If I use facebook, I’m only going to be exposed to posts by my friends and family. [...]]]> Filter bubbles exist when we are fed only the info that we want to see and read, the views and content that interests us and corresponds with our view of the world.

If I use facebook, I’m only going to be exposed to posts by my friends and family. So let’s say they’ve all got bad grammar? Then I’m going to end up drowning in a sea of sentence fragments, poor spelling and indiscriminate mis-use of your / you’re / there / their / they’re. The danger is that this becomes so ‘normal’ to me that eventually I won’t even notice it. Perhaps it’s ALWAYS been normal to me, in which case good grammar, and an emphasis on the importance of good grammar at school will baffle me completely.

Or let’s say I want to search for something on the internet. If I happen to be logged in to gmail or youtube when I do my search, when I google something I’ll get personalised results. Instead of just getting the results which are most relevant to my search terms, the search will also take into account my location, previous search terms, the websites I most frequently visit etc.

The problem with filter bubbles in general is that we are less likely to be exposed to viewpoints which disagree with our view of the world, with our sense of ‘normal’.

Filter bubbles aren’t new and they aren’t limited to the internet. My sister works in theatre in London and joked on a visit home recently that every single person she works with reads the Guardian. This means she gets a very liberal view of the world both from the people she works with (they’re all in theatre daahling so theoretically they ‘all’ support funding for the arts, gay marriage, a woman’s right to choose and wealth taxes) and from what she reads (the Guardian writers are pretty much the same as the theatre buffs in their political viewpoint). To balance out her world view, she’s started buying the Telegraph just so she can read opposing opinions to her own (she can’t quite bring herself to buy the Daily Mail, bless her. For more on newspapers and their political stance see here and here).

But let me repeat, in case you missed it the first time: filter bubbles aren’t new. Every child grows up in a household which is in itself a filter bubble. If I grow up surrounded by books and people who enjoy reading, then to me that’s normal. If I overhear and/or participate in conversations where the speakers use sophisticated vocabulary and express their opinions without fear of censure or ridicule, just a healthy level of debate, then that will also seem ‘normal’ to me. If healthy eating and participation in sport are a given in my household, then in most (but not all) cases, the kids who emerge from this household will also place a value on reading, conversation, healthy eating and sport (at least that’s what I’m hoping for in the case of my lil daughter!).

I had the depressing experience recently where we were reading an article in class and I asked the students to highlight any words they didn’t understand and promised I’d explain them once we finished reading the article. I ended up feeling like I was translating a passage of French. I wasn’t angry with my students; it’s not their fault if their vocabulary is limited, any more than it’s my fault if I’m not a trained ballet dancer. They live in a digital era where reading levels are plummeting and where casual spoken language (texting, youtube, facebook) dominates.

But it scared me. A lot. Our entire education system is built on a foundation which demands the ability to read, understand, interpret and respond to complex written data and information. Writing is more complex than speech, it demands greater sophistication of thought and expression. Without the precise words to capture, express and interrogate our reality, we cannot truly understand the world. And we certainly cannot succeed in the Leaving Cert.

Anyway, all of this brings me in a roundabout way to this warning. This website is in itself a filter bubble. It gives you one teacher’s perspective on Leaving Cert English. If you assimilated everything that’s on this site I have no doubt that it would assist you in achieving a good grade in Leaving Cert English.

However, I do worry sometimes when I overhear students’ conversations at school. If you’ll allow me to grossly over-generalise for a moment, students these days are OBSESSED with the ‘right’ way of approaching an exam question. They are OBSESSED with the idea that there is one revision book, or one website, or one disgustingly overpriced completely passive Easter revision course which will magically lead them to the mythical A1 standard sample answer for every possible exam question that could possibly come up in every single one of their subjects and all they need to do is learn them all off by heart and before you know it they have 600 points and a prestigious college course and a job for life and all the happiness in the universe guaranteed for life.

This is an illusion.

