Critical Study of English itself? Too dangerous? (1 Viewer)

[Metaflower]

I'm doing the HSC next, year, so I have ages to prepare my major work, I know, but I have a lot of major works to do and want to get them all finished with enough time to spare when crunch time comes. My question is - can an analysis be essentially a philosophical argument with literary textual evidence? My idea (and i don't know whether all English teachers will shoot me), is to do an analysis of English itself. The subject.

My conclusion at the moment, though I doubt it will be what I put in the final draft, is that English as a subject is insufficient for what they are trying to teach us with it, and a subject like philosophy would be a better mandatory subject. The only problem is it would have to be VERY hsc specific, and I'd essentially be using studies and the syllabus itself as texts.

Is this not English enough? Please let me know.

 

[Captain Gh3y]

Genius!

You could use the Syllabus, as a text. In fact it's a text that pretends it's not a text but rather some sort of absolute source of what's important to know.

But you probably won't be allowed to

 

[live.fast]

if ur goin 2 do dat, u cud critique the actual exemplar or top range essays, since BOS is using dem as the example for people actually havin learnt their stuff - if u cant critique dem, den it means u dont believe wat ur sayin here is rite in da 1st placee

plus its easier to do a critique of other essays, and then talk about implications in terms of learnin or wateva, den to try and..wat, analyse the syllabus itself as a text? less dodgy diz way loll GL either way!

 

[Metaflower]

That's my question Captain Gh3y - will I be allowed to analyse the subject itself, and is it "English" enough, because I will be doing it in terms of the implications on what we learn and how we subsequently view texts. Because the syllabus is a text - my English class is a text!

 

[nandayo]

Good idea, but I don't think "they" would like it. I was reading in one of the notes from the marker's centre a few years back that they really don't enjoy any critical analysis that is 'overly ambitious' and I reckon this would fall under that category. That's my five cents.

 

[Metaflower]

Ouch. I figured "they" might not like it, hence "dangerous", but "overly ambitious"? Do you know what year the notes were from nandayo? I'll go hunting for them myself...

 

[nandayo]

I think maybe last year's? I forget. I don't personally think it's that over ambitious, but someone who marks by the syllabus surely would, wouldn't they? I don't know - I spose if you did it really well it might cancel out the fact that you're essentially critiquing a system which they've kind of...based a small part of their existence on.

 

[dreamee]

Ask yourself how willing you are to critique the people who will be marking you?

If you think You'd be happy taking the risk... then I wish you good luck with all my heart.

Personally think that if you can pull it off well, it could be a big hit. =D

 

[konstantine']

i remember reading a critique on language from a showcase from a few years ago or something. hrmmm, i think its a bit risky and it depends if you can realy pull it off!