English Paper 2 Revision Course (Christmas)

[Music] [Music] [Music] now. Good morning everybody. I hope you're well. I understand there was a bit of a technical glitch again this morning. Apparently, it's got to do with volume and it's all good. Who cares? We're going to We're a couple of months behind schedule, but that's okay. We have loads of time today.

So this is our paper two preparation class and again like yesterday evening um there's going to be three elements to it. First hour I'm going to look at poetry. Um second hour I'm going to look at King Lear. Third hour I'm going to look at comparative. Then at the very very very end I'm going to talk very briefly about um um another text that a lot of people are studying for. Not a lot of people but a number of people are studying for their um single text and that is called the crucible. Had a brain fart there for a moment.

So we're going to get going in a second but just before I do want to talk about the chat. So um last night it was absolutely fantastic to see how many of you were engaged with the chat and gave loads and loads and loads of questions. And so what I decided to do because I found it quite distracting at the start there was loads of messages flying through is at the break of each hour and you know I if you were here last night I took between five and 10 minutes at the end of the first hour and the end of the second hour I let I'll open the chat for you and then as you have questions that occur to you based on what we discuss in this um in each hour you can throw them into the chat. They will then be um recorded and I will have access to them and later on this week as I said again last night I will record a video in which I respond to the questions that have come up in the stream. I think that's the best way to manage it so that we can get through the work this morning. A lot of work to get through but get through the work this morning and then facilitate and answer the specific questions that you might have. Okay. So that's why the chat is closed at the moment for my sake but it will be opened. So, we're going to go till about 2211. Sorry, 22. Yeah, 2211. And then we'll take a few minutes of a break. And at that time, I'll open the chat. Okay.

So, you will know that there were um some documents available for you on the website. I don't know the platform. I don't know if the platform is um up and running at the moment. I'm sure I have people who are watching this who let me know. But for the moment, you don't need the notes in front of you. Just let's talk about paper two. So, I'm going to start at the very very very basics. And I said to you last night, I I don't want to insult anybody um by telling you stuff you already know, but when I'm doing these courses, I have to presume um that there will be people who don't know, you know, some basic fundamental stuff. So, that's the this document here is the course material prescribed for study for um paper 2 for leaving 2025. And as you know there are a number of single text prescribed for study and that's them there. The ones marked with the H tend fell hall all the light we cannot see the crucible king lear and Frankenstein. They're all texts that your teacher might decide to prepare with you as your si for your single text. We talk about what that means in a second. The vast majority of you will be studying King Lear as your single text because it is compulsory if you're doing higher level that Shakespeare be part of your preparation. So most teachers make the decision a lot of work goes into reading a Shakespeare play and they make the decision to do it as the single text but you may not be doing it as a single text.

Now, if you're on the platform um and you whether you are somebody who is a a member or you're just tasting or uh trying out the platform for the first for the next few days, you can have a look and you'll see on the platform where I've done a note on all of those texts. The note is in the comparative section, but there's information on all of those texts, particularly on the crucible. And again I said I'd come to that later on but there's information in all those texts would be useful for anybody preparing them as um single text but for the purposes of this class and my classes I'll be doing kinglier as the single text because that's the one that 95 96% of candidates who sit the exam next June will be answering and the single text okay so those are your single text options as you know then there are three comparative modes up for study sorry and with with king with single text that's in hour two of this class this morning. Okay.

Then we go to comparative and as you know comparative is a big section of the paper. We have to talk about the various different um um elements of that section and the slight changes that have been introduced to that section over the last couple of years. But as you as you know there are three modes of comparison prepared or sorry um prescribed for study this year. They are theme and issue, cultural context and general vision of viewpoint. I'm going to briefly discuss what those modes mean um in the third hour and we're going to look at some um of the skills that the the effective student will have developed by the time they get to June or even when you're preparing for your mock exams when it comes to writing comparative answers. There there is a an art and a craft to writing effective comparative answers. I think a lot of students get kind of bogged down in the detail when it comes to comparative and miss the point of what they're supposed to be doing. So that's work that we'll do in the third hour. But what do most people look for? I I always find this kind of bizarre. There's all those texts there. They're all texts are prescribed for study. And if it's marked yellow, it means I've done a note on it already. Okay. If it's marked green, it means there's a note in process. Um what are you all really what not you, but what do students leaving our students become really obsessed with? Studied poetry.

So in our first hour today, we're going to talk about the structure of the paper. We're looking at the the breakdown of um the curriculum and I just want to talk very briefly here about study poetry before we get into how to prepare for study poetry. There are eight poets prescribed for study. Van Boland, Emily Dickinson, TS Elliott, Jared Manny Hopkins, Patrick Kavanaaugh, Derek Mahan, Sylvia Platt, Tracy K. Smith. Now those eight poets each have a selection of poems prescribed for study. For example, Tracy K. Smith. There's 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 poems prescribed for study by Tracy K. Smith. Now, when I'm teaching her, and we'll talk about her a little bit later on, I teach that one, that one, and those. There's seven poems. I sometimes don't do the universe as a house party, but I do the other six. And I have a video on the universe as a house party as well. Now you you might be studying Tracy K. Smith and you might be looking at that one, that one, that one, and that one. Makes no difference. The examiner doesn't have a a list of poems that you must have studied from the 12. You just must be able to write about a number of poems from the 12. So, if I'm doing a selection of poems that I like by a particular poet and your teacher is doing a slightly different selection and you're looking at maybe looking at a couple of poems that your teacher did with you and a couple of poems that I've done with you, that's perfectly fine as long as the poems you're discussing are from the list of 12 and or 10 for some of the poets. And as long as you can demonstrate an in-depth knowledge of somewhere between, we'll discuss this in more detail in a moment, somewhere between four and six of the poems that are prescribed for study, then you're fine for study poetry.

For me, the big question I get asked, and you'll have seen if you follow Grind 360 on I hate even saying the words tick tock, um, you'll have seen I've been asked this question a number of times already this year about what poets to prepare. I'm never going to tell you a poet is coming up in the leavingert because that would be a lie. We don't know who's coming up. But we can make an educated guess to narrow down the numbers. The simple fact is when it comes to study poetry, again, we'll get to this in a second. If there are eight poets prescribed, five are going to be examined. That means if you have four ready, you are guaranteed that one of the four that you prepare will come up. Three of the poets that are prescribed for study this year are Irish. that is Derek Mann, Patrick Kavanaaugh, and Ivan Boland. There's no guarantee that at least one of those three poets will be on the course, but I fundamentally believe that at least one, possibly two of those poets will be on the paper. And what I'm saying to my students this year is we're going to get those three Irish poets in the bag, have them prepared, and that starts us off. The other way of doing it maybe is if your teacher might be doing this is to look at the female poets because there are four female poets prepare um prescribed for study and there is no question whatsoever that there will be at least one female poet. I think probably two on your paper this year. So if you had those four female poets done and don't forget that Van Boland is Irish as well. So she ticks both boxes. So she's a really good one to to choose to study this year. You got a good chance of her coming up. You have your four female poets. You're sucking diesel for me. I will be amazed if one of TS Elliott or Jared Manny Hopkins is not on the paper this year. The poet I would most like to see on the paper this year is Jared Manny Hopkins. He was prescribed for study last year. He didn't come up. All of the other poets that are on the list, other than Tracee K. Smith, who's new to the course this year, have been examined in the last few years. Hopkins has not been examined in the last few years. I really do fancy him to come up and certainly him or TS Elliott who I call them the dogs, the dead old greats. Very few people study them and when they come up very few people answer on them but the the questions that come up on those poets will be as handy as they will be in any other poet. But those are the choices that you have to make.

So let's get into now looking at the breakdown of paper two. This is last year's paper two. Last night we talked about time management on paper one. We're going to discuss that very briefly here. Now you have an incredible amount of time for paper two. You have 3 hours and 20 minutes. That is 200 minutes. It's a great amount of time. I think it's fantastic that they give you so much time to answer your questions and the time management on paper one. Paper two is really really straightforward and easy if you ask me. As you know there are four sections on the paper. Well technically three but in reality four and three of them required to write essay answers. The single text as I already mentioned that's our king leer and all the light we cannot see in the crucible. That section that's worth 60 marks. My advice would be to give that 60 minutes or one hour. Your comparative question that's worth 70 marks. My advice would be to give that one hour. And when it comes to study poetry, again, one hour and that leaves you 20 minutes for your unseen poetry section. Now, you can mess around with that a little bit. You might take a little bit more time to do your comparative question. I know there's a a theory out there that some teachers talk about where they talk about a minute a mark. So that's the same for single text that's worth 60 marks. So give that the hour. The comparative study is worth 70 marks. So some teachers advise their students to take 70 minutes to do the comparative essay. And the study poetry section is worth 50 marks and they're told to take 50 minutes. Now again I think that's perfectly fine and reasonable. My point is you have to have a plan before you go in. And my point is that before you go into any exam you should have practiced against the clock. And practicing as a clock means including planning and reviewing your work before you go into the exam. So those are your time specifications for paper one for paper two my apologies and they're very very simple and very very easy. Essentially you've got an hour in essay and 20 minutes for unseen poetry. A question I'm often asked is is there a particular order you should answer in? No there's not. My only tip is I'd always start with my strongest section. So if I'm really strong on say a Van Boland or Jared Manny Hopkins and one of those poets comes up, I might start with that. I might start with my studied poetry. If I'm if my weakest section is my King Lear, I might do that third. But the crucial thing is I would always finish on my unseen poetry. Okay, it's only worth 20 marks, which is 5% of the overall marks available. It's not a huge deal. You'll all pick up two and a half to 3% of the marks as long as you just write something down, answer the questions. And if you're going to run out of time anyway, and hopefully you won't, you want to run out of time on a question that's worth 20 marks, not one that's worth 50, 60, or 70 marks. So that's time management on paper two.

Quick look at the layout of the paper. Don't forget, you go in and you'll see your single text named on the front page of the paper. So some of you doing your mocks now in a few weeks, you're all doing your mocks in a few weeks. You walk in, look at your paper two and you'll see the page that last year Hamlet was it was the um Shakespeare play and there it was page two and you simply go to page two and there will be two questions. You'll have to answer one question for your um single text. I know you know that already. Then you come to your comparative section and here we have a change to the way things were precoid. There will be two questions on all three of the modes that are prescribed for study. Now you see here that literary genre was on prescribed for study last year. It's not on for you this year. Cultural context is on for you this year. There will be two cultural context questions. Theme or issue is on for you this year. There will be two theme or issue questions. And instead of literary genre, the mode general vision and viewpoint is prescribed and there will be two general vision of viewpoint questions. So that's six comparative questions in total. You have to answer one. Okay. Now that means that with the and again I'll talk about this in a little bit more detail in the third hour but that means that when you are looking at comparative all three of the modes will come up mode of comparison the heading under or the the uh concept under which you are comparing your texts all three will come up. So you can just prepare one mode in the full knowledge that that mode will be on the paper and and this is really good within that there will be two questions. So you get to choose there's a choice. So we'll talk in the third hour about whether or not you should do more than one mode or how many texts you need to prepare for comparative this year. That's something that we will discuss. But what we know is we have an hour to answer a comparative question. We are very well prepared and comparative before we walk in. There was a question last night on wrote learned material. I I looked at when I was looking through the stream when the class was over. One place that students do tend to wrote learn material is in the comparative. As long as you're very careful that you're able to um adapt your prepared material to suit the specifics of a question, that can be fine there. Comparative tends to be answered quite well. Believe it or not, I know a lot of you think I'm not prepared at all for comparative, but actually gener generally looking through papers over the years, the comparative tends to be a strength on paper um too.

And then you come to your studied poetry. Now, I'm not going to talk about unseen poetry today because you don't need to. And I'll talk about what's on the platform in a few minutes. But here we have last year's studied poetry section. Okay. Now, have a look. Just going to take some of my coffee. Have a look at the list of poets. that were prescribed or sorry that were examined last year. Yates was an Irish poet. Elena Quinnon is an Irish poet and also a woman. Emily Dickinson a female poet. Sylvia Platt a female poet and Sheamus Heeney an Irish poet. So what did we have last year? We had one, two, three Irish poets and we had one, two, three female poets. So the advice I gave candidates preparing for the 2024 exam was exactly the same as the advice I'm giving you. And that was to decide. You don't need to prepare. Look, folks, I absolutely love poetry. On the on the cabinet behind me here, there's a quote from my favorite poem, The Wind Hover. If I was to turn the camera around, which I'm not going to, there are quotes from poems all over the walls of this little office that I have at home. I love poetry. I don't need you to love poetry. And you don't you don't have to, even though I think you maybe it would enhance your life, but what you just have to be is really prepared. You have to know how many poets do you need to have prepared for this section. And you have to have a a careful think about the amount of time you put into study poetry given the fact that it's worth 12.5% overall. For me, study poetry often students don't prepare it efficiently. They spend too much time on it because they don't know really what they're supposed to be doing. And they do that at the cost of other sections of the paper, particularly paper one. And as I said to you last night, the question A task on paper one, very easy to pick up marks there. That's where the same as studied poetry. The question B task with a bit of thought and a bit of imagination, a bit of practice, very easy to improve scores there. That's where again the same amount of marks are studied poetry.

