How to survive in prelim Ext. English with a bad teacher? (1 Viewer)

[jessesgirl]

I'm doing the preliminary course this year and my teacher is hopeless! She hands us out a booklet which we read in class in 45 minutes, we started with crime fiction and have now moved on to Film Noir and I know nothing about C.F. There's no explanation of theory or class discussion, the homework is to hand in essays and a creative on Crime Fiction and detective values -- I've read the texts but how should I write essays when I don't know what are the values in crime fiction, etc. She told us that this course would be mostly wider reading with independent learning but what do I learn independently? My parents don't want be to drop this course and neither do I. What should I be doing, half yearlies is in a few weeks and I couldn't tell you the difference between pen and paper at this point. Help, please.

How do I learn a whole course at home, essentially?

 

[tigerian]

I'm doing the preliminary course this year and my teacher is hopeless! She hands us out a booklet which we read in class in 45 minutes, we started with crime fiction and have now moved on to Film Noir and I know nothing about C.F. There's no explanation of theory or class discussion, the homework is to hand in essays and a creative on Crime Fiction and detective values -- I've read the texts but how should I write essays when I don't know what are the values in crime fiction, etc. She told us that this course would be mostly wider reading with independent learning but what do I learn independently? My parents don't want be to drop this course and neither do I. What should I be doing, half yearlies is in a few weeks and I couldn't tell you the difference between pen and paper at this point. Help, please.

How do I learn a whole course at home, essentially?

There is a message for you, in regards to some help. in your private messages

 

[Paranoi]

I'm doing the preliminary course this year and my teacher is hopeless! She told us that this course would be mostly wider reading with independent learning but what do I learn independently? How do I learn a whole course at home, essentially?

This may sound harsh but there is no excuse in Extension 1 but looking at yourself. The teacher is a facilitator and it looks like she has given proper advice. Extension is just that, extending yourself. If the teacher spoon feeds you then she is hopeless.

If the teacher tells you to read one thing before the next lesson, read five. That is Extension.
If she tells you to apply one theoretical perspective to a text, then apply three theoretical perspectives and give her all three to look at to see which one you are stronger in. That is Extension.
If she asks you to read a particular novel by next week, then read it twice; on top of reading another novel by the same author; on top of researching society at the time the novel was written and society in the setting of the novel, both novels for that matter. You should create your own assignment on a text before the teacher has even opened her mouth about it in class discussion. That is Extension.

Extension is getting up in the morning and the first thing you think about, the last thing you think about before going to sleep, when people are frustrated you are not paying attention it's because you are thinking about your Extension. It is sitting in the middle of a Maths exam wondering how the quadratic equation you are doing can be applied to the text you are desperate to get out of the exam and start reading, for the fifth time.

At this point, the best advice I can give is to look at samples from past papers then write a better response than the sample. Other than that, it's read, read, read.