W31 Wed: English with Paul McCormack - Night Before Paper 2 Exam Overview

Now, how are you feeling? Good. Hopefully, you're all okay after your paper one today. And this class will be a little bit less well, but it'll be a lot less chaotic than um yesterday evening's preaper one class where we had the chat open and it went ballistic.

So the purpose of this chat is just a not to do anything new. Nothing new at all. Um it's just to settle some nerves I suppose and to remind you of what you already know and to give you some little kind of I suppose my insights into what successful candidates tend to do on the day of paper two. And I suppose the first place we're going to start, there's a document um on the news feed which um I'm going to be looking at tonight. I went down a rabbit hole with it today. I said I'll make it nice and concise. Um you don't want to burden them too much with material, but then I was thinking there could be people on this call who maybe um need a bit of last minute material. So talk that that short document I was putting together ended up being 57 pages. Don't worry, you're not going to look at all of it, but we're going to go through bits and pieces of of it this evening.

In addition to that because of the fact that um we have to close the the call uh the chat I mean because as I said everybody wants their question answered when they want it and it went a bit mad yesterday. Um I've selected um with the aid of my colleague Ronan a uh a number of questions that were sent in um kind of frequently asked type questions and I'm going to deal with them towards the end of the call.

So, I'm going to start off now very very quickly just reminding you what you already know. You all did your mocks, so you know what to expect. When you walk in tomorrow, the only difference between the front page of last year's paper and this year's paper is the year 2026 is today is is tomorrow's paper. And as you know, 200 marks I'm going to get my pen working. 200 marks tomorrow, just like 200 marks today. And today wasn't half as scary as you thought it was going to be, was it? Okay. And the same rules apply tomorrow as they do today. Tomorrow you've got longer amount of time, three hours and 20 minutes. And as I've said repeatedly over and over and over again, it is good advice to have a strategy, a rule of thumb strategy for timing for those three hours and 20 minutes that 3 hours and 20 minutes equals to up 200 minutes. And what I've always said to people is for the three sections single text I've always recommended take six 60 minutes or an hour. For my comparative section 60 minutes for my studied poetry section 60 minutes and for my unseen poetry 20 minutes. So in other words you've got an hour in essay and 20 minutes for unseen poetry. So that's a question I'm always being asked.

Now if you are comfortable doing the minute a mark approach which would be 60 minutes for single text 70 minutes for comparative 50 minutes for uh studied poetry and 20 minutes for unseen poetry great you're comfortable with that it's brilliant. If you're somebody who has always just gotten your essays written pretty quickly and you tend to you know have a little bit of time left over. Super absolutely fantastic. every one of you will have a slightly different experience tomorrow. That's just a rule of thumb. You don't want to be going much over those time limits for each individual section.

The next question I'm often asked is, Paul, is there a particular order in which I should answer the paper? No, there's not. Now, if you're somebody who has particularly strong sections and maybe a section that you're particularly worried about or you don't feel prepared for, certainly I wouldn't start with my weakest section because psychologically for you as an individual, you're making yourself work far too hard at the start. So, I would always say for me, I would always hope that you're going in fully prepared for every section. So, a chronological approach is the wisest approach. But again, if you want to start with your comparative and then you want to move on to your studied poetry, then onto your single text and finish with your unseen poetry, absolutely fine. No problem whatsoever. Whatever approach you want to take, but just make sure that you don't start, I suppose, with your weakest section. I think that's good advice.

Remember as well tomorrow that if you can just drown out the thoughts of what everybody else is doing, focus just on your own paper and manage. We're going to talk about how to do this um shortly. Just manage your way through that paper. You will be absolutely fine.

When I walk in tomorrow, I'm definitely going to have a look at the questions across the paper before I get going. I'm definitely going to my for most of you. Some of you doing the Crucible, I know some of you are doing Dracula. I know. But tonight I'll be talking about MacBT questions. This is last year. We're going to look at these questions later on. There last year was King Leer. There will be two questions. you have to answer one. So have a look at them and you'll have a sense of oh that's a little bit tricky and maybe one of them will might appeal to you and you go okay that's grand and you'll say okay I I can see the two MacB questions I'm okay I know I have ideas for how to approach one of them.

Most of you will immediately turn to the back page where you will see the names of five of the poets that are prescribed for study this year and again we'll get to this later on as well and you'll all you know this I I apologize for being dismissive but I always get a little bit frustrated when people start talking about like what poets are coming up. The fact is we don't know the fact is that there are there are eight poets prescribed for study five of them will be examined and you can work out mathematically therefore what the likelihood is of a poet coming up if you just do one if you just do two if you just do three if you just do four and if you have four poets covered you are 100% guaranteed that one of those poets will come up.

Now, last year, as I've discussed before, we had the first poet was an Irish woman. The second poet was an Irish poet. The third poet was neither Irish nor female. The fourth poet was Irish, and the fifth poet was a woman. And again, I expect there to be a similar breakdown of poets this year. I expect there to be at least two female poets on the paper. I expect there to be at least two female poets on the paper. And I wouldn't be surprised if you had, sorry, um, yeah, Irish and female. I wouldn't be surprised if you had three of each because as I say Tracy or sorry um Paulamine and Elena Quillin on fit into both those categories. So you could have if if one of those poets is on then you could have three women you could have Bishop you could have um Tracy K. Smith could come up again but you could also have Pauline you could equally you could have um Yates Heene and Aquillinon that could be the three Irish poets. So my point I suppose is I wouldn't worry too much about a poet not coming up. I I've rarely I don't think in 30 years of doing this I've ever had a conversation with a student who said that there wasn't the question on a poet that they prepared. So you can relax a little bit about that. Just be very careful when you're picking the question. Oh again we'll get to that later on.

And then of course what you know is we'll come to unseen poetry shortly. What you know is that there's going to be six questions on comparative. We know that all three comparative modes are going to be examined. So yes, you're absolutely 100% covered if you've only got one comparative mode prepared and you are absolutely 100% covered if you've only got two comparative texts that you're confident on. So that's great to know, isn't it? So you only have to answer on one comparative mode. Three will come up.

Now team and issue was on last year. It's not on this year. That's subbed out. literary genre is on this year with cultural context and the general vision of viewpoint. So there will be two general vision of viewpoint questions tomorrow. There will be two cultural context questions tomorrow and there will be two literary genre questions tomorrow and the questions will be divided into two um structures. The first one will be AB structure and the second one is what we call a standalone 70 mark essay. And with the AB structure you have to have three texts prepared. You cannot answer an AB structure question in comparative without three texts. But with the standalone 70 mark question, you are allowed to answer on just two texts. And I want to make this very very clear, you can do that without fear of being punished for making that decision. The question says at least two. So if you write about two and you do it in a really thoughtful and engaged and evidence-based way and you add specificity and substance to your answer, you can get the best score available. There is no question about that whatsoever. However, it for me ideally my students will go with three prepared because that will give them choice depending on which question comes up.

So then you also you have your unseen poetry. I can guarantee you this. Well, I'd be very surprised if I wrote this. You're going to read the unseen poem for the first time and go, "Oh, they they often pick poems which are slightly um let's well, I use a big word. They're slightly idiosyncratic, right? They're often slightly difficult to interpret um some of the poems, but I certainly if you read the poem tomorrow and you're sitting in the hall and you're like, "Oh my god, just remember everybody else in Ireland is feeling exactly the same way." Okay, so the poems are usually slightly um obscure is a good word as well, but the questions are always easy. Always easy. And don't forget unseen poetry just like study poetry. If you have the ability at all to analyze language and you've done so much work where you've been with me all year and with the amount of poetry work we've done. We've covered every single poet, six poets in the live classes and workshops and um actually seven poets because I did a workshop with Trace K Smith and the live poets live classes and workshops and all eight poets are covered poorly on the platform and you've done the work with your teacher. Don't panic. Don't second guess. You'll be well able to answer which means that you've read loads of poems. Sorry, that was the point I was making. So this is just another poem and you go in and you have a bash and the questions will be very straightforward. Again, I'll come to the unseen poetry element of paper two later on.

So, that's what you're going to do. You're going to go in and you're going to say, "Oh, there's there's Elizabeth Bishop. Hooray." You'll feel a little uh psychic earthquake across Ireland about 10 seconds after 2:00 tomorrow when people open the paper and see that she's there. I've no doubt she probably will be there. I don't go around predicting. I've never done that. I'm sure you know that. Here's my first sip of coffee of the my branded cup. Hello, Tracy. Thank you very much. Um, I'm sure she'll be there, but just make sure you know, you pick, you don't pick the poet, you pick the question. The best prepared students will go in and they'll look at the page and it will be at least I was actually thinking about this earlier on. I was thinking, okay, what happens if Elliot and um, Tracy Gay Smith came up? Would that be a disaster? No. because that means that three of the four Irish poets and um or or sorry of the four Irish poets and the three women at least three of them have come up and we've done all them. So you're again covered. So don't catastrophize. Don't what if don't oh my god like what if what this when you walk in it's very likely bishop will be there but maybe the bishop question could be a bit tricky or it might be lovely or you might read the bishop question and you might look at the let's say polomian question and say actually I like the bishop question but that Paulian question really that that I could absolutely see how to navigate my way through that so don't panic pick the question not the poet and hopefully everything will work out well for you okay so that's the overview of the paper. Uh what you can expect tomorrow? Nothing. There'll be no big surprises. There was no big surprise today, was there? Everything was lovely today, wasn't it? Exactly what we expected. And students who prepared well and worked hard and worked their way methodically through the paper and kept calm will be rewarded. And the same thing will happen tomorrow.

