Revision Help

Here are two handy revision ideas. You can use them to help you remember terminology, key quotations and key themes:

'Romeo and Juliet' Quotation Revision Song

Try this, ladies, or maybe you can compose a better one!




and the eight quotations explained:

Learning Quotations

A teacher's thoughts about why it's important to learn quotations and how to do it: https://joeybagstock.wordpress.com/2015/03/21/how-and-why-i-help-my-students-to-learn-quotations/

His top tips:

1. Repeated recall

Short starter activity repeated several times over a few lessons that supports the learning of quotations. You should soon start to see a difference and genuinely find the process and the result rewarding.

2. Missing words

Select about 10 quotations and present them with one, two or three words removed. As you gain more confidence, extend the number and scope of quotations and increase the amount and type of words taken away. The end goal is for students to be able to remember as many quotations as you can entirely from free recall, and then use these wisely to enhance your analysis and interpretation. What is effectively an oral start to the lesson provides fruitful stimulation for the transition into extended writing tasks.

3. Anagrams and puzzles

It works particularly well for terms that characters use to describe or refer to each other, such as the myriad of names used to refer to Caliban in The Tempest. Don’t spend long on anagrams and puzzles; the trick is little and often. Knowing well over 15 terms used to define Caliban has helped the students really understand the way in which his character is positioned by language.

4. Catch phrase (well, sort of)

This activity is my attempt at applying the rationale building memory palaces to regular short-term lesson starters. Memory palaces are excellent ways of learning quotations – the different rooms and use of imaginative images to support learning lends itself well to remembering vivid images in texts – but they are time-consuming to set up in class, and more suitable for students to complete at home. A quicker way is to select an image or combination of images from Google and then lay them out on a PowerPoint slide as prompts. You can have a lot of fun with this and make the images as easy or hard as you like.

10 quotations used to describe or define Miranda in The Tempest

5. Exemplifying statements

Your teacher might begin (or sometimes end) the lesson with ten short statements about the text being studied, for which students have to supply some evidence by way of quotation. The great thing about this technique is that you can have the 10 propositions all together (on a slide or handout) or show them one by one and target certain individuals with the minimum of notice. Again, this approach lends itself to differentiating across and within classes. Once more, it leads effortlessly into elaboration, either by linking the quotations to other ideas or contextual details or deepening understanding through commenting on the methods of presentation used.

Healthy competition

Begin with what level 1 quotation tasks, where you present about 10 or so quotations to be learnt with one or two words missing. Once successfully completed, level 2 tasks are given where the same quotations were present but with different words omitted. Level 3 takes away most of the words except the first one or two to serve as a cue, whilst introducing 5 or so new ones. Level 4 progresses to a combination of images and prompts, whilst level 5 is solely image based. It sounds complicated, but in reality is quite simple. 

'Romeo and Juliet' in the Classroom

The Reduced Shakespeare Company on 'Romeo and Juliet'

Talking About Shakespeare at The Hay Festival

A very short film about how Shakespeare made the most of the bare Elizabethan stage with his language: http://www.talkingaboutshakespeare.org/interna-videos/russell-t-davies---the-elizabethan-stage

And Toni Morrison on good and evil characters in Shakespearean tragedy: http://www.talkingaboutshakespeare.org/interna-videos/toni-morrison---good-and-evil-in-shakespearian-tragedy

Young adult author Sarah Crossan on how important Shakespeare is to her: http://www.talkingaboutshakespeare.org/interna-videos/sarah-crossan---romeo-and-juliet

Ruby Wax on her audition for the drama school: http://www.talkingaboutshakespeare.org/interna-videos/ruby-wax---drama-school

Germain Greer on Lady Capulet: http://www.talkingaboutshakespeare.org/interna-videos/germaine-greer---the-capulets

Reduced Shakespeare Company Does Shakespeare's Comedies

Persuasive Techniques

How to make people agree with you!

Persuasive Techniques And Aforest from wendron

Catherine Tate and David Tennant do Shakespeare

How to embed quotations and avoid 'Quote Bombs'

When you are writing about a text, it's important to think hard about exactly which quotations to use to back up your points - keep them short (no longer than one line) and introduce them properly, like this:

PEA Paragraphs for A* Answers

Disneyfied Revision Fun with Language Devices

Watch the following video to jog your memory about spotting and using key language devices:

Difference between form and structure

Always a tricky one, but essential for your Literary Heritage Controlled Assessment. Here's AQA's advice:


Form relates to the external shape of a text, determined by how it is presented on
paper, organised by stanzas/paragraphs, lines, syllables, rhyme, justification – best
thought of as a silhouette. It is a simpler thing to comment on because it is usually
visible.
Structure is more interesting because it goes beyond the visible – it is a matter of
the internal development and relationship between parts: structure is about the
internal skeleton and organs – best thought of as an X ray or CT scan, displaying the organic relationship between ideas, feelings and attitudes within a text. For example, the form of a sonnet is its 14 line length, its 8 line/6 line division and its rhyme scheme. Within that form the structure may be 8 lines of description leading to 6 lines of reflection, generalisation, resolution; or the mood may go from neutral to sombre, or from sombre and resentful to acceptant.

