Hell Week...

...NOT FOR ME, for my students. Today was the first day of a series of bac tests for my Terminale students. If you have children who may take the French Bac (or a joint French-English bac) you might be interested in this. In just a second I'm going to share the essay questions from this year's Literature bac. The bac (baccalauréat) will consist of 6-7 four-hour exams: Thur - Literature; Friday - History/Geography; Monday - Biology and Physics; Tues - 2 more, etc. Then, since the students in my school are taking the O.I.B. option in English they will also have two sets of orals exams a week later -- one for literature and one for history.

But the best part of the bac is how the results will be revealed. All bac results will be available on Friday, July 4. That afternoon, our school will have a gathering in the afternoon where all bac results will be announced publically over a loud speaker! For some, this will be the 2008 version of the guillotine. The French love their public executions.

But back to today's exam. For the OIB Literature exam, students can be tested on 12 major works that they have studied over the course of two years (the usual: Shakespeare, Dickens, Austin). The essay questions, which are top secret until they are revealed at test time, for Literature this year were as follows (students must answer two):

1. Irony -- whether verbal, situational, structural, or 'dramatic' -- is a frequently employed literary device. Discuss the use of irony in some of the works you have studied this year. How are the ironic effects created, and what purpose do they serve?
2. 'The innocent always suffer in literature, but they also survive.' How far is this statement true for two of the works you have studied?
3. Is it possible to transpose tragedy from the stage to the novel? What is gained and what is lost in the translations. Discuss this with relation to two works you have studied.
4. Scottish writer J. M. Barrie said, 'Life is a long lesson in humility.' While some literary characters have benefited from humbligh experiences, others, arguable, have ben 'humbled' in a negative or tragic sense. Discuss the quote with relation to two works you have studied.

There you go. I should add that there was also a section where they had to comment on piece of literature -- this year it happened to be a W.H. Auden poem. Friday is the History/Geo test (which I teach) so I can't wait to find out what questions are asked. I hope they are on topics that we actually covered in class!

CJS