Countdown

Med 5 Deadline

As you already know (but it can't hurt to be reminded) the deadline for the first draft of your Independent Study coursework is...

• Monday 5th February

By this date, a complete 3000 word first draft should have been posted up onto your blog, along with footnotes and a complete, detailed bibliography (set out correctly). If you're in any doubt about what this should look like then please check out some of the finished grade 'A' and 'B' Independent Studies from last year.

These will also be helpful when thinking about how to write your essay (what to include in the introduction and conclusion, how to structure the work, how to set out quotes, the correct tone, and how much research to include - they each contain between 20 and 40 footnotes, etc.)

But please ensure that all writing is done in your own words. Plagiarism is a very serious business and anyone found simply copying from other sources (either students or books/websites) will be in real trouble. And you will be found out if you do! We're not stupid - we know how you write, and we know very well what was in the previous studies (and there are numerous online checkers that we can feed your work into to see if it has been plagiarised).

The other thing you'll need to do is hand in a hard copy (on paper) in your first lesson nearest the deadline (so Monday 5th February for 13C, and Tuesday 6th February for 13D). This should be set out in one and a half spacing, and justified on both left and right hand sides.

Good luck!!

Med 5 Tutorials

You will be each be receiving a crucial one-to-one tutorial with your Media teacher during January 2007. However, you must have completed all blog tasks (1-14) to be eligible for this so these need to be done by the day we return after Christmas (Monday 08-01-07). Also, when you attend the tutorial you must bring your fully organised research folder with you so get those in order now if you haven't done already.

Finally, the deadline for the completed first draft of the Independent Study is...

• Monday 5th February

This means that if you have a tutorial towards the end of study leave you will only have one and a half weeks to get all 3000 words done (with footnotes and a full bibliography for it to be accepted) so the advice would be to get in early for a tutorial.

Available times will be posted below for each class...

13C Tutorials

Arrive at the Media Suite (E05) at least five minutes early and make sure you have completed all Med 5 Tasks 1-14 and that you have your Media folder with you...

• Wednesday 10-01: Ashley (9am), Jaskeerat (9.30am), Kiranjit (10am), Nathan (2pm)

• Thursday 11-01: Jatinder (9.50am), Shreena (1pm), Avinash (1.30pm), Kelly (2pm), Ajay (2.30pm), Priya (3pm)

• Friday 12-01: Alliaya (11am), Pip (11.30am), Ruby (midday), Heena (1.30pm), Navdeep (2pm), Kalpan (2.30pm), Anika (3pm)

• Monday 15-01: Kiran (9am), Alice (9.30am), Sam (10am)

13D Tutorials

Times will be posted up here.

Module 1 Preparation

Your revision/preparation for the Module 1 re-sit in January should be...

• Revision of MIGRAIN - key questions to ask, keywords/glossary .

• Read through all Module 1 class notes, practices and handouts.

• Re-read Module 1 revision pack, focusing especially on the print info/examples.

• Timed practice - MIGRAIN analysis of a range of print texts...

1. film posters (of different genres/decades, using imdb & clicking on posters in the sidebar)
2. tabloid & broadsheet newspaper front & back pages (use del.ici.ous links to find them)
   
3. magazine & newspaper adverts (you actually need to buy a few here!)
   
4. front covers of magazines (again, different genres; & see this article that analyzes teenage mags)
5. CD, DVD & video game covers (try Amazon for examples)
   
6. paperback book covers (again, try Amazon)
   

It is vital that you practice under exam conditions - spend 15 minutes annotating/planning and then one hour writing your answer.

If you are short for time then you can always just do the 15-minute MIGRAIN note-taking exercise on some days but try to do this as often as possible in the run-up to the exam (every day?).

For homework over the holiday, you must complete at least three of these practice exams and post them up on your Module 6 blogs. Failure to do so will mean we will not pay for any further re-sits you wish to take.

Please post up as comments on here a record of the practice you have done - it will be useful for people to share ideas about what texts are good to try, where you can get links to them online, and an opportunity to ask Macguffin any questions about any of the Key Concepts. Also, your Module 1 teacher will be alerted when you've finished a timed essay and you can get some feedback on it.

And don't forget - you can bring in any hand-written timed essays during the one and a half weeks when we return after Xmas to show to your teachers before the exam on Wednesday January 17th at 1.30pm. ARRIVE at least 15 MINUTES EARLY!!

Finally, there is a compulsory REVISION CLASS on the first day back after school - Monday 8th January at 3.25pm - and this is the deadline for the three practice exams to be done and posted up to your blogs. 13C should go to E01; 13D to P06.

Module 2 Preparation

Your revision/preparation for Module 2 re-sit in January (only a few of you) should be...

• Read through all notes, handouts and past essays on the key texts...

1. Film & Broadcast Fiction - 'Bullet Boy', 'City of God', 'Curb your Enthusiasm', 'Eastenders'.
2. Documentary - 'Bowling for Columbine', 'Big Brother', 'Man With a Movie Camera', 'Triumph of the Will'.

This includes all the general handouts on documentary, soaps and sitcoms, etc. You can download study materials on 'Bullet Boy', 'City of God' and 'Bowling for Columbine' at Cineschool. Also, put any of the texts into Wikipedia - it usually has good background info/links.

• Try to watch the texts again. A lot are available online - just click on the links above.
  

• Make new notes on each key text (above)...your own mini-revision guides, focusing on the Key Concepts for each one.

• Re-read Module 2 revision pack.

• Revision of MIGRAIN - key questions to ask, keywords/glossary + film language worksheets.

• Read through all 'Film & Broadcast Fiction' & 'Documentary' past questions.

