Improving Essay Writing Skills...

Writing cogently and eloquently is a key component to AS Media: the ability to write technically and yet maintain the examiner's interest is, essentially, the key to success within this subject. With that in mind, our last lesson's objective was solely to improve our technical writing ability, working within groups to create a paragraph focusing on the Doctor Who clip we had used in previous lessons. The clip can be found below:



The focus of the question was how sound and editing have been used to influence the portrayal of gender within the context of the clip; the class went through the clip several times, making the following notes:-
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Sound:
-Slow, mournful tone.
-Minor chords makes it seem sombre, melancholy.
-Guitar- Western, duel, Genre Hybridity.
-Intertextuality, molding of genre.
-No diegetic music, adds to tension.

Editing:
-Prevalence of the Master.
-Cutaway from Martha to the people she loves: good side.
-Jumpcut creates continuity.
-Attention turns to friends but is interspersed with her looking towards the Master.

We were then split up into groups, and worked together to create paragraphs addressing the question, as you can see in the images below:-

My Group



Harriet's Group




Immy's Group




Beth A-C's Group




Beth Eley's Group

After this, as a class we were able to reflect and evaluate upon what we did well and what was not so good. I felt this chance to be reflective helped me as I learned what to include and made me feel more confident about my ability, as well as using other's ideas to improve my own work. Exams and Essay's, here I come...