Thursday 8 September 2011

Jobs / news / congratulations etc

Just a quick post to let you know how pleased I am with the reading effort you all put in over the break - special mentions also go to McEwen and Clamenza for scoring 1st and 2nd places in the test, respectively (particularly in the light of some fairly steep marking - I'm looking at you, Armstrong). As you've read the whole text, the next couple of weeks will be fairly straightforward.

I'll give you a photocopied work pack on Tuesday (13th), and I'll expect it in and complete by Thursday 22nd - it's really important that this is done well, as you'll need it for your revision at the end of the year. I certainly don't expect you to print out the whole pack (I'll have a mob of angry parents / Mrs Rogers chasing me if you do) - you can simply replace or stick in any pages that you might have completed previously. I'll give you a lesson and a homework to get it all done, which I reckon will be plenty.

Also helpful when studying the novel are various study guides that are floating about - the Sparknotes ones are pretty good, and so are the thebestnotes.com ones. You can also check out the Novelguide notes, too.

Whilst the above guides have the benefit of being free, I find reading off a monitor hurts the peepers after a while, so if you fancy busting out a few pounds (although do look at the used prices; you often only have to pay the postage), you might want to check out one of the many printed study guides that are available - Yorknotes, Letts and Cliffs notes are all worth a look - but remember, you only need one (ideally different from one that your mate might have got, so you can swap if needs be). I haven't seen this one (although it has fairly decent reviews), and this one might be worth a look if you are gunning for your A*. I'm going to be brutally honest here - kids who read study guides (either books or off t'interweb) get better marks than kids who don't. Simple as. In any case, I'm guessing the majority of you will be in higher education in a year from now, so it won't do you any harm to start getting used to the idea of reading around a subject to better understand it.

Any questions / comments / large cheques etc - send them to the usual address.

Parents - my email has now changed; you can contact me at d.nevin@southnottinghamshireacademy.org

Cheers!

No comments:

Post a Comment