Take for example the topics I’ve covered for Macbeth – his soliloquies, his relationship with his wife, Kingship, imagery and the various outside influences on Macbeth’s decisions and behaviour. However, if you look at the list of common questions which come up on Macbeth, you’ll notice you also need to be able to verbalise your levels of sympathy for Macbeth and for his wife Lady Macbeth; you need to understand Banquo’s character and his role as a foil to Macbeth; you must have a detailed knowledge of the role and function of the Witches in the drama; which in itself leads into a more general discussion of the theme of the supernatural in the play; you may be asked to discuss good versus evil or any variation of that issue including your interpretation of the depiction of human beings offered by Shakespeare or a focus purely on the good characters who oppose Macbeth; you’ve got the theme of appearance vs reality; the relevance of the play to a modern audience and the question of what makes the entire play (or just one individual scene) compelling drama.

These are just the questions which have come up previously on Macbeth. We might see a new question we’ve never seen before. I’m not telling you this to freak you out – if anything I think the depth and scope of what you’re supposed to know is mind-boggling to the extent of being laughable, almost absurd. And if you are freaking out reading this, read this right now to get some perspective. With all due respect it’s only the leaving cert, it’s not life or death.

So don’t rely exclusively on what I’ve covered on the site. I’ve tried to be as exhaustive as I can, particularly for Paper 1, but I can’t predict the paper. I don’t have any spidey-tingly-feeling-in-my-bones about what might come up. I never offer predictions nor should you ever listen to them. If you cut the course and take short cuts because time and desperation demand it, that’s your decision, and hopefully it will work out for you.

But if it bites you on the ass,don’t cast around for people to blame, as thousands of students did last year when neither Heaney nor Plath were on the paper. Be pissed off if a poet you like doesn’t come up, but don’t be ‘outraged’ or ‘shocked’ or ‘appalled’.

And if you’re on twitter or facebook the night before the exams and people are offering predictions, remember, that is your filter bubble and you need to remember that when people tell you that they know what’s coming up, like all filter bubblers, they are just telling you what you want to hear rather, than something which is true.

PROBLEM 1 = Mis-read the question

SOLUTION = Underline the key words in the question. Still confused? Re-write the question in [...]]]> Following our mocks, I made a list of avoidable errors that I come across again and again and again. Here are some of them, alongside some links and suggestions to help you sort them out.

PROBLEM 1 = Mis-read the question

SOLUTION = Underline the key words in the question. Still confused? Re-write the question in your own words to clarify what you’re being asked. If you still don’t understand the question, try to avoid it. Pick a different one if possible.

PROBLEM 2 = mis-use apostrophes

SOLUTION =  learn these simple rules.  Use apostrophes:

1. to show that something BELONGS to someone (possessive nouns)

2. to show a letter is missing because you squished 2 words together (contraction)

NEVER USE APOSTROPHES TO MAKE A WORD PLURAL! If the word is already plural, add the apostrophe after the s (no need to have two s’s in a row!). eg “The three dogs’ bowls were empty” is better than “The three dogs’s bowls were empty”

NEVER USE APOSTROPHES WITH HIS / HERS / ITS – ownership is already clear e.g. “It’s not his, it’s hers” – here it’s means it is

e.g. “Its only difficulty as an organisation is that it’s too trusting” – here the difficulty belongs to it (the organisation) but for ITS you don’t need to indicate possession. Only use an apostrophe with its is when it means “It is” e.g. “it’s raining”

To practice using apostrophes correctly, click here http://www.chompchomp.com/exercises.htm#Apostrophes

PROBLEM 3 = spelling errors

SOLUTION = Create a personal dictionary. List all the words you have misspelled over the last two years. Write each word out ten times correctly.

It can help to break the word into sections.
If a word is particularly difficult, you can come up with a mnemonic (a memory trigger) to help you remember it. eg. Accommodation – two c’s, two m’s, three o’s– ooo, Carla Colley and Mark Madden shared accommodation in the hotel!

Get someone to test your spellings or try this method below to test yourself.  You’ll need a blank sheet of paper to test your spelling.  LOOK – SAY – COVER – WRITE – CHECK

For more tips check out www.spellzone.com

PROBLEM 4 = poor punctuation and sentence control leading to run-on lines, sentence fragments, comma splices and fused sentences.