• Write essay plans for as many different questions as possible.

Complete as many timed essays as you can (45 minutes/question).

And as with Module 1 - you can bring in any hand-written timed essays during the one and a half weeks when we return after Xmas to show to your teachers before the exam on Wednesday January 17th immediately after the Module 1 re-sit.

Med 5 Blog Task 14

The following comprises TASK FOURTEEN. It also needs to be completed over Christmas and MUST be done for the day you return on Monday 8th January, 2007. Failure to do so will mean that you will not receive a one-to-one tutorial about your work in progress...

• Type out the full title of your independent study, highlighting what you consider to be the keywords in a different colour.
  

• Then write out the first paragraph and post it on your blog. This is usually the hardest in any essay (along with the last one!) Obviously, it must be a clear introduction that makes reference to the keywords in the title and outlines the various areas that you will be exploring in the course of the essay. It may introduce a hypothesis (something that you will seek to test/prove during the next 3000 words). For example, you may be arguing that 'Kill Bill' demonstrates a change in the representation of women. It's a bit like the debate in this sense - you are putting forward a proposition and making points that will back it up (although you will also be given credit here for considering both sides of the argument too).

Med 5 Blog Task 13

The following comprises TASK THIRTEEN. It also needs to be completed over Christmas and MUST be done for the day you return on Monday 8th January, 2007. Failure to do so will mean that you will not receive a one-to-one tutorial about your work in progress...

• Produce a detailed essay plan for your independent study, covering everything that you hope to include in your submission. Break your ideas and research down into sections and paragraphs with headings, summaries and a list of references that you hope to include at each step. You can see an excellent one from last year by Manjoth (Navdeep's big sister).
  

• Make sure that you label each point you hope to include by linking it to Key Concepts (MIGRAIN) and Wider Contexts (SHEP). (You could just include the initial letter in brackets). This way you can see whether you have covered everything that you need to in an even way. Also, ensure that you think about where you will include theories/theorists and media keywords. (Keep the 'Essential Word Dictionary' handy).

• This will make writing your essay so much easier. However, it is a big task as it requires you to read through all your research very carefully (including reviewing all the work that you've posted up in your blogs and checking through the comments/suggestions you've received).

You may want to produce this plan as a straightforward series of bullet points or as a more complex mindmap. If it's the latter you may have to do it by hand and then scan it in before posting it up on your blog. Or you may want to try out a free trial of some mind-mapping software.

Med 5 Blog Task 12

The following comprises TASK TWELVE. It needs to be completed over Christmas and MUST be done for the day you return on Monday 8th January, 2007. Failure to do so will mean that you will not receive a one-to-one tutorial about your work in progress...

• Research a historical text that you can use to compare with your contemporary one (that is the main focus of your study). By 'historical' it is meant anything pre-1990 but the 40s, 50s, 60s or even 70s might be more fruitful because they pre-date many of the important changes that have occurred recently (such as the gains for women as a result of feminism). The purpose here is to be able to demonstrate how society has changed over the years and how these changes are reflected in different media texts.

• Ideally, you will watch at least one film/tv programme from the past, make notes on it and research it in Media/Film Studies textbooks and on the internet. The best option is to watch the whole text on DVD (you may be able to borrow it from us) or otherwise you might be able to see extracts on YouTube. How is it similar/different to your text? How does this show how the genre/society has changed? (A highly recommended text here is 'The Cinema Book', edited by Pam Cook and Mieke Bernink and available in the school library. If you follow the link here you can read the contents page and index online and this will be useful). Through this you will become aware of developments in the genre you are researching - look for a range of titles (at least five) that you can refer to in your essay - and you should be able to link them to the wider contexts that were present at the time.

• If you can't get hold of the text it's not the end of the world - you are stuck with doing just secondary research instead of this and primary research. Just make sure you do plenty of it.

• List your media texts, research, analysis and links/bibliography in a blog post entitled 'Historical Texts'.

Debate Teams

We've had some exciting lessons over the past two days as both sides elected their captains and selected the teams to contest the Great Media Debate 2006. In the lists that follow you'll see the captains of each team in each debate highlighted in red, followed by the rest of their team (with researchers/subs in brackets). Here they are...

13C ('C-Squad')

• Captain: Parampreet (aka 'Pip')

13D ('G-Unit')

• Captain: Rajan (aka 'Minty')

The Women Debate

• 13C: Navdeep, Ruby, Avinash (+ Heena, Sam, Anika, Priya)

• 13D: Bushara, Sherish, Dinveer (+ Prascilla, Furzana, Rishi)

The Genre Debate

• 13C: Jaskeerat/Jatinder, Alice (+ Kelly, Kalpan, Kiranjit)

• 13D: Puja, Gurveer, Harveen (+ Sawan, Harpreet, Sonal)

The Hegemony Debate

• 13C: Pip, Ashley, Kiran (+ Alliaya, Ajay, Shreena, Nathan)

• 13D: Rajan, Kavita, Balinder (+ Raspreet, Mo, Ramneet)

It promises to be a superb battle, not least because of the strength of the teams. Did you know, for instance that every single captain got a grade A for their AS? And, also, I was really impressed at how focussed and on-task both sides were when they got together in their groups on Thursday and Friday. You are taking this seriously, which is great - the harder you work now, the more chance you have of winning and the more you learn for your coursework/exams.

Everyone's a winner...except this isn't exactly true because one side will lose the debate! Get your homework done this weekend to keep your side ahead in the pre-contest buildup!

And post up a comment below to tell us what you think of your team's chances (but no personal attacks, please). Let the hype begin!!