expected to know about prostitution in a GCSE exam?

[allinahuddle]

Just wondered if I am a prude or if this is inappropriate? Dd2 sat her English literature exam yesterday and the poetry section as expected had two poems to compare and contrast. The introduction to them said they were both about nature and how it affects the man made world. One poem was about prostitution and the other about mining. She said she found it confusing as the introduction made her think her instincts were wrong. She thought it was about drugs and maybe sex but didn't dare write it as she felt sure it wouldn't be that on an exam paper. I can see how perhaps prostitution could be studied as part of a social question in another subject I suppose but to include it as an unseen poetry question for 15 and 16 year olds seems inappropriate to me. To assume that this age group would feel confident to talk about this in an exam situation seems mad. It aldo seems to put the more anxious and less confident or less streetwise kids at a disadvantage as they felt embarrassed writing about it, especially after being told both poems were about nature. Only a couple of kids in the whole school actually wrote about prostitution or drugs even those on target for an A or an A*. AIBU?

YABU. Can't imagine a 16 year old not knowing about prostitution. Even if it hadn't come up on tv / in general conversation it would surely have cropped up in history lessons, PSHE or literature.

Not inappropriate at all, and nothing to do with being "streetwise."

City Lilacs, if it is the poem, doesn't seem any less appropriate than the Ted Hughes stuff we studied.

Ok so I was at high school in the 90s so perhaps a lot has changed. But in the unseen English texts it was more about your perspective rather than getting the answer right, so as long as her answer was well argued and reasoned it wouldn't matter if she's missed the reference altogether.

When I was at school (straight laced religious school) we covered abortion, sex (in RE) and I seem to remember in English some book about a bloke that wanted to shag his mum (or that was the interpretation we were supposed to draw according to York notes!)

Wilfred Owen's Dulce et Decorum est haunted me for years after O levels.
Pointless, hideous death far more disturbing than sex.

You're looking at technique over topic on unseen poetry. It's not about working out meaning as ambiguity is a big part of poetry. I know our board it's generally how does the poet show feelings about... so it's about the how rather than the what.

I'd be surprised if she hadn't encountered any controversial topics in the whole of English lit GCSE so far and so didn't realise the topics might come up in the exam. Also, part of the exam question is interpreting the poem so it won't necessarily be obvious what the poem is 'about'- if your dd had thought it was about a different subject and could back that up throughout with evidence from the poem, that would be a valid answer too.

That poem seems to fit perfectly with the description at the start. Hate to say it but I think your DD has just got herself a bit stressed out about it all. Though having tried to find a copy of Huw's farm there are a couple of student message boards out there basically saying that they found the poetry section on those two poems a nightmare, horrific etc. Hopefully it'll have gone better than she thinks.

I would have much preferred that poem when I did my GCSEs...we did Education for Leisure by Carol Ann Duffy.

This isn't about being streetwise. Students need to know prostitution exists, but I would be shocked if a 16 year old didn't. But they don't need to know any details at all.

If your DD wasn't adequately prepared to realise that literature can be about any aspect of life then I'd worry about the teaching rather than the exam.

YABU. It sounds like she wasn't very prepared for it, if anything.

That poem is absolutely about nature and there's no need in the discussion of it to get into embarrassing detail about sex or drugs.

Generic parental complaint.

I was shocked that my child read/saw/slept through delete as applicable . I found the presentation of sex/contraception/drink/death/communism/Michael Gove unacceptable, especially as the piece was 18-rated/in Latin/written by lesbians/set in Comic Sans. I have no real complaint but would like it recorded that I object/I wrote/I am a loon.

I would have thought that prostitution and drug-dealing were general knowledge by 16. Surely your dd reads a newspaper or watches the news?

As to not feeling comfortable writing about unsavoury topics, I don't know what her set texts were, but, as pp have said, unless she has an extremely prudish English teacher, she should have realised that it's allowed to write about such things in an exam because she would have already discussed similar topics in class. (I did once have a Latin teacher who insisted that 'nudus' meant barefoot.)

I do think, though, it's quite a challenging text on its own (for the full ability range?) tho' it's the comparison that's important and possibly the other poem made the overall task more accessible.

I don't think ds1 would have realised it was about prostitution...I might go and ask him once he has finished his revesion for the night

Or I might not, just in case it puts him off for his next English exam

For the people saying she was ill prepared, it's an issue across the board by the looks of it. My daughter has nearly made herself ill revising for these exams and didn't pick up the prostitution link, nor did her classmates. Nor did the pupils in the school I work in. I googled it and there's lots of kids on the student forums saying similar.

I reckon that paper will have low grade boundaries because it is perceived to have been harder than some previous unseen poem papers.

@ namechange

I haven't looked at the other poem, but it's pretty obvious how the topic of nature fits into 'City Lilacs'. And what a lovely poem it is.

didn't pick up the prostitution link, nor did her classmates

Good poems are complex, ambiguous and personal. Bad poems are crossword puzzles with one answer. This is (at first blush) a good poem. A candidate writing a sensible response should get credit for it.

Eliot wrote his own footnotes to The Wasteland. It's a matter of opinion as to whether the poem benefits from it.

Poetry trivia: which song by a progressive rock band of some note rips off is inspired by Eliot's The Wasteland?

As an English teacher I don't think its all that necessary that a student refer to prostitution in their analysis of that poem - recognising the women are vulnerable/outcast/lonely and that this represents the darker side of the city, over which nature will prevail, is enough. In an unseen a student doesn't have to give a "perfect" reading - there is no such thing - just show they can read closely and make interpretations, as well as comment on language use.

Having read City Lilacs, it isn't really about prostitution at all is it? It is about nature flourishing against the odds in unlikely places and the contrast between the urban decay and the lilac blossom.

Just like the intro in fact.

Lovely poem. Totally age appropriate

I'm more concerned that the poem in an exam was ambiguous as to its theme, something clearer should have been used.

But it was an English Lit exam. So that would be to miss the point entirely.

Reading the poem, I do think that's quite complex to get, but I agree with steppe - prostitution is implied there, but you could say a huge amount about the poem without necessarily picking up on that element of it.

At 16, surely they've studied all sorts of upsetting things? We'd done the Holocaust at that point, and talked about rape in PSHE lessons.

They're not expecting her to discuss the ins and outs (pun not intended) of prostitution though are they? The rights and wrongs or what happens. It's not really the central theme of the poem. The central theme of the poem is that nature keeps on trying, it keeps on pushing through. I think there is some perhaps some discussion that the lilacs may also be some sort of personification of the women involved, the fact they keep going through adversity and in horrible situations.

But I don't think it's inappropriate at all. Prostitution wouldn't be expected to be discussed in much more than general details.