Creative writing - NLCS v HABS v SAHS v Channing v SHHS

Independent Schools as an alternative to Grammar

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Daogroupie
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Re: Creative writing - NLCS v HABS v SAHS v Channing v SHHS

Post by Daogroupie »

Thank you. What board do they use for AS? Do they take the ICGSE Lang in 10 and AS Lit in 11?
shootmenow
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Re: Creative writing - NLCS v HABS v SAHS v Channing v SHHS

Post by shootmenow »

Not sure which board. I'll get back to you on that. They do (yr 10) iGCSE Lang AND AS Lit. I have a DS in yr 11 who is doing just iGCSE for both and I think it's really unchallenging. Most of the material is what I did in 7th, 8th and 9th grade at school in the US. Don't get me started on the way English is taught in this country. It drives me to despair and all those kids heading off to American Universities probably get a shock when they discover how limited their literary diet has been.
vas
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Re: Creative writing - NLCS v HABS v SAHS v Channing v SHHS

Post by vas »

I never thought English in Yr 11 as basic! My son is in Yr 11, and he certainly finds it anything but unchallenging. I agree with DG that there are so many books that can be done for GCSE instead of teaching AS, besides I doubt if the girls would have read and understood the depth of it all before yr 10. Analysing and understanding these books (ie Lord of the flies, Mice & men etc) in my opinion is anything but low level, neither did I know that people from the US had a better command in English! (Especially when they change simple spellings simpler eg colour/color)

My observations may not be objective as my command in languages is rather poor.
Daogroupie
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Re: Creative writing - NLCS v HABS v SAHS v Channing v SHHS

Post by Daogroupie »

So what do they do in Y11 then? I certainly don't see the UK as behind in English. I lived in the US for 6 years and was very underwhelmed by their literary skills but perhaps I was with the Maths crowd. DG
shootmenow
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Re: Creative writing - NLCS v HABS v SAHS v Channing v SHHS

Post by shootmenow »

The iGCSE and AS are done over two years.
I think the approach to teaching literature is very different. In a good US state school, you read a huge number of books and do proper reasearch papers (footnotes, bibliographies, inclusion of literary criticism and primary sources, historical context etc.). In addition to poetry and prose, I read Call Of The Wild, To Kill a Mocking Bird, The Red Pony, My Antonia, A Tale of Two Cities,Mid Summer Night's Dream and many other books in 7th grade. I don't remember having difficulty understanding them.
I don't like the way that my DCs do only a few works a year and beat them to death. It turns art into a chore. It takes away any possibility of original opinion because it must be regurgitated verbatim on an exam. It's about making connections where none exist or were intended by the author.
There is so much to be gained by reading broadly. My DD is doing this for herself - has decided to read 'the classics' in addition to what is assigned. She probably isn't in the minority as part of the rational for dropping the Lit GCSE was that NLCS found that girls had read most of the books on the syllabus independently. I think the approach to literature in the UK is consistent with the approach to education as a whole; a very narrow,decreasing and intense focus. The US system is about breadth. IMO, that is what makes someone 'well read'. My husband went to Oxbridge but has read so few of the great works of English Literature (never mind American) that it astounds me.
Amber
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Re: Creative writing - NLCS v HABS v SAHS v Channing v SHHS

Post by Amber »

shootmenow wrote: I don't like the way that my DCs do only a few works a year and beat them to death. It turns art into a chore. It takes away any possibility of original opinion because it must be regurgitated verbatim on an exam. It's about making connections where none exist or were intended by the author....I think the approach to literature in the UK is consistent with the approach to education as a whole; a very narrow,decreasing and intense focus. .
Not a popular view but I so so agree with you. The early specialisation of our young people is one reason why the UK education system is starting to be less favourably regarded worldwide (which may or may not matter, but it certainly does to the Government, who nevertheless continue to pursue relentlessly their policies encouraging it). I still maintain there is little or no merit in comparing sweeping themes in literature across centuries and genres ( for example Victorian love poetry with a play written in the 12th century, designed to be performed) at least until one is so widely read in world literature that one is able to do so independently and meaningfully. Very few 15 year olds would fall into this category in my view.

It's interesting that some schools are trying to find creative ways round all this. With the increasing autonomy of academies, I wonder (but frankly doubt) whether we might see a little more innovation.
shootmenow
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Re: Creative writing - NLCS v HABS v SAHS v Channing v SHHS

Post by shootmenow »

Also the reason NLCS is doing IB. Stendahl, Tolstoy et al. They should read ALL of the greats.
shootmenow
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Re: Creative writing - NLCS v HABS v SAHS v Channing v SHHS

Post by shootmenow »

And can I just add-
Why don't they do Beowulf, The Canterbury Tales or Mort D'Arthur and Chansons Roland? How can you understand the development of narrative? Or how English became English?
Amber
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Re: Creative writing - NLCS v HABS v SAHS v Channing v SHHS

Post by Amber »

shootmenow wrote:And can I just add-
Why don't they do Beowulf, The Canterbury Tales or Mort D'Arthur and Chansons Roland? How can you understand the development of narrative? Or how English became English?
There is an unspoken and rarely acknowledged view that these are too difficult for most children. You will see that expressed as 'not relevant'. Most literature studied at GCSE is now not even whole texts, but predictable snippets, reduced to a kind of essence. I taught 'Of Mice and Men' last year and we literally gave the students the quotes to use as 'evidence' in their essays (subjects pre-defined). We did this not out of a passionate belief that this was the way to get them to appreciate literature but because we knew what they needed to do to pass the exam and keep the school from league-table disaster. That is a very long way from Beowulf.
CarpeDiem
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Re: Creative writing - NLCS v HABS v SAHS v Channing v SHHS

Post by CarpeDiem »

I really do despair with the way English is taught nowadays. My very average state primary class (attended 1970-77) read the the red pony at 8/9 years old and studied many poets like Walter de La Mare et al too. When my son took his GCSE English lit exam he was only required to study certain chapters of the set books and he was not encouraged to read the whole book because of this. I insisted on him reading whole books but he could easily have got away with not doing which I think is unacceptable.
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