How to do abosolutely amazin in GR11 English

[xxxSepirothxxx]

I've been wanting to do ENG3U this summer, as a summer school course, so I could take an extra elective for next year. Since English is my weakest subject thus far, I was wondering if anybody could provide some insight into what I would need to know for 3U and 4U English.

[[Gandalf]]

Read as many (non-technical) books as you can until then. English isn't really as knowledge based as it is skills based.

[Insectoid]

Why don't we start with your thread title? "How to do absolutely amazing in Gr. 11 English."

Once you can manage that, we'll work on the hard stuff.

[Zren]

Why is it your weakest subject. In the past, what was the cause of your low marks? What do you struggle with?

[xxxSepirothxxx]

Insectoid @ Fri Oct 12, 2012 4:31 pm wrote:

Why don't we start with your thread title? "How to do absolutely amazing in Gr. 11 English."
Once you can manage that, we'll work on the hard stuff.

Zren @ Fri Oct 12, 2012 4:45 pm wrote:

Why is it your weakest subject. In the past, what was the cause of your low marks? What do you struggle with?

Writing fiction stories & the doing the essays are what I consider to be my weak points. I have yet to receive any of my English tests back, so I'm not as sure how I fare on those reading tests (the ones with a short article or story, with questions in succession). I'm sure how I would explain how it is my weakest subject, but I do exceedingly better in other subjects.

[ecookman]

Insectoid @ Fri Oct 12, 2012 4:31 pm wrote:

Why don't we start with your thread title? "How to do absolutely amazing in Gr. 11 English."

Once you can manage that, we'll work on the hard stuff.

Classic Insectoid buzzkill - you should feel honoured.

For me what has helped is picking up grammar exercise books and going through practice drills. It really has helped me with my formal writing.

[mirhagk]

if writing is your weakest point, then do like gandalf said and read some non-technical books. You can also write some short stories for fun, and keep writing some over and over until you get good at it.

I'm not sure how to prepare you for essay writing because there are 2 types of essays. 1st type is something that sounds really pretty and makes persuasive emotional-style arguments, and count on manipulating facts. Then they are technical essays which stick to just the facts, and only logical deduce conclusions, don't make messed up assumptions, and only argue with logic and facts. The first type of essay is generally what schools want you to do (newspaper style essays) while if you keep going in academic subjects the 2nd type of essay is MUCH more valuable (thesis papers, published research results etc).

If you want to practice for the first type of essay I guess just try writing things like newspaper articles or opinion pieces. Also read through other's essays, political speeches etc.

[Insectoid]

It might be worth mentioning that the essay formats taught in high school are never used outside of high school. Ever.

[mirhagk]

They really need to teach useful English in English class, what they do teach you you don't use nearly as much as the stuff they don't teach you. Grade 12 English literally doesn't even teach you anything, it has the same curriculum, they could do something useful instead.

[Insectoid]

Holy crap, did mirhagk and I just agree on something?

[evildaddy911]

it appears he did. the secondary school curriculum is just dumb. three of my teachers have said (in the first month alone) that what we were learning that day, we will probably never use outside of a school

[mirhagk]

Just suffer through english, make sure you get good enough to get into uni, and put all this nonsense behind.

[[Gandalf]]

How to do absolutely amazing in English... Don't have that attitude. ^

[mirhagk]

That's true lol, you gotta have a good attitude to do well in things. I didn't do well in English in grade 12, and it was because I didn't care.

[Aange10]

Maybe I'm an exception; I have exceeding grades in every course, including English, and I don't care about any of them. And no, I don't cheat. Want to know my secret?

Learn the content. All you have to do is listen / read. If you don't get it, learn it on your own time. More times than not it literally takes twenty minutes to sit down and learn something. Once you've learned something, just confirm what you've learned by doing the work.

If you care about the class, that's great; You will obtain a substantial amount of knowledge on the subject and you'll be able to move into more complex studies later - given you enjoy the subject much - and if you do not feel an attachment to your new knowledge then don't use it. If you ever need to use what you've learned again, it will be easier to relearn it. Don't waste time trying to remember every single thing.