So what we're going to talk about now is how do we prepare studied poetry in an efficient way and that's where we're going to go to the first document that should be visible to you on the platform if the platform is available. And Tracy, I don't know if you want to open the chat like you did last night and just pop the notes up on that for everybody to see in case they can't access it um through the chat. Maybe if that makes sense and that's easy for you to do. I'd be very grateful if you did. So, this is the the the notes that you'll see. I think I called it the Christmas note 2024. Um, but this document is the main document now I'm going to work in from I'm not doing too bad on time from um for for the rest of the class. Okay? There's a couple of others that you'll see on the notes, but this is the main one that we're going to work in. Now, let's talk about how to write a poetry essay and how to get prepared. This is the poetry essay writing mind map. Just slightly reshaped it and reformatted it to um fit with what I need for today. So, if you look at the quote I'm opening with, the ultimate authority must always rest with the individual's own reason and critical analysis. The first thing I want you to understand, as I said yesterday, is that any poetry essay is an exercise in critical thinking and rational thinking. It is not an exercise in wrote learning and telling the story. Last night I talked about when we talked about the marking scheme how a lot of students tend to narrate when they're writing essays or paraphrase when they're writing essays. Now what do I mean by that? Let's look at a question on Dickinson for example. Some of you may be studying Dickson. It doesn't matter whether you are or not. This question asks you to respond to the following statement. Dickinson's use of an innovative style to explore intense experiences can both intrigue and confuse. That question was asked on Dickson in 2016. Gorgeous question. Discuss this statement supporting your answers your answer with reference to the poetry of Emily Dickinson on your course. Now, if you've studied Dickinson, you may know the poem I heard a fly buzz when I died or my favorite Dickinson poem is called There's a Certain slant of light winter afternoons that oppresses with the heft of cathedral tunes. Sorry, I can't say the first line without saying the rest of it. Absolutely magic. Now, you might know that poem really well. You might know I felt a funeral in my brain really well. Might know a bird come down the walk, I taste the liquor never brewed. Whatever poems you've prepared. Now, the mistake that you're going to make if you're a student who struggles to score well in poetry is you're going to tell me the story of those poems. Okay? And you're going to write me a page on each poem and you're going to go through it in great detail and you're going to put down loads of quotes. And then you're going to say that this proves that she has an innovative style and that this shows an intense experience and that this is why her work is intriguing but also confusing. And I'm going to go, okay, why? What's innovative about the poem? What is intriguing or confusing about the way she writes? Don't tell me it's intriguing. Explain what's intriguing about it. Don't tell me it's confusing. Explain to me what your experience was that led you to feel confused. What are the experiences that she has and in what way are they intense? Now, that is the work that the vast majority of students are. I I definitely won't say unable to do, but when you read their work, you often don't see that that critical thinking has been practiced. So, they kind of know the poems. The good student would know the poems very well, but they don't really know what they're supposed to be doing with the poems. So, it's like if we walk, if I brought you now a little tour around the house, went out the back garden to the shed, there's a toolbox. The shed is full of tools. Haven't got a clue how to use most of them. So, they're sitting there gathering dust and much to my wife's shagrin where she'll say, "What the hell did you buy that for?" There's no point in having tools if you don't know how to use them. There's no point in knowing what happens in a poem if you don't know how to use that knowledge to answer the types of questions that are asked. So that might not be what you what you want to hear on the 30th of December, 6 weeks or four weeks, however long away it is from your mock exams or five months away from your leaveert. But again, as I said last night, my job here is not to sell you a pup. I'm not I'm not in the business of pretending there's magic fairy dust going to sprinkle down your head. My job here is to tell you the truth. And what you need to do is prepare four or five poems, six at a maximum, and then look at questions and ask yourself, how would I use that poem to answer the specifics of that question? And we're going to do some work on that in today's class. Not a huge amount because we haven't got a huge amount of time, but this is the kind of work I do on a Wednesday evening in the paper two class weekly. And of course, there's loads and loads and loads of um analysis of poetry on the platform. and there will be more as the year goes on.

So, let's talk about studied poetry. We know it's on paper two. We know it's worth 50 marks. And my advice, as I said already, is for you to take 60 minutes to write your essay. We know, as I said, there are eight poets prescribed for study. Sorry, no. And we know that there will be five questions and you have to answer just one question. And that means the maths say that the minimum requirement is to prepare four poets. My advice is to do a minimum of four poems per poet. I think best practice though is five poems by five poets. And that's really if you're one of those students who's going I think I could get a H three or above in the leave insert. Last year I had my I worked as I I said before I worked in Lisa for a long time and I was in the days I was in the day school for 20 years and a great group of students in in last year in the day school at the start of the year a lot of them didn't feel that they were you know they thought H4 would have been a good outcome for them. Now, I know it was grade inflation last year, but the vast majority of them got H2s and H1s, and students who were coming in on H5s got H3s. And that wasn't because they got an extra five or six% with the grade inflation. It's because they prepared properly. You can all prepare properly. And those students, by the way, we did the whole course in just one year. So, no, don't lie to yourself and tell you it's too late. It's not too late. So aim for the minimum four poems by four poets maybe by your mock exams or maybe even by your mock aim for three poets because that should give you a poet. You'll be very unlucky to go into the exam and not have one of those three be on the paper. But by the time June comes around, five poems by five poets will give you the material that you need to approach the study poetry question with confidence and not listen to all that, you know, all that noise and maybe you don't know because you don't live in that world. You only live in that world once once when you're in sixth year. I live in that world every year. The noise that comes around the leave insert. Media nonsense. Who's coming up? People on the internet telling you, "Oh, this person's coming up." It's like, you know, it's like throwing darts at a board with a blindfold on, right? They don't know who's coming up. What I'm telling you is five poets of the eight will come up. The maths say that means have four ready. And in the when you're preparing your poets, think about critical thinking by looking at past examination questions. That's how you prepare.

When we look at a really good essay on paper two, we're talking about around a thousand words. No, the examiner is not going to count the number of words. But when you're reading an essay, anything that's very much short of a thousand words can feel insubstantial or incomplete. Often students overwrite and they write essays that are far too long. They don't need to do that either in around a thousand words. And if I was in a room with you guys right now and you put your hand up like that, people would say, "How many pages is that, Paul?" I don't talk about page numbers because we all have different size handwriting. A thousand words for average sized handwriting in the booklet in the exam is usually somewhere between four and a half and five pages of the answer booklet. That's what you're doing for your Hamlet, sorry, Hamlet, for your Kinger essay, for your study poetry essay. And your comparative essay will likely be a little bit longer than that. But that's what we're looking at in terms of average length for average students. When you're looking at poetry, remember, you're not going to be just examined on what the poet says, but how the poet says it. So you've got to be aware of the fact that there will be a language element in the question and that means when you're preparing your poet you need to think about the techniques that they use to create imagery and for each poem you're looking at think about is there a symbol that I could prepare for that poem are there any similes in that poem does the poet use personification or juxaposition does the poet make use of illusions in the poem does the poet show precision in the way they select their verbs verbs. Do they pay attention to detail? There are loads of different things you can think about in terms of language that could um give you material to write about when you're answering a language aspect of a question. Very rarely will you will I do I see students writing about rhythm, but it might be worthwhile looking at some of the techniques that poets use to create rhythm. And then you have other techniques like oxymoron repetition enjamment or on and characterization in those narrative poems. So there's loads of things you can be thinking about in terms of the style or the way the poem was written. I would focus on imagery and I'll come to why now in a second.

What you have to remember is this wording here is the type of wording that you can expect in your exam. Okay? This exact type of wording. Why can I say that with confidence? Because these phrases have all been taken from questions on studied poetry over the last three and four years of the leaveert. So when they talk about a poet's work containing vivid imagery or evocative or provocative imagery, when they refer to the poet's use of natural imagery, the power of the poet's use of language, whether or not their style of writing is appealingly descriptive or whether they have a diverse range of imagery and so on, you know that if you're writing on Boland, if you're writing on Dickinson, if you're writing on Derek Mann, if you're writing on Kavanaaugh Hopkins, Elliot, Tracy K. Smith, the only guy left. Does that everybody leave anybody out? I don't think so. Sylvia Platt. If you're writing about any of those poets, there's going to be wording in the question like that. And again, the weaker student will say, "Yes, Sylvia Platt's poetry does contain vivid imagery." And then they give a quote and they'd say, "This is really vivid." but they won't have the skills or they won't have practice thinking about what the poet does to create that powerful vivid imagery. And that's why it's really important to think about technique when preparing a poem. And by technique, I mean things like this. Okay, these are when you're preparing quotation from a poem. And I would prepare two to three quotes per poem. That gives you a plan. It gives you a schedule, right? I've got four weeks. I'm going to do two poems a week. For the next four weeks, that gives me eight poems. That's two poets prepared. And in the next four weeks, I'm going to learn two quotes from those two poems. So, I'm going to build my knowledge of poetry up. And you learn incrementally. And you keep a little diary. The best students do it. You can do it tech on your iPad or you can do it in a notebook. I'm old school, so I do it um manually, but writing down the quotes, maybe recording the quote that you want to learn into your phone so you can listen back to the to it when you're going to school on the bus or when you're out for a walk and you're building your knowledge so you don't have that panic the night before your mock exams or the night before your leavingert trying to swallow all of these, you know, quotes that you don't really understand and you halflearn and you make mistakes when you're writing down and actually even if you write them down properly, you're not really able to explain why that's relevant to the question. So that work has to begin for me. It has to begin today. We're going to I'm going to show you how to get going on it.

So there will the question they ask you on whatever whichever poet you choose to write about that question will contain a language element. Okay? And you have to be ready for that. It will also contain I'll come back to that in a second a thematic element. Okay. So this is where when you're when you're reading a poem you have to think about the message of the poem whether or not the poet offers us any philosophical insights or why the poet wrote the poem. Think about Patrick Kavanaaugh for a moment. So if you read let's I'm going to talk very briefly and I mean a few seconds about three Patrick Cavanaaugh poems. So if you think about a poem like on raglin road which I mentioned in class last night. Why did he write that poem? What's the message of that poem? He wrote that poem as a way of of expressing his frustration and his heartbreak. It's a poem about love. It's a poem about a sense of failure. If you then look at something like ink road July evening that's about identity. That's about reflecting on what it's like to be different and how in order to be who you want to be, sometimes sacrifice is required. And then if you look at something like one of the canal sonnets, the hospital, where he says, "Nothing whatever is by love debarred, the common and banal her heat can know." That's a much more philosophical poem where he's looking at what the lessons he's learned in life and how he understands now what's important. So you have to get a sense of what is the poet trying to convey in the poem. And the thing about that is poetry is open to interpretation. So all of the years I've been doing this, one of the the the most enjoyable aspects of doing it has been having students put their hands up in class or sending me an email saying, "Paul, that poem that we that you did there, um, Joy by Tracy K. Smith or um The Famine Road by um Ivan Boland or whatever. You said that you felt that this was what it was about or that that this is what you know this line referred to. But my teacher said something different or when I look at it, I see something different. That's allowed. You just have to engage critically. There is no right answer. Sometimes there is a wrong answer, but there's no definitive right answer.

So if you're asked to talk about say for example Derek Mahan's poetry and the wording of the question says that Mahan's poetry offers proof of his fascination with life and its rich experiences. You say okay yeah no I I can write about that because he's fascinated by other people. He's fascinated by, you know, Bruce Isme and he's fascinated by um Lawrence Oats and by the behavior and psychological makeup of the fanatic and as it should be now rich experiences, I might question that. Now, when I read Racklin, I can see the the wonder and his appreciation of the beauty of nature. When I read Chinese Restaurant in Port Rush, I can see his appreciation of that place at that time and a sense of contentment that he feels. But I'm not sure that it's always rich experiences. So he can challenge the premise of the question and an examiner will love you for doing that. Look at the wording of this question here. This was asked on an equivalent of Elliot or Hopkins one of the guys the dogs neither female nor Irish kind of one of the older poets a couple of years ago poet's name was John Keats and the question they said Keats referred to or addresses themes which are irrelevant in the 20th century. Now if you take any poet, every poet addresses themes which are universal. They might be deeply personal. Take Sylvia Platt. Sylvia Platt writes a poem like child. Is there a more personal poem than the poem Child by Sylvia Platt? And yet within that poem you have an exploration of love of the bond between a parent and their child and of isolation and despair. Now they are not themes that are particular to Sylvia Platt. They are themes which are relevant to her life but are also relevant to all human experience universal. And that's why the wording of that question was deliberately set to provoke a contrary response in the uh student who's answering the question. We're we're trying to provoke you. We're trying to to to to challenge you when we're looking at these questions to to think for yourself. Independent thinking, your ability to articulate an opinion based in evidence which comes from learning in which you respond to the statement in the question. And often it's easy to easier to agree with the statement in the question. But it is perfectly permissible and sometimes wise because that was a trapoor question to disagree with the entire premise or a part of the premise in relation to a particular question.

So what is when you read um Bolan's poetry? What is intellectually stimulating about her poetry? What does that mean? Do you know what it means when they say that a poet's work contains profound lessons? Do you understand what that phrase profound means when they say that a poet's work is profoundly insightful? When they when they talk about things being relevant to contemporary Ireland and they're writing about say Bowloland or they're writing about Patrick Kavanaaugh or Tracy K. Smith, for example, cuz her themes definitely are going to even though they're set in her culture and where she's from, there's no doubt whatsoever that there's a resonance to to contemporary or modern Ireland. Do you know what those phrases mean? So, I for me I this is what I talked about earlier on. I think that when students are preparing poetry, they often do it kind of the wrong way round. I would start with looking at the types of wording that you see in questions. Going looking at last year's mock exams or going looking at you know the last four or five years wording of the poetry questions like that and then saying what does that mean like you know actually asking questions I'm always talking I'm a history teacher and I'm always I bring this the other school I work in is right bang in the middle of the um the city center and I bring the lads out for history walks and I'm always saying to them look up open your eyes and they're going to see things I go gez I've walked down this road a h 100red times I never noticed a bullet hole in that building before you know I never noticed that that piece of architecture at the top of that building. Just open your eyes. The fact is that most of the time we walk with our eyes on our phones. Well, I don't, but people do. Or looking down. When it comes to poetry, the focus can be all wrong. The po the focus is on I need to learn every line and the meaning of every stanza in this poem. No, you don't. Start looking at the types of questions that are asked and then zone in on elements of the poems that will help you answer those types of questions. Now, what does that mean? Sorry. Something I want to uh mention before I move on. I'm always asked like Paul, what are the big no nos? What do you avoid? The first and again these English I always think English is very simple. People disagree with me on it, but I think it's very simple in terms of you know what to do well and where you can go wrong. The first big mistake that students make when they're answering questions is paying lip service to the question. I've already discussed what that means. That's saying a poet's work is relevant to contemporary Ireland without explaining in what way it is. That's saying that the poet's imagery is vivid and powerful without explaining what the poet does to make it vivid and powerful. And then the other huge mistake people make is they get a sample answer from someone like me and they wrote learner and they write it down and they think woohoo and then they do badly and they say oh well it was because of your man I used one of his essays but folks if you have a key if you find a key on the street it doesn't mean that that key is going to help you open well I hope I hope it doesn't help you open your front door. You have to have the right key. If you arrive at the airport with a ticket for the ferry, you shouldn't really get into an argument when they won't let you on the plane. You have a ticket for a mode of transportation, but it's not the correct mode of transportation. So, I always think wrote learning essays is a big mistake. Now, practicing writing paragraphs and this is the work we do, you know, on a weekly basis in the live classes um on the platform. But practicing writing paragraphs, thinking about how to to um articulate your ideas in a way which makes sense and in a way which will cross over to different wordings and different questions. That's what effective candidates do. They don't try to cheat the system. They face the task and they work towards completion of the task. And that's why the, you know, the top tip I always give is the one that nobody wants to hear. Practice writing paragraphs, molding prepared material to the wording of past questions. That's how you do well. And I can I can only say that I can confidently state that based on many years of seeing students try the other way and crashing and burning and seeing students do this work and then reaching their potential. And sometimes their potential is going from a H5 to a H4 and you have all my love and respect. And sometimes their potential is going from a H3 to a H1 and you have all my love and respect. But if you don't face into the fact that wrote learning essays is a fool's game, then you're not going to make progress. I'll happily stand over that.