So now I'm going to go and I'm going to talk in a general way about the note that I've provided for you this evening and just make some comments. So what I'm going to do here is I'm going to do an overview of the approach basically telling you stuff you've already heard. Then I'm going to go all the way to the back of this note and I'm going to do about half an hour of Elizabeth Bishop if that's okay. This is go this is by the way will definitely run beyond 8:00. about half an hour of Elizabeth Bishop and then I'm going to spend about 20 minutes just talking through some of the resources of McBTH that I've given you tonight and that I would advise you to look through and be prepared for tomorrow and um comparative as well and then I'm going to answer some questions. So hopefully that will make a bit of sense. It'll definitely go over um over it's quarter 7 now. Yeah, it'll go over past 8:00. But anyway, you might stay with me. You might find it useful. I hope you do.

Okay. So, for each section tomorrow, for each section, you're taking about 60 minutes about that to choose which question you're going to um answer. Really, really important that we carefully read every word in the question and carefully u um separate out how many different parts of the question there might be. Again, I'll explain that more thoroughly as we go through the individual sections that you think about the points you're going to make and the order in which you're going to make them. Not in too much depth, and too much detail. But I would always say, how long does it take to write an essay once you're in your flow state? 45 minutes to 50 minutes should be plenty of time. And I know for some of you, you might go, "Well, I won't get a full essay written by then." But you might get a really substantial and interesting answer written in that time. I would certainly say 55 minutes is plenty of time to write a decent answer for the wellprepared student. And um if you take five to 10 minutes just to think through the question nice and calm. Think through the points you're going to make. Have a um consider the order in which you're going to make those points because coherence matters. And then off you go and the quotes will come. They'll flow.

If you find that you find it hard sometimes to recall quotes, particularly if you've been working on one section. So for example, if you start on poetry because um your poet that you wanted to come up came up and you're strong on poetry and you think, "Oh Christ, what happens to me then?" I concentrate on poetry for an hour. Then I go to McBthic or part of I can't remember any of the quotes. A little trick is to ask for some rough work paper to start the exam. They might not give it to you because they've been a bit tricky about that. But you could just do this in the front inside cover of your examination paper. That's what I used to do back in the stone age when I was doing exams. I would use the inside blank cover of the examination paper and I would just write down the trigger words for quotes and that would kind of I often wouldn't even go back to them. But it gave me this kind of psychological comfort that I was, you know, I I had them there that I I I I wasn't going to have that panic when I couldn't retrieve them that I had the the key words from the quotes and I was going to be able to and once I start thinking about one or two, the rest of them will come. That's a good piece of advice.

And then of course you're going to And then of course you're going to write your essay and your essay is going to be somewhere in around a thousand words. And again, I want to make this clear. Nobody, if you've been with me all year, you've probably you're probably going to switch off because I'm just telling you everything you already know. Nobody is going counting words. Nobody is going counting pages. Oh my goodness, this student did not write six pages. Therefore, we are not giving them a H3 or a H2 or a H1. That doesn't happen. Oh my goodness, this student I've I've counted and this student only wrote 922 words. That's not a thousand words. That doesn't happen. An essay of substance which is got enough points to demonstrate knowledge and which is engaged with the question. An essay which has um which can be reasonably done within an hour will for most students come in at around a thousand words. Some of you will go a little bit shorter, some of you will go a little bit longer. But it's about the quality of your writing, the quality of your engagement with the question, the quality of your the evidence that you provide. I want to say this though, some of you have a habit of writing very very very long essays like as in 10 12 pages. On behalf of everybody who'll be correcting the exam this summer, can I just ask you to be aware of the fact that nobody wants to read an essay that's 12 pages long. So you can even if you're really fast maybe and you could write loads, you got loads of ideas, be a little bit more methodical, a little bit more precise, a little bit more considered in the way you're writing. I think that's good advice because sometimes when people write really long essays, they tend to lack control. They tend to lack focus. They tend to lack the qualities that one rewards when one is correcting an essay.

Okay. When I say as a rule of thumb, you need to develop four to five points, four to six points in your essay. Again, it depends on the question. If it's a mcbth or a crucible question, you're probably going to develop out four to six points across the length of your essay. If it's a comparative essay, it might only be three to four points because, of course, those points take longer to tease out, especially when you're comparing texts. And if it's a poetry essay, you're going to try to deal with four to five poems. Some of you might have that subtle, which I love, that subtle ability to knit in commentary on a on another poem. When you're discussing, if you're discussing, for example, the fish and you mention something that's relevant to her style, you could like refer to questions of travel, even though you're not going to um spend a lot of time on questions of travel. just as another example of using comparative language, you know, reminiscent of her style which you see in poems like Questions of Travel when she writes. That can be a really silky um uh uh marker of um a top- end student, but right most of you are going to talk about four to five poems. Most of you are going to go poem by poem. And again, the frequently asked questions, it is perfectly fine to go poem by poem. Many, many, many students of mine in the past have gotten H1s going poem by poem. Sometimes it's nice to see an essay which goes idea by idea. But nobody's going to reward you for going idea by idea if the quality of your analysis isn't great. Nobody's going to punish you for going poem by poem if the quality of your analysis is excellent. So there's no right or wrong approach in terms of structure, but you're going to make across your MCBTH comparative and um poetry essays. You're going to develop about four to six points across those essays.

Generally, you do need to write opening paragraphs, but keep them short. Present a clear thesis. That's your response to the that the stimulus statement in the question. Every question has a stimulus statement. Every question has the instruction to discuss or to compare. And therefore, what are you discussing? You're discussing this observation about McBth. this insight into Bishop's poetry in terms of her language and her um thematic concerns, this observation about general vision and viewpoint. You're discussing that. So you're that's the thesis that you have to make sure is very clear. So in other words, get on the question at the start. We've talked all year about the marking scheme. The most important part of the marking scheme is of course P for purpose. P is the bar. So when you are on the question with a clear thesis at the start that allows you then to keep that focus and you keep that coming back to that throughout your essay.

Of course then you're going to write following my methodology. Every development paragraph will have a clear identity with a relevant point or topic sentence. You will hopefully link your paragraphs together by uh at the end of each paragraph or the start of the subsequent paragraph using a link phraseiology. You will have information in each paragraph. And again, students ask me how many quotes per paragraph. Depends on the point you're making. It depends on how you use the quotes. It depends on a number of factors. But the fact is that the best students will be able to provide textual reference when they are writing their essays. In poetry and in MACBT the in single text I should say. I apologize because some people are not doing mcbth. um in poetry and in single text the expectation is that there will be a good strong knowledge of quotation that will be used to add substance to the argument or the point of view being presented in the essay. In comparative, you can write excellent comparative essays simply by referring to key moments. But as I've maintained all year and it's why I wrote you one of these days I'm going to get my colleague Sanjie to give me I I don't really want to ask him because I know he's going to make me cry, but to give me an actual breakdown of how many students read those notes I wrote for you. I spent all I'm going to spend this summer do well I'm ahead of myself already but I spent last summer and the summer before writing these between two and a half and 5,000word notes on each individual comparative text and the idea was that you would start reading them. So by the time you got to this stage of the year you'd have a deep and you know a a substantial knowledge of the text. So those those text those notes are there. They're on the platform. If you want to have a little scan over them before you walk in tomorrow, have a little read. You might be able to pull out something. But the idea is that you will have detailed knowledge of the text. And again, don't panic if you haven't got any comparative quotes. I certainly wouldn't be going to try and learn any tonight now. But if you haven't got any, you can still do really really well by referencing key moments. But as I always um reference my former colleague, the great great Martin Kelly, an essay with some quotation. Well, all other aspects of the essay being equal will be more impressive than an essay which has none. And I think that's a fact and it was when Martin said it and I think it remains the case.

So some um evidence don't tell me the story of the play. Don't tell me the story of the poem. Don't tell me the story of your texts in comparative. I don't need you to tell me the story. I already know the story. Any evidence you provide must be provided in the context of the point you're making and then must be explained in your analysis section. I have a very vivid memory of sitting in a hall um and having a colleague of mine sitting to my right an English teacher and I remember him trying to explain to uh parents at a parent teacher meeting. this is uh a while ago. um and these parents were very nice, very engaged with their with their child's learning and wanted their child to do well, but were concerned about the fact that the child was not scoring as well in English as they were in other subjects. And I remember my colleague, I remember being really impressed by my colleague trying to explain to the parents that English is a critical thinking skills exam. You have to have the knowledge. You have to know the material. But if you don't present analytical thinking which is directed towards the question, if you don't remember to to breathe and think about how the point and the evidence you're providing is related to the question. If you don't show an ability to be thoughtful and somewhat reflective, then the quality of your work will not reach the top end. So there has to be with in your development of any point within a paragraph or within the development of a paragraph which you can do across or point across a couple of paragraphs there has to be that three or four sentences hopefully a bit more than that at the top end but three or four sentences of explanation about why the point and the evidence you're providing is relevant to the question on discussion and of course this applies to all aspects of paper two tomorrow. So that's what contextualization is.

