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 Medium of Death wrote:
Completely agree. Best of a bad bunch. To be fair I think Alex Salmond should be debating the leader of the No campaign not the PM. This shouldn't be a case of Scotland vs The ConservativeS (which it kind of is anyway).

it should be between the heads of the Yes and No campaigns, Salmond just being the SNP leader and consequently First Minister

Who's front running the Yes campaign if it isn't Salmond?

 Medium of Death wrote:
Who's front running the Yes campaign if it isn't Salmond?

Technically there is someone else, but as the Scottish Parliament has been given authority to run the ballot it has become the Alex Salmond show. I think this is deliberate, Salmond is egotistical in the extreme and give him enough rope and he will hang himself, and by giving the Scottish parliament control over the process they cant complain if they lose and demand a re-run. There has been very little input from Westminster into the campaign, which is fair and logical, its for Scots to decide. The only thing i remember happening was a change of the ballot wording. The orginal wording was 'Do you agree that Scotland should become and independent nation?' this was quite rightly considered a leading question and thus unfair. So it was changed to IIRC "Should..."

Anyway maybe we should get back on topic.

i remember To Kill a Mockingbird from school, but then we also did a number of books many of them British writers.

The great thing about literature is that each generation and culture answers the same questions in their own distinct ways. A firm grounding in your own is important, but once you begin broadening your reading pool you can see the essence of what it is to be human. I have no problem with cycling these two novels to the wayside- in all honesty, I've never taught either in 8 years teaching English in the United States.

I've found Frankenstein to generally be higher interest and address many of the same themes.

 Ketara wrote:
I went through the English schooling system a decade or so ago. We did Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet pre-GCSE, and then for GCSE did Steinbeck's 'Of Mice and Men', and Friel's 'Translations'.

I finished school in 2007.

We did Shakespeare, naturally. The Merchant of Venice, Romeo and Juliet and perhaps a couple others that I don't recall. Lord of the Flies (ugh). And the Crucible.

At the time, I was really into the Lord of the Rings (the books, the films, the SBG game by GW) and I was really disappointed that we'd never studied Tolkien in school. Told my Year 11 teacher that and it turned out she was a Tolkien fan herself.

And we really out to have studied George Orwell's 1984. It perfectly predicted modern politics.

 Medium of Death wrote:


I've voted for the SNP before as I like alot of the stuff they are doing, I just don't particularly like their leadership and the path they've taken us on with independence.

The re-joining the EU/having some connections with Britain farce that is still to be properly clarified is a source of major annoyance to me. I wouldn't mind if they said we are going to join Europe and take on the Euro. I really wouldn't care. Britain had to bail out European countries anyway, despite not being part of the Currency Union so I doubt it will make much difference.

I really don't get Salmond.

An "Independent" Scotland + Currency Union with the UK = / = true Independence.

And I think it would be quite insulting to Scottish voters in the event that they voted for Independence, but monetary control remained with Westminster and the Bank of England - what would at that point be a foreign country.

Either go for full Independence and establish your own currency, surrender your newly won Independence to the EU by adopting the Euro, or don't bother.

 poppa G wrote:
I hate the way you guys spell things.

Blame the French. Or more specifically the Normans.

There are, in my opinion, a number of books that are more relevant to modern British life, that are by British authors, that should be included in the Secondary syllabus. I'd like to see:

'1984' by George Orwell
'Down and Out in Paris and London' by George Orwell
'A Passage to India' by E. M. Forster
'Trainspotting' by Irvine Welsh
'Heart of Darkness' by Joseph Conrad (technically a Polish emigre, but I'm inclined to think that would add an interesting dimension to his inclusion)
'A Clockwork Orange' by Anthony Burgess.
Also, something by Tolkein and maybe ' From Hell' by Alan Moore.

Well, I finished my English GCSEs a year ago. We did Macbeth, A View From the Bridge, and Wuthering Heights. We managed to avoid Of Mice and Men, and To Kill a Mockingbird.

To be completely honest, I really don't care about this. I found the exams I did in English to be completely useless anyway, the text we were analysing played little part in it. That said, I could see an argument against including too much American literature on the grounds that you people don't speak English, like, proper, like what I does.