Now, so when we're writing a poetry essay, we have to think about the structure. We have to think about how we go about writing an essay. You often you always have to present a thesis statement in your opening paragraph. That's your response to the particular wording of the question. You should in your opening paragraph offer some proof of planning and establish continuity links. We discussed what they were in last night's class and that will help you establish the structure or beginning, middle, and end circular structure of your essay. So, openings, the rule for an opening is always the same. Keep it short and simple. Don't write very long openings, but you do need to write an opening paragraph to a poetry essay. You do need to write a paragraph in which you state your um response to the thesis statement in the question and give a sense of what you're going to do in your essay. Now, you don't need to, and I know some teachers will tell you you must do this. List the number of or the poems that you're going to address. In this essay, I will discuss the following poems and then list them out. You don't need to do that. You can if you wish. It's formulaic and boring and unnecessary, but you can do it. And by the way, something else to bear in mind, you'll have been told this by teachers that if you mention a poem in the opening paragraph and then you don't develop that poem later on, the examiner is going to punish you. Not true. If you don't mention a poem in the opening paragraph, your students are often told then you shouldn't develop that that poem later on in the essay. Not true either, folks. We just want to see an interesting, thoughtful discussion of the statement which is informed by learning. That's it. If you can do that, relax and do that, then you're going to score very well. If you can't do that because you haven't faced into the reality of what you're being asked to do here, then you're going to struggle. Now, when you're writing your development paragraphs, we discussed last night what the Rick rules are, and

I'll discuss them again with you, uh, as we go through today's class. But essentially, you want each paragraph or each section of the essay to have a clear purpose which is clearly relevant to the question.

You go poem by poem, as the vast majority of students do. That's fine. You can go idea by idea if you want to. We can discuss what that means, um, at a later, um, in a few minutes, but you don't have to, um, go poem by poem. You don't have to go idea by idea. You just have to be relevant to the question.

We talked last night as well about making sure that your essay is like a train, where you have points which are all relevant to the question but are all separate and distinct from each other. Now, it's kind of easier to do that in poetry, especially if you're going poem by poem.

There is an expectation that you will have accurate quotation learned in support of points being made. Questions: "Paul, how long should a quote be?" Doesn't matter. Sometimes a quote could be one word. Other times, a quote could be two or three lines of the poem. What it shouldn't be is just one or two words throughout the essay because that suggests that the work hasn't been done in the learning of the quotation. What it shouldn't be is big tracts of quotation that's been rote learned but not understood and therefore is not analyzed.

You want to include a number of quotes in your analysis of each poem. As I said earlier on, two to three quotes per poem is a great starting place.

Every essay should contain a mixture of summary and commentary. What does that mean? Summary. Well, that's the learning. Look, this is what this is what I, this poem is about. This is, um, these are the thematic concerns discussed by the poet. This is, you know, the key image. So, that's the the learning. But then the commentary is that's the critical thinking. That's the contextualization. That's the explaining why this information is relevant to the question.

Remember, if you don't make that link, explaining why the information you're giving is relevant to the question, then you don't score well. Okay? Simple as that. There's no point in you having all this information and writing it down if you don't marry that to the critical thinking commentary that is the hallmark of any strong response which will get you up to your threes, twos, and ones.

Every essay needs to have a brief closing paragraph which links back to the opening, creating that, as I said before, connection between the beginning, middle, and the end.

Now, the big thing, as I said, is you're being examined on your accumulated knowledge, your expression, that's what you've learned, but most of all, your analytical skills. That's the most important thing you're being examined on. As I said, most students only focus on number one, which is showing that they've studied the poems. If you want to score well, take a measured, balanced approach. Demonstrate your knowledge, but never forget that information is only evidence you are using to support your point of view. That is crucial. All right? And if you can get that into your head, then you're going to have an easier approach.

If the aim is to get to point X and there are two routes to point X, this is route A and this is route B. There is no doubt whatsoever that taking route B is going to be easier and it's going to make your life less, um, it's going to make your chances of messing up, um, re-, going to reduce those that possibility. What is route B? Route B is slow and steady. Route B is: Pick my three Irish poets or these three female poets. Pick four poems by each one of those poets and have a think about what each poem is about. Learn two quotes per poem and think about whether each quote contains a technique like a simile or a metaphor or a symbol or something which I can use to answer the imagery question and then go and look at past examination questions and try to use that knowledge to, um, answer that question. Route A is rote learn. Don't think for yourself. What's going to happen? You're going to get so far, then you're going to fall off, and you're going to have a disaster.

I want to talk about symbolism. Now, I'm going to do this really quickly. I'm doing good on time. Going to do this really quickly. What I've done here is I've taken out a section from the individual mind map that I've done for each poet. Now, last night I showed you what the paper one mind map mind maps look like. If for me, people who are members of the platform, I have mind maps on every poet and I have, um, um, well, we won't talk about King Lear now, King Lear's for the next hour, but have mind maps on every poet and actually, I'll just show you something here really quickly. So, hopefully, this opens. Yes.

So, one of the things I'll be doing this week to add to the material that's already on the course, if you go to the platform, I don't know whether the platform is up and running at the moment, but if you go to the platform, I'll have a look here now, really quickly. Looks like it is. Give me a second. Yeah, fair play to you lads, getting it back up. If you go to the platform, you'll see when we get to poetry that I've recorded kind of explanations of a number of poems by each poet. So there's Derek Mahon: "After the Titanic," "Antarctica," "Ecclesiastes," "As It Should Be," "Chinese Restaurant in Portrush," and "Rathlin." There's Kavanagh, um, and there's the Kavanagh mind map: "Ink Road," "July Evening," "Shancoduff," "On Raglan Road," and so on and so forth. A selection of poems. So if you want to just get my insight into what a poem is about, go on the platform, watch that little video. They're all relatively short. Nine minutes, 14 minutes, 11 minutes, they're all relatively short. But what I'll be adding into that in the next week, because this is on my schedule of work for this week, is now where I was like, I was there, is an additional piece of work on each poet. So here, this is the, I just said I'd open this one really quickly because I'm actually, I was recording this this morning before this class started. This is the Tracy K. Smith one, right? So what I do is I break down that these are the poems I'm looking at. I think about the most important aspects of the poet's work in terms of, um, style and thematic concerns. I then look at those aspects in a bit more detail and then I look at important quotation. And one of the key things I'm doing as I'm going through each one of these mind maps is thinking about quotes that link to thematic concerns. And I'm also thinking about the use of symbolism in each poet's work.

Now, if I was to give one tip that I think would be really effective for every single one of you, it would be to focus on learning a symbol from each poem that you're studying. Because I've never seen a question where knowledge of a symbol, don't forget what a symbol is. It's where a poet uses their imagination, their creativity to give concrete form to an abstract idea. In other words, to make something quite difficult, easier to understand. Now, what that does is it adds a complexity to the poem. It makes the poem more challenging, therefore more interesting to read because it's like sometimes doing a puzzle. You have to figure out what the poet is trying to say. And that's, you're going to say, even though I know that you don't believe this to be the case, that's rewarding. That's one of the reasons that you like the poet's work. It's one of the reasons I like a poet's work. But preparing the symbols, I think, is crucial.

Now, that I've done here, and again, with the knowledge that I won't be able to go through these with you, um, but just to give you an idea. So this is Tracy K. Smith. I'm going to just write these down here. These are the key symbols that I've just shown you there. Sorry. Now let's go over here from Tracy K. Smith's, uh, the poems that I have studied. And you can see where it says G is gazelle and then, um, J is joy and so on and so forth. So I've given the the the the reference to the poems and learning those symbols and thinking about what those symbols mean. And I'm not saying learn the ones that I've picked out. You know, your teacher is doing the poetry with you in class. This class is only ever designed to supplement what you're doing in school, but if you can just say, okay, what's the key symbol for me from that poem?

So, who's who's this? This is Ivan Boland, right? Why does Ivan Boland choose the famine road as a symbol in that poem? What's this? What's the the the significance of the famine road? What is the significance of the pomegranate in that poem or of the black glazed fan? What is the significance of the feather and muscle of wings in the poem "Love" or the phrase "apples sweeten in the dark" in "This Moment"? These are all important symbols and they are, um, examples of the poet's ability to create imagery in an interesting and inventive way. And when you understand what the symbols mean, they help you understand the thematic concern that the poet is is addressing in the poem.

So, for example, if you look at "apples sweeten in the dark," what a gorgeous quote to learn. What have you got there? Well, you've got nature imagery. You've got an appeal to the gustatory sense. That means a sense of taste. A poet's work, if it's sensual, will, um, have greater appeal. Um, when we think about imagery, we often only think about the visual image. But there's also, we can have auditory imagery, which appeals to the, um, sense of hearing, gustatory imagery, olfactory imagery, and then haptic or tactile imagery. So the poet, that that image of sweetness, we know that that we associate that with things, well, we probably shouldn't, but we associate that with things which are good. And then darkness. That's a really, really striking image because we don't expect sweetness and darkness to be together because we associate darkness with negativity. So when she says "apple sweeten in the dark," that line clearly has a symbolic meaning. And what she means, if you know the poem "This Moment," she's talking about, in very much like, um, the spirit of Patrick Kavanagh, she's talking about the idea that, you know, good things happen all around us, but we don't necessarily notice them. That there are, that there is beauty in the world. We just don't always have our eyes open to see it. That's what that whole poem is about. It's about taking the time, taking a moment to appreciate the beauty that she has in her life. And that's how, for me, you prepare. You don't prepare by, and by the way, another thing that I want you to understand is you don't have to tell the story of a poem from start to finish. Nor do you have to go through a poem chronologically. And you can leave out whole tracts of poems. Remember, the person who's marking your script knows the poems. They are Leaving Cert Higher Level English teachers. They don't need you to tell them the story of the poem. What they need you to do is demonstrate knowledge of the poem by showing an ability to reach into the poem, take out something interesting, and explain how that's relevant to the question. Okay? So that's really, really, really important.

That's the Ivan Boland images. This is Derek Mahon. Again, love you to to look at these quotes and learn these quotes and think about what these quotes mean and then try and use them to answer questions. And again, that's that that's work that we do in the in the weekly classes. For example, one of the, the great poems by Derek Mahon. I'm conscious of time here. I'm aware that I, I'll, I'll take a break in a minute. Okay. Is is "Buried at," sorry, "Ecclesiastes." In that poem, he says he wants to be embraced by his people, by his culture. He, he misses home. But he says, "If I was to be accepted, if I was to return home, I would have to bury that red bandana." Now, that's a very vivid and striking image. This red bandana, what does it represent? Then that stick and, sorry, and stick that banjo. And when we hear the word banjo, you can hear the sound of the instrument. It's a very striking use of language. Now, again, does he literally mean that he's going to, you know, get a shovel out and dig a hole and bury him? No, he doesn't mean that. He's talking about who he is. He's an artist. He's someone who's different. And if you put a red bandana around your head, you're making an announcement to the world that you don't, you're not not like everybody else. The musician is an artist. The the stick represents the desire to wander the world and experience different, uh, cultures and different people. That's, that's if there's one thing about Derek Mahon, that for me, it's about that expression of interest in in the broad family of humanity and what he's saying is, if I was to be accepted by my people, I'd have to bury that part of my identity. Now, that's interesting and that's vivid imagery and the symbol that he, the symbols that he employs make his exploration of that theme, of that concern, more interesting, more striking, more impactful. And this is how you prepare for studied poetry. This is Hopkins. Now, I am going to finish on studied poetry here, right? And as I said, there's a mind map on every one of these poets and it breaks down the different thematic concerns and the different element or different aspects of the poet's style of writing and it has a symbols box. Every one of those mind maps has, I've just taken them out and put them into this document for you to have a look. But look, if you look at, and I apologize, I'm going over time here. Can I just show you two things from Hopkins? Hopkins is a genius. Okay, I, I'm not having it. He's a genius. I want to show you two things. Look at that. My favorite poem is called "The Windhover." I've read, I don't know how many poems I've read. You, if you were to see the bookshelf behind me, there's quite a lot of poetry there. My favorite poem is called "The Windhover." And my favorite lines from "The Windhover" are on the on the wall here behind me. But I love when he describes the bird, the the hawk, the the falcon and its "brute beauty." Now, that there, that's a striking image. It's alliterative and it's an example of a juxtaposition or the direct contrast. How can something be brutal and beautiful at the same time? Well, the bird is, because when he sees it in flight, it's stunning and it's its capacity, its ability to stop and hover before it plunges down, which he captures so well in the poem. It's beautiful. But the reason it's plunging down is because it's after its prey. And when it gets its prey, it's going to rip it apart. So, it's brutal, too. And therefore, it becomes a symbol of life, of the duality of life, of the beauty that, you know, touches off us every day of our lives, but of of the reality that life can be really hard and tough as well. Now, that's brilliant writing. And your ability to drill down into a poem and take out an example like that, or sorry, now for Jesus. Which one will I go? It's so hard to pick. It's really hard to pick. I'm just going to go for a simple one. "World sorrow." Now, that's if you ever read Seamus Heaney's poetry when you were doing your Junior Cycle, you know he is famous for his, uh, it's always Kavanagh actually, his compound adjectives, taking two words and shoving them together to make a new word. There's, um, Gerard Manley Hopkins in, in one of the great, um, uh, uh, the dark sonnets that he wrote, and he's describing how he feels so awful. He just, he can't escape his sense of despair, and he just says, "it's world sorrow." The whole world is sorrow. He, he creates this new word by putting that hyphen in and using this compound adjective to to convey in direct and striking language the reality of his existence.

So, this is again, as I say, we're, we're, I'm over time now. I'm going to take a break now, right? But this is the work that we do. This is the work that you have to do if you want to get better in the studied poetry section. You've got to pick your, start with one poet. Pick four poems by that poet. Think about what the poet is saying in each poem. Not everything they're saying, but fundamental. What can I say? What, what thematic concerns can I discuss? And then what are the key images? And then learn those quotes and start looking at how to answer practice questions.

Guys, I'm gonna take, it's just 46 minutes past now. I'll take a five-minute break and go and refill my coffee cup. I'm gonna ask Tracy or Ronan or Sanjief, whoever's on the back end there, please to open up the chat and any questions that you have on studied poetry, load them into the chat, and when I come back then, we'll close the chat again, and the next hour we're going to talk about King Lear. So, thank you very much. I hope you found that in some way useful.

