Comparative URGENT help

2014lchelp

So our English teacher went on maternity leave and we've had a fill in since. He has not read ANY of our texts for the comparative and we hadn't done any comparative work with our teacher previously besides reading the texts themselves. Our new teacher suggests we do 36 comparisons per essay. 6 per Paragraph x 6 paragraphs. Is this right? How many are we supposed to do? The leaving cert starts in 2 weeks and I still only have studied cultural context....... I'm absolutely helpless , (the texts I'm doing are wuthering heights, a dollhouse and Casablanca)

robman60

Where did the pull that guy from? These ridiculous statements made by supposed professionals make me embarrassed for those people.
8-12 comparisons per comparative is sufficient I think. I can't say I've ever actually counted the number of comparisons I make in a piece, though.

You'll also need to cover either GVV or theme and issue because you're not guaranteed to get cultural context. I can't really give you any help on your texts though, I'm doing other pieces.

2014lchelp

robman60 wrote: »

Where did the pull that guy from? These ridiculous statements made by supposed professionals make me embarrassed for those people.
8-12 comparisons per comparative is sufficient I think. I can't say I've ever actually counted the number of comparisons I make in a piece, though.

You'll also need to cover either GVV or theme and issue because you're not guaranteed to get cultural context. I can't really give you any help on your texts though, I'm doing other pieces.

Really...? Oh god. I've done 1 essay for him and I got 67/70 but it was 10 pages long and I could physically make it any shorter in order to fit his structure. It didn't make ay sense to me. I think I will do theme because it's easier to understand I can't get my head around GVP at all... So do you have to go into your points in depth I don't know at all at all

robman60

2014lchelp wrote: »

Really...? Oh god. I've done 1 essay for him and I got 67/70 but it was 10 pages long and I could physically make it any shorter in order to fit his structure. It didn't make ay sense to me. I think I will do theme because it's easier to understand I can't get my head around GVP at all... So do you have to go into your points in depth I don't know at all at all

My God, that's just horrific teaching. You'll struggle to get much more than half of that done in the actual exam.

I'll try to give you some general structural tips because I feel bad for the situation you've been put into. I stress this is just a very general structure which may help you.

1. Give a roughly half page introduction where you outline what the question you've chosen means to you. Name your texts and authors here and address the question.

2. Choose an anchor text. I do Macbeth as a comparative piece, so this is what I choose here. Choose your favourite text, but definitely not the film here.

3. Now, and I stress this is very general, select a suitable event from your anchor text, probably from the early scenes. I introduce my second text by making a comparison with the first, and the same for introducing the third. I'd write roughly 1.25-1.5 pages for this (ie. opening scene and comparisons from early part of text). Then I write about four lines which shows that I'm maintaining relevance to the question.

Repeat this twice, and then give a third of a page of a conclusion and a final reference to the question.

I've seen about four separate methods of doing the comparative. English is not an exact science. This is what I find the most convenient and well structured approach to what I believe is the most vague and difficult question in the English exam.

Shakespeare14

My teacher taught us to do at least 8 comparisons per paragraph and as long as you use the correct phrasing, you should have no problem with space or time. Comparisons or contrasts must all closely relate to the aspect of the question being discussed in the paragraph, so it's obvious you truly know the texts. The more accurate comparisons you give, the more obvious it is you have a firm grasp of the texts and have an ability to juxtapose them with ease.

yoyojc

reliable citizen wrote: »

Less than 8 comparisons per paragraph? ahahah, stay pleb. You can always use minor characters like yvonne and the doctor of gimmerton etc to make up the extras if you are having trouble thinking of some!

When you're comparing per paragraph are you comparing between the same texts yes?

spurious

Rubbish being posted from two duplicate regs is still rubbish.
Please ignore the trolls.