St. Peter's Podcast Episode #2. Leaving Cert English Exam with Ms Wallace

Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/pecan-pie/time-for-action License code: IWBO4SASWIT7ZCUE I am delighted to say that I have a very experienced teacher here, Miss Wallis, who is here to talk about the Leaving Cert, the Leaving Cert English. We are going to discuss some tips and tricks and ways to approach the paper and I don't have any students here today, but we do have lots of questions from students which we will both address. So, firstly, I would just like to say, Miss Wallis, welcome to the podcast. Thank you very much. Very exciting to be here this morning. Okay. Now, Miss Wallis, you have some experience in the school. When did you start teaching in St. Peter's? I started teaching in St. Peter's in January of 2002. Okay. Right. So, yeah. Here is on time. A lot of experience. Yeah. And you've been marking the Leaving Cert for a number of years as well, if I'm correct? Yes. I've been marking a higher level English Leaving Cert for about five or six years now. Okay. And was it last year you have progressed to an advising examiner? Yeah. Last year. No, sorry. Actually, the year before. The year before. The year before. Okay. Two years doing that now. Right. So, you're now operating in the summer as an advising examiner. So, you would have an oversight over a lot of other examiners and you'd be advising them. Yeah. Yeah. Tell me a little bit about that. I'm making sure that students, all exams are corrected to the same level. Okay. Yeah. And you enjoy it? Oh, it's very exciting. It actually has really helped influence my teaching and guides my teaching. Yeah. There's great insight and learning happening over the summer doing that. Great. Okay. Now, I have marked the Leaving Cert as well, as you know. We marked it together one year. It's a tough gig. There's a lot of work involved, isn't there? There is a lot of work involved and that, you know, it's an important job and you have to treat it seriously, so it takes time, but it's a very rewarding job and I suppose the beauty of English is that you get to hear a student's opinion. They share their ideas. No two answers are the same. So, for me, it's freaky and odd as I may sound or nerdy as I may sound. I quite enjoy it. Yeah. I quite enjoy it. Yeah. I did enjoy marking as well. It does give you a great insight and it does improve your teaching a lot. Certainly. Yeah, it does. Yeah. Okay. So, today we're just going to address a few questions from our students. These came from higher level students this year. I collected them yesterday, actually, so they're very fresh. I'll pose the question. We'll just have a little chat and a discussion. Maybe you can shed some light on how you would approach the paper or how you would answer certain questions. Okay. First question. In the paper, which question would you approach first? The question I would approach first in paper one would read through the paper and make my choices first. So, I would be very careful to choose my question B before I choose my question A because it's more restrictive. 50 marks going first, it's an easy, well, not an easy 50 marks, but it's a very attainable 50 marks. Okay. So, I'd choose that one first. So, you'd do question B first? I wouldn't do it. I'd choose it. Oh, choose it. Okay. So, I think the most important thing is to be careful about the selections you make in paper one. I would suggest to students, if you like your LAM composition, you're very clear where you're going with your composition, I would do that first. Yes. It's worth 25% of the marks, so therefore, I would do that first while I'm fresh. However, if I'm looking at the LAM compositions and I'm not 100% sure which one I'd like to do, I wouldn't be wasting time, you know, dithering over it, trying to start one, restart another. So, I would go to my question B, then, you know, leave the LAM composition simmer in my mind for a while and then go do my LAM composition. Okay. That's some good advice. So, just to be clear for students, there are three reading comprehensions of which they should tackle two and they have to do an A question in one and a B question in the other because we know from experience, we've marked PREs and papers, you know, in the PREs, you know, there's always one or two students who miss that and they might even answer on all three, which, you know, is a terrible waste of time, isn't it? Terrible waste of time. The one thing you don't want to do, I would always say to students in English, you do not do extra questions, you really invest your time and effort into perfecting the questions that you've attempted. Yeah. And that you need to do. Yeah. Okay, very good. Now, sticking with the paper one, how to approach, how do we approach the question A and B in reading comprehensions? So, let's just break that down a little bit. Let's just go to question A first. So, there's usually three questions, 15 marks, 15 marks and 20 marks. So, and usually the first one, from my experience anyway, the first one is pretty straightforward, the A, the A question one. Yeah. A question one usually is based on do you understand the question, do you understand the text and can you identify key features of it? An example of a typical question there would be three insights you get into a character, three points the writer made about an issue. So, for that one, I would say you use the text. If they ask you for three, you give them three. And even if they don't ask for three, if