Q for media and creative writing students (1 Viewer)

[glitterfairy]

This is more of a topic for open discussion, but I really want to know what other people think about this.

As the 2006 hsc looms closer I'm becoming a bit more involved with hsc modderly things such as answering posts...

let's ignore the fact that there's an ever increasing amount of people trying to learn english essays by rote. My new concern is that they think an essay can be 'reshaped' into anything. Umm, no?

I remember my english teacher going off one day after trials about how we were trying to make essays look like feature articles/speeches as opposed to actually writing feature articles, or speeches. Now that I'm out of the hsc I read the paper a bit more and have done speeches as part of uni assessments, and in my opinion an essay is HUGELY different from any other sort of medium (whether it be diary entry, editorial, speech, feature article, whatever).

Maybe their teachers were just too lazy to spend enough time going over the different mediums... I remember my teachers didn't really spend a lot of time going over them, but they DID make huge fusses about how they were all different and we should work harder on them

I don't like to go against what hsc people's teachers have been saying to them all year unless I'm 100% sure of what I'm saying. I'm about 70% sure... the conventions are different but in order to get all the crap in that you need to most people may choose, or be forced to revert to essay format anyway. Right? *confused*



Discuss.

 

[AsyLum]

Umm, Lynn, what was the question again?

My view is that the HSC will churn out three things for the uni-bound: a) Silver spooners, who will never know what the hell they're actually doing, but manage to get 90+ purely because of memorisation (usually rich/private school) b) Workers, who will have perfected the art of time management and have been drilled either by a dedicated teacher or by themselves into a form of 'study' c) Those who are unsure and are passing it through, this will be the majority of people. They're caught in a middle-ground between having the raw skill/ability but not the motivation/refinement.

What happens is that for the majority of group A, they will crash and burn, if not in the HSC in uni. If anything has shown to me how different the two cultures are, its through doing subjects like CUL, PHIL, AHST, MAS, and SOC and just identifying the various, and at times very subtle, differences between each of their assessment expectations. Group A will most likely come into it, scoring passes or borderlines and have no idea why.

Group B will usually find they need to be a bit more flexible and gain an inside advantage to assessments initially, and two things can happen, they become more drilled and become quite adept scholars, they get a social life, and learn to manage the two quite well. (most of these kids will be 'nerds' or whatnot, but with the baggage of high-school-failure syndrome [thats where its cool to fail stuff] gone, and similar people/environment accomodating them, they may branch out and become quite involved/social people.)

Group C, the 'mass' will branch off into, passers, who are content with Passes through uni, Fails, some of whom will discover uni is probably not for them and take up more of a vocational sort of work, the Bolters, these are the ones who were couped up with the annoying monotony of the high school system, of the need for a 'single' answer (that which will please markers) and they will learn how to harness their skills/concepts and form them into quite eloquent essays. (This group will involve quite a bit, but for this purpose, I'll keep it down to this).

The problem with how the HSC is being taught is that it focuses on maximising 'point' scoring with markers and less on actually placing many of these pieces in some sort of context or explanation as to why such things were. With a recent discussion with a few people who have gone through and are doing the HSC module: In the Wild, it became apparent that there was a distinct difference between what they expect from you in the HSC and what you gain from analytical thinking in uni.

How can they rectify this? Get rid of the baggage modules and texts and make students work for their mark. Its not too hard, its not too much, heck I'd argue that the content they cover is a far cry from the beginner courses unis teach to first years.

Personally speaking, I was a serious under-achiever in high school, and probably was lucky to get away with my UAI, particularly because I was in such a 'over it' mood at the time. But since getting into uni, I must say the freedom and the focus on actual skills rather than content has totally had an effect on me I could never have imagined.

 

[glitterfairy]

hmm I think the original question was really in shambles :/ I probably meant to say "fuck. The HSC english syllabus or the teaching of it, or both is even more screwed up than I thought it was."

You even come across people passionately defending the syllabus and treating their teacher's words as if they were god. It makes me sad.

 

[AsyLum]

I think the problem is that 'experience' really puts things in perspective, something which you don't really see being totally cottonball-ed in high school

 

[glitterfairy]

true.

Damn.

 

[Tulipa]

even though i'm not a macq student, i am a creative writing one so i'm going to weigh in.

i agree with lynn 100%. the HSC syllabus and the teaching of it, is more to get marks in occordance with the syllabus outcomes than to actually learn anything of merit. it seems that constructive learning is falling by the wayside of getting marks. memorising won't get you anywhere in uni but in the HSC, it will get you band 6's, to me that just seems ridiculous.

all those kids who are out there memorising essays in hopes of getting a band 6 in english, guess what. i got a 90 exam mark and had only quotes, ideas and time management on my side.

learning > memorising.

 

[lcf]

My english teacher for year 12 last year, sat our class down and made sure we were all listening. He then sat at the front and said "I'm sorry for having to teach you all this shit - that's what it is - useless - none of you are going to be able to utilise any of this effectively - I would much rather teach you practical things, living English - English you could use! but then I would lose my job so - sorry guys, for the next few months we'll just have to put up with it."

What the hell were we meant to learn from journeys? Also - diary entries/letters to friends - who in heir right mind would suddenly think their friend would be interested to know about postmodernist theories of the movie Orlando. Gah! L

Sorry for the rantyness just I agree with Lynn - I fail to see the point/relevance/quality in English and HSC now. The sylabus seems to be contrived and overly complicated to accomodate al these scenarious/situations/people but now, it's just lost everyone IMO.

Quite a lot of my friends are doing the HSC/just finished it - and they keep coming online telling me 'gotta finish my essay for day X.' When I ask them what do you mean you have to finish? - they have basically been taught to write an essay out, memorize it and then squish it into the question. The problam I have with this is they then come back to me and say 'I think I stuffed it up, my essay didn't really match the question, but I wrote it anyway.' Probably better to have your key topics/ideas, meorise those, then synthesise the essay based on the question and your points in the exam - oh well ><

Just glad I don't ever have to do the HSC again

/end rant