the easy stuff to the evening or when you are a bit tired.

Bite Size Is Best

It is much easier to learn small units of information than large ones, so break down topics into bite size chunks – break down all complex info into small chunks.

Organise Your Time

I have left this to the last because for many people it is the most difficult. For people who are naturally well organised they will have organised themselves already. If organisation is an anathema to you (look it up) then follow this advice:

• Don’t be afraid to ask someone to help you organise your time.
• Just do a simple sum – how many days have you got to the exam and how many hours in each day – you just cannot revise all day so decide on how much you feel you can do – say two hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon, and you can have the evening off. If you want to get an A then you will have to make sure you do at least that amount and more.

Make Lists

It really is a good idea to make at least two lists. One list of all the revision you have to do – then a second listing the topics you need to learn for each subject. Highlight topics that you have completed, so that you can see what you have achieved.

More Help?

• The Practical Guide to Revision Techniques by Simon Percival (Continuum) Best for A Level students
• The Buzan Study Skills Handbook by Tony Buzan (BBC) Useful to read well before the exam season

Shakespeare unlocked!

In preparation for the Shakespeare element of the A2 course, you can do much worse than to dip into Ian Mortimer's 'The Time Traveller's Guide to Elizabethan England' (Bodley Head, 2012, £20, or dowload the Amazon Kindle version at £9.59). See Ian Mortimer's article from 'The Sunday Times' on the 'Pages' links (right).

Enter the Young Film Critic of the Year Competition

The competition for Young Film Critic of the Year, run by Film Education, has just opened. Click the link to download an entry form. Your review can be in writing, video or podcast and there are lots of previous winners to view and give you ideas: http://www.youngfilmcritic.org/?utm_source=Edlines&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Edlines_2012-03-23
Closing Date is 21st December 2012.

Critical Reviews of 'Wuthering Heights'

See what literary critics thought of the novel at the time at http://www.wuthering-heights.co.uk/reviews.htm. Useful quotations for your Drama comparision essays here.

Earliest Dickens Film Footage Discovered

Check out this BBC link to a film discovered this February in the BFI archives. It's the death of poor Joe in 'Bleak House'. Amazing!

Useful links for your Drama Coursework

•www.victorianweb.org

•www.costumes.org

•http://www.gober.net/victorian/reports/prostit.html

•http://www.fathom.com/course/10701039/session4.html

•http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_the_Victorian_era

•http://www.gober.net/victorian/reports/religion.html

•http://www.sylviamilne.btinternet.co.uk/plucked/vic.htm

Coming up with a Drama Coursework title

The title for the dramas c/w comes in three parts with the main focus on the play. You must also remember that AO3, which is not examined in the first coursework task, becomes the dominant AO for the drama task:
1. Explore connections and comparisons between different literary texts...
2. ... informed by interpretations of other readers.

Some coursework drama tasks which have generated successful outcomes in the past are:

• Compare and contrast Wilde's and Bronte's presentation of the relationships between different social classes in 'A Woman of No Importance' and 'Jane Eyre' in the light of the opinion that Wilde scorns only the nobility whereas Bronte scorns only the poor;
• Compare and contrast the presentation of female characters in Wilde's 'A Woman of No Importance' with Stoppard's 'Arcadia' in the light of the opinion that whereas Stoppard's females are cleverer than Wilde's, Wilde's females are ultimately more successful.

Your title could also be something like:
Explore the ways in which Oscar Wilde presents women in AWONI. How does this compare with Emily Bronte’s presentation of women in WH. Which is the more effective portrayal?

Essays comparing the relationship between characters work well e.g Explore the relationship between Mrs Arbuthnot (and whoever!). Compare their relationship with that of Kathy and Heathcliff. Which relationship do you find the most convincing?

Essays can be character or theme based but need to have the emphasis on the play (about 70%). You MUST explore alternative readings.