This is great news. If it means that one more schoolkid doesn't have to suffer the trauma of enduring The Great Gatsby, then more power to Gove's elbow!

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
This is great news. If it means that one more schoolkid doesn't have to suffer the trauma of enduring The Great Gatsby, then more power to Gove's elbow!

This I can agree with. Its bad enough we subject ourselves to such horror. Doing so to the children of other countries should be an act of war!

 LordofHats wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
This is great news. If it means that one more schoolkid doesn't have to suffer the trauma of enduring The Great Gatsby, then more power to Gove's elbow!

This I can agree with. Its bad enough we subject ourselves to such horror. Doing so to the children of other countries should be an act of war!

It is an act of war! Consider yourself lucky that your country spends $600 billion a year on its military

Well with gak like the Atlas Shrugged floating around we kind of have too

When I was at school we did a lot of foreign literature including Spanish, French and Latin (sometimes in the original language, for language classes of course) as well as American.

Foreign literature can give you an eye into a different time or culture. Great literature is great literature wherever it was written.

Michael Gove is widely regarded as a fool.

 warspawned wrote:
The UK Education Secretary has deemed that only British texts are worth studying, dropping classics like 'Of Mice and Men' because it is taught too much and is American

http://www.bbc.com/news/education-27563466

English literature should apply to all books etc written in the English language, should it not? I'm all for a shake up but to dismiss books written overseas is just stupid, discounting a lot of great literature for the sake of patriotism is just stupid imho. What does dakka think?

That's a shame. Some of our stuff is gooder than other stuffs, though.

Tinfoil hat on, American literature would be ok. If it was translated into English(yanks can't spell).
Gove is an idiot, no doubt about that.
As for Salmond, every time I see him I imagine him on a plate with an apple in his mouth.

Color and flavor shouldn't have a U in it!

Stop the madness!

 kronk wrote:
Color and flavor shouldn't have a U in it!

Stop the madness!

Well phonetically they should have a U rather than an O so at least we are better than you unwashed heathens.

 Palindrome wrote:

 kronk wrote:
Color and flavor shouldn't have a U in it!

Stop the madness!

Well phonetically they should have a U rather than an O so at least we are better than you unwashed heathens.

You're just jealous because you know unwashed heathens have more fun

Okay, seriously, that cannot be right. Have they forgotten Lovecraft was American. What have they done? The horror, the unspeakable horror!

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
Okay, seriously, that cannot be right. Have they forgotten Lovecraft was American. What have they done? The horror, the unspeakable horror!

So don't speak of it.

 LordofHats wrote:

You're just jealous because you know unwashed heathens have more fun

Stinky fun and thats no fun at all.

 kronk wrote:

 warspawned wrote:
The UK Education Secretary has deemed that only British texts are worth studying, dropping classics like 'Of Mice and Men' because it is taught too much and is American

http://www.bbc.com/news/education-27563466

English literature should apply to all books etc written in the English language, should it not? I'm all for a shake up but to dismiss books written overseas is just stupid, discounting a lot of great literature for the sake of patriotism is just stupid imho. What does dakka think?

That's a shame. Some of our stuff is gooder than other stuffs, though.

Yep, crazy as it might sound, I would put the complete collection of Calvin & Hobbes at the same level as many of the traditional "greats."

 loki old fart wrote:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
Okay, seriously, that cannot be right. Have they forgotten Lovecraft was American. What have they done? The horror, the unspeakable horror!

So don't speak of it.

Speaking of unspeakable horror, it is all that Lovecraft ever spoke about, AFAIK .

Gove is such a fething moron. How anyone can think he is suitable to be in charge of anything never mind something as important as eduction I will never know.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
Speaking of unspeakable horror, it is all that Lovecraft ever spoke about, AFAIK .

We can't talk about Lovecraft as he was a filthy American writer, and thus not worth our time.

Cannot believe I forgot this one we went over as Junior year. "All Quiet on the Western Front". Those damn boots of Kemmerich. Harsh living make simple creature comfort go far.

At my highschool (in the US) we read shakespeare, asimov, bradbury, a bunch of US literature and poems and some german stuff.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

And we really out to have studied George Orwell's 1984. It perfectly predicted modern politics.