But the final thing I want to um talk about before I get into the analysis of of Bishop and I'm sure I've lost anybody who was watching this has now stopped watching because I'm not telling you anything exciting or telling you what's coming up tomorrow and uh lying to you and saying if you do this should be grand. The fact is that this is an English exam and the fact is that if you take the time to concentrate on the quality of your expression tomorrow and that doesn't mean using big words that you don't fully understand, that's not going to help you. But it means writing sentences which are clear, which actually make sense. And one of the things that students unfortunately don't do well enough is properly punctuate their work. I was chatting to a couple of young men who did their junior cycle um exam today and one of them was beaming from ear to ear. I was chatting to him and I had done a little bit of reflection on his work recently and I pointed out to him that his actual content was really good but his punctuation was brutal and he said to me today, Paul, every capital letter, every full stop was there. And that does matter. That does matter because it affects how well you articulate your points. So don't forget in your rush to make 17 points if you don't deliver those points in language which is clear and controlled and properly punctuated that will definitely impact upon your grade. P C L M the L stands for language and within the language marks is punctuation. So just take your time, read the question carefully, write your paragraphs, and when you finish one paragraph, reread it really quickly, clean up the basic errors, and then move on. So that's a guide for what to do across your paper tomorrow in terms of each individual question.

Now, I'm going to go and talk about you all calm down. Calm down. Imagine if she doesn't give up. Sorry, I shouldn't laugh at that. We're going to talk about Elizabeth Bishop for a while. So, if you do if you have downloaded this document, this um section I'm going to go to now is all the way back and page I think it's page 54 of the document. Okay. Now, okay. So, this is a little bit of revision. There are five Bishop poems that I have always focused in on. And don't forget, there's no correct poem to choose. There's no, "Oh, Paul, if I didn't do that poem, am I am I in trouble?" No, you're not. Some of you love I've had loads of you saying to me that you love Questions of Travel. Apparently, there's some issue with the with the video on that. It's corrupted or something. Or I did it as an AB and never loaded up the B. Anyway, it doesn't matter. Some of you love In the Waiting Room, which is I get. Some of you love First Nova Scotia, which I don't know. It just it never it never grabbed me. um, some of you love at the fish houses. There's there's so many fantastic Elizabeth Bishop poems, but the poems that I generally have always taught and enjoyed teaching by Bishop and got good engagement from students are filling station, the armadillo, cestina, the fish, and the prodigal. And all I'm going to do now, and I hope you find this some way useful, is I'm going to go through a number of poems, a number of key quotes from those poems, and I'm going to explain to you why I like those quotes. and how you could use them.

Now, the most important thing to remember, the most important thing to remember is that every poetry question will have a language and a thematic element to it. So, if we look at last year's exam, this is last year's exam. There was one tricky question in last year's exam, but I'll come to that in a second. an Irish poet that the Elizabeth Bishop of last year was Ivan Boland. Everybody wanted her to come up and she came up and it was skillful use of evocative imagery used to explore complex nature of powerlessness. Really interesting broad thematic element and really easy language question language element. Sorry, I just want to Now that took me too long, old man. Now then Patrick Havana came up. Patrick Havana is discerning use of simple language. Discerning again, great word to use. Would you know what that means? What do we think about Bishop? She pays attention to detail. I'm always talking to you about precision of language. Look at that choice of verb. Look at that addition of adjective to noun. Look how that simile allows us to understand an abstract concept in an easy to in an easy an accessible fashion. Look how that um symbol adds depth and substance and rewards repeated reading. Look how the use of sibilance there creates a a hushed quiet tone which conveys the the the the mood um being felt by the poll at that moment. You understand? That's what that means. Discerning just means carefully chosen. And it was the um powerful insights into the world and the nature of into the world of nature and human nature. Really interesting. And then there was this tricky wording which would have cut a lot of people out. Parochial. You don't have to worry about that. That's just a word that's very specifically related to Patrick Kavanaaugh and the way he writes. I thought it was I'll be very clear. I thought it was unfair to put that word in the question last year, but it wouldn't have hampered a wellprepared student. Elliot's question again. Look, we have this was last year. We had clever use of imagery. So, you know, very easy. What makes it clever? There's a million things you could say there. And then it was the thematic content of his poetry. If you know Elliot, brilliant phrase. Actually, really like this question. Vivid portrayal of a morally bankrupt and futile world. A lovely, lovely, lovely question. Derek man, we'll come to in a minute. The Tracy G. Smith question last year was gorgeous. Effective use of tone. And again, tone is created by language, so by any techniques you want um to heighten a variety of thoughtprovoking insights, questions about the nature of our lives. Now look at the um instruction verb here. Discuss. Look at the instruction verb here. Discuss. Discuss. Discuss. That means write a discursive essay. That means give your opinion to that stimulus statement and talk about how your knowledge of the poetry supports the accuracy, the veracity of that stimulus statement and whether there's any aspects of that stimulus statement that you think um apply to the poetry that you've studied or indeed there might be aspects that don't apply to some of the poems and you're allowed to say that as well. We're just looking for an interesting engaging essay which which demonstrates knowledge of the sto of the material and engages with the question in a thoughtful manner.

Now last year Derek man was a big hot favorite for a lot of students and the question last year was unprecedented on Derek man had never been asked before. I hope it's never asked again. It was an interesting question. I I since this question was asked, I've had a look at it and go, "Yeah, really clever. Really clever. Really like it." But for most students, an incredibly difficult question to ask on the day of the exam when you've only got 60 minutes. um, don't did you notice that the the instruction verb here is different? And the question was to what extent do you think an audience's appreciation of man's language so there's the language element and thematic concerns there's thematic concerns element and then this was the phrase would be enhanced if his poetry was read aloud now it not an unfair question but a very tricky question that poet and I wonder does this Does this remind you of anybody? That poet is a narrative poet. That poet's poems often contain characters who speak directly to the reader. That poet's work is rhythmic. That poet uses sibilance a lot to heighten atmosphere and mood. So that poet employs techniques like enjamment and alliteration quite a lot. Now, so in other words, it was a at the top end it was a reasonable question, but it was a tough question. And again, I want to go back and talk about a co former colleague of mine who I'm a massive fan of, Lem Dingle. And I had this conversation with Lee. Lee is an unbelievably experienced teacher and um and um examiner. And we were talking one year about a set of questions and he said, "Of course, there's a variety of different questions. Some will be harder than others. That's the nature of an exam." So again, I hope when you walk in tomorrow that the poet you want to see comes up and that the poet and that the question on that poet is lovely and off you go. But be aware of the fact that it's it's been a long tradition in the exam that there would be different levels of difficulty across the poetry questions and some of the questions are a little easier. Certainly the Tracy K. Smith question, Tracy K. Smith was a poet I had prepared last year was very straightforward last year. So was the Avan Bolan question. if you had Elliott prepared. I thought that was fair. I thought the Cavana and the man questions were slightly trickier and I think that's going to happen tomorrow as well that you might get a question which is a little tricky on poet A which might make mean you have to have a look at poet B but hopefully you will have that choice.