Hi guys, welcome back. I'm just looking through some of the, uh, questions on the stream there. I'm enjoying them. Somebody's English teacher told me that their poetry essay should be seven pages long. You know, that teacher didn't have to answer the exam. Um, some brilliant questions coming in there. And again, I'm not going to try, I'm not even going to try to, um, address them now because they deserve a little bit more time and respect than I have, uh, right now. So I promise you that, that those all those questions are being, uh, recorded for me, and I will go through them with a fine-tooth comb and I'll do a little Q and A session with myself, um, and record it, um, giving you my insights. Not that my insights will be of huge value to you, but you asked a question, so I'm going to try and, um, um, um, respond to them. There's a few there that I did answer during the class. There was one particular one I'm just going to come to it for a second before we move on and start talking about King Lear in the second half of the class. Yeah, it was this Edward's comment here. He says, "I understand rote learning is wrong, but I do enjoy looking through different sample essays for each poet and stealing a few ideas or insights from each one that seems versatile. It also gives me an idea of structure. Is that a good idea or should I do it less?" Last night, I don't know if you were on the call last night, Edward, but I talked about reading, and that that is the way to do it. What you're talking about there, that's the way to do it. Reading, you know, somebody else's responses and then thinking, taking some of the ideas.

We're going to talk about King Lear here. Now, you do know, don't you, that Shakespeare, that the story of King Lear wasn't made up by Shakespeare. That the story already existed before Shakespeare was ever born. What he did was he spotted a really good story and then he made it his own. He added his own personality to it, his own ideas, his own inventiveness, his own imagination. So I think, Edward, that what I, I look, I was looking through there, and there's some, you know, there's some questions that you would expect to see about openings and closings and, you know, how many poems should I study? I'll deal with all those, but for me, if you can get your hands on sets of sample essays, and again, I've loads of them, um, and read them. And as I said to you last night, you know, have a think about whether or not you think they're any good or you don't like them. Sometimes I read like a poetry essay I wrote a few years ago in response to a question and I go, "That wasn't as good as it should have been, really." That's okay. It's all part of the learning process. So, yeah, I think that's a great idea.

Um, one last thing. Well, Amelia talked about, is it okay to learn? Is it better to learn six or seven poems from each poet and write about four or five? Amelia, that sounds like you're making, you're putting a lot more work in than you need to. Uh, poetry study, poetry's were 12.5%. Um, I think if you have five or six poems, if you're, you're clearly a student who's taking this really seriously and you want to do very well, and have all my respect for that. I think if you have five or six poems per poet ready, that's loads for most students. Four to five. So, look, the more you know about the poet, the more informed you are. Again, as I said last night, the more freedom you're going to, you're going to write with greater freedom, greater confidence. That's all really, really good, but I wouldn't overload my poetry preparation, especially if it comes at the cost of other parts of the course. Okay. So, I'd ask, uh, guys, if you could please close the chat now for, uh, the next part of the class, and I'll open it up at the end of the next, um, section. Okay. Now, thank you very much. Appreciate that.

So, we're at the King Lear now, and I know some of you may not be studying King Lear. So if you want to maybe go off and come back at the end of the of of this, um, hour, that's okay. That's up to you. So again, it's just coming up to 11:00 now. So we'll go for up to about 10 to 12 for the next, um, session. Aiming to finish the day somewhere around 1:00 or a little bit before 1:00, okay? Because we started a bit late. Now, so this document you see in front of you is on your, it's on the, um, news feed on the platform. So, it's a little gift from me to you. I think it's a very, very useful document. Um, on the front page, I've marked up what I regard to be the key scenes in King Lear. And again, just to talk about the platform for a moment, when you go to the King Lear section, you can see there that, um, all of the acting scenes, I've made a point of, um, uh, recording a video on each act and each scene. And you can see some of them are marked by my brilliant colleague Gavin, who did this work as key scenes. So, Act One, Scene One. Act One, Scene, that's broken into three different sections. So if you go to the platform, you have a look through the King Lear material, you'll find summaries and you'll find little quizzes and so on that might help you with your revision. Okay, so they're the key scenes.

But for me, and again, I've been doing this really long time, the most important thing that you can do in terms of your preparation for King Lear is to think about, again, not rote learning topics, but to think about preparing your characters. Every single question that they ask on the single text in King Lear will be easier to answer if you've studied your characters. Now, again, without laboring the point, I've done a mind map on every significant character, okay? And that's that, those are available for for our, um, full-time students. But then once you've got your characters, once you've got, you know, your sense of each character and their story and the associated quotes, and I'll talk about how you get those going in a second, then the key thing is to go and look at past questions. And this document is designed to show you how to analyze a question and give you space to think.

So, there's a question all the way back 1998. "Irony is a powerful device used by Shakespeare to heighten the dramatic tension of his play King Lear." That was option one. Remember, I told you there'd be two options. Here was option two. "Despite the striking portrayals of goodness, terrible use of language and nobility, the play King Lear leaves the audience with a sense of dismal despair." Much easier question for most students than the irony question. So this is a really good document because it gives you a sense of the types of questions that might be asked and gives you the opposition, the opportunity to practice answering them.

Here we have a question from 2018. "Cordelia plays a more significant role, should be plays, my apologies, than Goneril or Regan in the play King Lear. Discuss the reasons why, in your opinion." Shakespeare's use of a variety of horrific, bizarre, and unbelievable elements. Think about Poor Tom. Think about the gouging of Gloucester's eyes. Think about Gloucester's attempted suicide. Think about Lear's abdication of power. Um, Edmund's decision to order the murder of Cordelia and Lear at the end of the play. There's a lot of horror and bizarre behavior in this, uh, play. Um, does or does not heighten the tragic intensity of the play? We're going to come to that question in a minute.

These are the last two questions that were asked on King Lear the last time it was on the exam, which is 2021. "Chaos and confusion are used to great effect throughout Shakespeare's play King Lear. Discuss the above statement, developing a response with reference to the text." Or, and I loved this question, "A production of Shakespeare's play King Lear in which the characters of Kent and the Fool do not appear has been proposed. Discuss the reasons why, in your opinion, the removal of these characters would or would not diminish Shakespeare's play King Lear." Now, gorgeous question, which is basically asking you what's the role of those two characters. So I don't know what they're going to ask you on King Lear, but my sense is, not my sense is my certainty is that if you study the characters, then you're going to find yourself in a, a position where you're better prepared to answer the questions. The last exam on King Lear asked about Kent and the Fool. The exam on King Lear before that asked about Cordelia, Goneril, and Regan.

For me, and this is just a tip, and I have no, um, insights, for me, there are two things, two relationships that I would certainly prioritize over the course of the next five months in terms of my preparation. I would certainly look at the relationship between Lear, and this is work I'll be doing in my weekly classes, and Gloucester. I would certainly look at the parallels between those characters, their behavior at the beginning of the play as fathers, their failures as human beings, the tremendous suffering they go through, the fact that that suffering for each man proves to be redemptive. The fact that they, uh, betray a child who loves them and trust a child who loathes them. The fact that they, um, achieve, um, reconciliation with the child that they, um, mistreated at the beginning of the play. The fact that they both have tragic endings. I wouldn't be surprised at all, because it's due, it's one of those questions where that that came up now. I wouldn't be surprised because it hasn't been asked in a long time for a question on the parallels between Lear and Gloucester. And of course, the other one which I'd love to see them asking is on the two Eddies. They are pivotal characters in the play. Edgar and Edmund. Edmund in particular is vital to the drama of the play. And in a play in which Shakespeare has deliberately created characters which represent the best of us and characters which represent the worst of us, they are personified. Those two men are the personification of that aspect of the play. Edgar is a fundamentally good human being who shows resilience and strength, a capacity for change, who is loyal and decent and moral and ultimately victorious. And he is juxtaposed with his brother Edmund, who is utterly corrupt, duplicitous, deceitful, excuse me, uh, cruel, um, uh, wicked, and who ultimately creates a massive amount of drama at the end of the play with the idea that he's going to win when Regan offers him the crown and then is confronted by his brother Edgar and at the moment of triumph where he thinks he's climbed from the base to the top, loses everything, making the ending of the play tremendously dramatic.

So, my, before I get into this work, my little tip is to look at those four characters. Prioritize your, uh, revision of the roles of those four characters, but particularly the parallels between Lear and Gloucester and the contrast between Edmund and Edgar. And I wouldn't be surprised at all. Now, I'm, I'm not saying that's going to come up, but what I am saying is I wouldn't be surprised at all to see a question on one of those two topics. And what I know for 100% certainty is that if you've prepared those topics, even if those particular questions don't come up, whatever does come up, you're going to be able to use material you've prepared for them to answer the question. So, I suppose that's the key thing I'm going to hammer on about here. When you look at what to do for King Lear, the most important thing is that you know the play.

Now, this is another document that I've given you, and I, I wasn't going to give it to you. In fact, I only sent the email this morning, uh, where I decided, look, that they're turning up. Fair play to them. Sorry, just, I have a message there. Let's just check my mic was on. Chat closed. Okay, no, that's fine. Thanks, Anjief. Um, um, but I said, you know what, why not give it to them? So this, for me, is an excellent revision document, and I'd highly recommend you have a look at it in parallel with the past questions document. So if you're looking at, at say, for example, a question from, you know, um, 2019, the Macbeth question on, um, characterization in the play and Shakespeare's use of imagery, you can go and you can say, okay, what, what are the key, what are the key scenes that Paul said, you know, to revise, to prioritize? Okay, so he said Act One, Scene One, and go through this document and just making notes on what each, and again, this is work I do, and you'll, over the course of the next few months, I'm going to be throwing little TikTok videos up and in which I kind of pick a quote and explain the significance of the quote. I'll do all that work, but you have this document now, um, and and prepare your knowledge of the play through these key quotes and learn as many of them as you can. And I'm sorry for saying that to you, but learn as many as you can. Okay, January, February, March, April, May. So, five months. Let's say four weeks per month on average. That's 20 weeks. Make it your determination that you're going to learn two a week. Two a week. If you have two a week, that gives you 40 quotes by the time you get to the exam. You're going to use maybe 10 or 12 of them in an essay. You don't know what the topic's going to be. So, you want to have quite a lot of quotes prepared so you have choices. And what you do is you try to prioritize learning quotes that are easy for you to remember.

Let me give you an example of that. In Act, uh, one, Scene One, Lear makes a decision that he's got, we're going to talk about Lear and Gloucester for a moment. Lear makes a decision to, um, abdicate and he says, "Know that we have divided in three our kingdom, and 'tis our fast intent to shake all cares and business from our age." So that's the abdication. And he then goes on to say, "We have this hour a constant will to publish our daughter several dowers, that future strife may be prevented." Now, now I would, I would learn that. Okay? Why? Well, it shows us at the beginning of the play that Lear is a fool. It shows us at the beginning of the play that Lear is blind. It shows us at the beginning of the play that Lear abuses his power and creates chaos while claiming to be trying to do the right thing. Most of all, it shows us that the the suffering that Lear will endure as the play goes on is ultimately his own fault. So it shows his responsibility for the chaos. Remember that word in the last, in the question that came up in 2021, chaos. In the chaos that ensues in the play, he is the catalyst for that chaos with his belief that he can create stability by abdicating when, in fact, the abdication is the source of all the instability in the play. You have that quote prepared, and then you look at this one over here from Gloucester talking about his son Edmund at the beginning of the play, the very, the first lines of the play.

And by the way, if you want the little recommendation, I don't know any other way to see it other than by, um, subscribing to Amazon Prime, but I have subscribed to Amazon Prime because of it because I wanted to show it this year. There's a, a film or a cinema production of King Lear which stars Anthony Hopkins as Lear. You know, Anthony, Anthony Hopkins, very famous, um, actor, and it's, it's flawed, but it's brilliant. It's absolutely brilliant. I was watching key scenes and then doing the revision with my students just before Christmas in my full-time school. So I highly recommend you sit down and watch that production of the play. It's the best production of the play, I think, for a modern audience to watch. So, and the only place I, I know that you can get, you can't get it on YouTube and you can't get it, I don't think, in any other streaming platforms, Amazon Prime. It's called, Oh, sorry, it's King Lear, but it's Anthony, the Anthony Hopkins King Lear.

But at the very beginning of that play, you see Kent, and he's talking to Gloucester, and Edmund is standing there, of course, silent at the beginning of the play. And Kent says, sorry, Gloucester tells Kent that it's his son. And then he says, "Yet was his mother fair. There was good sport at his making, and the whoreson must be acknowledged." Now, Gloucester there is very similar to Lear. His words there are incredibly insensitive and cause huge offense to his son. He's calling Edmund's mother a, and he's saying that Edmund, because he's illegitimate, is a whoreson, which essentially means a worthless person. Now, how is that the same as Lear abdicating? Well, Gloucester suffers tremendously in this play. We know that he loses everything, including his eyes, in the torture scene of Act Three, Scene Seven. What is the source of his suffering? Edmund is the source of his suffering. What is the source of Lear's suffering? Goneril and Regan. But actually, in the case of both Gloucester and Lear, the reason that Edmund makes his father suffer and the reason that Goneril and Regan make Lear suffer is because both men abuse their power and act in a way which causes resentment in their children. So ultimately, for Lear and Gloucester, the source of their suffering is their own behavior. It's self-inflicted. That's a paragraph if you were writing an essay on the parallels between Lear and Gloucester.

So, my point is, as you're looking at this document, and this document now, you have it now, and you have it in digital form, which means that you can do exactly what I'm going to do now. You can make notes and then you can get rid of the notes and reuse it. That this document will help you do that key revision that you need to do. But you, all of your key revision should be done while thinking about questions. That's how you study for English. You study for English by thinking about past questions, and that's why I've given you the other document.

Now, I want to show you a couple of other quotes that I think, because we can only do so much, um, in in this crash course. Last, I'm just giving you outlines. In the same scene, when Lear is behaving in a way which is irrational and self-destructive and, um, uh, abusive towards, well, all of his daughters, but particularly towards Cordelia, when she says, "Nothing, my lord." Kent intervenes and asks Lear to stop, and Lear says to Kent, warns Kent, "Come not between the dragon and his wrath." It's a great quote to learn. Very clever use of imagery by Shakespeare. Gives us a clear insight into Lear's, um, power at that time, but also into his abuse of power. Illustrates his willingness to to, um, punish even those people like Kent who are ultimately loyal to him and who wanted to serve him, but it's because of his dotage, his his old age and his inability to to see the truth, he's blinded by his hubris, he threatens. So, it's a great quote to learn. And when Kent refuses to back down, because Kent is one of those really good characters in the play who represents the best of us, Lear then follows up by telling Kent, "The bow is bent, make from the shaft." A bow being a, a weapon, a weapon which could cause great physical kill you, a lethal weapon. The bow being bent means you're in danger. The shaft being referred to as the shaft of an arrow, which if released by the long bow will pierce straight through your body, bringing instant death. And there's another example of Lear being a bully at the beginning of the play, being unsympathetic at the beginning of the play, abusing his power. And Shakespeare's ability to convey that aspect of his character through powerful imagery. Great quotes to learn for a Lear character question, for a question on, um, language and imagery in the play, for a question on power, for a multitude of questions, chaos and disorder, all those different things.

