Would you drop English? (3 Viewers)

[BLIT2014]

I'm torn wether I'd drop English or not. I mean for the amount of work I need to put into it it seems less then a lot of my other subjects,for the same mark.

 

[enoilgam]

Would you drop English if the board allows us? And why ?

Without a doubt because I couldnt stand english and because I didnt think it was relevant. I see the arguments as to why english is important and I do see how the analytical skills are important, but to be frank, you get that from other subjects as well. The current english course lacks relevance I think - analysing texts has a place, but I'd like to see a greater emphasis placed on teaching writing skills and techniques. Having done a few group assignments at uni, the amount of people who cannot write a basic paragraph boggles the mind and to me suggests a failure of the compulsory course which is supposed to teach these skills.

 

[anomalousdecay]

Without a doubt because I couldnt stand english and because I didnt think it was relevant. I see the arguments as to why english is important and I do see how the analytical skills are important, but to be frank, you get that from other subjects as well. The current english course lacks relevance I think - analysing texts has a place, but I'd like to see a greater emphasis placed on teaching writing skills and techniques. Having done a few group assignments at uni, the amount of people who cannot write a basic paragraph boggles the mind and to me suggests a failure of the compulsory course which is supposed to teach these skills.

Same thoughts I have always had on the matter.

Its not a matter of being compulsory or not (it should definitely be compulsory).

Rather its a question of changing the syllabus to something completely different.

And then they can have the analysis of texts as an extension or something or a little portion (maybe half of the course).

 

[britaker]

lol hell no, coming 1st in Adv and EE2 and in the top 10 for EE1

 

[Hopp]

Hellllll no. My ATAR is most dependent upon my English subjects.

 

[teridax]

Nope, lots of people seem to have the misconception that Eng marking is more subjective. IMO maths working out and eng marking are pretty much the same thing. You see how it's structured, if it meets the criteria then you get a tick.

Besides, Eng is great in that there's no real ans, if you can prove it, it's right. C:

nope

 

[mreditor16]

Tbh I actually enjoyed my classes, liked my teacher, found the content relatively interesting. But ofc writing essays and refining them and memorising them was the bitch.

So at the end of the day,




it's a no from me.

 

[teridax]

fuck yes

even though i enjoy the concepts learnt in class, the way it's marked is total fucking bullshit

it all comes down to what colour shirt the marker is wearing on exam day and their inherent bias

in maths, i can put effort and know that i can do well, but for english effort =/= reward

i can totally understand why many students struggle with such a subjective subject, and i feel sorry for them that it has to be english that pulls their ATAR down

 

[Green Yoda]

without a doubt...Shakespeare can smd

 

[Shadowdude]

wtf is this thread


Personally, English as a subject is poorly motivated. Why are we analysing texts? Why do we care about contextual issues? Why do we care about quality?

If these questions were answered before we got into the study of the text - then it'd be a lot more enjoyable. Looking at contextual issues and how they shape the literature of the time is interesting. Seeing how attitudes and cultures affect the production and values of a work is also interesting. Determining questions of value, and why a text can be seen as "good" and another "bad" is even more interesting.

 

[Shadowdude]

Yes, but we can't blame them for having an attitude that English is crap. It's attributed to some teachers being plain horrible (don't ignore this fact) and hence the students won't be bothered to learn and study for such a contrived subject. Also, it has to do with the subjective nature, so there will be discrepancies, therefore some students will feel unfairly treated despite putting in effort because frankly, work =/= marks.

It's entirely luck based.

Some teachers are horrible, but that's not restricted to English. I'm tutoring a student for maths now, and her class' section on probability can be summarised as, "You have the textbook, do it yourself at home".

In general, the more work you put in, the higher your mark. To rubbish an entire subject because some students are the exception is silly. I've gotten great marks by massive fluke, and put in the hard yards and didn't go so well - again, it's not restricted to English.

Even though HSC English Standard/Advanced is a bit of a crock, hopefully they learn how to communicate themselves better through writing - which is a major point of taking the subject. I think if they can fix the motivation issue, more students would enjoy it. Unfortunately the way they test it and the way they teach it, it basically begs for contrived answers and memorisation.


And I really think that this whole "subjectivity" thing is very overhyped. It's as if any essay is put through a random number generator to determine the mark. A Band 6 essay and a Band 3 essay is very different. A Band 5 essay and a Band 6 essay are quite similar.

When you read an essay, say an HSC one, you read over it and you say, "Is this in the range 0-3, 4-6, 7-9, 10-12 or 13-15?" And then based on quality of argument, sentence structure and all that - the "vibe" of the essay - you award a mark on that. That's why they have marking criteria.

