S5 Subject Perspective

Miss Jane Murphy Principal Teacher English

THE ENGLISH HIGHER

COURSE A Brief Outline

Higher English

• Pupils must study a Scottish Text

• Scottish Textual Analysis replaces one essay

• Pupils must pass internal assessments in Listening and

Talking

• The Reading paper in the exam does not have questions

on the second passage, only a comparison question

• The Folio is even more important

Higher

• Same structure as National 5 English

• More opportunities for pupils to gain marks through

learning information – Scottish Set Text

• Weighting to Folio 30%

• National 5 English- higher attainment than Intermediate 2

• In MCHS 2016 English Nat 5: 133/201 = Grade A

[66%]

• Confidence but not complacency

The Big Jump

National 5 Exam:

One Close Reading [Reading for Understanding, Analysis and Evaluation]

One Critical Essay and one Scottish Set Text Analysis including final 8 mark question

Higher Exam

Two Close Reading passages.

There is a final question on both passages in which the pupil must compare the ideas and opinions of the two passages.

One Critical Essay and one Scottish Set Text Analysis including final 10 mark question

What’s so different about Higher ?

• It’s harder

• The passages used for Close Reading are longer, harder

and often taken from broadsheet newspapers.

• The standard of essay is expected to be more fluent and

accurate in expression and more detailed in content.

• The Set Text questions will be more challenging.

• More depth and complexity needed in talk and folio work.

• Time is shorter – 2 terms not 2 years!

Course Assessments

• 1. Reading for U A E.

• (Pass/Fail)

• 2. Listening.

• (Pass/Fail)

• 3. Writing – one piece from folio.

• (Pass/Fail)

• 4. Talk Assessment.

• (Pass/Fail)

• All of the above will be internally assessed:

• Listening – June / Aug-Sept

• Talk – teacher sets date to suit course work

• Writing – folio dates set by teacher .

• Reading assessment : week commencing 5th December 2016 • •

Reading Skills – how are they developed?

• Through reading!

• Reading non- fiction (adult level)

• Quality journalism

• Biographies

• Travel writing

• Reading Literature (not children’s literature)

• Novels, short stories, poems, plays

What can I do to help?

• Encourage your young person to read non-fiction

• Point out an interesting article in a newspaper e.g. opinion column, comment type articles

• Have a discussion about the ideas and devices used by the writer

• Encourage your young person to read fiction – more than a book a year!

Help - my child doesn’t read!

• Reading on-line instead of on paper

• Newspaper links, speech links, reviews of music,

sport, films…

• Comment based articles are best

• What’s topical? What’s current? Follow their

interests. Discuss topics with them.

http://www.independent.co.uk/

You can study for the Reading Exam !

• Types of questions – learn formulas for answering them

• Standard uses of punctuation – learn exactly how to express these

• Practice in these types of questions is available in the text books we use as well as past papers.

• Detailed revision and practice for Reading skills are on our GLOW page.

• Practice Questions and target setting sheets are also available on GLOW and the school website.

Reading for Understanding, Analysis and Evaluation

The best way to improve your skills for in reading for Understanding, Analysis and Evaluation is to

read as much as possible.

You should read at least one article a week and answer the following questions for each article.

Your article should come from a broadsheet newspaper such as The Times, The Guardian, The

Telegraph, The Scotsman or The Herald.

It won’t help you very much to read the section on the news. Rather, you should read articles where

columnists are giving their opinion, or a piece of travel writing or an article in which someone is

giving their personal opinion.

Understanding – What the writer is saying; his or her ideas.

1. Write down the heading of the article.

2. Write down any subheadings contained in the article.

3. Before you read, write down what you expect the article to be about and what you expect

to find out.

4. Once you have read the article, bullet point the writer’s main ideas. Look at topic sentences

to help you to do this. The writer is likely to develop an idea over several paragraphs so you

won’t be looking for a main idea for every single paragraph.

5. Try to work out the meaning of any words you don’t know. Then look them up nad write

down their definitions.

Higher Close Reading - Target Setting

Look at some of the suggestions below. Be honest with yourself, what could you realistically do to help you improve your

grades? Tick the strategies that you are going to use.

Set myself a target to read good quality novels, for example a novel every 2 weeks or 3 novels between

October and Christmas.

Keep a vocabulary notebook and decide that I are going to use it to write down new words. Allocate time in

my study timetable to look over my notebook.

Read a certain number of opinion articles from broadsheet newspapers each week. Every day would be

ideal but three a week as part of my study programme would help.

As well as reading newspaper articles, try to improve my understanding by: writing down the main idea of

each paragraph in the article; summarising the main point of the article; identifying and looking up

unfamiliar words.; identifying and thinking about how linking sentences work in the passage.

As well as reading newspaper articles, try to improve my analysis by highlighting: interesting words or

phrases; punctuation; interesting sentence structure; effective use of imagery; identifying examples of

changing tone.

Learn off by heart punctuation and the function performed by each punctuation mark. Learn the names of

different types of sentence structure and the reasons these are used.

Learn off by heart the different formulae for answering the different types of questions. Study examples

carefully and ensure I understand them. (Higher Close Reading Revision Booklet.) Practise answering

different types of questions.

Read through previous question papers and try to identify the different types of questions; decide what the

question is asking me to do.

Practise regularly with past papers. Use these to identify the ideas I find difficult and ask for help with

formulae or ideas I don’t understand.

Writing Skills

• Essay writing tests both:

• understanding of literature studied

• the student’s writing abilities

• Pupils are taught essay structures

• Learning quotations? Yes but…

• Learning to write in formal English

• Learning to write a well structured essay

• Proof reading to eliminate errors in spelling and

punctuation

The Folio

• A portfolio of Writing is required

• Pupils will work on the folio in class and at home.

• The folio is worth 30% of the marks.

• Paper 1 Reading UAE is worth 30%.

• Paper 2 Critical Reading is worth 40%.

What’s in the folio?

• At National 5 and at Higher the folio must contain two pieces of writing .

• Each piece is a different genre [Creative / Discursive]

• How long should the writing be?

• National 5 : up to 1000 words

• Higher: up to 1300 words

Authenticity

• The folio pieces must be entirely the pupil’s own work.

• Candidates will be required to sign a declaration that the work in the folio is their own and unassisted other than by legitimate support from, for example, a teacher.

Pupil’s role

• Pupils must hand in:

♦ draft title and proposals

♦ outline plan

• Pupils are only allowed to submit two drafts .

♦ first draft

♦ final version.

• Full effort is needed at all stages.

Teacher’s role

• Teachers will supervise the work and make suggestions.

• Teachers are not allowed to correct spelling and

expression mistakes.

• The final mark will be given by SQA markers.

Useful Websites

• There are some useful links to go to from Curriculinks

• 14+ section > English > many types of literature notes and a link to BBC Bitesize Higher Revision

• Newspapers section

• SQA website has useful information for pupils and parents including exemplar papers

• A variety of links on the department website.

• GOOD LUCK!