The most IMPORTANT thing I can tell you at this point.

Are you all listening?

Good.

I'm kinda hoping that you all are, because this is really important.

It is quite simple...

There are TWO things that you can devote your time to when you are revising:

1. Learning and revising FACTS
2 Learning and revising SKILLS

Pathway TWO is BY FAR the best thing that you can be doing at this point. If you try to revise FACTS about the texts, then it will take you a LONG time, and you will be replying on Specific texts being relevant in the exam.

However, if you revise and work on your ABILITY TO INTERPRET ANY SECTION OF A TEXT, then you will go into the exam with the TOOLS you need to face ANY question.

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The problem that we often face in Literature classes is that students are often far too PARANOID to write down the best answers they are capable of.

You might, for example, look at a text and think one of the following things:

"That looks like it could be a metaphor for something else, but I'm not sure."

"That part of the text reminds me of another part of the text, but I'm not sure if there's a link."

"The way that character is described seems really unusual, but I think I might have just misunderstood or read it wrong."

"The style (or form) of this part of the text is totally different from what I'm used to in the rest of the text, but I'm not sure if it was deliberate or not."

"That word really stood out to me as shocking/important/interesting, but I might just be focussing on it too much."

"That part of the narrative is confusing or difficult to understand, but it can't be deliberate. I'm probably just being a bit thick."

Guess what??? This is what I mean by being BRAVE. You are LITERATURE STUDENTS. This means that, when you read a text, you see things that most people DO NOT.

The most important thing that I can teach you is to HAVE CONFIDENCE, BE BRAVE and MAKE THESE POINTS!

You will gain far more marks if you do this, even if you get the odd thing wrong, than if you play it safe, and don't try to impress.

Trust me.

NW