Once you have your quotes, once you start learning your quotes, then you go and you try to find, okay, I'm going to look at a question. I'm going to do a bit of practice. Now, at this stage, we're going to switch back to the note that's I think entitled "Christmas Note," and I want to just show you a question, a couple of questions that have been asked in past exams. "The tendency to take pleasure in torture, in deceit, and the abuse of power is vividly dramatized in the play King Lear." I'm going to come back to that question if I have time shortly. There's a sample answer to it. There's another sample paragraph, but the question I want to get to is this one. Sorry, the example I want to get to is this one.

So, we're thinking about that. Again, always think about the the structure of of a paragraph, right? All an essay is is five or six points developed out using the RICK rules. Okay? And what that means is making points which are relevant to the question under discussion, supporting that point with information, quotation. Um, in this particular example, remembering the importance of contextualizing a point and writing as clearly as you can, making sure that you tidy up particularly your punctuation, so your sentences actually make sense. Now, these are two quotes that I've already mentioned. Excuse me. "The bow is bent, make from the shaft," and "Come not between the dragon and his wrath." What I'm going to show you here is how I would develop out a really good paragraph response. This paragraph is 181 words long. If you write five paragraphs of approximately 150 to 180 words long and then add an opening and a closing, you're going to have an essay. I always think of where students go wrong is they think about, they have to mean, one of the students, one of you guys said to me in in a question that your teacher said you need to write seven or eight pages. You definitely don't. But the student thinks of the essay as like, all right, I have to write five pages or I have to write a thousand words. And really, that's a mistake. Think about your essay like putting together a piece of IKEA furniture or when you were a kid building Lego and taking out bag label number one, two, three, four, five. And you do each bit incrementally. And each bit incrementally is easy to do when you have everything organized and you have a plan. So each essay is a series of paragraphs. You don't worry about what you're leaving out. You don't have to tell me the story of the play. I already know the story of the play. And because I'm a Leaving Cert Higher Level English teacher, I probably know the story to play better than you do. So the last thing I need you to do is tell me the story. What I would like you to do is in a thoughtful way engage with the question.

So, in this case, it was a gorgeous question. It asked about torture. So clearly there's an opportunity to write a paragraph there on, um, the blinding of Gloucester. So that's Act Three, Scene Seven, one of the key scenes. Deceit. I mentioned how I think Edmund and Edgar are really good characters to prepare for this year's exam. Edmund is the biggest liar in the play from the very beginning. He pretends to be loyal to his father. He deceives his brother. He deceives Cornwall. He deceives Goneril, Regan. He is a liar and a manipulator. So couple of paragraphs on him. And then when it talks about the abuse of power, that's really a reference to Lear, but it could also refer to Goneril and Regan, and it could also refer to Gloucester and his power as a father. So it was a lovely, lovely, lovely question. That difficult, sorry, that part was easy in terms of structure. Where the vast majority of students would have, I always think about this idea of a glass ceiling in terms of scoring. Hope I'm not, um, wandering off the point here, but when I'm correcting a Lear essay, I have 60 marks to give you. 60 marks is 100% of the marks I have to give you. What I'm looking for you to do is let me give you, please let me give you 42 of those at least. Even if you're not the best writer, even if you don't know the play, you know, as well as you could do, but I, I, I, I want, I mean, we don't, we don't go out to try and, you know, uh, uh, you know, wreck your life by giving you grades. We want to reward you. And I want to give you at least 42 because 42 is 70% of 60. Now, if my maths are wrong there, I apologize, but I'm pretty certain about that. Now, if you get 42, you've done well. Very few, well, not very few. You know, you're talking more than half of candidates will score below 42 in the Lear essay because their work won't be purposeful. So the student who was able to demonstrate knowledge of the torture scene, Act Seven, Act Three, Scene Seven, of Edmund's deceit, and of the abuse of power, and who have written like five, an opening and five really good development paragraphs, either standalone or AB structure paragraphs, we'll talk about what that means in a minute. The student who who does that and develops those points out over 150 to 200 words each, and they've written a substantial essay, they're, they're, and they've put like two or two or three quotes in every paragraph, they're leaving the exam going, "Yeah, yeah, I nailed King Lear." And then they come out and they get, they see their English result. They go, "That's what?" And then then they get to view their script and they see they got like 40 out of 60 or 38 out of 60. And I go, "What the hell?" And the reason is because they missed that part of the question. And they paid, remember that phrase? Can you, can I hear you all from all the four corners of Ireland saying it after me? They paid one, two, three, lip service to that part of the question. And that's actually, that part of the question. That's the part that's going to lift you up to 42. If you do all these other things properly, that's the part that's going to get you up to 42 and above 42. What does "vividly dramatize" mean? That means to do with the language. That means to do with the imagery. That means that you're going to have to delve into the quotes that you're using and explain why they lift the quality of experience for an audience as they watch and experience the play. So you can see the question will be framed in a way. This part here, anybody who's done a little bit of work will be able to do enough to get like their, depending on the quality of their knowledge in terms of quotation and their writing, to get their H5, their H4, but that if they ignore this part.

Then they can't get those higher grades. I think that's really important for you to understand. So, you go in, I'm just going to give you one example of this because I'm terrified by the clock.

You go in and, sorry, where is my? There you go. You go in and you have those two quotes. Say learned because you've used the, you know, the play document that I've given you. Okay, I know the quotes, right? And then you have to see, okay, can I write a good response? Now, this paragraph, as I said, is 181 words long. So, if you wanted to split the paragraph into part A and part B, you can. If you don't want to write paragraphs that are too long, that doesn't make any difference.

Let's have a read of it really quickly. So, one of the questions I noticed in the chat in the break between the last hour and this hour was about topic sentences. So, what a topic sentence is, and it doesn't have to be the first sentence of the paragraph. It just has to be, it's like the label on a paragraph. What's this paragraph about? Remember last night I talked about the idea of the train of thought and each essay having the different carriages. So there's your, that's your thesis. That's what the parag, that's what the question is about. There's paragraph one. It's connected to the question. Paragraph two is separate but connected. Paragraph three, again, separate but connected. Four and five. And then you have your little conclusion at the end. That's a really good structure for an essay. But each paragraph has to have a label. What's the paragraph about?

In this example, the paragraph is about the abuse of power because that's relevant to the question. And in particular, it's about Lear's abuse of his royal power. So I'm reading it going, "Okay, I know what this paragraph is about." That's what a topic sentence is. It's the label.

So, you walk into the supermarket and you want to buy a box of Rice Krispies. So, you look up and you see where the cereal aisle is and you go there and then there's 50 different brands of cereals. Where are the Rice Krispies? Well, there they are because it says Rice Krispies on it. Makes it really easy to read to find. You're reading an essay and you're navigating your way as an examiner through the essay. One of the things you're going to reward is the student's ability to help you navigate your way through with ease. And topic sentences make reading the essay less confusing. You're not reading it going, "What's this got to do with the question?" You can clearly see, okay, this paragraph is about Lear and it's about the abuse of power. Abuse of power is in the question. Show me what you have to say about that, Billy.

Act one, scene one vividly dramatizes the mistakes Lear makes. Now, there we go. We're on the question. So, you've said that. That's relevant to the question under discussion. Now you have to show me that you know that scene. He abdicates, divides his kingdom, banishes Cordelia, and alienates the King of France. However, possibly the most effective symbol that's relevant to vividly dramatizes of the old king's folly. Folly means foolishness. Just, I don't like the term foolishness because, well, it might be in the dictionary, but as far as Paul's concerned, it's not a word. If you have to add the suffix "-ness" to a word, there's usually a better word. So instead of sickness, malady. You know, instead of faithfulness, fidelity. Instead of truthfulness, veracity. Okay, so there's always a better term. Um, however, possibly the most effective symbol is the old king's folly. Sorry, of the old king's folly comes when reacting to Kent's loyal vassel. Fasil is somebody who serves the king. Ken's objection to Lear's behavior is born out of love and duty. Yet Lear abuses his power on the question by threatening to destroy his loyal servant. Shakespeare powerfully conveys the king's volatile character, volatile, uh, you know, way at the beginning of the play is unpredictable and lashes out and dangerous, and his willingness to abuse his power again in the metaphor, and there's the quote, "the bows Ben make from the shaft." This image of a weapon ready and primed symbolizes Lear's power and his willingness to use it to crush all opposition regardless of the circumstances. See the commentary there. So the paragraph has a mix of information and question-facing commentary or contextualization combined with the threat, "Come not between the dragon and his rat." See the way the quote is integrated into my sentence, showing control, showing confidence. This metaphor adds greatly to the drama of the play and again, commentary, bringing it back to the question. It leaves the audience in no doubt of the dangerous consequences when power is held by people who, like Lear, who are willing and able to abuse it.

Now, to me, the candidate who's writing like that, if they can do that across the essay, is going to get an H1. You can pick apart that paragraph. You can say, well, it needs a bit more commentary. Could explain this a bit more. You ask yourself, is that candidate on the question? Is that work purposeful? Yes, it is. Is the paragraph coherent? Does it have a clear point? Is that point, um, supported by evidence? Does the student demonstrate an ability to convey their point in an organized way? In other words, have they practiced the paragraph, which is the fundamental building block after the sentence of an effective answer? So, really coherent. Is the language clear and easy to understand? Yes. And that's always the priority. Look at every single marking scheme and the first word it'll use in terms of language is clarity because a lot of the time you're reading students' work. You know this phrase that a lot of you will say, um, "Well, I know what I want to say, but I'm not quite sure how to say it." Well, look, you're doing higher-level English. You know, one of the things you're being examined on is your ability to articulate your thoughts with clarity. Now, that's a basic requirement. And if you can't do that, then it's going to affect your score, no matter how much you know.

Has the student also kind of added in a little layer of sophistication with some of the vocabulary? Yeah, I, I like the use of folly. I like the use of effective symbol. I like the use of the, the, the varying of vocabulary with vividly dramatizes, powerfully conveys, adds greatly to the drama. The language is good. There's variety. There's synonymy, the, the use of synonyms there. And are there any basic errors? No. So, it's getting the mechanics mark. And that's what you're trying to do. Paul, I know how to study for geography. I know how to study for history. I know how to study for business, for French. How do you study for English? Pick a question, spin the wheel, pick a quote, and then practice writing paragraphs using the guidelines I've shown you. I know that might not work for you as an individual, but generally, it works for students. That's a key strategy for advancing your preparation for this part of the course.

Now, sorry, now I'm jumping all over the place here. So, I now want to go to a question that I received from a student only a few weeks ago, and I thought, you know what, I'm going to do? I'm going to throw this into the, um, the, um, Christmas note because I think every student in Ireland could benefit from hearing this question and my response to it. I just realized that sounded terribly arrogant. I didn't mean it to sound like that. I just think it's a useful thing to think about. So, this was an email I received from one of my, uh, students on the platform. "Just wondering when you say don't pay lip service to the question. Oh, sorry. How do I link my paragraph back into the question without overusing the words from the question? It's very, very common. Like I, I mentioned it yesterday. If the question has key words in it, do you should you, should you repeat those key words? Yes. Should you merely repeat those key words? No. You need to try and use synonyms, words that clearly show you're on the question, but not merely repeat the same words over and over and over again. Also, what should our conclusion include? And is it okay to use the question to finish off my conclusion?"

So, I, this is, this is where having students just makes my life really, really easy because I love that question. It actually had three parts to it, and I'd like to just spend a couple of seconds, well, a couple of seconds, a couple of minutes here just dealing with those things.

Okay, so here's a question. This question was actually asked at Macbeth, um, in 2019, but it's just a gorgeous Shakespeare question. And the type, there hasn't been a language question actually on Shakespeare since 2019. That's a long time. Wouldn't be surprised at all to see a language question on your exam this year. And here was the question: "Discuss." Now, again, I want to talk about that word, sorry, how Shakespeare's use of language, including imagery, why did they say language including imagery? Why not just say language? Plays an important part in developing our understanding of one or more of the following aspects of his play, King Lear. Remember what I told you to prepare? Characterization. They gave options, but the one to go for was characterization. So, how does his use of language and imagery help us understand characters?

I selected this quote. This is Edmund in Act one, scene two. I think, as I said, Edmund preparing Edmund's character and Edgar, but particularly Edmund is work that I would certainly do if I was you and I was looking at the exams. And this is a great quote. Don't forget, Edmund often speaks in soliloquy. Oh, damn it. Sorry. Don't know why that happens. Yeah, he often speaks in soliloquy in the play, and when he does that, we, the audience, become privy to, or aware of, his sneaky, deceitful, manipulative plans. So, we know what he's up to when other people don't. And that leads to tension, and it's technically an example of what's called dramatic irony. There was a time when I'd cover the topic of irony in the play with classes, but I think the days that I'm asking questions like that are gone. I'd love to see them ask a question on irony in the play because again, that's just a question on, um, Lear and Edmund effectively.

Anyway, so here's Edmund, and he's just laid the trap for his father, showing him the forged letter that, you know, it's really clever, isn't it, by Shakespeare? We talked about beginning, middle, and end. At the beginning of the play, Edmund uses a letter, a forged letter, to destroy his brother Edgar's life. And at the end of the play, Edgar uses a letter, a real letter, to get his revenge on Edmund. There's a lovely, um, um, connection between the beginning, middle, and end of the play. But he says, he just, he's boasting here to himself and to the audience. Then he says, "He has a credulous father." Credulous meaning an idiot who believes anything. "And a brother noble." So Edgar, he knows, is a good man whose nature is so far from doing harms that he suspects none, on whose foolish honesty might practices ride easy."