The purpose of a deliberate narrowing of the literature curriculum was to de-anglicise; this in turn was for party political ends. These political ends would not be served if that book was on the curriculum, we are coming very close to 1984 in many ways.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

I really don't get Salmond.
An "Independent" Scotland + Currency Union with the UK = / = true Independence.
And I think it would be quite insulting to Scottish voters in the event that they voted for Independence, but monetary control remained with Westminster and the Bank of England - what would at that point be a foreign country.

To give Salmond some credit he knows what he is doing there, fortunately others can see it too.
An independent Scotland with monetary Union would be a country tied to an economy roughly nine times its size. Bad thing for independence? No, not for Salmond. What it would enable Salmond to do is to borrow massively, and while borrowing is excessive already this is nothing compared to what it could be. I am talking Iceland levels of borrowing. Scotland could borrow several times its GDP as Iceland did, roll in the good times and President Salmond gets reelected. Scotland would appear to do very well under the bubble, which in turn would kick off the Welsh for independence, but that's a side issue.
However the bubble will burst, just like it did for Iceland. However for the SNP this is no bad thing because with currency union the UK would guarantee Scotlands debt. Both countries would be bankrupted, but Scotland would ber able to default, rely on oil and claw back something in about five years. And will have thev benefits of the infrastructure Salmond orders built in ther meantime.

Now you might say 'borrowing safeguards' however when has that ever stopped a frivolous government, furthermore you can compound that because the person doing the borrowing is the sovereign leader of another country, the most anyone could do would be to complain, you wouldnt be able to stop anything. This assumes that the borrowing isn't concealed to begin with, by parseing it through banks.

It is not for me to say whether Salmond would be a bad or good thing for Scotland, he is tough enough to defend Scottish interests. Look how he recently took on the EU.
But what I can say is that we would be very foolish indeed to trust him with a joint bank account with the UK, especailly as much of his 'international' rhetoric is belligerent. If Salmond is willing to threaten to cut off Norway from international shipping, illegally I might add, and Salmond has no especial beef with Norway. What might he do to a 'partner' UK he has no love for and can screw over. Salmond is very clearly Anglo-phobic, from witness of those who have met him. He is however savvy enough not to show this face in public often. To him an economic plan that benefits Scotland in the short term, get him two terms in power and bankrupts England is a win-win-win.

From an English point of view Salmond cannot be trusted, and currency union is a complete non starter. Thankfully the position of the HM Treasury is broadly comperable, and I suspect for similar reasons.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

Either go for full Independence and establish your own currency, surrender your newly won Independence to the EU by adopting the Euro, or don't bother.

That is part of two of Salmond's hissy fits that he tries to whitewash off as 'project fear'.
- Scotland will have to go through the application process to join the EU. France has already formally confirmed this, and can veto Scotland's application. Spain has already started that it will veto Scotlands application. The SNP want Scots to believe this is UK pressure and part of 'project fear', however any look on the subject of Gibraltar will tell you Spain and the UK are not in a cooperative mood. Spain will veto because if Scotland joins the EU the Basques will be emboldened and want their own independence. Thius for Spains own benefit the application must fail.
- If Scotland joins as a new member state is must join the Euro. Currency union with the UK is one way out of that. But.....

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

 poppa G wrote:
I hate the way you guys spell things.

Blame the French. Or more specifically the Normans.

Normans weren't French. the French for Viking is Les Normands. England was conquered by the Vikings several times, and compeltelt conquered twice, the most recently in 1066. England was never conquered by France.
Most Frenchies know enough of Dark Age history not to try this one.

 Orlanth wrote:

The purpose of a deliberate narrowing of the literature curriculum was to de-anglicise; this in turn was for party political ends

I think your need to get yourself a new tin foil hat, yours is starting to get a bit worn.

 Palindrome wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:

The purpose of a deliberate narrowing of the literature curriculum was to de-anglicise; this in turn was for party political ends

I think your need to get yourself a new tin foil hat, yours is starting to get a bit worn.

I don't honestly have one. The curriculum is open to dogmatisation, most notably through English Literature and History.