SOLUTION = this is hard to fix.

A sentence expresses a complete thought. It contains a subject, a verb and a main clause (central idea in the sentence). Sentences can be simple or complex but you CANNOT keep adding on extra sub-clauses endlessly (using “and” “because” “as well as”). These afterthoughts tell the reader that you cannot control your sentences and create the impression that you don’t really know what you’re trying to say.

Too many short sentences will make your writing seem childish.
Too many long complex sentences in a row make it hard to follow (particularly when writing a speech). Practice identifying fragments at www.chompchomp.com

If you ask a question, include a ? mark. You need to understand the difference between using a comma (please pause here) and using a full stop (this idea is over).

PROBLEM 5 = lack of flow

SOLUTION = practice using these connectives in your writing

• To qualify a statement you’ve just made use: although, unless, except, despite, yet, nonetheless.
• To show cause and effect: because, therefore, thus, as a result, stemming from this, as a direct consequence
• To emphasise: above all, particularly, obviously, clearly
• To illustrate: for example, including, such as, for instance, in this case
• To compare / contrast: similarly, likewise, equally, instead of, by contrast
• To add an idea: also, as well as, moreover, additionally, furthermore
• To indicate time: firstly, secondly, lastly, next, then, finally, meanwhile, whenever, until, immediately, afterwards, later, earlier
• To indicate position: within, outside, throughout, beyond, among, beneath, furthermore, in the foreground, in the background, left of centre, right of centre, the focus is on…
• To sum up: finally, let me finish by saying, lastly, in conclusion, ultimately

PROBLEM 6 = floating quotes

SOLUTION = integrate quotes. Watch this video  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6sTsl4ovgM or follow the rules below which derive from the video:

METHOD 1:Introduce the quotation with a statement and a colon – Jones uses statistics to convince us that smoking is a major health concern: “78% of smokers die prematurely”. NEVER insert a quotation as a stand-alone sentence.

METHOD 2: Introduce the quotation with the writer’s name: As Jones observes, “78% of smokers die prematurely”. (Or instead of observes use describes/ illustrates / argues)

METHOD 3: Blend the quote into your own sentence (this is the best method) – It is profoundly shocking to think that I could be one of the “78% of smokers [who] die prematurely” and reading this article has certainly made me rethink my habits.

PROBLEM 7 = casual language, cliches and slang. 

Those who don’t read a lot suffer from this affliction and frequently struggle to use language appropriate to the written word. Often it sounds like they are ‘speaking’ to you from the page.

This results in long slang-infested often incoherent sentences, with several sub-clauses, a lack of full stops and other punctuation and ideas which are added on at the last minute and sometimes other vague stuff which make the sentence hard to follow and it becomes very irritating for the reader. You get the idea!

SOLUTION = First of all, just be aware that there’s a difference between spoken and written language. Or as the UEFAP website expresses it: “Written language is relatively more complex than spoken language. Written language has longer words, it is lexically more dense and it has a more varied vocabulary. Academic writing is relatively formal. In general this means that in an essay you should avoid colloquial words and expressions”.

Look at the way language changes depending on the context by doing these exercises: http://www.uefap.com/writing/feature/intro/intro.htm and try this one http://www.uefap.com/writing/feature/featfram.htm to practice formal writing.

Ask yourself what the IMPACT of each quote is on you:

• does it help you to understand a character better?
• does it create a particular atmosphere? (taking the place of special effects – lighting, fake blood, smoke machine, sound effects?)
• does it emphasise one of the major themes in the play? how does it add to your understanding of this theme?
• is the language / image itself just really clever, striking, memorable, profound, dramatic, disturbing, upsetting, ironic?

Obviously in an exam you’d only have the opportunity to discuss a fraction of the quotes I’ve included below. I’ve got scene references for some but not all of them!

