Last Friday of term...

We would like everyone to bring in a final draft of their coursework for an hour on the last Friday of term. Mr. Lester (our Borough Advisor and all round knowledgable guy), Mrs. Gibbons and I will be attempting to read and feedback on all of your work.

The session will run from 9.00 - 10.00am and is compulsory for everyone - some of you may have to fight off advances from other teachers who are running lessons in the morning (half of you should be in lesson with me anyway). I'll need a written explanation if you are unable to make it!

Mr. D

Reading for Exam units...

You now need to be reading the following texts:

• Othello (You may choose to order a copy of a BBC production and watch it - BBC versions are truer to the original text. You may also download of itunes store a audio version)
• Duchess of Malfi (listening to this may help also - but I find this easier to read)

If you are doing an AS resit you need to re-reading all the Owens poems. You also need to be doing some targetted reading of The GG - focus on key areas (start with reading for character and setting, then focus on re-reading for themes and symbols, then re-read sections focus on review the narrative structure).

You should also be reading through some of the Donne Poems and doing some contextual research ahead of time for all three texts.

If you're doing a resit and preparing for the Exam units you have a lot to cover - please see me if you need some support in planning a schedule to cover everything!

Mr. D

Re-reading...

This week and next week we will continue looking at The Bloody Chamber, the title story, but after this we will focus on four other stories, both The Courtship of Mr. Lyon and The Tiger's bride, the Snow Child and the Lady of the House of Love.

Can you ensure that you have re-read these stories in full as the lessons won't focus on reading them, rather, they will explore narrative, literary and Gothic elements within the them.

Cheers,

Mr.D

Coursework Development

You should now be starting to develop your argument for your coursework. Firstly, this should focus on developing your overarching proposition and then you subsequent arguments for each paragraph. Any ciritical material must be worked into/form part of your argument, not just added for extra comment.

This will be more difficult than last year as you need to balance the 3 texts and also develop your thoughts in relation to our Genre study, Gothic.

Mrs. Gibbons will start working with during her lessons, but remember you've already had several lesson discussing article/critical material in my lessons.

In my lesson we will continue building our appreciation of The Bloody Chamber for a few weeks, but we expect you to be constructing a draft as part of your ongoing work at home. I will negotiate a deadline with Mrs Gibbons as to when we require sections of a draft from you (you've covered Frankenstein and the poems).

Further discussion of this material will happen in lessons!

Mr. D

Research Tasks...

Just a reminder that you need to check the Independent Task and Homework page from here till the end of school year!!!

Mr. D

A2 Text list....

These are the texts that you will need to acquire for next year's course...

1)'The Bloody Chamber'Angela Carter (Coursework)
2)'Frankenstein' Mary Shelley (Coursework)
3)'The Duchess of Malfi' John Webster (Exam - to be compared to Donne)
4)'Othello' William Shakespeare (Exam)

We will supply you with copies of the poems we will be exploring, notably, John Donne (and a work book for annotations - oh, yes!) and a selection for your coursework to compare with the two other Gothic texts.

You have ample time to search for cheap copies, but the sooner you read them, the sooner you can start reading around the Gothic Genre, to start with, for example, you could borrow a copy of Mrs. Gibbons Dracula!

Regards,

Mr D and Mrs G