Gove has not banned the American authors, that was what the OCR is saying. The OCR drew up their list and reported those as the titles they choose to replace to add in the required volumes of British authors. Read the OP's link carefully.
The OCR source did say Gove hates 'Of Mice and Men' so what, dfirst we dojt know if thats true second we don't know if that relevant. The book was never disapprooved. Here is all the guidelines set out to do.

Department for Education wrote:
Scope of study
GCSE specifications in English literature should require students to study the following content:

Detailed study
Students should study a range of high quality, intellectually challenging, and substantial whole texts in detail. These must include:
 at least one play by Shakespeare
 at least one 19th century novel
 a selection of poetry since 1789, including representative Romantic poetry
 fiction or drama from the British Isles from 1914 onwards.
All works should have been originally written in English.
Within the range of texts above, the emphasis should be on deepening students’ understanding. The texts should be chosen with the key aim of providing students with knowledge to support both current and future study.
To broaden their knowledge of literature, and enhance their critical and comparative understanding, students should read widely within the range above to prepare them for ‘unseen’ texts in the examination. These unseen texts may or may not be by authors whose works students have studied as set texts.

Reading comprehension and reading critically
 literal and inferential comprehension: understanding a word, phrase or sentence in context; exploring aspects of plot, characterisation, events and settings; distinguishing between what is stated explicitly and what is implied; explaining motivation, sequence of events, and the relationship between actions or events
 critical reading: identifying the theme and distinguishing between themes; supporting a point of view by referring to evidence in the text; recognising the possibility of and evaluating different responses to a text; using understanding of writers’ social, historical and cultural contexts to inform evaluation; making an informed personal response that derives from analysis and evaluation of the text
 evaluation of a writer’s choice of vocabulary, grammatical and structural features: analysing and evaluating how language (including figurative language), structure, form and presentation contribute to quality and impact; using linguistic and literary terminology for such evaluation (such as, but not restricted to, phrase, metaphor, meter, irony and persona, synecdoche, pathetic fallacy)
 comparing texts: comparing and contrasting texts studied, referring where relevant to theme, characterisation, context (where known), style and literary quality; comparing two texts critically with respect to the above.4
Writing
 producing clear and coherent text: writing effectively about literature for a range of purposes such as: to describe, explain, summarise, argue, analyse and evaluate; discussing and maintaining a point of view; selecting and emphasising key points; using relevant quotation and using detailed textual references
 accurate Standard English: accurate spelling, punctuation and grammar.

You see nothing there about withdrawing Steinbeck or Harper Lee, the list above requires inclusive content, not explusive content. Most English Literatuire courses will cover more works than just four.
So why would the OCR complain? Because they don't like the changes and are being disingeuous about their critique. The OCR high ups were appointed under New Labour and are New Labour to the core.


Instead of shouting tin foil tin foil, perhaps you should think a little and remove the blinkers. 'Tin foil' is a good retort to those who think the guvment puts cameras in toilets, and extra flouride in the water. Those who say that they school curriculum has been ideologically compromised do so with clarity and realism. Every demagogue knows that you should start early to get the most out of the populace. It is also pointless trying to say it cant happen here.
These are extreme examples, but are also reasions to be mindful, Uk culture has been deliberately underfocused over the last decade, and a study of the History and Literature curriicula from UK schools from the last fifteen years shows a disturbing pattern which Gove is trying to counter and Exam board grandees appointed under the Blair years are trying hard to lampoon. I wonder why.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Hlaine Larkin mk2 wrote:

For History for Int 2 we did: Birth of the Welfare state, Immigrants and Exiles (Scottish & Irish emigration around the world) and the Road to WW2, out teacher also wanted to do the Race Equality stuff (Like Martin Luther King Jr) But the department head shot it down as we didn't have enough time to cover it enough for it to be useful in our exam

For Example.

 Orlanth wrote:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

 poppa G wrote:
I hate the way you guys spell things.

Blame the French. Or more specifically the Normans.

Normans weren't French. the French for Viking is Les Normands. England was conquered by the Vikings several times, and compeltelt conquered twice, the most recently in 1066. England was never conquered by France.
Most Frenchies know enough of Dark Age history not to try this one.

I know that. But they did speak medieval French (or a bastardised form of it) and the Norman invasion imported parts of the French language into England.

Hence I was joking "Blame the French for our weird spelling".