Attitudes, Values and Ideas

By Jack Chambers, the critically acclaimed English student

"Amazing!" says The Telegraph

 

DENOTATIONS

Attitude- manner, disposition, feeling, position, etc., with regard to a person or thing; tendency or orientation, especially of the mind: a negative attitude; group attitudes.

Values- the ideals, customs, institutions, etc., of a society toward which the people of the group have an affective regard. These values may be positive, as cleanliness, freedom, or education, or negative, as cruelty, crime, or blasphemy.

Ideas- any conception existing in the mind as a result of mental understanding, awareness, or activity.

 

ATTIUDES

In writing, an attitude is an expression of feelings or opinions. They are often very noticeable in all forms of writing, such as editorials. For example,

"Dear whoever,

You are going to die.

Not by my hand and hopefully not by anyone elses. If your age is zero and your reading this, you have between approx. 0 to 100 years to live. The likelihood is your not zero, and thus have even less time to live. That's all you get. What? You think you live this life as some sort of chore or test before you float up and live in ecstacy in the clouds. Yep, of course God created you so you could bum around for sometime before coming to live with him. No no, don't question this at all - just accept it maybe counteracting any sort of constructive criticism of this system with an enigmatic question like "He works in mysterious ways". Maybe you've read this far and am thinking "Whoever wrote this is some commie bastard asshole hippy who should get into the real world". If you did just think that, you should definitely keep reading…"

The main attitude of the above letter is of anger and general dislike for the public.

 

See you all on Tuesday!

Hope you all had a relaxing Summer and you are raring to go in Y13! I know some of you are a little disappointed by some of the results and we can have a chat about this on Tuesday. The important thing now is to make a plan of action for any resits and then move on to the work for Y13.

Glad to see lots of you have been doing some Summer reading ready for Y13. Miss Evans is really looking forward to meeting you all and taking you through the rest of the course with me.

Miss Witney

Info about Y13 coursework

In this unit of independent research, students have a free choice of texts to study from a range of writers in English. They will focus on the presentation of the human experience — both as it is represented both personally and universally in literary and nonfiction texts and through spoken and written forms.

Reading will include the study of one text from any genre. Students will apply literary and linguistic methodologies and concepts to examine how writers and speakers present human experience. Students will research and comment on varied representations in order to produce their own literary and non-fiction responses for

a defined purpose and audience. The folder should be made up of no more than 2500-3000 words supported by a single analytical evaluative commentary of no more than 1000 words.

Students will build upon their earlier studies to demonstrate their understanding of the connections between texts.

As with Unit 3, this unit contains elements of synopticity, which require students to demonstrate that they can research independently and write with the appropriate regard for audiences, purpose and format.

Coursework folder: 2500-3000 words maximum own writing; 1000 words maximum commentary

80 marks

A chosen area of human experience and texts related to this choice will form the basis of the coursework folder. Students will produce a coursework folder of three pieces of writing:

1 one piece of literary writing — eg section of writing which presents a factual event through narration

2 one piece of non-fiction writing — eg an analytical comment article for a broadsheet newspaper

3 an analytical evaluative commentary.

There should be a balance of the word count across the two pieces of student work.

The texts chosen in the topic area should be of sufficient challenge to represent the synoptic nature of this unit and the need for the students to achieve across the full range of marks.

A period of reading and reflection on how writers present their subject and the contrasts there are between the genres will be needed. It is suggested that students should practise the writing conventions to be found in a range of genres.

There are three pieces of writing to be created.

The literary and non-fiction writing tasks should represent sufficient

challenge to reflect the synoptic nature of these activities and the

need for the students to achieve across the full range of marks.

Task for Today

Today I would like you to post a blog update which details:

• Which topic area you will be studying for your Y13 coursework piece
• Which texts you will be studying over the holidays

You can also post any progress you have made so far, texts you have read.

I am going to try to read all of the texts that you are reading over the holidays too!!

Welcome to the Year 13 English Language and Literature Blog

You should use this blog to:

Post updates on the texts that you have read in preparation for your Y13 coursework; this might be:

a synopsis of the text
a review of what you have read
ideas about how you might use what you have read in your own coursework

Next year you might also use it to:

update me as to the progress of your coursework

share ideas and revision notes

and much more!!!