Yeah, you could probably try posting practice stuff here, in the Poetry forum for EE2, if you wanted to and if you have a thick skin. Be careful about the work you post though, as anything too angsty will be met with hilarity
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The Viva Voce is like a semi-structured interview, though the exact specifications are up to the school. The way our school ran it was that we knew the general areas we had to cover, we prepared notes for those areas (eg why we chose our topic, our model/theoretical research, themes, characterisation, language choices, difficulties/problems etc) and sat down with our teacher and the Head of English and talked about all of it. They could cut in with questions or comments whenever they wanted ... basically an indepth quiz on what we were doing and why.
Basically, by the time the Viva Voce rolls around you'll have been doing EE2 for a semester. It's pretty easy to talk for 50 minutes about it by then, especially since your markers will be asking you questions as well. I think mine was the longest but the shortest in the class was still 35 minutes long. We were a chatty bunch
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Regarding making a decision ... it differs for everyone. When I started EE2 I wanted to do poetry and I was investigating post-structuralism and all this other stuff but then after about two and a half weeks I realised that wasn't where I wanted to end up. So I switched to a short story (with integrated scripts :/) about the USSR and the Trans-Siberian Express and never wavered from my concept after that. But I was definitely one of the lucky ones because I'd picked something I was already really interested in. Out of the six other people in my class, maybe five of them spent aaaaages developing a concept and starting over etc etc. It's quite common. My advice would be to be very careful and discerning during term 4 and make sure you pick something solid and interesting. Don't write your proposal and think "oh, it's okay, I'll iron out all those inconsistencies and gaping conceptual holes later on" - try to do it before you invest all the time and effort. Obviously you won't catch everything but it's better than having to completely start from scratch
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But if you really have to start again, it's not necessarily the end of the world. One of the reassuring stories our teacher told us last year to keep us from dying of panic was of a former student of hers who did poetry and changed his entire concept around (but not his medium) in the last week and ended up with a 48
. I've read his MW and it was amazing, but the change in concept definitely helped the clarity of his work.
Maybe talk to the teachers who you're worried may not think you're smart enough for the course and ask them what their opinion is. Personally, I think if you're doing well in EE1, you genuinely enjoy English, you write well and are an independent learner, then you should be okay. And yes, I definitely doubted my ability in the subject (especially this time last year :/). I had a whole bunch of insecurities related specifically to the technical aspects of the work itself, but broadly speaking my big problem was that I never thought I was writing fast enough. Another really common fear, but often unfounded. Everyone works at their own pace. But when I started feeling like that I reminded myself that I'd taken the subject for the pizza parties I was promised and that even if I crashed and burned it just wouldn't count
. You'll have 11 units, yes? So you can use that to defuse any potential panic attacks.
A lack of past examples will be tough, yeah. You could have a look at the MWs that are
up on this site to get an idea of how it works, maybe? And you can always ask for advice or information here too
. Also, you can consider looking around for a mentor. If you have any connection to a journalist, editor, writer, uni student doing an English major or anyone else who works with words, that's always a good option. You can also fire off letters to any poets you come across asking if they'd consider acting as a mentor. Might not be successful, but it could be worth a try
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