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?

But it kind of strikes me that perhaps unseen poetry exams are a test of your cultural/life experiences as much as your analytical skills. That would seem to discriminate against some kids.

You think that the use of the 'Lilacs' poem discriminates against 'naice MC' DC Tinkly?

They are much much more aware than we were. All of them.

The divide is between prudish parents whose teens can't be frank with and the parents with their heads attached to the necks and facing forward.

The poetry analysis only requires a theoretical understanding of what a prostiute is and empathy as to how she might feel, remember.

Every exam is, in some way, a test of cultural and life experiences. Some more than others but there are always biases it is impossible to remove, that mean that some students are better-prepared for it than others.

I doubt they test the poem out, but the examiners are experienced English teachers and will have a good idea of how a poem would tend to be read by students.

It's inevitable, especially with English Literature - it simply can't be culturally neutral. But presumably the work they've done on other texts will have to some extent informed them - I mean, they are actually supposed to learn stuff in the lessons not just draw from their own life experience.

I was thinking more about Nag's sheltered little Asian girls Arsenic

And I would be interested to know what the mining poem was. My DC's have a Grandad who was a miner and are well versed. Lots of kids won't have a clue about mining.

Yes, I suppose they can ensure that issues are covered on the syllabus as part of the other studied poems, to some extent.

Not sure why we would want exams to be dependant on parental input though Arsenic. That would be unfair.

Tinkly the skills set will be locked tight eg "Must be able to: recognise metaphor/embed quotations/extend explanation/give two possible analysis and explain preferences/formally compare..."
In its own way, it's very "pin downable". Almost like a formula or recipe.

I see Sqizita. So you get your marks for using the correct formula, rather than the "right" answer?

So if a kid knew the drill and the mark scheme they could get good marks for their analysis without really having much sense of what the poet was getting at?

Well the biaise for life experience is why HEers don't usually sit English early, and why there is I think a separate English exam for adults.
But I think most 15/16 year olds will get the poem, they have all listened to

Yes, I thought of A Team too. My DD sat Eng Lit last year at 14. She got an A but I think would have done better this year. Still, one in the bag.

tinkly - yes, it's a really big worry, as I understand it.

English Lit is inextricable from cultural context. You can't simply pretend that centuries of literature being written in English, by a particular group of people, didn't happen. Nor even that literature written in English still tends to be dominated by certain voices. You can try, by choosing more authors who are not straight, white, middle- or upper-class men writing in standard English, but it's tricky.

And I do think interpreting poetry can't be 'nailed down'. It'd be bad interpretation if it were.

The question about what the author is 'getting at' is partly political: basically, back in the 1970s, people started theorising that probably the author's intentions aren't the most important thing in the world - because, obviously, an author might write a line and only subconsciously be aware of some of the connotations it has. Plus, students can't be expected to know everything about what the author thought or meant.

So, it matters more that the interpretation is tenable.

Tinkly no, they'd have to have a reasonable interpretation (so it could be several different ones, but all plausible OR if wacky, so very cohesively argued that it convinces the examiner!).
It's something a lot of more scientifically leaning students (and parents) struggle with.
Over the years I've likened it to a case study test in a science/geography test, a game of football or dance (a mixture of non negotiable rules, skill and flair/reaction - no two games the same, and with 2 players doing the "same thing" you can interpret, comment and indeed evaluate who is better) and the use of the same laws of physics to engineer two different buildings.

It certainly isn't a case of "anything goes", nor a case of "guess what the examiner thinks" though some would like it to be. There is quite a cold, hard side where flair and intelligence is called for in such a way that someone who doesn't think 'that way' might struggle even if they worked hard, employed a tutor etc.
In my experience it's easier to get a non-maths-lover to pass (get up to a B or low A) maths than someone who doesn't "get" metaphor and the balance of skills/flair to pass English.

I'd imagine there are some schools which don't do Eng. Lit at all, and others where its not mandatory.

That's quite interesting Sqiz. My DD did Alevel Lang/Lit, got a C at AS and refused to resit on the grounds she had given it her best shot. She got a different teacher the following year, who seemed to give them more training on structuring their answers, and got a solid A for that exam, (B overall).

I doubt she became massively brighter or more hardworking that year, so technique must have played a big part.

Tinkly yes I've actually found that very "intuitive" critics aren't always the best for delivering Lit to students who prefer to work it out. Like showing working out in maths - imagine if some mathematicians didn't fully realise they were working out!

I used to be that kind of mathematician - so is my brother. I had to learn how to explain more of the steps. I think it's not so dissimilar.

I use maths as a way of explaining essay writing to my students, trying to get them to see that it's just as important to 'show your working out' in English.

DD didn't pick up that it was about prostitution. Slightly relieved to find that it may not matter. I think it was a fairly subtle allusion for a 16-year old to pick up on.

I'm enjoying this It's been an extremely long time since I thought about lit crit, so thanks all! I found that "crack-haunted alleys, overhangs" gave me a mental image of crackled concrete & walkways, but I was thinking crack cocaine, hangovers and foreshadowing. It's nice to be prompted to put all that together.

If nobody's identified this farm/mine/nature poem, I wonder if it was actually a passage from How Green Was My Valley? The narrator was called Huw Morgan.

Mark schemes for Literature do not specify a preferred reading. There is no one correct answer, and, in the time they have in exams they couldn't possibly give every possible point. This is a total storm in a tea cup. Answering about man v nature in a well-structured, well-argued response will result in a top grade performance.

Jeanne I've always been that way with written analysis (social science, science and arts) but with maths I'm the opposite. Never struggled at school but always wrote down every step.

I do find some adults forget that explaining is in itself a skill (especially with teenagers!).

Hack, we are assuming that "men and women are lost in transactions
of flesh and cash" refers to prostitution because of the context, but it could mean various different transactions or (stretching a point too far) they were trading leather handbags or legs of lamb!

I thought Huw's Farm might be by RS Thomas (it sounds like the sort of thing he would write - and he did write one called On the Farm) but I can't find it.

In my day (old gimmer alert) we brought our exam papers home with us.

Interesting, squiz.

I have never found it hard to 'explain my working' in English, but somehow with Maths, it seemed counter-intuitive. Especially when solutions were easy to visualise.

Yes, good point, Gralick!

Unseen poetry is always a bugger. I am still mortified to remember my degree finals where we had to analyse a sonnet. They didn't give us the title or the author, and I remember my analysis was about the way the idea of blindness was used as a metaphor. Actually it was Milton's On his blindness, so it wasn't metaphorical at all, it was entirely literal.