English text analysis essays (1 Viewer)

[Eagle Mum]

Does anyone write their essays involving English text analysis as you would a science essay - ie. referencing sources rather than directly interpreting the text (noting many students would get ideas from other sources)? DS writes well for his science and geography essays, but approaches his English essays in a similar way - eg. ‘The three most popular interpretations of the author’s...’. When I wrote my English essays (over three decades ago), I would have set it out as ‘The main theme...’, ‘Another interpretation...’, ‘It is also possible...‘.

The main problem is that his teachers want analyses of how themes are relevant in current contemporary settings and my son‘s view is that this requires internet research beyond direct analysis of the given text and as such, should be presented in essays as a researched component rather than direct interpretation of the text. Would a direct statement such as ‘The [theme] is relevant in the contemporary context to [describe contemporary context]’ without indicating an external source of such an interpretation be more appropriate?

 

[Life'sHard]

Does anyone write their essays involving English text analysis as you would a science essay - ie. referencing sources rather than directly interpreting the text (noting many students would get ideas from other sources)? DS writes well for his science and geography essays, but approaches his English essays in a similar way - eg. ‘The three most popular interpretations of the author’s...’. When I wrote my English essays (over three decades ago), I would have set it out as ‘The main theme...’, ‘Another interpretation...’, ‘It is also possible...‘.

The main problem is that his teachers want analyses of how themes are relevant in current contemporary settings and my son‘s view is that this requires internet research beyond direct analysis of the given text and as such, should be presented in essays as a researched component rather than direct interpretation of the text. Would a direct statement such as ‘The [theme] is relevant in the contemporary context to [describe contemporary context]’ without indicating an external source of such an interpretation be more appropriate?

I believe the module of english would play a major role in what they want written about. For Mod A, it is very context based and themes/issues explored must be linked from the latter to the reimagined current text that you are analysing. For Mod B, it's more so how context influenced the composer and his interpretation of current climates. The trickiest part however, is the "personal response" aspect. All the modules of english can include a brief section in the question that generally states "how the understanding of the composer's context and representation of themes influenced your understanding". This, I feel is not so straight forward and targeting this point is quite difficult. You need to explore composer's context, your context and show some sort of developed insight whilst trying to sound formal but not convoluted but with enough detail to show you have a holistic understanding of the text. Hopefully this clarifies some misconceptions. If not hopefully someone else can. I am only decent at english so just take this explanation with a grain of salt.

 

[Eagle Mum]

I believe the module of english would play a major role in what they want written about. For Mod A, it is very context based and themes/issues explored must be linked from the latter to the reimagined current text that you are analysing. For Mod B, it's more so how context influenced the composer and his interpretation of current climates. The trickiest part however, is the "personal response" aspect. All the modules of english can include a brief section in the question that generally states "how the understanding of the composer's context and representation of themes influenced your understanding". This, I feel is not so straight forward and targeting this point is quite difficult. You need to explore composer's context, your context and show some sort of developed insight whilst trying to sound formal but not convoluted but with enough detail to show you have a holistic understanding of the text. Hopefully this clarifies some misconceptions. If not hopefully someone else can. I am only decent at english so just take this explanation with a grain of salt.

Thank you Life’sHard. Like you, I think that English analyses are expected to be ‘personal responses’ and demonstrate ‘your understanding’, so I suspect he’ll lose marks if he impersonally refers to ’popular interpretations’ and ‘common criticisms’.

 

[quickoats]

Yes, I agree that it should be up to the individual to argue their opinion. Some students in the advanced cohort at my school tried to add critic’s analysis but not sure how successful it was.

 

[Wizjaro]

Yep the essay should be your own personal opinion/perspective of the text. Of course these can be influenced by doing research and reading critics but at the end of the day it should still be yours. So I think its more vital that you directly analysis the text in relation to how you believe it to be true as opposed to just providing the opinions of critics. Also teachers enjoy it when you play around with your writing in a way that is smooth and fluid as opposed to the rigid language required by sciences and that can be hard to unlearn. Additionally your writing voice should come through in your essay to show your personal perspective, and there are different ways to achieve this like personal pronouns.

 

[ExtremelyBoredUser]

Seems counteractive for because the key objectives of the subject is to develop your own critical analysis and interpretation so it would be defeating the whole purpose of the subject by citing critic's analysis because it would feel like you're just going off their interpretation. It would be important to read other critics analysis on a texts to get some inspiration and understanding for your themes but if you're citing it then it would feel like your ideas are just simply off the critic.

My teacher advises not to do so since it doesn't show what "I understood" however he recommends reading analysis's by critics for the sake of learning how to structure your response/essay and to gain some ideas for your paragraphs.

 

[Eagle Mum]

Thank you all very much. Your perspectives support my concerns.
Whilst my opinions are unlikely to be well received, I’ll ask my eldest to offer hers.