The Secret To Analysing Poetry

ART WARS - it works!

How To Revise Successfully - From Media EduSites

How To Revise Successfully

Jeremy Orlebar | Friday April 27, 2012

Categories: Revision, A2 Revision, AS Revision, GCSE Revision, Hot Entries

When the exam is looming up it is always a struggle to get started with revision. Here is a strategy that works.

Revision Kit

Make yourself your own personalised revision kit. You need a special pen or pencils. I like a new pack of sharpened HB pencils and a pencil sharpener. Marker pens / highlighters – three colours. Yellow sticky back notelets – you will need very small ones and larger notelets. You can also have a portable audio recorder – or iPod - so that you can record quotes and other material you want to learn on the move. Keep your revision kit next door the place where you will do your revising – it just needs to be a quiet room with a desk or table. Yes you can have music but choose it very carefully so as not to be a distraction.
Using the kit you are going to mark up the files you already have for the subjects you want to revise. For example you need to revise a book for an English exam. You will have a file with quotes, teacher’s handouts and your essays and other written material.

You only need to revise and learn some of this material. That is what the yellow notelets are for.
Look through your file and put a notelet sticking out at the top of the page for each page which has something you need to revise.
Write on the notelet one or two words to remember it by such as Witches Prophecy (from Macbeth).
On the file page highlight the one or two sentences or paragraphs you want to remember. You can’t revise everything so select the most important things you need to know. If the exam is on Macbeth there are key moments in the play that you will want to learn for the exam – the witches prophecy is one of them. There is no need to learn the quote just the gist of what they are saying. You also need to highlight why the witches are important in the play and their role in setting the tone and atmosphere of the drama: dark, evil and Godless.
Marking up and highlighting has two purposes:

1. As you are selecting and highlighting you are revising at the same time – what a good idea.
2. Making your selection of relevant material will make your revising a lot more focussed.

So what have you done? You have made a decision on what you need to revise, you have located it and you have marked it. Well done, you are on your way, it wasn’t very hard was it? And feel that sense of achievement. This process is a very good way into a topic and can be summed up as: Find - Select - Mark.

Memory Patches

This is an easy way to remember difficult ideas, concepts quotes or equations. Write them on a large yellow sticky back notelet and post them up on a wall, mirror or anywhere in your bedroom AT EYE LEVEL. As soon as you wake up you should see a yellow sticker with something useful on it such as 1789 French Rev.
When you go to the bathroom put up another yellow with 1917 Russian Rev.
You have learned two things this morning – backup these simple facts with more info on each event. So your eye meets a new fact or idea each day.
TIP | Keep the French revolution material in the bedroom and the Russian revolution material in the bathroom, or on different walls in your bedroom. When you test yourself go in your mind to the wall / mirror in each room and relate it to the set of facts that you have put up there: Bedroom = French, Bathroom = Russian.
Choose different areas in your room for different subjects: wardrobe = English, desk wall = geography, mirror = maths. The connection between the area and the subject will help you remember the notes better.

Revision Strategies

Everyone devises their own method of revising. It’s best to stick to the same method for each subject. Here are some methods of working that really do work.

Revise – Test Yourself – Rest

This sounds really hard until you break it down into:

1. Revise for a short period – just 25 mins
2. Test yourself for just 5 mins by saying: ‘What have I learned just now?’
3. Rest for at least 10 mins with a walk, some music, texting, videogame (only 10 mins) or by doing very little – go and talk to a friend, your sister or Mum.
4. This way you are working in 40 minute blocks which is what you are used to, because an average lesson time is about 40 mins. Stop after three 40 min sessions and have something to eat or drink. Brainpower uses calories.

Revise Difficult Work First

Nobody said life was easy. You have to revise those difficult equations or that subject you find hard when you are at your freshest. Put it another way, leave the easy stuff to the evening or when you are a bit tired.

Bite Size Is Best

It is much easier to learn small units of information than large ones, so break down topics into bite size chunks – break down all complex info into small chunks.

Organise Your Time

I have left this to the last because for many people it is the most difficult. For people who are naturally well organised they will have organised themselves already. If organisation is an anathema to you (look it up) then follow this advice:

• Don’t be afraid to ask someone to help you organise your time.
• Just do a simple sum – how many days have you got to the exam and how many hours in each day – you just cannot revise all day so decide on how much you feel you can do – say two hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon, and you can have the evening off. If you want to get an A then you will have to make sure you do at least that amount and more.

Make Lists

It really is a good idea to make at least two lists. One list of all the revision you have to do – then a second listing the topics you need to learn for each subject. Highlight topics that you have completed, so that you can see what you have achieved.

More Help?

• The Practical Guide to Revision Techniques by Simon Percival (Continuum) Best for A Level students
• The Buzan Study Skills Handbook by Tony Buzan (BBC) Useful to read well before the exam season

How to use one of your five-a-day for the perfect essay

Take a closer look at a pear. You can use it to impress the examiners. Think:

1. Point
2. Evidence
3. Analysis
4. Refer back to the question

and ensure you really look closely at an essay question to show off your skills.

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