Now, there's so much you can say there in this particular question from 2019 about Shakespeare's use of language. Father, brother, honesty. What do they have in common? They're all things, nouns. Credulous, noble, foolish. What are they? They're all words which describe the nouns. They're all adjectives. So, his use, Shakespeare's use of adjective-noun combinations really helps us get into understanding Edmund's psychology. And don't forget that disturbing psychological thriller was a previous question. I think it was 2017 on Hamlet. Idea of studying a play and getting into the minds of characters and understanding particularly when characters are corrupt. But this particular example here is a great example of oxymoron. So, we don't, those words shouldn't make sense together. Foolish honesty. Surely honesty is a strength. Surely honesty is something that we admire. We're, we're, we're trained. We're reared to think of honesty as, as something as a positive quality. But to someone like Edmund, honesty is foolish because it makes you weak and it makes you malleable and easy to manipulate. So, he's, he's laughing at his brother's being so good that he's easy to, um, uh, that Edmund makes it easy for Edmund to achieve his goals. Then here you have, "my practices ride easy." That's a great example of imagery. It brings up this, this sense of him trampling over his brother, trampling over his father. So, this is a great example of how Shakespeare uses language and imagery to give us a deep understanding of Edmund's character. And he can talk about his use of soliloquy. He can talk about his use of oxymoron. He can talk about his adjective-noun combinations and imagery. Loads to say.

So, we're talking about lip service. Here's a response paragraph. Again, it's coming in in that magic number of somewhere between 150 to 200 words to develop out a point. And again, you can break that into, split that into two paragraphs. Develop the point across two short paragraphs of, you know, 90 words and 100 words if you don't want your paragraphs to be too long, but it should take around 150 to 200 words to tease out a point following the RICK rules: topic sentence, provide the information in the form of quotation, one or two quotes if if you're only using very short quotes, it can be more than that, but usually one or two quotes in a paragraph will suffice, explain why it's relevant to the question, that's called contextualization, reread your work, make sure it's nice and clear. Or, I, C, relevant and form contextualized. And here: "One of the most notable aspects of Shakespeare's use of language is his attention to detail." That is, come on again. I can hear you telling me, what is it? It's a topic sentence which is relevant to the question. If you're going to make a statement like that, what do you have to do? You have to explain it. "Sometimes it is simply the careful addition of adjectives to nouns that offers the audience quite profound insights into the mind and motives of the characters." And why have I got characters highlighted there? Because that's in the question. So, you're talking about his use of language to develop characters. So, is your work purposeful? Yes, it bloody is. "An example of this quality occurs in the second scene when Edin refers to his credulous father and brother noble."

Now, lip service would be when you follow up that's that example with saying, "This is a brilliant example of Edmund's use of, uh, Shakespeare's use of language to, um, develop Edmund's character." And I'm going, "What are you talking about?" This is the hallmark of the student who I'm going to reward. And I'm going to make this clear again. Even if this student isn't the best writer in the world, even if they make mistakes, and everybody makes mistakes, this idea that there's there's some kind of perfect English student out there, I haven't met them yet. But the student who demonstrates learning and their awareness of the importance of marrying their knowledge to the question, that critical thinking, uh, that I've been talking about since the beginning of yesterday's class, I'm always going to reward that kid. That kid is always going to get rewarded by me, even if their, um, expression or their ability to articulate themselves is limited. So, "it is clear that Edmund regards his father and brother's trusting nature as evidence of weakness. He regards these men as vulnerable and is excited at the opportunity to exploit that weakness. It is Shakespeare's attention to detail and his astute or clever choice of adjectives, um, and the astute or clever choice of adjectives he gives Edmund that offer such a clear understanding of the way he thinks."

Now, the student who pays lip service doesn't include that kind of commentary. So, they find it harder to write the longer essays. They, they then panic and start summarizing, telling the story of the play, and I'm reading it going, "Why is that? How's that relevant?" Or, "Okay, that's relevant, but you haven't explained why." So, that's what contextualization means. And if you don't include that, that's what lip service is. "The same speech contains a memorable use of oxymoron." Again, demonstrating knowledge of language. You might say, "I don't know what that is, folks." Again, I hope I'm being consistent here. You're supposed to, you're, you're in sixth year. You've either done five or six years as a higher-level student. Most likely, you're supposed to have an understanding of language. That's one of the things you're being examined on. Now, you might not. That's okay. But if you're looking at me saying, "What the, who, what does that mean?" It's, it's not a complicated term. It simply means a deliberately contradictory phrase which draws the attention of the reader. "When Edmund refers to Edgar's foolish honesty." Now, there's my second quote. Look how short that quote is. This is such a powerful and informative moment. You know, again, if you just wrote that sentence and again shows how Shakespeare's use of language helps develop characters, that would be lip service. But the fact that you then add in something like this, this is what makes it, adds quality to the work. And remember, I talked about that magic number 42. Much more likely for me to push you up to 42 or above if your work contains this kind of commentary. "Edmund's contempt for honor, for decency, for the moral rules of the world is clear. And all of this comes from the playwright's simple attention to detail." And remember, I talked about beginning, middle, and end. There's attention to detail. There's attention to detail. So, within my paragraph, there's a really good structure. And there's a sense that the candidate has done a really good job of making that point and using this particular character as an example of his point about attention to detail helping develop characters and crafty addition of adjectives to nouns.

Now, again, for me, and again, I'm marking Leave Cert. I'm marking. There was a time when I was working in another place and I'd be correcting like literally hundreds of scripts a week, every week for years. So believe me when I tell you, I know the qualities of a strong answer and the qualities of an answer which is not going to get in the top three grades. The candidate who takes the time to explain the points and not merely to pay lip service to the question, and the candidate who knows their play well and can integrate their quotation into their answer. That candidate has a much better chance of scoring well in the exam.

Now, a student asked about closing paragraphs, and I'm gonna, I'm going to end this, um, part of the class now in about three or four minutes, and then we'll go take a few minutes of a break, and we'll come back, and during the break, I'll open the chat again, and you can lash all your, um, questions at me, and again, as I said, I'll look at those, um, later in the week. Do you need to write a conclusion? Yes. Do you need to obsess over your conclusion? No. The analogy I often use is this. I am not a person who's ever been known for my fashion sense. And I, I never once in my life have I ever looked at someone and gone, "Wow, what an amazing pair of trousers." Just has never happened. Now, I just presume that, you know, people are wearing their trousers. If somebody forgot to put their trousers on, then I would definitely notice that and think, "What the hell?" That's the way I feel about closing paragraphs. I don't think I've ever read a closing paragraph and gone, "Oh my god, what an amazing closing paragraph." And run into Dan next door, my my colleague Dan Stein. If you're doing history, get on to Dan's classes. He's amazing. Um, Dan, Dan, look at this closing paragraph. It's never happened. But I have read many essays where a student has not written a closing paragraph, and I've gone, "What the, oh, come on. If you're going to write an essay, there has to be a conclusion. That's a simple thing." So, don't overthink it. Just write a conclusion that reflects what you wrote in the opening paragraph. Just write a conclusion that sums up what you've said. You've already picked up whatever marks you're going to pick up by the time you get to the conclusion. And if you don't write one, the examiner might take a mark off your coherence mark. That's the extent of it. So, don't overthink it. Remember, same rules as the opening.

So, to conclude, Shakespeare's language and imagery are crucial to any understanding of King Lear. He was a skillful writer whose attention to detail, use of symbolism, and ability to craft striking, powerful images add greatly to the depth of the characters he betrays, he portrays. And what I'm doing there is, that's one of the points I developed in my essay. That's another one, and that's a third one. I built my five paragraphs around those three points. So, I'm kind of, um, reiterating the key points I made. And the question gave me the choice to talk about different aspects of the play. I chose characters, and I showed how his use of language and imagery helped develop the characters. That closing paragraph is two sentences long, and it's simple and direct. And that's all you're looking for in a closing paragraph. Nothing complicated, nothing fancy. Don't overthink it. Just write one and let it reflect your thesis. Don't forget, your thesis is the central point that you're, um, discussing in the essay. The question will ask you to discuss a statement like that. Look at these poetry questions. Discuss. Discuss. Discuss. Say those words. Discuss. Discursive essays is what you're doing. Language of argument. To what extent do you agree or disagree? Again, that's discuss. So, that's your, your, your stance on the question, that's your thesis. You lay out your thesis in the opening paragraph. You use that as your link between the different paragraphs, the different characters of your train throughout your essay. And then you reiterate or restate that at the end. And there you have your structure.

So, I think that we will now, I will ask the guys. I think that's everything I want now. Yeah, sorry. Just to show you, there are loads of other sample paragraphs here on Lear. I have millions of sample essays on Lear which you can access through the platform. I've also got loads and loads and loads of video content, and I have the mind maps on the different characters. They're all on the platform. What I would highly recommend you do is start by looking at this document and then start, when you've looked at that document, start going through this and keeping an eye on the key quotes. And I'll, as the weeks go on, every week, every couple of weeks, I'll post a little video in which I pick a quote and explain why it's important. And nobody will watch it because if it's not about King Lear, if it's not about the poetry, nobody cares. But I care. I hope you found that in some way useful. Can I ask you guys to open the chat now, and I'm going to go and refill my coffee cup for the last time today, and I'll be back in five or six minutes. Thank you, folks, and I'll chat to you then about the comparative. Sorry there. Um, guys, can we, can we open the chat there for the students, please? How's it going there, folks? We're back for the third or sixth hour, depending on how you want to look at it. There's just a question there. There's a couple of questions, and again, I'll deal with each one of these individually but, um, later on in the week. But there was a question there about, um, studying King Lear, about, um, characters and so on. Again, this is a, I suppose, this is a class that we're providing for free, and we're have giving you free notes. Um, so I can't give everything. Um, but the, if you're looking for like, if you, and this is not the big sales pitch, but if you join Grind 360, you have access to all these notes. Look, there's, there's your King Lear mind map. There's your Cordelia mind map, your Goneril mind map, Regan and so on. You know, you give yourself a task. Okay, every, every week I'm going to revise a character. You don't have to learn everything that's on those maps. Just, just read them and pick up information and maybe marry that to a couple of the quotes that I've learned from the, not the play document. There's loads and loads and loads, um, of, um, information there. I don't know what, where can I see notes? I see my bet ones. There's loads of King Lear notes on the app. Um, okay. So, again, I'll deal with each one of those questions separately, but we're going to go into the comparative now because I saw there were a couple of comparative questions. Oh, sorry. The other thing I wanted to come to is I saw somebody asking about, uh, Frankenstein as a single text. Now, if you're doing Frankenstein as a single text, you're, you're about 1% of the country. Okay? So I can't, um, you know, prepare lessons for a single text, and I don't even do it for, um, The Crucible, although I'll talk about that at the end of this class very briefly. Um, on, I have to, I have to look at the text that the vast majority of students are doing. In that case, it's King Lear. But just on Frankenstein, there is a note on the platform, and I've been told by somebody that some of these are mislabeled. I'll have to have a look at it at some stage. But there is a note on the platform if I can just bring you to it for a second. Um, where, now, should be somewhere here. I have a detailed synopsis of Frankenstein in the comparative text. It's there somewhere. Should be there. Maybe I haven't attached it yet. There it is. There. And, um, you can access that there. You can have a look at it there. Now, it's, it's a note on, on Frankenstein as a comparative text, but actually, it's, um, anybody studying as a single text. There's loads and loads and loads of useful material in it. So, again, I can't do each individual single text, you know, in anywhere near the detail I will do the Shakespeare play, but there's always something that will be of use to you, um, there on the platform.

Okay. So, let's talk about the comparative. And let's talk about the fundamentals of the comparative. Now, as I said at the beginning of the class, there are three modes prescribed for study for comparative in, well, every year. And this year, those three modes are: General vision, viewpoint, cultural context, and, um, theme and issue. Theme or issue. Now, actually, I'd ask, can I ask, guys, can you close the chat now, and we'll open it up just at the end of the class again, and we gather those, um, those questions. Okay.

Now, so this is really, really difficult for me to teach you as an individual wherever you are watching this because you're all doing different texts. So, I'm going to just talk broadly about the approach to the comparative, and I'll be finished in about, at about quarter to one. Okay. And at quarter to one, then I'll, um, close off the class, open up the chat again, and then follow up. I'll make a video in response to those questions later on the week, and you'll see it put on the platform. I don't know whether it'll be a decision made by my, my bosses about whether that video will be maybe put on YouTube for those people who are not on the platform. We, we, we'll figure that out as we go along. But when we're looking at comparative, what we have to know, we have to remember, and I know you know this already, but remember I said I have to, you know, insult your intelligence a little bit. We know that the, all three modes will be prepared, and we know that you are allowed to answer and just prepare two texts. Now, that was a question I saw in the chat a moment ago. So, let's have a quick reminder of last year's exam, and let's just have a look, for example, at the two theme and issue questions. So, we know for a fact on your Leave Cert, that there will be two theme and issue questions, and they'll be very broad because they have to be. We know that the first question, or not necessarily the first one, but one of the questions will be broken into an A/B structure, and that first question, the A/B structure question, requires you to talk about three texts. So, that means, because part A, you just talk about one text, and part B, you have to talk about two other texts. So, you don't talk about the text you talk, you addressed in part A in part B. So, that's 2 + 1 is three texts. You can't answer the A/B question if you don't prepare three texts. However, there will be another question which will give you the option. This is the standalone 70-mark essay, which will give you the option to just write about two texts or to write about all three.

Now, I'm going to give you an example. I have a guy in my sixth year, my full-time class at Brunner this year, and he's very, very good. He's going to score very well in English, and he's made the decision, the three texts that, that I have done with him. Um, I've done with the rest of Ireland. I've done small things like these. I've done, um, The Shawshank Redemption, and then I've done another novel that most of you won't have read. It's called The Cove. Okay. Now, he's made the decision, "I'm just going to do two texts. I'm not going to do the third one." I want you to understand this. No examiner is allowed to punish you if you decide to answer the standalone essay and only deal with two texts. There's absolutely no chance that you're going to be punished for not dealing with three texts there. However, the question in the chat was really, really good. The student said that they feel that they're probably going to struggle to develop the points in enough depth in order to, uh, if they only write about two texts. And does that mean they maybe have to make an extra point? And to me, the answer is yes. Usually, in a comparative essay, usually a student will develop three points across the essay. That's all you need to do to write a really substantial essay. I'll talk about structure now in a minute. But if you are just going to write about two texts, you may decide that you're going to deal, develop a third, sorry, a fourth point, just to give the essay the meat that it needs. Now, I know that might be a controversial statement, and I'm only giving you my opinion. But what I sometimes find when students just write about two texts, they leave the essay a bit short. It doesn't maybe have the substance that it could have. Doesn't matter if they're not writing about a third text. They need to go into the text a little bit more detail. If you find it hard to tease out the three points you want to make in enough detail, maybe think about adding a fourth one in, especially if you're pushing for those magic scores that are above 70% of the available marks.