Okay, so now let's talk about Bishop. Okay, so I I'm going to go through this really really quickly and hopefully you might find this of use. Okay, so the first quote I picked out from filling station is oil soaked, oil permeated to a disturbing overall black translucency. Be careful with that match. So what would you say if you had that quote ready? What kind of ideas could you discuss? Sorry, I'm just going to switch to this pen and then bring that up there. That's perfect. So this is when you see oil soaked, oil permeated, you have the use of repetition. This is a feature of Bishop's work you see in a lot of poems. And what you're going to say is that use of repetition in that particular case results in a sharp focused sense of place, bringing us to that place, stimulating our imagination, giving us a sense of the industrial nature of the place and adding to the poet's sense of disgust at what she finds in this filling station. When she says be disturbing, we talked about a moment ago. I hate when the pen does that. I don't know why it does it. We talked a moment ago about discerning use of language. That's a really interesting choice of adjective. She talks about the place being disturbing. And that's an example of emotive language. And if you're talk if you asked a question on Bishop's use of tone to convey her themes, well then or or her um her observations in her poetry, well that's absolutely a reference you could make in terms of just the choice of that word disturbing. The repetition of oil in oil soaked oil permeated. And both of those um examples or that quote combined helps us to understand her mood. And her mood is one of discomfort. She feels uncomfortable in this place. She feels uh uh um um um appalled by this place. And of course, this is the story of the poem that we can judge others, that we can be um what does she call herself at the end um at the end of the poem. um she refers to herself as being somewhat snooty. The quote will come to me in a second. um and um high-minded. And in fact, she realizes that these people she was looking down on were more privileged and lucky than she was. So, loads to say. I love this. Be careful with that match. Why is it keep on doing that? Drives me nuts. I love that. Be careful with that match. It's an ironic tone. See that there? She's not She doesn't mean that she thinks the whole place will go up, but that communicates her sense of unease. And it also shows that she has a sense of humor in the poem. One of the best things about this poem is this quote here. This section in the penultimate stanza. Why the extraneous plant? Why the tabaret? Why oh why the doily again? Did you notice the use of repetition again? And this time these are rhetorical questions with the repetition and what you have to do is explain the effect in the in the light of the question. So, the question will ask about the skillful use of language or the discerning use of language or the the um um um effective use of language, whatever the phrasing is. Well, you're going to say, "Well, here's a really good example of repetition and rhetorical questions." And what's the effect? Well, the effect is to build a sense of momentum as the poet approaches the moment of realization and understanding, which is of course the core reason for the poem's existence. So, this is what I'm trying to give you here. When I look at this, this is what I'm talking about. On the left hand side of the page, as we look at it, you have the kid who knows the quotes. You have the candidate who's done the work and has studied. Again, these quotes are quite long enough to learn quotes that are this long, but they they're demonstrating knowledge, but the better student will be able to demonstrate knowledge and demonstrate critical thinking. That's what's on the right hand side. Thoughtful um interaction with the the quote um reflecting on what they learn about the poet's use of language or the situation or the thematic concern the poet is addressing in the poem.

The armadillo. Amazing line from the armadillo or sequence from the armadillo. Last night, another big one fell. It splattered like an egg of fire against the cliff behind the house. I couldn't I couldn't recommend you have that quote ready more. It's a brilliant. Even if you even if you you're not even read that poem if you learned that quote. I mean look first thing it's a striking simile. So there's your simile. You want to get a sense of the impact of the fire balloon when it hit the ground. It splattered like an egg of fire. A brilliantly clever uh concrete comparison which stimulates the visual sense and gives us a gives us an idea of the drama of the scene. I didn't even mention in the note the brilliant choice of verb which is also anomatopeic and which therefore stimulates the aerial sense heightening our experience of the of the uh poem. I love that fact that the choice of comparison is a little bit quirky and unusual and therefore more memorable. And of course, what do we know about bishop? What will we mention about bishop? attention to incidental details. Look where it fell. It fell against the cliff behind the house. All these little details adding to that painterly quality of her work. When you read a bishop poem, you are brought on a journey of the imagination. And she uses this the power of language to immerse the reader in the poem and therefore to deliver her thematic concerns or her observations about life in a powerful and impactful way. Loads to say about this poet. By the way, again this reference to the big one falling. This is one of the most interesting things about Bishop. Her work has subtext and substance. Subtext means there's often a figurative meaning in her poetry. So when she's talking about the prodigal, there's more going on than just the story of the prodigal from um the New Testament. When she's talking about the fish, yeah, she's describing a fish, but there's something else going on under the surface. She's using language in a figurative manner. The same way here, the big one is the balloon. as she sits there in Sam Baya in the 1950s and sees this balloon coming down and hitting the cliff behind the house. That's what she's describing. But the phrase big one is also an illusion to artillery fire and it's an illusion to warfare because it of course is that other subtext reading of the poem especially evident because it is dedicated to the anti-war activist poet and friend of bishop uh Robert Lel. So a great quote to know.

Now this again I absolutely look at this. I'm not suggesting you learn the whole quote. I'm suggesting that you think about the use of language in this. Okay. So here she she describes the impact of the fire balloon as it falls and hits the cliff and the fire rolls down destroying the vegetation which is the habitat where wildlife live. And she says we saw the pair of owls who nest there. Don't forget there are three. She uses nature imagery in a lot of her poems. And a lot of her poems and there are three key nature images in the armadillo. One of them is the pair of owls who nest they're flying up and up. Now again remember I said about repetition up and up again capturing something of the momentum of the speed of the the panic as they they um flew up into the air that really what did we say uh the word they used um last year um not precise um sorry uh discerning, clever. There's so many things you could say there. um, sorry. uh, verb choice. Really careful, precise verb choice. Again, whirling, capturing the speed and the panic. And there you go. There's tone that would impact the tone. point as about tone. That verb choice impacts the tone, communicates the shock, the the fear felt by those creatures, but also felt by the poet at this dreadful sight that she's witnessing. The image black and white stained bright pink underneath the references, the colors appealing to the visual sense, the bright pink reference um uh communicating the suffering, the physical pain because they've been burnt, and then the anomalic shrieked. Look at all the things you can say. This is an example of the poet's use of nature imagery. The verb choices are particularly striking and convey a sense of despair felt by the poet and the sense of panic and terror experienced by the owls. This is an excellent example of figurative language offering evidence of the fact that the poet's work has subtext or substance or underlying meanings which reward repeated readings. There's so much to say on Bishop. That's why people love her. And that's why when she comes up tomorrow, you'll be sucking diesel.

Cina, I I have to speed things up here. Cina, an incredible poem. I mean, an incred again, if you haven't read it, don't worry. DON'T OH MY GOD, PAUL, I HAVEN'T DONE THESE POEMS. As I'm just trying to show you how when you're preparing, you're get up tomorrow morning and if you haven't got an exam and those of you who do, I is it engineering first thing tomorrow morning? Can't remember. Good luck. I hope it goes very well for you. But when you have the time to look over your key quotes, you're thinking about

When you're writing, what am I using this quote? I'm going to given the quote is no use. I have to be able to critically appraise the quote in the light of a question and the question is going to ask me something about the way she writes and what she writes about. So that's what I have to comment on.

Here's an example. Sina, I mean it really genuinely is like picking my favorite Beatles song or my favorite I know it's actually easy to pick my favorite Shakespeare play. Um try to pick uh what what line from Cina to pick. The whole poem is from top to bottom. Unbelievable.

But I really love birdlike. That's again another simile. The almanac. That's a symbol hovers half open above the child. Hovers above the grandmother. Again, it's a very clever simile which is vivid but surreal. I mean, you know what surreal means? I mean, not intended to be taken literally. the book isn't actually it's not Harry Potter here. But when she says that, it makes you stop and think, what what does she mean? It's hovering above them. And of course, straight away, that causes us to stop and think. It challenges us as readers to to um to to think about the meaning of that, the repetition of hovers. See there, there there it is. There's repetition emphasizes the point. And the point is that what the Aban represents and the Ammon represents grief and the loss of the father.

Somebody was saying to me that they think this is the maternal grandmother's house. I I don't it doesn't matter whether it's the maternal or paternal grandmother's house. The death of Bishop's um father set off a bomb in that family. It destroyed not only he, God help him, he died. His wife, Bishop's mother was never able to recover from the shock and the grief. the the grandparents had this child to to to look after. Bishop never was able to her life took a a an unfortunate um trajectory from the very very beginning. So the fact is that she's thinking about the impact of that loss and the grief felt as a result of that loss. And that's what the the almanac which is that wonderful symbol which connects the past, the present and the future. Don't forget that's what the almanac represents. the connection between the past, the present and the future. And here the poet is observing how you never really escape that. That's what her her observation is. And that's why it's a touching observation on the difference between the innocence of childhood and the more worldwash there adult experience of life.

The almac is only half open above the child because the child doesn't really understand grief, but she does feel the sadness in the house. the grandmother, she understands the grief because because that's why it's hovering above her and it's not half open. That means that she fully understands why she feels the way she feels at that moment at that time, but she's unable to communicate because of her social conditioning with her grandchild. Again, second image from um um um Sina with crayons. The child draws a rigid house. Love it. With a winding pathway. Then the child puts in a man with buttons like tears and shows it proudly to the grandmother. Now you talk about tone. How sad is that? Now a great word for sadness is posthos or pathos. There's a really calm measured there's not that's not a motive but the description is so vivid that it conveys a sense of sadness in a powerful and direct and immediate fashion. The scenario, which is a little scene of a child clearly trying to communicate with the grandmother, captures the broader meaning of the poem about the importance of communication and the sense of isolation that she felt as a child and the impact that had on her. The use of symbolism with the rigid house and the winding pathway, those adjective noun combinations. Again, officer's insights into her understanding of the impact her childhood experiences had in her adult life. And again, what she's observing about her life feeds through to the rest of her life. This is part of our experience that what happens when we're children stays with us and impacts upon us for in the long term. that the relationships we have as children are really formative and seinal and affect us greatly.

Those are how that's how you take a poet like Bishop whose work is so introspective. Bishop's poetry is almost always about her experience of life. It's not looking out there in the way say for example TS Elliott's world poetry is. It's looking internally and when she looks internally what does she see? She sees great sadness and she sees the sources of that sadness and that her ability to explore those um issues make her poetry relevant on a universal level. The sim the simile is there's a lovely word as well poignant which means moving but not overly emotive and this is why the poet has written in the third person not the first person. She does that for example in the prodigal as well. Um those are the two probably best examples of this uh in her in her work where she takes this kind of detached um approach so she can explore difficult emotional um moments and themes and observations in a controlled way.