Supernatural:

1. “Fair is foul and foul is fair | Hover through the fog and filthy air” (augmenting earlier references to thunder, lightening and rain).
2. “Though his bark cannot be lost | Yet it shall be tempest tossed” Witches
3. “You should be women and yet your beards forbid me to interpret that you are so” Banquo
4. “If you can look into the seeds of time | and say which grain will go and which will not | Speak to me then” Banquo
5. “Is this a dagger which I see before me | the handle towards my hand?“
6. “Come, you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,  And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full  of direst cruelty! Make thick my blood; stop up the access and passage to remorse……… ………… Come, thick night, and pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell, That my keen knife see not the wound it makes, Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark, To cry ‘Hold, hold!‘ “ All of this is part of Lady Macbeth’s soliloquy in response to the news that Duncan will be paying a visit to her home (nice lady eh?)
7.  ”Never shake thy gory locks at me” Macbeth to Banquo’s ghost.
8. “This is the very painting of your fear” Lady Macbeth to her husband.
9. “Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble”. Witches (4.1.1)

Images of disguise and concealment (appearance vs reality):

1. “Look like the innocent flower but be the serpent under’t” Lady Macbeth, 1, 5
2. “False face must hide what the false heart doth know” Macbeth, 1,7
3. “There’s daggers in men’s smiles. The near in blood, the nearer bloody” Donalbain 2, 3.
4. Macbeth tells the murderers he hires to kill Banquo and Fleance that he is
5. “Masking the business from the common eye for sundry weighty reasons” 3,1
6. He tells Lady Macbeth that they must “make our faces vizards to our hearts, disguising what they are” 3,2
7. He admits “there’s not a one of them but in his house I keep a servant fee’d” 3,4
8. The mask comes off when he resolves “henceforth the very firstlings of my heart shall be the firstlings of my hand” 4,1

Clothing Imagery:

1. “The Thane of Cawdor lives: why do you dress me in borrowed robes?” Macbeth, 1,3
2. “I have bought Golden opinions from all sorts of people, Which would be worn now in their newest gloss, Not cast aside so soon” Macbeth, 1,7
3. “Was the hope drunk wherein you dressed yourself?” Lady Macbeth to Macbeth 1,7
4. “Adieu! Lest our old robes sit easier than our new” Macduff to Ross, 2,4
5. “Now does he fell his title hang loose about him, like a giant’s robe upon a dwarfish thief” Angus, 5,2

Blood Imagery:

1. “What bloody man is that?” Duncan, 1,3
2. “He unseamed him from the nave to th’ chops and fixed his head upon our battlements” Injured soldier 1,3
3. “I’ll gild the faces of the grooms withal, for it must seem their guilt” Lady Macbeth
4. “Will all great Neptune’s oceans wash clear this blood from my hand? No this my hand will rather the multitudinous seas incarnadine making the green one red” Macbeth
5. “A little water clears us of this deed” Lady Macbeth
6. “Here lay Duncan, his silver skin laced with his golden blood” Macbeth, ironically, explaining his murder of the grooms.
7. “Blood will have blood” Macbeth
8. “I am in blood stepp’d in so far that should I wade no more, returning were as tedious as go o’er” Macbeth
9. “My soul is too much charged with blood of thine already” Macbeth
10. “Out out damned spot” Lady Macbeth
11. “Who would have thought the old man to have so much blood in him?” Lady Macbeth
12. “All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand” Lady Macbeth

di|DUM  di|DUM     di|DUM  di|Dum  di|DUM

Now it’s time to turn my attention to tone. The first thing that springs to mind for most people [...]]]> In a recent blog post I commented that for me, the major difference between mood and atmosphere comes down to this: a mood exists primarily within a person; an atmosphere exists primarily in a place.

Now it’s time to turn my attention to tone. The first thing that springs to mind for most people is ‘tone of voice’. You can tell how a person is feeling by the way they say something, how loud or soft their voice is, how fast or slow they speak, by the words they choose and of course if you’re in the same room as the speaker you tune in to their body language and facial expression as well.

Tone in writing is a more complicated beast.

You are trying to figure out the writer’s attitude and feelings towards the topic at hand but the clues to figuring out how they feel are often more subtle than spoken language and the reader must establish the tone without the help of body language, facial expressions, volume and speed of delivery.