 

[Librah]

Yes

 

[dirty_ink]

Nope

 

[Ekman]

Yes of course.

Reason: As hawkrider mentioned earlier, the love for English usually stems from primary years, and it depends on how well it is taught during those times (for example, I began hating English ever since I was in year 2, due to bad teaching, and I never really got over that hate). Not to forget the subjectivity the markers have when marking exams, it really demoralises people who try their best to do well and like the subject but end up being spat in the face by subjective markers.

 

[pomsky]

LOL sorry if someone's mentioned this earlier, couldn't be bothered to read through all the posts cos (ironically) I've got maths HW to do.

No, not because I love it (being the lazy person I am, I feel the subject takes too much work lol) but I reckon it's probably one of the better courses to prep you for writing uni essays cos from personal experience, it's the subject with the most rigorous teaching and marking in it. And unless you're familiar with the particular style of writing, I don't think it's something you can learn, or perfect, overnight.

As for the content, I couldn't care less about it, but I reckon the skills the course endorses have their own merit. (Talking about stuff like analysing obscure texts with abstract ideas, understanding it and then communicating it through paper etc. I know we value "critical thinking" as a skill and as much as I love maths and the sciences, I don't think English can totally discounted as a contributing factor to developing such skills either.) + I don't think it's a particularly bad thing to familiarise ourselves with the English language, whether it's by literature and creative media analysis or otherwise.

and ahahaha so awks if that ^ was grammatically incorrect cos have both ears plugged in and cannot multitask looool. pls dun judge lawl.

 

[pomsky]

LOL sorry if someone's mentioned this earlier, couldn't be bothered to read through all the posts cos (ironically) I've got maths HW to do.

No, not because I love it (being the lazy person I am, I feel the subject takes too much work lol) but I reckon it's probably one of the better courses to prep you for writing uni essays cos from personal experience, it's the subject with the most rigorous teaching and marking in it. And unless you're familiar with the particular style of writing, I don't think it's something you can learn, or perfect, overnight.

As for the content, I couldn't care less about it, but I reckon the skills the course endorses have their own merit. (Talking about stuff like analysing obscure texts with abstract ideas, understanding it and then communicating it through paper etc. I know we value "critical thinking" as a skill and as much as I love maths and the sciences, I don't think English can totally discounted as a contributing factor to developing such skills either.) + I don't think it's a particularly bad thing to familiarise ourselves with the English language, whether it's by literature and creative media analysis or otherwise.

and ahahaha so awks if that ^ was grammatically incorrect cos have both ears plugged in and cannot multitask looool. pls dun judge.

Just like to disagree with Ekman and everybody else (pretty sure a good chunk of the majority) who thinks English is a purely subjective subject. Tbh, it really isn't. If you look at the exemplar essay/ creative writing, you'll note that they all have more or less the same type of 'good' writing (generalising cos I don't wanna list all the features lolol.) As long as your writing is somewhat like theirs (that is, if you include the relevant information and proper structure ), there's no way you can't or won't achieve the top band.

Too often I see people operating on the mentality that to excel in a "subjective" subject, they will need to be naturally talented in it. Ironically, that way of thinking is what limits them. If you actually think about it, the subject needs to be grounded with something in order for it to be exam-able- and in doing so, it becomes objective. And just like every other subject, if you work hard and study smart you'll excel in it. Yes, good teaching does come into play, but it really isn't just for English. If you rely on your shitty math/ science/ history teacher for everything, you'll get shitty math/ science/ history results. If you rely on your shitty english teacher for everything, you'll get shitty english results. Doesn't mean you can't self-learn/ get external help.

 

[InteGrand]

I've often thought to myself I'd like to see a sort of test for how subjective English is. Pick a random sample n English essays to get marked (where n is determined beforehand, the larger the better statistically, though less feasible), and get several English teachers to mark each one independently (getting them all from your school to mark essays from your school will mean this is a test for subjectivity of marking at your school). Then, for each essay , calculate: the mean mark , the standard deviation , and then the coefficient of variation . Then, look at the mean CV , the standard deviation of the CV's , and the CV of the CV's over all n essays.

Then compare these statistics with those of similar tests conducted on other HSC subjects, e.g. get HSC Physics markers to mark ~20 marks worth of extended responses, or get HSC Modern History markers to mark essays etc.