Okay, so that's just a, a kind of introduction. So, there will be three sets of three pairs of questions: Culture, context, theme, issue, general, vision of viewpoint. You can have just one mode prepared. So, you might go, "Right, I'm just doing cultural context," and you have to answer one question. The piece of advice I would give you is this. If you were just going to do two texts, make sure that you prepare two modes. If you are doing all three texts, it is fine to just do one mode. Although my security blanket would always tell me, having two modes ready for the students who are aiming at the top end is a wise decision.

Now, why am I saying have two modes ready? Especially if you're only doing two texts. The English paper is designed to be accessible but also challenging. Excuse me. There's loads of choice. There's loads of choice in the English paper, and some of the questions are designed to be trickier than others. And one of the things you're almost being examined on is your ability to identify a question which suits your preparation and be able to discriminate against a question which doesn't suit your preparation. Now, you often find in the comparative that the wording of a question, and this is especially the case when students have really good, ironically, the students who have really good teachers who work really hard, this is where they can get caught out. If they have really good teachers who work really hard and they've really ultra-prepared their theme or ultra-prepared the cultural context aspects of their text, they look at the question, and the question doesn't really fit with them. So, if you look at this question that was asked last year on cultural context, it says, "In the case of at least two texts in your comparative course, compare the extent to which aspects of the cultural context nurture admirable values and attitudes." Now, you might read that and go, "I don't understand how that applies to Where the Crawdads Sing. I don't know where there's admirable values and attitudes in, um, Sy or if I do know where I see those, um, attitudes that I admire in Rosie, I'm not sure how it's got to do with the cultural context." So, you might look at that question and go, and on the day of the exam, you, you know this thing, like a question that if you're in class and you're just chatting, you're discussing the question, you go, "Yeah, okay, I can see, I can see how I go through that. I know my text." But on the day of the exam, when the pressure is sitting on your shoulders, and you know, you look over there and there's Billy and there's Mary, and they're they're writing away, and you're starting to panic, sometimes the question just doesn't speak to you. So, it's nice to have another option.

Okay. Now, if you've just prepared one mode, for example, cultural context and two texts, then you're stuck. You have no choice. There are six questions at the comparative, but you can't even look at the other five. You have to have a pop at that one. And I think that's not good preparation. So, that's why it is my advice for you. If you're going to prepare two texts, and your teacher just doing two, can I make it clear? That's fine. 100% no problem at all. But I would have two modes. So, if you look at that cultural context question and you don't fancy it, you might look at this theme or issue question. What was the other option last year? "In the case of two texts, compare the extent to which the exploration of a theme instilled in you a sense that human beings are selfless." That was a really easy question. So, you might go, "I wanted to answer the culture context question. It doesn't work for me, but that theme or issue question works beautifully. Bang, off I go." So, that's where I advise, if you're doing two texts, two modes. If you're doing three texts, you can safely prepare just one mode. But with my, you know, seat belt on and, you know, um, um, security blanket on, I would certainly look at having two modes prepared. Hope that didn't confuse you too much.

So, let's talk about preparation for the comparative, and I'll show you some of the work that I do when I'm looking at the comparative. So, again, you'll have noticed the theme today and yesterday. I'm always looking at questions. I'm always, I'm always thinking about the types of questions that get asked, and then I'm looking at how to use learning and use the RICK rules, that that that paragraph structure idea of making sure it is a relevant topic sentence, backing up what you're saying with information, contextualizing each point, and writing as clearly as possible to answer questions.

So, here is, here's a question, damn it, on theme and issue from from last year's mock exam. Two options. Great thing to do, guys, when you're doing your study is just look at pairs of questions and ask yourself, "Which one would I have done if that was my exam and why would I do that one? And what would be my plan? What points would I make?" So, theme or issue. And again, if you're not studying theme issue as a mode, don't zone out here because I'm going to talk about how to answer, you know, write effective comparative answers. So, that's going to have be of use, and I'm going to also look at other examples as well. So, option one, which would require you to have read three texts: "An author's treatment of a theme or issue can be challenging or rewarding or both. A. In the case of one text you have studied, discuss how the author's treatment of a particular theme or issue is challenging or rewarding." Easy peasy, lemon squeezy. And then part B. And don't forget, part B is worth 40 marks, whereas part A is worth 30. Not because you have to make more points in part B, but because in part B, you have to show the ability to compare. And that is not a requirement in part A. So, that's what those extra 10 marks are for. "Compare how the author's treatment of the same theme or issue you discussed in 1A above is challenging or rewarding in both or both in each of two other texts." Okay, so there's your requirement for three. I like that question. I thought it was actually lovely. The second one was absolutely gorgeous. "A reader's attitude to a theme or issue may be changed or reinforced by a key moment or moments in a text." Now, remember this. If you're given the option to write about a multiple or plural, that's good. You don't want to write the essay built around just one key moment because that'll make it harder for you to tease out your points. If you pick two or three key moments, then that you don't have to go into each moment in the same level of depth as you would if you were just talking about one key moment. So, where the question gives you an option to talk about the, to talk in the plural, to talk about more than one, always go for more than one. That's good advice.

Okay, there's the instruction. "Compare the extent to which your attitude towards a name, theme, or issue was changed or reinforced by one or more key moments in at least two texts in your comparative course." Okay, so really, really nice question.

Now, what I'm looking at here is just an example, and this is what I do. Yeah, I don't want to hammer this or bang this drum too much, but in the weekly classes, I'll just pick three random texts that students are studying, and I'll pick a key moment from and a key quote from the text from the notes that I've done. I've done notes on, not all, but I think 29 of the text of the 36 texts. Now I've got a note on, and they're on the platform. Um, and I'll then use that example to show you how to build an answer. Okay? And then you use that as a template for your own work. So, my selected texts are: Scythe (S), a play by John B. Keane; Frankenstein (F), a novel by Mary Shelley; Ladybird (L), a film directed by Greta Gerwig. Now, you see that information there. You have to give me that information at the start of your comparative essay. There are four pieces of information in each one of those, um, lists, okay? Or in each, in each item on the list. So, the name of the text, the abbreviation I'm going to use when I refer to the text throughout my essay because I don't want to have to keep on writing the name out over and over again, the genre, whether it's a play, a novel, or a film, or a memoir or a documentary, or whatever ones you're doing, and then the author or director's names. I need that information when I'm sitting down because I'm correcting. If I correct the Leave Cert, I'm going to correct somewhere between 220 and, if I'm really feeling, you know, um, brave, I could be marking up as up as many as 280 scripts. Now, if you think about the maths of that, and as I tell you, as I said to you yesterday evening, the, the scripts that are being delivered into my inbox can be from anywhere, and they're randomly generated. When I'm correcting them, I need to know from, okay, you're on comparative, you're on theme and issue. That's grand. You're answering question two. Okay, what are your texts? Because the last five, um, scripts that I've corrected had different varieties of text. What are your texts? So, you need to give me that information. Now, are you allowed to give it in that list form? Yes, you are. Is it okay as well to give it in a, in an opening paragraph? You know, "In preparation for this exam, I've studied three texts. They are..." and do it like that? Yes. Either way, I prefer the list. I think it's more efficient. Some teachers prefer the paragraph. It, you're not going to be punished whether if you do the list, you're not going to be punished if you integrate it into the opening paragraph, but you will be punished. Not like when I say punished, they're not going to fail you, but you will lose marks if you don't tell me at the very beginning that information. Okay, so that's really, really, really important for me. If I was you, and I was answering theme and issue, I would do this. Before I start my opening paragraph, I would write, "Select the theme and whatever the theme is that you're doing." You want, again, I talked about this earlier on, to make the examiner's life easy. You don't want the examiner to be scratching his head. You don't want or her head and and saying, "What's, okay, they didn't theme an issue. What's the theme?" Because if that, if, if they're not clear on what the theme is, then of course you're not going to score well because what you're being examined on is the particular theme that you've selected.

Now, here's where I get in trouble. You'll notice I use the word quotes. And straight away, if we were in a room together, there'd be loads of hands going up saying, "Paul, my teacher says you don't have to learn quotes for comparative." And your teacher's right. You don't have to. But I'm going to go back and make a, um, a reference to certainly, I mean, I've worked with, and I still do work with, amazing colleagues, but certainly the, the, the English teacher of whom I was the greatest fanboy, and when he walked into a room like, you know, light shone around him and angels sang. His name was Martin Kelly, a, a much-loved former colleague, since retired, of mine. And Martin was a bit of an expert in the comparative, and he was a supervising examiner, and just an amazing person. And I remember having this conversation with him. I said, "Martin, I was in a class and a grind class, and one of the students asked about the comparative and said, 'My teacher says that you don't have to learn quotes. What do you think?'" And his response just summed it up. He said, "Paul, look, you don't have to have quotation, but taken on its merits, an essay, a really strong essay that has quotation is going to always be stronger than an essay which has none. So, if you can learn a few little quotes to fit with your theme or to fit with your cultural context or to fit with your general vision of viewpoint, it will make your essay better. Do you have to have it? No. Can he get an H1 without quotation? Yes, but it's harder." So, I always build my paragraphs around quotation. And again, pineapples on pizzas. You don't have to do it my way. This is just my advice.

So, I'm looking at a theme, and I've got particular quotes ready. I'm not going to read the quotes. Don't need to, but I've got my quotes from Ladybird, from Scythe, and from Frankenstein. And then it's a case of how do you go about using your prepared material to write an effective comparative response. Let's have a quick look and see. Oh, sorry. Do you need to write an opening paragraph to a, um, comparative essay? I don't necessarily think you do, but I've given up trying to, um, evangelize for that. So, okay, you're going to write an opening paragraph. Do you need to include the texts? You can give them, select the text, one, two, three, and then write your opening paragraph. But remember, the only really important thing you've got to do with your opening is present your thesis. That's your response to the question. But also, in a comparative essay, you've got to establish that you're writing in the comparative spirit. If you look at the marking schemes, this is the thing that the examiner is constantly going on about. Has the student written about three different texts separately from each other? Or has the student succeeded in

integrating the discussion that the section is called comparative? Are they constantly comparing and contrasting their work, the different texts? If they're not writing in the comparative spirit, then they're going to lose marks under purpose. And you know, for every one mark you lose in purpose, you multiply that by three. So that's going to have a detrimental effect in your final outcomes.

Here's an opening paragraph as an example. So you've given your three texts: a play by John Been, Frankenstein; a novel by Mary Shel, Ladybird; a film directed by Greta Gerwick. It was fascinating to study these three texts through the prism of the theme of escape. All three feature characters who, for different reasons, find themselves in invidious positions. It was interesting to study these characters: Mina in S, Christine in L, and Victor in F, and to understand why they want to escape, the means and strategies by which they try to manufacture escape, and whether they actually manage to successfully engineer change and escape to a better life.

That's a really strong opening paragraph. Remember what the question was asking you? I'm going to jump back, sorry, for a second. The question was asking about how your attitude to a theme or issue may be changed or reinforced by a key moment. And here you are talking about key moments in the text. Compare how your attitude changed. And here you are talking about, sorry, now you're talking about, um, the theme of escape and the different aspects of those, of that theme, and how you're going to respond to them in terms of your attitude. Okay. So you've named your three characters and you've talked about the three different things, aspects of the theme: why they want to escape, the means and strategies, and whether they're successful.

Did you spot the problem with the opening? Because there is a problem with that opening, and this is again where students can fall down. The opening is exceptional, really good. It's probably rote learned because the candidate has a really good teacher, and the really good teacher has worked their ass off to get their class prepared. So, the student has learned that. But I read that and I go, "Okay, that's really, really good." And then I go, "What was the question again?" Now, if I read an opening paragraph and I go, "What was the question again?" then it's a flawed opening paragraph. Nowhere in the opening paragraph did I talk about changed or reinforced and my attitude to the theme. So, because I wrote learned my opening, I have now written an opening which does not contain a thesis. And that's something I want you to watch out for.

Yes, by all means have your prepped opening. I mean, that's there's no problem with that. That's like that's to be expected. You know that you have done the work to to to know how to introduce. But be adaptable and try to ensure that you merge the pre-prepared material that you have ready with the question because if you don't, that's a red flag. And the red flag is going to suggest that this, you know, when when my kids were were small, you know, um, that, you know, they'd have this game. I don't know if you ever seen this game. They give to small, like toddlers or even younger than that, and it's like a box and it has these shapes cut out of it, and then you have these like a star and a triangle and a square, and they have to find the right shape to go into the hole. Okay. Now, if you see the kid, if you see a kid sitting there with the star shape, just trying to bash the star shape into the circle hole or the square hole, you're going, "Oh, Jesus, it's not great." You know, if the kid then shows an ability to, you know, change their mind, to be adaptable, to move the shape around, to fit in the correct hole, then you're going, "Okay, well done." So, you have your core material, but you've got to fit it to the question. And if you don't do that, and that's a very common error. People start off going, "Yes, theme and issue. I know my theme and issue essay so well." And then they lash down the theme and issue essay that they've prepared. If they don't show an ability to adapt that prepared material to the question, their work is not purposeful. Down they go. Okay, really important.

Now, this is an example of a response. Now, it's not, I'm not telling you you have to do it like this, but I know that this works. And one of the, you know, the consistent pieces of really good feedback I get over the years is when people start like thinking about adapting a structure for their comparative essays. And this structure works for all three modes. Okay, all three modes. And the structure is, and this is if you're doing it, going back to the question that student asked earlier on about, um, whether you do two or three texts, the structure works for two texts or three texts. Essentially, when I talk about an AB structure, I'm talking about developing a point over two interconnected paragraphs. And my my idea is that part A, and you'll see this on the, um, comparative essay writing mind map on the platform. Part A, and there's a video talking about how to write these essays. Part A is the evidence, and then part B is the analysis. And there might be a bit more evidence in part B, but it doesn't have to be. So, essentially, in part A here, I talk about two texts, but I don't analyze them in the light of the question. I just mention the question. And then in part B, I bring in the third text and then I offer my contextualization or my analysis.

So, let's have a quick look at the structure here. Okay, rushing against the clock. Okay, so remember that I'm sorry for annoying you. Now, remember I told you yesterday, ask for rough work paper at the start of your exam. Write out your keywords in big capital letters so that you're constantly, in my case, I write my left hand. So those words are over here on on the right hand side of the page of the table as I'm writing, and I'm constantly seeing those keywords. Remember, if you write a brilliant answer but you ignore the question, you're not going to score well. So always try and have the keywords of the question in your mind when you're writing.