So let’s do a little experiment.

Imagine the school receives a phone-call from a parent complaining about some aspect of my teaching. I decide to reply in writing. I have almost endless options open to me in terms of the tone I adopt when I reply – and for the record I don’t buy into the notion that text messages inherently have no tone. They can capture your feelings if you are careful enough when you compose them!

Now look at several potential replies below. To protect the anonymity of my fictional accuser I’ll just refer to them as ‘parent’!

1. Dear Parent,

I wish to apologise unreservedly for accusing your daughter of cheating. I realise that she is a diligent student who simply wished to have the ‘right’ answer, hence her decision to pass off internet research as her own work. However, if she wishes to improve her mastery of this subject and her overall literacy, in future she will need to use this material to write her own responses rather than relying entirely on other people’s expertise.

Sincerely,

Ms. O’Connor

OR

2. Dear Parent,

I am writing in response to your recent complaint that I unfairly accused your daughter of cheating. To be precise I accused your daughter of plagiarism as the homework assignment she submitted two weeks late was copied word for word off the internet. All it takes is a simple google search with one sentence of such plagiarised material to reveal the truth, which is that your daughter did in fact cheat. I suggest in future you spend more time assisting your daughter with her homework and less time phoning our school with baseless complaints which are a waste of my time.

Yours etc,

Ms. O’Connor

OR

3. Dear Parent,

Following your recent communication with school management about your daughter’s homework, I wish to arrange a meeting with you, your daughter and if possible your partner to discuss this issue. I realise that not everyone understands the seriousness of plagiarism but I believe this is an important issue that all of our students need to understand, particularly in this era of ubiquitous content freely available online. 

Yours faithfully,

Ms. O’Connor

OR

4. Dear Parent,

Following consultation with my union and their legal representatives, I will not be responding personally to your complaint about my teaching. However, my solicitor will be in contact shortly in relation to slanderous comments made by you in the comments section of our school’s website and on facebook.

I look forward to resolving this matter fully,

Ms. O’Connor

Now ask yourself, what tone have I adopted in each fake letter? Belligerent? Rude? Arrogant? Apologetic? Conciliatory? Defensive? Aggressive? Patronising? Are some of the letters a combination of different tones? Why did I use different methods of signing off in each example? If this really did happen, which tone should I adopt?

Being aware of your tone is really really important in life, no matter who you are or what job you do. If you come across as arrogant and belligerent people simply won’t like you as a person. On the other hand if you assume that you are always the one in the wrong when conflict arises then people may simply walk all over you!

The important thing is to tune in to your own tone particularly when writing because once it’s published you can’t take it back. Be self-aware and perhaps even get someone else to look over your work before submitting it into the public domain. The fact is other people do make judgements about you based on the tone you adopt both in spoken and written communication so the better you become at identifying and controlling tone the better.

Here’s a link to a very good powerpoint with various examples of different tones in writing:

http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/sharon_elin-305283-authors-tone-u1l3r-education-ppt-powerpoint/

Mother says “don’t look at the sun, it will blind you”

so I don’t look at her.

I orbit the past, a seething mass of nuclear energy.

Sunspots float before my mind:

swimming in the pool, splashing in the sea, going to the library

eating Easter chocolate nests, plum [...]]]> Mother

Evelyn O’Connor

Mother says “don’t look at the sun, it will blind you”

so I don’t look at her.

I orbit the past, a seething mass of nuclear energy.

Sunspots float before my mind:

swimming in the pool, splashing in the sea, going to the library

eating Easter chocolate nests, plum puddings at Christmas,

gingerbread men and

now and then éclairs

oozing

cream

down

greedy

fingers.

Once I saw a solar eclipse

your edges suddenly clear and crisp,

burning strength into our bones.

But it was over all to quickly

and my vision blurred.

Then I confess I found you lost

convinced we had gobbled you up

so many of us always wanting, needing,

asking, pleading, bleeding dry your store of selfless love.

Yet you never burn out, you never burn up.

Doubtless we could search to the ends of the earth

for something you would not do for us

but why waste time?

The sun keeps shining and never will die.