I’m taking on a brief stint tutoring a Sec One SOTA (woah) kid in Lit. I’ve no idea how you tutor someone in Lit. How does one write well? or for that matter read well. I’m 17 and I’m still trying to find out. I’m only lucky that in the past I loved reading with a passion that was excessive to a fault. That was why I was good at Lit. And I don’t like reading as much now. That is why this isn’t the case anymore. – And no, contrary to popular belief, being ungracious and pessimistic does not automatically make you better at ‘practical criticism’.
He can draw really well and he’s awkward but actually pretty folksy. I like him already. I lent him a copy of A Wrinkle in Time and asked him to do a 500-word book review. To do well in Lit, you have to read and write, and have an opinion. To be a tutor, you need to pretend you know what you’re doing. On both counts I managed satisfactorily.
One thing good about GEP was how they gave us books from as early as P4 and asked us to analyse. I’m not sure what actually counted as analysis – my Lit texts could pass off as new, if not for the occasional underline or two and the scores of age spots that dot their weathered leaves – but I quite liked Lit then. No pressure to scrutinise every word and phrase, no onus to scrub them raw for glimpses of marginally useful insight. It was all in the feeling – “I liked him and he shouldn’t have died”, “I hated what she did at the end” – and yes yes the subtleties of the language does make a hell lot of a difference but don’t you think lit should primarily be taken at face value..?
actually you’re still 16. take a leaf out of previous lit teachers’ books and start by teaching how to write a good essay. And half the lit we do nowadays is to go into OVERANALYSIS anyway. but you shouldn’t go there. yet.
they do different essays (it’s SOTA AND it’s IB so dude…) I did teach him some basic Top Level Structure, am very ashamed to be doing so but ah well