Okay, hopefully you're still with me. Then we go to the fish and there's so much to say. I love this quote. His gills were breathing in the terrible oxygen. Great example of an oxymoron. What does what what why is what does that mean? It means a contra an apparently contradictory phrase that actually in a particular set of circumstances makes sense. We don't think of oxygen as being terrible. We think of oxygen as being great. It keeps us alive. How could it be terrible? Very striking again adjective noun combination. But of course for a fish which also breathes oxygen when it's out of water it can't breathe because it has it has evolved to um um extract oxygen from water not from the air as we have evolved to take it from the air. So what the poet is doing there is challenging us to think about how we have lots in common but also there are things which make us fundamentally different and I think that's a really really interesting use of symbolism.

If you wanted one example of her um attention to detail that has that effect to just draw a vivid vivid picture, I love the opening line of this quote. Grim, wet, and weapon-like. It's that W that um alliteration of the W is so powerful there. Hung five all pieces of fish line. And then this is the bit I always think like Bishop could could be pedantic, but you know, it's it's part of her style. We just say she's being detailed. forensic detail, meticulous detail, four and a wire leader with the swivel still attached. So there we go. We can see the lip. We can see it's grim, so it's not pleasant to look at. It's wet. It's weapon-like. Whatever that means, it means that you feel like under threat. And then we can see these um pieces of fish line all hanging out. Well, actually, one of them's not piece of fish line. It's a one with a wire leader. Best quote in the whole poem to fish. Difficult to pick between these two. I think I I think I'm going to vote for this one because I love it so much. It's another simile. It appears like medals. She says they're like medals. These pieces of um fish line hanging from his uh his from its lip. What? What? What do you mean like medals? And then again that simile makes you think, okay, this is really that's a really precise comparison. What do we get medals for? We get medals for being successful. How's the fish successful? Well, it was caught five times and it survived. It fought hard. It was resilient. It must have been an extreme pain to fight so hard to snap fish line. But it did succeed. What else do we get medals for? Bravery, for facing adversity and surviving adversity, for being tough. And of course, you realize, okay, this poem is not about a fish. The fish is the is the jumping off point for this poem. This poem is a is a reflection of what's valuable in life and maybe what's valuable in what she sees in herself. It's it's this poem is about how just like in filling station you can look at something and have first impressions and not be very impressed by it. In fact be be appalled by it. Just the way in filling station she was imp appalled by the the industrial pollution the oil soaked oil permeated the dirty dog in in in in the fish. She looked at the the fish and she saw the the tiny white sea lice and you know how the skin hugged down like old wallpaper and there was nothing impressive. But then if you look a bit more closely you might see things which are under the surface, things which are excuse the pun, sorry, things which are not first apparent and things which change your perception, fantastic observations about life.

But of course, the most famous line, and it has to be, I if there's a line of poetry I use almost every day of my life, it's I stared and stared and victory filled up the little rented boat. She goes on then loads of detail. And then she says, "And everything was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow." And of course, the endline, and I let the fish go. But if you just knew if you knew one of those two bits there. If you knew that bit there or you knew that bit there. I mean amazing quotation. So much to say there. Like how can victory fill up a boat? It's clearly she's writing using figurative language. She's again tone mood is established by that reference to victory. She's talking not about the boat but about herself. She's talking about how, you know, this is a moment of epiphany, a moment of understanding where in this little rented boat somewhere of no, you know, uh, you wouldn't expect anything extraordinary to happen, an extraordinary thing does happen. The repetition to emphasize the impact of the moment, the juxiposition of the boat with the um the the the um concept of victory, you know, the ordinary and extraordinary can exist in parallel with each other. And then of course, you know, the repetition, repetition, repetition. Sorry for making the old teacher joke. Rainbow, rainbow, rainbow. What do you see? A burst of color. When can you see a rainbow? When it's been raining. And when it's been raining, if you think about pathetic fallacy, did you see the rain yesterday? Even um it was bad. rain, storms, h disturbance in nature. Think about McBth. They often um symbolize struggle, pain, difficulty, hardship, right? But then the rainbow, what does that represent? How there's beauty even in difficult times because when that cloud is defracted by the sunlight, what do you see? Wow. And that's what she means there. There's a burst of color. There's a burst of joy. There's a there's a reinvigorating sense of uh life experience in that image.

They are fantastic quotes and you're going to remember them tomorrow when she comes up. If she comes up, I don't care. I mean, I'm sorry for being dismissive, but I John Dunn. Yeah, fancy him to come up. Um, he might not. I fancied um I probably I'm more in hope than than um expectation um that Jared Manny Hopkins would come up last year because I wish more people would read the older poets. But anyway, long story short, there's going to be five easy po five questions on the exam. You're going to have two or three choices. I hope. And when you go in, that's the kind of work I want you to do. I want you to present knowledge, but I want you to be analytical in the way I have been there. And there's another bit there on the prodigal, but I think I've labored the point too much. And it is just coming up to 8:00. So there you go. There's a little bit of review of Bishop. Hopefully you have a good idea of what to do when you come to your study poetry tomorrow. And can I make this very clear? There are eight poets prescribed for study. Elizabeth Bishop is one of them. If it so happens that she doesn't appear, and I'll be honest with you, I'm going to say this because I I don't do predictions, but it's the night before the exam. I would be amazed if she's not on the paper tomorrow. But if she's not on the paper tomorrow, there will be five other choices. And you're supposed to, and again, I'm not trying to upset anybody, but you're supposed to have studied four to five poets. You're supposed to be going in ready. So the examiner is not going to feel sorry for anybody, but I do expect her to come up. What I expect to happen is I expect, as I said, at least two of these guys, at least two of these guys, and at least one of those guys. And I don't care what combination it is. If you have your Irish poets ready, you're sucking diesel. In fact, if you had three of those Irish poets ready, you're probably sucking diesel for a choice. The same thing with the female poets. And I I I be so sad if John Dunn doesn't come up. I really will be. And there's your breakdown of what to do for study poetry. Is that okay? All right, we're going to keep on moving now. Don't worry, the next section won't be as long now because I need to get to some of those questions. I'll I'll I'll show you what I've got in this document um in terms of McBth and um um comparative and I'm not going through anything like the detail. I've just gone through Bishop, okay? Because there's demand for Bishop.

What I want to do now is turn to single text. And again, I know there's people probably not studying McBTE, so bear with me. This is only going to be it's going to be a very short 5 to 10 minutes chat. Okay? I just want you to think about the questions that have been asked on the Shakespeare play over the course of the last three years. Okay, so this is last year. There were two questions. There will always be two questions. There'll be two questions on McBTH. The first one asked about the duality of some of the characters. What a gorgeous question that was. I remember seeing it last year going yes in kinglier allowing them to be interpreted as both victims and persecutors creates and then this phrase guys and expect to see something like this in your leaving sir tomorrow fascinating insights into human nature in society now that's a that's a phrase that I want you to be able to deal with insights are lessons you learn human nature is the way people behave Society is the way way we function and groups. So if you think about that question, that's a character question. Who do we have in our play who you could say possesses duality? Well, let's go. You ready to go? Uh let's just pick let's pick three easy ones. Men, he's a hero who we admire. who who has our um empathy and sympathy at times, who certainly has our um who's um regarded as heroic and yet at the same time he is a butcher. He is an odious, selfish um uh murderer who abuses his power and puts his own interests above innocents uh he doesn't know and his wife who he believed who we believed he loved. There's a duality in his character and that offers us lots of insights into human nature. Then we look at Lady McBth. Look at how strong she is at the start. Look at how she refuses to be, you know, um um the stereotyped, you know, um quiet uh wife. Look at how aware of her own power she is. Look at how she's aware of her power um over her husband and how she uses that power not to make him do something he doesn't want to do but to help him do something he wants to do. And look at what she gets from it. Look at how how the joke I have to make the joke. Can I make the joke just once how she ends up riving she spends most of act one swimming in a river in Egypt. Where is she? She's in denial. Sorry, I laugh my own jokes. Like she thinks she can stop up the access and patches to remorse that no compunctious visiting of nature shake or fell purpose. When he when he tells her, this is act two. Well, when he asked, "Well, all great Neptune's oceans wash this blood clean from my hands." She says, "A little water clears of this deed. How easy is it then?" She's in denial. So, at the same time as her being strong, she's weak because she refuses to face into reality. And of course, a woman who appalled us at the start of the play with her, you know, um, uh, association with the witches hide the hither that I may pour my spirits in thine ear with her cold calculated plan to have the guards, you know, to murdered so to to hide the heinous crime who says things like look like the innocent flower but be the serpent under it. And how is it possible that we feel sorry for that woman at the end of the play? But we do. There's duality. And then think about Duncan kingship. People have Paul, what's coming up? Anybody who who thinks that there's going to be like some really kind of obvious prepped question coming up, they just don't they don't read the questions. I I'm I'm often asked, Paul, if I have these three essays ready, will it be okay? And I would look at the three essays and go, well, yeah, actually, if you knew what was in those essays, you'll have plenty of information, and all you need is information that you can adapt to a question, you know. But you think about Duncan, you think about power and kingship. Duncan, you know, has many qualities that we admire. He's he he plays praises those who serve him. He rewards those who serve him publicly. Um he um uh um inspires um service in um the nobility of Scotland. But he's also weak. He he keeps on he keeps on trusting people he shouldn't trust. He trusts Macdonald who has the multiplying villainies of nature swarming upon him. He held Carter uh close to his bosom and he trusts McBth when he, you know, even though you have to understand why he trusts McBth, the fact is that he's a weak king. So there's duality in his character. My point is there's a character question within an insights into um thematic concerns question. Very very very straightforward, lovely and broad. You get to choose whoever you want to choose. You could write about bank quote there as well. Like there are different characters. You could write about Malcolm.