Okay, here we go. Mina, the dominant figure in the Glavin family portrayed in S, grew up in poverty. This is revealed in the fractious, that means difficult, relationship she has with Nana, who despises her daughter-in-law, mocking her and the stock she came from and the cabin she came out of. That's a really good quote. Mina longs to get away from. There's a little reference to the theme of escape, the type of subsistence life that means poverty, described by her husband Mike, who talks of the begging and pinching with her craws only often half, often only half ill. They they live on the verge of starvation. This description of economic deprivation chimed with me. So that's going back to reinforced my, um, understanding and reinforced my understanding of this theme. When people are really poor, they want to escape that poverty and lead a better life.

Now, there, I've written, this is the crucial part here, five sentences on text one. Do you know what a rule of thumb is? It's a rule that you bear in mind, but you don't have to adhere to really strictly. So, I'm advising you to try to get into the habit of writing no more than five sentences on text one before then making a comparison or a contrast with text two. Now, the only place you don't do that is in the part A of AB structure questions. But wherever you're writing a comparative answer, so that's in the standalone 70 or the part B of the AB structure question, then that's a really good rule of thumb. Some students are told by their teachers to write a full page on text one and then a full page on text two and a full page on text three. I'm not, I, I, I don't want to, um, I'm not going to criticize particular advice, but that would not be the way that I would advise you to do it. Constantly, it is called comparative. Constantly integrate your texts. And the five-sentence rule of thumb is a good one.

So, we have text one, piece of evidence, and a reference to a question. Then we have a comparative link phrase bringing in text two. While Christine in L does not live in poverty, so there's a contrast with the other text. She is like Mina. There's another link phrase: in that she longs to live a different, more rewarding life. So now you're into text two. While she dreams of a house in the fabulous 40s, that's a quote from the movie of Sacramento. Her real desire is to escape. Remember that's the theme that we're on. Never let go of your theme, to a richer cultural landscape. She says, "I have to get out of Sacramento because it's soul-killing." This underlined. So there's my example. This underlined my understanding of the theme of escape. So again, back to the question which asked about reinforcement. So you've got chimed with me, reinforced, underlined. So you're on the question, and you're using synonyms. People like Mina and Christine have different reasons to want to flee the particular circumstances of their lives.

Now, that's really good. Really good. It's relevant to the question. It's informed by key moments or key quotation. It's clearly written. Now, it's only got a small amount of contextualization. And there's a reason for that. That paragraph together, sorry, when I'm talking about the two texts together, is 193 words long. My little kind of structural rule is if you're getting close to 200 words, break the paragraph into two parts. If I was to add in a good bit more contextualization there, now it's going to make that paragraph too long. So remember, I said that this works for if you're doing two texts or just or doing three. So even if you're doing just two texts, the sub-paragraph now that you write after that will really do a little bit more work to contextualize and develop out the point.

Now, in this particular case, I am talking about a third text before I add in that contextualization. So, then again, a little comparative link phrase: this is also true of Victor, the third character, the eponymous, good use of vocabulary, eponymous means that the text is named after him, protagonist of F. Victor's desire to escape, staying on my theme, never losing sight of that because it is a theme or issue question, springs from his own actions. Driven by scientific curiosity, he became obsessed with finding a way to create artificial life because he was, he says, troubled by how the fine form of man was the greater than wasted. Good use of quotation. He worked slavishly to succeed. But when confronted by the wretched, the filthy demon to whom I had given life, he is appalled and tries to escape by abandoning the creature.

So again, you can see three sentences on that text, good knowledge of the text, tying it together with theme, using comparative link phrases, and then you have this little bit of contextualization which brings it all back to the question. This example again underlined my understanding of this of the theme. There's a little error here. Okay, should be "of this theme." Apologies, because it proves the point that people are often driven to escape circumstances created by their own actions. Unlike Mina and Christine, say "unlike," that's a comparative phrase, and it's a comparative phrase. Victor is the author of his own misfortune. However, like those characters, so really, really explaining and comparing, he was driven to take drastic measures to change those circumstances. So change is synonymous with escape in this particular circumstance, sorry, this particular example, those circumstances, and find a better, more fulfilling life.

Now, guys, together, remember I talked about the number of points you've got to develop. Together, those two paragraphs are coming in at 193 and 149 words. Now, you do the maths on that, and you've got, sorry, can't add, 342 words. Now, multiply that by three. Add an opening and a brief conclusion, and there's your essay. That's your structure. So, remember in my opening paragraph, I talked about why they want to escape. So I've done that. Now, my next job is to go to how they escape. So, I'm going to do my AB structure and talk about whether that reinforces or that, you know, um, um, surprised me when I read the text, and then that'll be my around 300 words. And then whether or not they managed to escape, that'll be the last part. So, there's a real sense of organization, a real sense of structure. And I'm reading it and going, "God, that's that was really easy to read. That student really knew their theme. They didn't tell me the story." You remember, remember I keep on saying this over and over and over again. You don't need to tell me the story of your texts. I know for a fact that there will be certain texts on the course that some examiners might not even have read. Now, they, if they see that you're answering on a text that's one of the kind of more obscure texts, they'll go and they'll have a look and make sure that what you're saying is accurate. But the point is that we're not really, you're not being examined on your knowledge of the text as much as your ability to demonstrate understanding of the comparative, um, mode. So, in this case, theme and issue, and the skill of writing comparative essays. That's really what you're being examined on. So, don't get stressed. Oh, we did our comparative text and future. I don't know everything. You don't need to know everything. Key moments, and then understanding your mode and practice.

I've got time to give you one more example. I'm sure there's probably nobody left on the call here now because you're bored out of your heads. Let's go and have a quick look at one of the questions that I get asked most often is about the structure of a part A, um, uh, question in the AB structure 30-40 mark question, and this time we'll have a look at a general vision and viewpoint question. Here's the question. This is from the 2019 exam. Again, always going back and using past questions as guidelines for your preparation. With reference to one text on your comparative course, explain how your sense of the general vision or viewpoint was influenced by at least one of your personal beliefs. Now, guys, remember I said about plurals. It says at least one. I would always do more than one. Two to three be ideal. There are 30 marks here. Do you need to write an opening paragraph? I think you do. Okay. So, this is my OP. And then I've got my Rick number one. I've got my Rick number two. And because I'm going for the H1, I've also got my Rick number three. And a brief conclusion. Now, that's long. I will say this outright. That's long for a part A, but you're trying to show ambition if you're pitching at the higher end. And it should, it should be very, very, very easy. Students, I'm always asked, Paul, is it better to do the AB or the standalone 70 mark question? And I, I, I refuse to answer it because it depends on the wording of the question. But all other things being equal and the two questions being reasonable, Paul, hello, how are you? I will generally go for the AB structure because it's pretty handy to pick up most of those 30 marks for the part A if you have your work prepared properly. There's no, you just, um, there's no comparison required.

Now I'm going to show this really, really quickly. Don't forget there's my selected text. This time it's Small Things Like These, which I know some of you will be studying. And what am I doing? I'm doing the three jobs again. So, oh, apologies. So, I am naming my text. I'm giving the abbreviation. I'm identifying the genre and I'm giving the name of the author. Give me that information at the start. Really important. Okay. Really important. Now, just looking at time. So, it's asking about a personal belief, and you start off. I believe in justice. I believe in compassion and kindness. So, there are personal beliefs straight away, right? You're on the question. I believe, I believe, personal beliefs. So, purposeful. Remember, P is the bar. Get on the question. I believe that it is important to maintain an empathy with other people. There is no question that study of ST, and in particular the story of Bill Furlong, was influenced by my worldview, and despite the depictions of suffering, cruelty, and discrimination, has resulted in my conclusion that ST has a fundamentally positive general vision of viewpoint. And don't forget, the general viewpoint is essentially, you know, you get teachers who completely overcomplicate this. It's essentially, does the text depict human nature and human experience in a positive or a negative light, or is there balance in the text? And it, it includes what the author is trying, how the author might be trying to influence you. So, if you're studying something like Rosie, that that's a story that has a real agenda, or it might be just what you take from the texts. So, if you're studying, um, we mentioned Frankenstein earlier on, if you're studying Frankenstein, I'm trying to think of something now. If you're studying Shawshank, I don't believe Frank Darabont was trying to, you know, give us, um, a lesson in morality. But when you see Andy, you know, playing the music for his, um, his fellow prisoners after the death of Brooks, and willing to to take the beating that that entails just to try and give them a little bit of an escape from the drudgery of their lives, that surely has to, um, um, reinforce your sense that human beings can be decent and selfless. But in the same way, when you see, um, the warden organizing the murder of Tommy, that has to, you know, remind you of just how corrupt and awful and venal human beings can be. So, in other words, there's loads of things you can say there. Okay. Anyway, I'm, I'm going to, I'm going to finish this up now in just a couple of minutes. Okay.

So, just going to give you an example of a really good paragraph. And again, remember, it's all about making sure that the paragraph has a clear, relevant point, is supported by information, is contextualized, the point is contextualized in light of the question, and is written as clearly as possible. My belief in compassion and kindness was reinforced by Bill's action towards Mick Sinnott's little chap. This child, who lives in poverty and is clearly neglected, was seen by Bill foraging for sticks in the spilling rain. Again, direct quotes from the text. Key moment, direct quotes. Bill is a hardworking man who has a family of five daughters to support. So, loads of detail to show knowledge of the text, but he takes the time to pull his coat over and give the child "what bit of change I had in my pocket." You think it was £100 I'd given him. Now, there you have your, um, topic sentence. It's then followed by reference to a key moment, including quotation. The quotation doesn't have to be there, but it helps. And then you have the money of the paragraph, which is the critical thinking and analysis. This moment really struck me. Bill's actions were entirely selfless. There's no way, selfless referring to the general viewpoint. There's no way he could personally benefit from his actions. But he stopped to help in what little way he could. This chimes with my belief in compassion. I, again, you're back to the question, you're back to the question there. I believe in a society. Why am I saying I believe? Because that's in the question. We live in a society which is also a community. And I believe it is important to think of the vulnerable and to try to help them in any way we can. Reading ST, I was struck by that little moment of kindness, and it contributed to my formation of an optimistic general vision of viewpoint for the text.

Now, do you see the structure of the paragraph? Can you see that the the way this candidate, like, has a discipline in the way they write? They have their key moments ready. They knew general vision of viewpoint was coming up. There was a question that they were that that was nice. So they picked it. It happened to be the AB because they had three texts ready. And they go, "Okay, this is about beliefs." So I'm starting off with a belief. In this case, it's compassion. Now, I, I know because Paul told me or my teacher told me, everything I'm saying in the leaving has to be evidence-based. So I know I need to give evidence. So there's my key moment, Mick's little chap being helped by Bill Furlong. I've learned a couple of quotes. I could put them in to lift the quality of my analysis of my, um, answer, but I have to remember there's no point in making that point and giving that evidence if I don't take the time to then go and explain why that's relevant to the question. That's the contextualization. That's the part that the vast majority of students don't do. They go into the exam with the material ready, but they haven't got those critical thinking chops, which means that they limit their ability to score. Add that critical thinking over the course of the next few months when you're preparing for your mocks and to your leaving cert. Don't be put off by, you know, being accused of waffling. Just as long as what you're saying is relevant to the question, and as long as you're showing an intellectual engagement with the question, you're going to score. And if you can do that and integrate that into your work along with all of the other little tips that hopefully I've given you over the last nearly six hours of tuition, you might find, um, that you're going to make improvement. I'm nearly finished, and I'm going to open the chat now again in a second.

Okay, there's another, um, sample in this, and again, this is a short course that we're doing here, one day looking at paper two. There's tons more of this material on the platform for members of the platform. There's here's two cultural context questions from last year's exam. Okay, think about breaking down questions into keywords because remember, P is the bar. So if I write an answer that's not relevant, then I'm dead in the water. If I don't understand the keywords, I don't answer that question. And then there's an example. And this example has, um, um, this is the response to question two. In the case of at least two texts on your comparative course, compare the extent to which aspects of the cultural context nurture admirable values and attitudes. Develop your response. And I've gone, Small Things Like These, ST, A play by Cler Keegan. One, two, three, four, five. And this time I'm not using an abbreviation. You don't have to use the abbreviation. It's only a four, four-letter word. So I've decided not to. A play by John B. Keen, and The Shawshank Redemption, sorry, a film directed by Frank Darabont. Give me that information. Then you have your OP and your sample development paragraphs following the AB structure. There's part A, which deals with the first two texts, and there's part B, which brings in the third text and, um, the, uh, the bit of contextualization.

Now, lads, I'm banjo here. I hope you found that. So, I, I just, the reason I smile is because I'm visualizing you all. I'm there's all these parents looking at their children saying, "What happened to you?" because you're all knackered, zoned out. "God, Paul, that was awful." I hope I hope you found it. As I said last night, if you found 90% of what I've talked useless, but 10% useful, then I'm delighted. I'm delighted that so many of you joined, that you crashed the site. I'm delighted that, um, you, you last night, you found yesterday's class very positive. There was loads of very nice comments left last night. I hope you found today useful. Just remember, right, English isn't as complicated as sometimes teachers like to pretend it is. You have to get an understanding of your material. Yes, you can do that by reading. Make the time to read. Just make the time to to sit down and go through a note or go through a sample or go through, or watch a little, get a YouTube video which might explain something about a key scene. Again, there's loads of material. I've even got a YouTube channel from before I started working with, um, Grind 360, which has useful material on it, but you'll find the time and build your knowledge. And then remember that marking scheme, P, C, L, M. Everything you say has to be relevant or purposeful. Think about structure: how do you introduce, how do you develop, how do you conclude? And then keep your language clear. What's the key to clear language? Effective punctuation. Everything else on top of that is a bonus. Reread your work. Remember, home, if you do homework, clean as you go. Reread after each paragraph. Have a plan for time management. And hopefully, over the course of the next four or five months, you might see some improvement.

So, I'm going to ask the guys now to open the chat again. And remember, I'm going to get off the call now, and then I'm going to sit down probably on Thursday or Friday. I'm going to go through the, um, the comments, the, um, the questions, and then, or maybe Friday or Saturday, I'll record a couple of videos in response to the questions from paper one class and the questions for paper two class. I won't be able to answer every question, but I certainly will do my best to give you as much feedback as possible. And I want to say, because some of you, I will, we won't see each other again, the very best of luck in your mock examinations. Prepare as many sections as you can, and even if you don't do brilliantly overall, you might go, "Okay, look, I prepared my composition and I did, I improved there, and I prepared my King Lear and I improved there." Right, now my plan for the next few months is to work on, say, my question A and my poetry. And don't panic. Keep calm, and you'll be grand. Okay, so thank you very much, and, um, yeah, the chat, if you don't mind, guys, opening the chat for the students now, I'd be very much appreciative. Goodbye.