The Key is the Theme
When you look at your study notes for your Literature text after some weeks of inertia, the word "Theme" will probably feature quite prominently.
One of the reasons we are fooled into thinking we will get down to serious studying "one day" is because we think that if we have the text, all we have to do is to sit down with the text and read it.
How wrong!
Like I said in an earlier posting - what you really need to do is to think about the story and come up with "patterns" of meaning. This takes time and definitely repeated readings. Each reading should multiply the meanings and and reveal more layers of insights. With literary insights we are not talking about similarly weighted maths problems where each answer is as valuable in terms of weightage as the next sum in the same section.
With literary insights the next insight you have could potentially be the one that separates you from the boys. So work at it - it is worth it!
Glossary of popular themes in literary works:
Class differences - where privilege is set against poverty, or advantage contrasted with adversity. Lu Xun's works - for those of you linguistically capable bicultural ones out there -focus in particular on the burden of feudalism. You will come away recognising the evils of feudalism. Jane Austen's works (bless her soul and tight-knit genius) on the other hand, sets the trials of her heroines against a backdrop of inheritance laws and social mores that work against women but at no point does she suggest that these be eradicated.
Seeming - quite a popular theme in Elizabethan works (read Shakespeare), about how Evil will mask its intent. Examples of this theme is played out in the characters of Iago in Othelloas well as Regan and Goneril in King Lear.
Racial prejudice - text most well-known for conveying this theme most powerfully to young adult readers is To Kill A Mockingbird.
Courage and determination - Rags-to-riches stories love this theme. Plenty of pulp-fiction pivot on this theme. Quite a number of post-colonial writers in the Commonwealth have used this theme to spin out stories about achievement under duress and courage under fire.
Corruption - there is a real favourite text to study this theme. I envy anyone who gets to study Animal Farm in secondary school. What's most powerful is that you can trace the parallel historical events in Russian history, the Russian revolution no less and the resulting corruption of the revolution's leaders.
So go back to your text and distill the theme. If you don't have a test coming up soon, now's the best time to read, ponder and reflect.
One of the reasons we are fooled into thinking we will get down to serious studying "one day" is because we think that if we have the text, all we have to do is to sit down with the text and read it.
How wrong!
Like I said in an earlier posting - what you really need to do is to think about the story and come up with "patterns" of meaning. This takes time and definitely repeated readings. Each reading should multiply the meanings and and reveal more layers of insights. With literary insights we are not talking about similarly weighted maths problems where each answer is as valuable in terms of weightage as the next sum in the same section.
With literary insights the next insight you have could potentially be the one that separates you from the boys. So work at it - it is worth it!
Glossary of popular themes in literary works:
Class differences - where privilege is set against poverty, or advantage contrasted with adversity. Lu Xun's works - for those of you linguistically capable bicultural ones out there -focus in particular on the burden of feudalism. You will come away recognising the evils of feudalism. Jane Austen's works (bless her soul and tight-knit genius) on the other hand, sets the trials of her heroines against a backdrop of inheritance laws and social mores that work against women but at no point does she suggest that these be eradicated.
Seeming - quite a popular theme in Elizabethan works (read Shakespeare), about how Evil will mask its intent. Examples of this theme is played out in the characters of Iago in Othelloas well as Regan and Goneril in King Lear.
Racial prejudice - text most well-known for conveying this theme most powerfully to young adult readers is To Kill A Mockingbird.
Courage and determination - Rags-to-riches stories love this theme. Plenty of pulp-fiction pivot on this theme. Quite a number of post-colonial writers in the Commonwealth have used this theme to spin out stories about achievement under duress and courage under fire.
Corruption - there is a real favourite text to study this theme. I envy anyone who gets to study Animal Farm in secondary school. What's most powerful is that you can trace the parallel historical events in Russian history, the Russian revolution no less and the resulting corruption of the revolution's leaders.
So go back to your text and distill the theme. If you don't have a test coming up soon, now's the best time to read, ponder and reflect.
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