The second question last year Shakespeare's exploration of the conflict between a world of justice and order and a world of chaos and cruelty. And again look reveals a series of compelling insights to the audience. Compelling. What does that mean? Fascinating, interesting, thoughtprovoking, uh um um uh uh um offer offering us a new perspective on life and humanity. That's what that's that this first part here is what everybody will focus on in a question like that. But that second part there, that's the bit that only the top top top students will engage with. What are the compelling insights? So yeah, you have to show justice and order in the play. You have to show Duncan saying no more that tain of color shall deceive or buzz him interest go pronounce his present death and with his former title greet McBth. You have to show McBth using his power like as balon as bridegroom to you know punish McDonald and unseam him and fix his head upon the battlements and you know and and um um restore um order to the kingdom. Then you have to show the chaos that comes when you know he he kills the king and there's there's chaos in nature and the the mousing owl is hunting the hawk and all this kind of stuff. But it's what it's the insights into um that that the audience get from that that are compelling. That's the hard part of the question. So the questions won't be write an essay on appearance versus reality in the play. The questions won't be you know write a question on the theme of kingship. there'll be a deeper meaning. But if you have a few little themes ready and you have your character studies ready, then you have your knowledge and then it's all about building paragraphs. And that's what I wanted to show you tonight.

Can I just just do this another couple of minutes and then um I'll move on. Um here we have you know Hamlet 2024. Look Shakespeare uses Hamlet's complex relationship. So a relationship question with Gert to explore a variety of core issues. So McBth's relationship with his wife is complex. That relationship is used by Shakespeare to explore things like power, loyalty, justice, corruption, you know, appearance and reality. There's loads of things you can say there. a lovely character-based question which rewards the thoughtful and engaged and um um that the student who can can engage in that kind of critical thinking. The second question that year, discuss the aspects of Shakespeare's play. Let's imagine it was M McBth. That makes it a surprisingly positive and hopeful drama. Gorgeous question. Gorgeous question. Now, if they were ask you on McBth, you'd have to say, well, actually, there's a lot of negativity in McBTH. There's a great man brought down by his fatal flaw. There's the murder of children. There's the presence of the supernatural in the play. There's the, you know, the the the the witches as the personification or the iteration of of evil in the world. But there's also McDuff. There's also Malcolm. There's also the fact that McBth is undone at the end. There's also a sense of morals and ethics in the play that if you follow them, there will be order and if you don't, there'll be there'll be chaos. There are positive things. So, in other words, my point is my point you can also have that that Malcolm learns from his father's mistakes. So, therefore tests McDuff in that famous scene in act four, scene three. So they're not looking they're not looking for a wrote learned regurgitation. We that that's not the game here. The game is have some knowledge of the play and you don't have to know everything and you definitely don't have to know as much as you think you do. You just have to be thoughtful in the examples that you choose and make sure that you tie those examples to the question and explain why they're relevant to the question and you're going to do great. Take the pressure, reach up now and take that pressure off your shoulders that I don't know enough. I guarantee you the vast majority of you do know enough. You're just doubting yourself. There will be a question that will allow you to write five or six good points developed properly over 150 to 200 words each where you make the point you demonstrate your knowledge of the play by referencing a key moment with quotation and then you explain how that is relevant to the question under discussion you're going to be grand.

Now, the last time McBth came up, we know the two questions that were asked. One was a McBth character question. The other one was a Lady McBth and the witch's character question. And I liked this wording, the dramatic impact of his play. I'm always asked, are there any Have you got any tips, Paul? No, I don't. But I tell you this, I I wish at some stage they asked the modern appeal question. That was very interesting. They asked the modern appeal question on the junior cycle today. um on the merchant of well sorry most students will be doing the merchant of Venice but on the Shakespeare play they asked on um on the modern relevance of Shakespeare so don't be surprised if something like that came up and then that's the easiest question that's ever been asked you know um themes which are relatable you know insights into things like power and corruption you know um the the plot the engaging opening scene the characterization the witches the dramatic ending with the battle between McBth the rip the big revelation about McDuff. I mean the language which I know you all love the use of saliloquy which officers insights into the the thoughts of the mind and mind of the main character and and and it creates a sense of intimacy between the character and the audience. Love to see that. Anyway, so done with my bet now but I just want to set this is what I've done for you tonight. Right. So if you're doing Paul, I said to you all year, English is about being well read. The fact is that the problem is that people don't read anymore. Now, you might not think that's a problem, but if you're doing an English exam, it's a problem. So if you're sitting there, if you wake up tomorrow morning at whatever time, please try and get a good night's sleep and don't overstress over this stuff. You know, everybody does the leave. Well, not every but most people do the lessard and most people survive it. But if you're going to tomorrow morning, oh McBth, oh I can't read the mind maps anymore. I've done that to death. Or do you know what you do? Sit down and just read some of these paragraphs. Look, I'm just going to show you this really quickly. Here's the question. McBth begins the ends the play as a blood killer. What changes is our perception of the justification of his actions? Gorgeous question. There's a little paragraph uh analysis of that. H there's another one. The supernatural plays a significant dramatic role. from Shakespeare's mcbth to what extent you agree with the statement there's a lovely little paragraph written in response to that there's another one mcbth begins of there that's the blood so killer one there's a few of them here sorry uh discuss the extent to which banko and mcduff play a role in making Shakespeare's mcbth an engrossing grammar minor characters talked about that recently to what extent extent in your opinion is the meaning of Shakespeare's mcbth conveyed through the symbolic use of imagery the relationship between mcbth and McBth undergo significant change during the course of the play. Discuss the reasons why, in your opinion, Shakespeare's use of a variety of horrific, bizarre, and unbelievable elements does or does not heighten the tragic intensity of his play. Shakespeare's McBth invites us to look into a world of a man driven on by ruthless ambition and tortured by regrets. And number 11, Shakespeare makes effective use of disturbing imagery in the play. Why not just sit down and read some of them? Don't don't study them. Don't even highlight them. Don't mark them up. Just read them. And what you'll see is clear points, evidence, quotation being integrated into the sentences and into the points, and then a thoughtful analysis explaining why the point is relevant to the question and the discussion. And if you read them tomorrow morning or some of them, you're not preparing a topic, but what you are doing is we're you're you're thinking about questions. You're thinking about how to paragraph. And all an essay is is a is a sequence of interconnected paragraphs. If you wrote five paragraphs each, if you developed five points across 200 words each, there's your essay. That's your essay with an opening and a closing, you're well over a thousand words. You're sucking diesel. So, that's my advice for you when it comes to McBTH.

