Commentaries

[chileanbob]

This summer I got a whole lot of work to do

- do my extended essay (which will be on Salvador Allende's presidency) but this isn't the focus of my ranting today

- I must read [u]I know why the caged bird sings[/u] and [u]Things fall apart[/u].
I've got to write three commentaries on Caged Bird, one dealing with Imagery, another with Angelou's use of diction/figurative language, and a last one for a personal discovery/realization.
For TFA, I've got to write two commentaries; one on Achebe's use of Imagery proverbs/Ibo vocabulary and another on Achebe's use of foils.
The interesting thing is that WE [the students] select our own passages and do the commentaries based on our selection...I find this somewhat nervewrecking.

There's a minimum word count of about 400 words, yet I'm concerned that there is too much to cover and I will surely pass over and write too much. I see the helpful guides but I feel that they do not help enough.

Any advice? Thanks

=]

[yodude888]

Hey... I don't really see what this is supposed to be in terms of external examination. Is this like a self set mock paper 1 or a paper 2?

+ The 400 word limit seems unrealistically low...

[chileanbob]

I guess my teacher wants to prepare us for hte papers...so yeah
=\

Any suggestions?

[QueenSara]

Min. 400 words sounds like a really low limit... You don't have an upper one?
Btw, if you haven't read I Know Why the Caged Birds Sings already, I warn you - I didn't find that reading experience very pleasurable, you would think that Angelou's tragic childhood would be interesting to read about, but unfortunately I am not too touched by the literary piece; her language is simple and she doesn't use language in the best way possible to add something extra to her story. However, that is of course only my opinion, I am sure many people would disagree (I have a tendency to disagree with the whole world about books), probably you too Things Fall Apart on the other hand, is an interesting story because it shows historical things from another perspective, I really felt that I gained knowledge and understanding from that piece of work, Achebe's use of Ibo language adds a lot of credibility.

[OK, I know you didn't ask for my opinions, but since you mentioned this books, I thought it would be interesting to see what others think about them]

[Ruan Chun Xian]

I did a commentary on Things Fall Apart and I *think* it's about imagery, cant remember. Anyway it's in the download section if you want to have a look. I just can't remember which part of the book its from exactly (like in term of page number) but I mentioned the context...

Not sure how this will help you though...

Anyway if the minimum is 400 then you can go over right? And if you just pick a very small (minuscule ) extract to comment on I'm sure you won't need to go over 600.

Even in exam time I'd say you can write a lot more than 400 words...if there isn't an upper limit then I say just write as much as you can.

[chileanbob]

Hmm... thanks HMS! =]

[Wanda(Not Alvin)]

It shouldn't be too difficult to select a relevant passage... Read through the book quickly, keeping the focus of the commentary in mind, and something will hopefully jump out at you!