there's 15 marks going for it, usually they're looking for three though, aren't they? As I say to all my classes, three is the magic number. Yeah, exactly. And you want to show development. The one thing I would say to students as well is kind of structure your answer quite well. So, have a very short introduction to that question, maybe reiterate the question whether you know, yes, I've gained three clear insights into the character of, and then you have your three points. I would avoid going in the first thing we learned and then starting the next paragraph, the second thing we learned. And then the last thing we learned, that I would avoid. Higher level students should find a way to link their paragraphs together so that their answer flows. So, we're using connectives like furthermore, in addition, but not like first, second, third. That's a bit more basic. Yes, and the last thing then I would say, a very short conclusion. It could be just one sentence or two. I often think answers are like a burger. You have your burger bun on top of the introduction, your burger bun at the bottom, that's the conclusion. And in between, you need three at least good points and features of burger. You need your lettuce in your salad, you need your meat, and you need your sauce and dressing. So, that's how I would approach it. Now I'm hungry as well. So, question B. Sorry, just before we move on to question B, the third question in A is usually worth 20 marks. So, the answer should be a little bit more extended there. The third question tends to be a question on the language that's employed in the text. Or the style. Or the style, yes. When I say language, I often mean style as well and the approach. Paper 1 is all about the five language types. I say to my students, remember what I am. I am a pain. Aesthetic, persuasive, argument, informative, narrative. So, before you go into the exam, you should know what are the features of each of those writing styles. And if you have that, in the last few years, you've been asked to identify four examples of writing styles. So, I would say to students, when you're reading the text, you should be keeping your eyes open to these. For example, if it's language of argument or persuasion, you're expecting the rhetorical. You're expecting the imperative. You're expecting the use of triads or listing. So, you should be watching out for these as you're reading the text. So, persuasive techniques and, you know, a disrobe is what I say in my class. You know, we've got a mnemonic there to remember that. Yes, and that's very important. And I would say to students, approaching question A, whether it's question 1, question 3, that you're doing. As you're reading the text for the first time, annotate. Okay. So, I get my class to underline the key points. A squiggly line under well-phrased expressions. Make a note, oh, there's a triad. Oh, there is the rhetorical question. Or there's a little bit of alliteration there. You want to make a note of that. Anything that pops out. Anything that pops out. And listen, on second reading, you'd see more. But you don't really have time for second reading in the exam. You have to capitalize on your first reading. So, annotate as you're going. It'll save you time. And the other thing is, the text is there. Use quotes from it. Yes. But be selective and try and choose the best one. Okay. Question 2, and that often draws on your own opinion. Right. And sometimes you may have to, you know, reference the text. Sometimes you may not. And do not be thrown if they reference paper 2. That is something to celebrate. Yes. Because it's work you know. Yes, yes, yes. And if students are revising as well, you know, a lot of times students will kind of think, oh, I can't really revise for paper 1. But of course you really can. And the hands-on book, the purple book that we use, there's a lot of language stuff in there and a lot of various different writing styles. So, it wouldn't be a bad idea to give that a little look over, even over the Easter holidays. Yes. And some of those books have very good examples of, you know, answers and how to structure them. I think paper 1 is a lot of practice. Yes, yes. And one other thing I do advise students to do in paper 1 is identify the theme. There's a theme indicated on the first page of your paper. I always tell students that's like a warm-up. We don't go out on the pitch and just start playing a match. You shouldn't go into your English exam and just think, oh, it's English, we can go ahead. You know, it's going to be the first exam of your Leaving Cert. It would be very, very normal to feel anxious. It is the first day of the exam. So I often say to students, this is a time just to breathe and do your warm-up. You brainstorm the theme and by doing that you're preparing yourself for ideas that are on composition. You come across something then in a reading comprehension and that helps you relax again. Just an opportunity to do that. Fantastic. We might come to some techniques in a moment as well. But just to move on to the question B, usually, 50 marks question, usually about two pages, would that be right? Two and a bit? I think it depends on the task. You know, if you're asked to write a report, a proposal, you could change the format of that. That can be like a business proposal, that could be shorter. Sometimes they're longer. Depending, like if you're writing three diary entries for a character, that might be longer. The one thing I would say in this, we use two humanics as