Now, nearly there now. Nearly there. Is anybody still on? Let's go to comparative and then I'm going to go to some of those um questions that were sent in. Hopefully, we're doing okay. I haven't got my phone is actually powered down. So, what time is it? Quarter past. Okay. So, what do we know? Um, sorry, there's an error there. I just noticed 2026. Three modes are prescribed for study in 2026. Questions will be asked on all three. There's an error there as well. I copied this from a from another document that I should have checked before I did. Anyway, there's the three modes. Literary genre, general vision of viewpoint, and cultural context. So, we know there will be two questions on all three of those modes. All three. You have to answer on one mode. So, don't worry if you've only done one mode. There's going to be two questions on it. One of them will be okay. When you're writing your answers, don't forget you have your 70 mark standalone. Then you have your part A and part B. And don't forget, it's really important to write in the comparative spirits. Don't forget you have to show knowledge. Hopefully, the higher up you want to go in terms of grade outcomes, a detailed knowledge of the texts and don't tell me the story of the text. Focus in on key moments and make those key moments work in relation to your analysis. Now, what you going to do the night before? There's very little I can change, but I want to show you what I've given you. Oh, yeah. I think in comparative three to four points developed across the essay will be loads, loads if you do it properly. Now, I just want to show you what I've given you before I move on to the questions. If you're doing cultural context, my advice tonight is to look through these questions, last year's exam, the year before, and think about, okay, if those are the two questions that come up tomorrow, which one would I pick? Why would I pick it? And what would be my approach in terms of key moments? If you look at culture context questions, they'll often ask you about a particular character who I'm going to show you a couple of them. Right? So this is last year. In the case of one text you're compared of course discuss the extent to which understanding the consequences of not conforming to societal norms influences the behavior of a central character and then of course the other two compare. The second one in the case of two texts are compared of course at least two texts compare the extent to which divisions are encouraged in subtle rather than obvious ways. Now, I wouldn't have looked at that question. I would have run a I would have certainly not done that question last year because it's very hard to describe the difference between subtle and not obvious. And again, it's it's one of those questions that you can imagine discussing it with a really top- end class in class. What does that mean? But in the exam, like if you if you're if you need to get to point X and there are two roots and this is root one, we call that root A and this is route B. I know which route I'm taking. I'm taking A because A is challenging, but it's not nearly as hard as B. B is a scale the side of a cliff. A is walk up the side of a hill. Make thoughtful choices in the questions you're going to answer. And that is where sometimes, and I'm not, this won't happen to you. Don't worry. Sometimes if a student only has two texts prepared and they've only got one mode prepared, they can find themselves forced to answer a question where they don't really fully understand what the wording of the question is and they're kind of they know as they're writing it. You know that thing if you've done that yourself where you're kind of you're just you're just writing things down for the sake of them to fill up the because you're terrified of that blank space. You'll still score marks if you do that. you won't just score the marks you're looking for perhaps. So engage with the terms of the question and don't try not to pick a question if you're not 100% sure of what you're being asked. So that idea of a character who comes into who's influenced by the society that you tend to get a question like that. Look at these two from um 2024. The extent to which the level of freedom enjoyed by again a central character is determined by their social position and status. So that's the cultural context impacting upon their sense of freedom. And then in the case of at least these two texts you're compared of course compare the extent to which aspects of the culture context nurture admirable values and attitudes. And of course that's the one I would have done that but that was gorgeous was essentially was very like a general vision of viewpoint question. So I'm always saying to people to look at um you know characters who behave in a selfless and selfish way and so on. But I'm not I'm not getting into all that now. The point is when you're looking at your culture of context, make sure that you read the questions really carefully. Have your key moments prepared for tomorrow. If you have a couple of quotes that fit with what you're going to say, throw them in. If you don't, that's okay. But make sure that you're constantly comparing and contrasting as you go through. Question I'm often asked is, should I do the AB structure question or the standalone 70 mark question? That absolutely depends on the wording of the question. If you've only got two texts ready, then you can't do the AB one. But if you have three texts ready, read both questions carefully and then write in a very methodical way. What do I mean by that? Something else I've given you. If you want to do a bit of reading tonight or tomorrow, there is a cultural context question that I I never wrote. So, it's so funny. I never wrote so many sample answers in my life as I did for you guys this year. And I still get emails. Paul, can you do one on these texts or this? So, there's a lot of stuff there at the platform, but I put this one in. It's a recent one. It's um discuss the extent to which cultural context shapes the central character sense of social belonging or social exclusion in at least two texts you're prepared. Of course, it's a really really strong um sample response there. Have a read of that. It give you a sense of how to open, how to develop points. And then I've also include sorry the three texts I'm discussing there are um on the waterfront cy and where the croad sing doesn't matter what the combination of texts are. I've also then included uh sample essays on um Shaw Shank Redemption and um um small things like these which I know that um you are um studying and what I did was remember this note I made for you remember the workshops I did for you on each of these three texts. Well, what I did was I've put them into this document and it might be something that would help you revise. There's your key moments from Shaw Shank. Your key moments from um sorry that's still Shaw Shank. Small things like these. And these are key moments which apply to all the modes. And yes, before you ask, I'm not talking about it now, but if I uh if I was into Levenard, I would always pick um literary genre. It's my favorite mode, but very few people answer on it. I'm not mentioning it tonight. So, that might help you. Have a read of that and it might just trigger a few um ideas. There's some key moments broken down with quotes and it might just one of them might pop into your head tomorrow when you're writing the essay and you might think, "God, I'm glad I attended that class last night." And there are some sample answers on the comparative section. Okay. So, that's it. That's it. I'm done there.

Now, going through the paper. Last thing I want to do really quickly is talk about unseen poetry. As I said already, if you My advice for unseen poetry is tonight, tomorrow morning, go and have a look at the last three years unseen poetry questions. They're almost identical. The only thing to remember with unseen poetry is this. For every five marks available, just like today with your questions, they're expecting a point in a separate and distinct paragraph. So, separate point, separate paragraph. For a 10 mark question, I don't need an opening paragraph. I need an opening sentence and then a point developed with evidence and then uh sorry two points developed with evidence two separate paragraphs. If you're answering the 20 mark question, four points is there any advantage to answering the the 10 10 as opposed to the 20? It depends on the wording of the question. I have looked through the last I don't know 10 years of of unseen poetry recently and it's been random whether or not I thought the AB structure was easier than 20 mark. So read both questions, make um thoughtful choices, and you'll be fine. The unseen poetry, the average score in unseen poetry is is 11 out of um uh 20. It goes wrong for almost everybody. But don't forget, if it goes wrong, it's worth 5%. Even if you got 10 out of 20, which is not great, you still only drop two and a half%. So see it in that context.

Okay, now 20 past. One last thing before we go. I'm going to deal with some of these. I next year I'm going to tell students that I'm not accepting any questions uh let's say two weeks before the exam because I've been bombarded with questions from people which have been well difficult for me to answer I suppose because they've there people I think are having a bit of a worry try not to worry is the best thing I can say but I'm going to talk about some of these here and I'm there they'll be very very quick responses so there was a question came in about comparative essay structure How to structure the 30 40 mark versus the 70 mark comparative. How many comparisons per CC mode gender social class religion? Now first of all with the 30 mark question and the 30 40 mark question you're going to make three points. Three points in part A, three paragraphs, maybe a little introduction but three paragraphs in part A. Look at the samples I've given you and you're going to develop three points in part B as well. You don't have to make more points in part B. The reason that part B is worth more marks is because you have to compare two texts. The instruction verb compare is in the part B question. It is not in the part A question. And the same thing with the standalone 70 mark essay. For me, if you're talking about three texts, it takes two paragraphs at least to develop a point across those texts. And um that means that you're going to have plenty to say. When you say how many comparisons per CC mode, and then you talk about gender, social class, religion, you have to make those decisions on the day. You have to look at the question and you have to see what parts of your preparation you can use to fashion an interesting and thorough response to the task. If that's not the answer you're looking for, I'm afraid I can't be any more specific than that. The second question, so I'm just going to Sorry, give me a second. So the second question, poetry depth versus breadth. Is it better to do four poems in depth with three to five quotes each or cram in a fifth more shallowly? Is three poets, four poems, 12 quotes enough? Each each enough? I I'll deal with this part here. That's it should be. But the maths say that the three poets that you're preparing might not come up. Now, if the three poets are all Irish poets are all women, then you're I'd be amazed if they don't come up. If the three poets are Bishop, Meian, and Aquillin, I would be amazed if they don't come up. But I don't doesn't matter what tree you've prepared. Three mathematically doesn't guarantee you anything. If you had four poems per poet and 12 quotes, you know, that that seems like adequate preparation. I would want a little bit more preparation. And then is it better to do four poems in depth or cram in a fifth? Again, you're not going to try to cram anything in. If your time management is allowing you to deal with four poems and to really go into them and explain why they're relevant to the question of the discussion, you should be fine. It's not ideal. It's nice to be able to show a broader depth of of um analysis, but I know colleagues who say you could absolutely do brilliantly with just three poems. So, the magic number is four. Five is a bonus. Six, as I say, you can glance off. I mentioned that earlier on but I wouldn't go into any detail on six poems. Kingship content McBth how much an Edward the Confessor is one paragraph of McDuff acceptable in a kingship essay. Of course it is. and Edward confessor you could we if you're writing about kingship McBth you would have to mention him but very very brief reference to him perhaps as a um as as I've showed you on the kingship mind map which I gave you a long time ago as a representative of what kingship should be as a paragon of kingship as somebody who rules not in his own interests but in the interests of his people but it would be a glancing reference nothing more than that hopefully that makes sense number four how much to write per question the single most repeated topic word count essay length including one student on assist of tech are three to four long body paragraphs and a short intro enough I don't like long paragraphs I like par I think what you're doing is developing a point over four um um you're developing four to five points per essay students need to as I've said all year they that that could be an opening paragraph a closing paragraph and four to five paragraphs but you can split your paragraphs into AB sections where you know you discuss your point in that paragraph across those two interlinking paragraphs and that's fine. You're talking about writing around most for most students they'll write a full length essay in the answer booklet tomorrow. You'll have noticed today that your answers you were filling up more pages in the booklet than you would because the booklet has margins on both sides and the lines are wider. Most of you will be writing a thousand words in about five to five and a half pages. But just develop out your points methodically. You don't have to write loads of points. As I said at the start, given the essay, somewhere between four and six points in any essay which are properly teased out with evidence and contextualization will absolutely be sufficient. We don't need you to to tell us everything you know. We need you be to be selective to pick points and pick evidence that you think is relevant and explain to us why it's relevant. And if you can show us those critical thinking skills and you can present those critical thinking skills in a coherent and organized fashion and in language which is easy to read, you are going to score well in your leave insert exam day strategy. What order to tackle the paper? Can a strong paper two rescue a weak paper one? Last minute comparative tips start with unseen poetry. Loads packed in there. So I've already talked about what order to tackle the paper, but I will say this. Whatever section you're on, label it. So if you're if you're say you're starting with studied poetry at the top of the page write studied poetry and then if you're answering on Elizabeth Bishop skip a line and write Elizabeth Bishop. You don't have to write the question out, but let the exam, okay, this is study taught Elizabeth Bishop. And then when you're finished, even if you finish on Bishop and it's only the top line of a new page, go to a new page for the next section. Comparative cultural context question number one, a don't write the question out, but label it. So make it easy for the examiner. Unseen poetry. Question two, um um um uh sing or single text. MacBet question one. Just label it. Make it easy for the examiner to navigate your paper. You have no idea how much of a difference that can make. It's a really, really tiring thing to correct a leave insert. um strong paper two rescue a weak paper one. Like, I'm not going to get into that. Statistically speaking, there's usually very little difference between how students score across paper one and paper two. Last bit of comparative tips. I've already talked about the comparative. um start with unsafe poetry. Up to you. I actually usually advise people especially if they struggle with time management to do unseen poetry last because you know it's easy and won't be too challenging. McBTE quoting for kingship. um quote the three kings and minor characters, Bo Banko and Ross. Should the intro contain a quote? Do you mark line breaks with a dash inside the quote? I'll do that backwards. You don't need to mark the line breaks. I do that because I'm finicky about Shakespeare, but you don't need to do that. Should the intro contain a quote? No, it doesn't have to. It's nice sometimes to start with a quote, which shows that you've got a real good strong focus on the question, and I can make a really strong first impression. The problem sometimes when students start with a quote or put a quote in their opening paragraph is they start analyzing the quote and that's not what an opening paragraph's job is. An opening paragraph is not to be analytical is to introduce. Sometimes if you open with a quote if

