Leaving Certificate Paper 2

And so to the final curtain, for English anyhow (my thoughts on yesterday’s Paper 1 are here). [Later post on Rote Learning in the Leaving Certificate is here].

This afternoon’s literature paper presented the most significant benefit for candidates in terms of mitigations from the regular rubric: one-third of the entire course went, with only 2 out of 3 sections to be answered, between the single text, comparative and poetry (prescribed and unseen). This reduction of content was very considerable (and gave candidates a back-up in terms of choices), all within the overall the context of the (still peculiar) decision to maintain the 3 hour 20 minute allocation, a vast desert of time for candidates; good to get lots more, but that much? So, no pressure on completion, but candidates who chose to sit the exam should have made the most of the opportunity: teachers were instructed to give ‘most likely’ estimations for Accredited Grades, not what could happen on a good day. Candidates should have been aiming to have a good day, and beat that AG.

So, to the Higher Level paper. For the single text, our candidates like so many around the country took on the behemoth which is King Lear. This year there was by the standards of recent years a surprisingly woolly first question: ‘Chaos and confusion are used to great effect’ (are they really used? A peculiar idea. They’re thematically and metaphorically central, but that is different). The second was more interesting as an intellectual stretch for candidates, asking them to imagine a production without Kent and the Fool, and how this might diminish the play, or not (the setters got enthusiastic about such an idea, repeating it for Caliban and Miranda in the question of The Tempest - now, that’s quite a thought. And then the first question on chaos and confusion was also repeated. Thrifty).

The comparative section presented all three modes this year, and it was possible to compare just two texts in some questions. It’s a real struggle to produce anything novel in these modes at this stage of a course which started over 20 years ago. The theme/issue section asked on a theme/issue being emotionally engaging, and the motivation of a central character in opening up a theme. Cultural Context had significant relationships in this, well, context, or ‘significant social change’. General Vision and Viewpoint asked on an inspiring character (this would have worked well for the mother in one of the texts we studied, Emma Donoghue’s Room), or a question on the ‘unsettling or disturbing’ elements of a text, which is interesting if challenging.

Next to the poets, a legendary anxiety for generations of candidates, but far less so this time: Boland, Keats, Heaney (well about time), Plath, Durcan. Boland was a little tricky: how narrative elements communicate thematic concerns (doesn’t suit some poems). Keats was on ‘fear and melancholy’ in his work (not seamless partners). Heaney’s question will have sent the country home happy (the transformation of the familiar and mundane). Plath’s wordy question asked for an examination of stylistic features conveying ‘in an innovative way’ ‘overwhelming wonder’ (steady on there) and ‘unsettling menace’ (good): pick your way through that one (and how do 18 year-olds with limited knowledge of poetry prove ‘innovative’?). By contrast, Durcan was a doddle: tone and mood expressing emotions (of course they do), and amplifying his themes.

Candidates who answered poetry also had to take on the Unseen Poem, which was an interesting one, Louise Greig’s ‘How to Construct an Albatross’ (an arresting title). I think that this may have disconcerted quite a few candidates; it’s certainly testing, but it was a good choice.

Briefly, the Ordinary Level (none of our candidates took this): all the Lear questions were straightforward (un/appealing elements of Lear’s character, Lear’s decisions, love, Kent, props in a stage production). The comparative questions were all unproblematic. The Unseen poem was Rachel Rooney’s ‘The Language of Cat’ (good choice). Prescribed Poetry: Eavan Boland’s wonderful ‘This Moment’ (which I have written and spoken about here); ‘The Glass Hammer’ by Andrew Hudgins; Gary Soto’s lovely ‘Oranges’; Heaney’s superb ‘A Constable Calls’; Penelope Shuttle’s ‘Jungian Cows’, and finally ‘Inversnaid’ by one of the greats, Hopkins.

And so the academic year ends for English. There will be lots of uninformed and loose talk ahead about the Leaving Certificate in the light of Accredited Grades and a Senior Cycle review. Among the laziest talk is always that is ‘not fit for the 21st century’ and that it’s all about ‘rote learning’. Whatever its faults, just try to tackle the Higher Level paper by ‘rote learning’ (I’m not sure just what you’d learn by rote. Quotations?). We’ll start with that question on Kent and the Fool, and see how you get on. Good luck.