well for this one, is one is raft. So, or, what's my role? Who am I? Sometimes you'll be writing as yourself, a sixth year Leaving Cert student. Sometimes you'll be writing as a character. Last year was Salim's diary. So you were no longer you, you were a writing of Salim. Which meant you did have to kind of be familiar with the text, and identify what kind of character he is. A is audience. Language is all about who am I writing for. So your language must do that. S is format. So what's the letter? What does this piece of writing look like? So if it's a letter, obviously you're going to have your date and your address at the top, and your dear sir or madam, and formal letter, you know, parts. If it's a formal letter and then there's personal. If it's a letter, some students always write formal when it might be a personal. So be mindful of that. And T then at the end is the tasks. In the last few years, there's three to four specific tasks you're asked to complete while doing question B. So you have to make sure you do all four. If you leave out one, that will impact your marks. That's great. Now, moving on to probably the most important aspect of the entire English paper which is the essay. Would you agree? Students are always surprised that this is our max opportunity in an English class. 100 marks out of the 400 marks for the higher level English paper, our ordinary level English paper goes towards the long composition. There are five or six different genres of essays or long compositions that you can be asked to complete. Personal essay, speech or feature writing, and the dispersive essay. They tend to be the ones that have come up. There used to be one before, a story inspired by a picture that hasn't featured recently, but that is not to say that it won't reappear on the paper. You need to be very clear of the genre that suits you. Okay. And this is a question one of our students asked. I know my answer to this one, but what's your favourite question to mark? My favourite question to mark in paper one? Well, yeah, or generally. I mean, I know my answer there is definitely the essay, and the reason why is because when you're marking two or three hundred scripts, you're generally reading the same material over and over again, but the essay gives you that opportunity to be really unique, and to show the examiner how good you are, how creative you are, how clever you are, and, you know, all of that. So, for me, it's definitely the essay. I would agree. Sometimes the essay is the most entertaining, and you get a real sense of the person. However, it depends on whether you're correcting fifty personal essays on the same topic, and you're getting the same points. So, my advice to people would be, if you choose the personal essay, which is a good choice, I'm not saying to anybody, do not choose it, be unique. Tell your story. Don't make it generic. Think of specific examples from your life, and show, don't tell about them. Share with the person your experience. Bring it to life for them. Describe it. Appeal to the senses. Give them a little anecdote about your story. And it doesn't have to be a wow story, or an amazing story, but it's your story. And then, in the personal essay, then reflect. Anecdote. Reflect. A little bit of, you know, I should feel like I'm nearly reading your diary. Okay. So, don't be afraid to, obviously you don't have to get too personal, but don't be afraid to talk about yourself, because I think a lot of students sometimes maybe feel that they have to, wow, you know, they have to tell a story where they've been in some crazy accident, or some mad, terrible life event has happened, or whatever it might be. But actually, a very simple, ordinary day can be very well written, and can actually be very unique as well. And that's what's been a passion for me. So, I think that's important. I think that's important. I think that's important. I think that's important. I think that's important. I think that's important. I think that's important. I think that's important. I think that's important. I think that's important. I think that's important. I think that's important. I think that's important. I think that's important. I think that's important. I think that's important. I think that's important. I think that's important. I think that's important. 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I think that's important. I think that's important. I think that's important. I think that's important. I think that's important. I think that's important. I think that's important. I think that's important. I think that's important. I think that's important. I think that's important. I think that's important. I think that's important. I think that's important. I think that's important. I think that's important. I think that's important. I think that's important. I think that's important. I think that's important. I think that's important. I would just like to say to any listeners out there, I would just like to say to any listeners out there, if you have any ideas for podcasts, if you would like to get involved in the school newsletter or the podcast, please give me a shout. Everybody is welcome. You can email me at erion at stpeters.ie. You can email me at erion at stpeters.ie. Again, thank you for listening. I hope you have gotten something from today's podcast. I hope you have gotten something from today's podcast. For our six years listening, best of luck in your exams. Bye bye. Thank you. Best of luck everybody. Thank you. Thank you.