You put the quote in blank space at the top of the page and then reference it in the opening as a way of delivering your thesis that can be impactful. Um, so for kingship quote the three kings and minor characters. I presume what you mean there is so you have a spread of quotes describing like from Macbeth, you know, as king, from Malcolm at the end when he becomes king, or when he's even in act four, scene three, when he's, um, in the position to become king, from Duncan. Yeah, I'd have, I'd have quotes across those three, and then if you're talking about the descriptions of, um, Macbeth's behavior as king from minor characters, that's not a bad idea as well. I just recommend you read my kingship mind map. I think it's pretty comprehensive.

Uh, comparative referencing conventions, name the specific. Oh, yeah. So, if you're doing Young Skins, I like, I've, I've taught that this year. Um, so the, the, the, the short story, um, the two short stories from Young Skins that I did with my guys are The Clancy Kid and, um, Calm with Horses. So, yeah, when you're writing down the name of the text, you write down Young Skins and then in brackets, Calm with Horses, and then CH would be what you're referring to.

Um, is it okay to abbreviate titles of poems? Yes, it is. Um, so you write the full title out as you would with the comparative, as you, when you come to it, you know, and then so to Nile Woods and to Nile Woods and Zen Oskaya. If you wrote to Nile Woods, dashed, or sorry, a dot dot dot with an ellipses and just put NWXO, that's absolutely fine to do. It's absolutely fine to abbreviate the names of poems. Again, if your essay is really good, nobody cares. If the essay is a lot of summary that doesn't answer the question, doesn't make any difference whether you write the names of the poems out fully or analyze. These are, in other words, this is small, uh, beer, uh, in terms of what to focus on.

Adapting learned material to a question, especially for poetry, I don't see there's any harmony. You saw tonight, I was giving you some things you could say about certain quotes. I think it's always good to be prepared and I think it's always good to have to be adaptable. So when you walk in, as long as you're not answering a question that you haven't been asked, some students, they wrote learned essays, which I've always railed against. First of all, it goes against absolutely everything I want to be as an educator without sounding too pretentious, but also it doesn't work most of the time. Wrote learning essays because if you wrote learn something, it's like, you know, wrote learning French phrases in German or French, and you go to Germany or France, you can't understand what anybody's saying, and therefore you can't use that material. If you understand the language, you can use it. So if you understand, you know, if you've got stock phrases you can say about a particular line and you think that you've, you can adapt that regardless of a question, absolutely do. That's why I did that Elizabeth Bishop work with you earlier on.

Coherence in a comparative essay. If I compare a moment from the start of Shawshank to the end of Small Things, and after this I compare a moment from the start of Small Things to the middle of Shawshank, will my coherence mark be affected? I was wondering, said Small Things will no longer be in chronological order. So you don't have to talk about your texts in chronological order. Just be really, really clear. What point am I making in this paragraph? So if I'm making a point about, for example, the general vision or viewpoint, and I'm, and I'm off, and I'm talking about moments of hope, and a moment of hope which impacts upon a general vision, viewpoint, and in Small Things Like These, that's the, you know, Bill's immense bravery in taking Sarah Redmond out of the, um, the convict at the end of Small Things Like These, whereas in Shawshank, it might be the rooftop scene, which is quite early on in that text, you're talking about hope there. It doesn't matter whether where you've taken that key moment from.

Um, that sounds a little bit muddled thinking there, but, you know, I can see what you're, what you're doing, but you don't have to go chronological. Just have clear points and clear references. And then these questions, which I, I've said I deal with, but what's likely to come up? Is Meion likely to be on tomorrow? Again, I don't know. She is a, I, I think I said it all year. I think Meion and Aquillaon have got really strong chances. They're both women and they're both Irish, and that they're two of the big categories. Best to prepare the Irish poets, the female poets. It's up to you. I, I'm not going to talk about that. Um, I've already talked about my Macbeth questions. Will my prepared topics be enough? Again, I've discussed this already. I like, how am I supposed to know the answer to that question? Um, if you have three really strong topics prepared in Macbeth, it should suggest that you have a deep knowledge of the play. And if you have a deep knowledge of the play, then you are ready. It's just how you then take your time. Be considerate. Don't lash into your answer. Think about how you can reach into that knowledge that you have. You've done good work. You've learned three essays. You have three topics thoroughly prepared right now. Pillar that knowledge and make it work to the specifics of the question tomorrow, and then you'll be fine. Like the idea that you're, you're praying for a topic to come up, forget that. Trust that you've done loads of work that if you know three topics really well, you've got excellent knowledge of the play there, and then be adaptable and make it fit with the question and take from all three of the prepared topics that you've got to fit with whatever is asked tomorrow. Half the topics this late, only did half, half the generation viewpoint, any point studying now. I definitely wouldn't start anything this late. If you've got another, um, comparative mode ready, you're sucking diesel tomorrow. Barely two poets learned, how to be ready by tomorrow. If you've barely got two poets, if you've got two poets learned, I would, so I would just focus in on those two poets. And I would hope statistically speaking, you've probably got a, what is it, about 30, 40% chance that one of those two will come up. So like, you're not, you're not in massive trouble. And as I said before, I've been doing this job 30 years, and I don't think I've ever met a student who's told me, Paul, um, I wasn't able, there wasn't one poem I couldn't answer on the leave insert.

Now, folks, it is 35 minutes past 8. This task was supposed to, was scheduled to go between seven and eight. I hope that I've settled some nerves. I want to again say absolutely well done today with paper one. Put that now to the back of your mind. Get a good night's sleep tonight. Make sure that you are nice and calm. Don't start worrying about what might happen tomorrow. You're going to walk in. The paper's going to look exactly like this one. Exactly like the, you're going to have two Macbeth questions. One of them will be nice, at least. I mean, I get given out to sometimes that Paul, both questions were nice, and I didn't know which one to pick. How was that my fault? You're going to have, you're guaranteed there'll be two questions on literary genre, two on cultural context, two on generation of viewpoint. There'll be one of them that will work to your prepared material. You write slowly and methodically and thoughtfully. And don't forget to contextualize your points. The study poem, the unseen poetry will be straightforward. They will ask you to analyze the language in the poem, and there will be at least two female poets, at least two Irish poets, and I, I would be very, very disappointed if neither John Donne. I hope John Donne or Elliot, one of the dogs be on the paper.

So, folks, that's it. I hope you found the work we did tonight in some way useful. Again, I want to wish you the very best of luck tomorrow. Don't catastrophize. Concentrate on the positives. Use some of the notes that I included in this document tonight. Maybe do a bit of reading on Macbeth. Maybe read a couple of those sample answers I've given you on comparative. Maybe come over to Elizabeth Bishop, um, quotes that I prepared with you tonight, and you will do great. Okay. Thank you very much, and good evening.