Then we could get some notion of how subject English actually may be compared to other subjects. (I'm guessing the CV's for maths should be very low, for example. In general, the higher the CV's, the greater the subjectivity.)

 

[BlueGas]

I've often thought to myself I'd like to see a sort of test for how subjective English is. Pick a random sample n English essays to get marked (where n is determined beforehand, the larger the better statistically, though less feasible), and get several English teachers to mark each one independently (getting them all from your school to mark essays from your school will mean this is a test for subjectivity of marking at your school). Then, for each essay , calculate: the mean mark , the standard deviation , and then the coefficient of variation . Then, look at the mean CV , the standard deviation of the CV's , and the CV of the CV's over all n essays.

Then compare these statistics with those of similar tests conducted on other HSC subjects, e.g. get HSC Physics markers to mark ~20 marks worth of extended responses, or get HSC Modern History markers to mark essays etc.

Then we could get some notion of how subject English actually may be compared to other subjects. (I'm guessing the CV's for maths should be very low, for example. In general, the higher the CV's, the greater the subjectivity.)

So... would you drop English?

 

[pomsky]

I've often thought to myself I'd like to see a sort of test for how subjective English is. Pick a random sample n English essays to get marked (where n is determined beforehand, the larger the better statistically, though less feasible), and get several English teachers to mark each one independently (getting them all from your school to mark essays from your school will mean this is a test for subjectivity of marking at your school). Then, for each essay , calculate: the mean mark , the standard deviation , and then the coefficient of variation . Then, look at the mean CV , the standard deviation of the CV's , and the CV of the CV's over all n essays.

Then compare these statistics with those of similar tests conducted on other HSC subjects, e.g. get HSC Physics markers to mark ~20 marks worth of extended responses, or get HSC Modern History markers to mark essays etc.

Then we could get some notion of how subject English actually may be compared to other subjects. (I'm guessing the CV's for maths should be very low, for example. In general, the higher the CV's, the greater the subjectivity.)

The math genius has arrived haha x)
I can't understand the maths behind it, but I've always wondered what a test like that would yield. I'm guessing it'll be quite surprising to say the least- like how it was pretty weird to find that chemistry was marked 'holistically' as opposed to following a marking criteria haha.

So if the teacher didn't feel too holistic that day.


gg.

 

[Shadowdude]

1. Okay, maybe it's spread across all subjects, but I would argue that this issue of poor quality teachers is most evident in English (and maybe maths). It's bloody frustrating that some teachers cannot explain Shakespearean language or even show how to write a solid essay. Lots of students would feel rightfully frustrated if their English experiences were horrible. But I do agree that the incompetence of some teachers in the education industry is astounding. And in my opinion, the English course needs to be restructured as it focuses too much on literature.

2. To be honest, all English has taught me is to write like a pretentious wanker, unlike my other humanities which actually teach you how to write with substance as opposed to smokes and mirrors. Personally, I get that memorisation is an issue, but BOSTES implicitly asks for generic essays - so I can understand why people do so to get the marks - there's no incentive to develop critical thinking as the notion of originality being rewarded is total BS. Everyone writes the same thing, it's only "original" if they improve the phrasing to make it sound nice and thus attain the marks.

Shakespearean language is quite hard. There's so many subtle nuances that were completely lost on me until I did the Shakespeare course at university - admittedly, 99% of these subtle nuances were sexual jokes probably not appropriate at all for a high school student, but still.

I think English should be restructured yes, I think that junior level English in secondary school should continue on with grammar and spelling and stuff, for instance I never learned in school when to use a semi-colon or a hyphen/dash. And then slowly transition into literature studies. But instead of what we have now, I think there should be only three modules, the existing Module A which looks at context and their role in the shaping of texts, the existing Module B but with a focus more on the quality of the work, and something like the area of study which looks at texts and what they have to say about a certain thing.

One of my favourite university-level English courses was one I did last semester, where we looked at texts and how they represented animals, monsters and machines. My final essay for that could be on anything I wanted, so I wrote an essay on the figure of the mad scientist and what three texts had to say about the "overreaching" scientist.

If English at high school could be more open, not just a token effort with 'related texts' or whatever it's called, it'd be so much better. They'd actually foster the learning they want to achieve.

3. Well no, each marker has their own preference for the way a student writes; marking criteria can only do so much. That's why I'm affirming that the subjectivity in English is not over-hyped - every person has their inherent bias towards things, since we're human. That's why I like my maths and science as I have more control over how I go because it's objective as you can never have such certainty in English on how you went.

For your third point, a good essay is a good essay. It's pretty obvious, as others have said.