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Useful plot, wrong story in those study guides

September 30, 2003

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English cribs may promise exam success, but they misrepresent the syllabus, writes Wendy Michaels.

Hsc students and their teachers should be alert. While it is tempting to rely on study guides - or cribs - while studying for the exams, many involved in marking and setting the papers believe the cribs are seriously flawed.

HSC English study guides are commercial publications that purport to offer interpretations of texts set for study. Many students buy them, believing they will help them get better marks in the HSC examinations.

At a recent International English Teaching Conference in Melbourne, a group of HSC English teachers, concerned about the lucrative crib industry, gathered to hear about a research project on study guides.

The teachers at the conference were divided in their attitudes. One confessed she bans her students from buying cribs. An HSC marker said, "You can tell which students use them." But one sceptic said, somewhat apologetically, that she thinks cribs give weak students something to think about.

A Newcastle University team analysed three sets of HSC English cribs produced by three publishers, using content analysis. They systematically compared each crib with the syllabus requirements. And they found all three sets fail to meet syllabus requirements on every measure.

There is a litany of faults.

The new HSC English syllabus focuses on the "meaning" of texts that is constructed interactively between author, text and reader. It is possible for different people in different times and places to interpret texts differently. The syllabus encourages students to explore different interpretations of a text and examine how they come about.

The cribs offer only one ("correct") meaning and they locate this in the text rather than in the interaction. Different cribs offer different meanings for the same text. One says the witches scene in Macbeth introduces the play's central theme of "confusion of good and evil" while another says that it shows the theme of "deception". Sometimes the crib even purports to know the author's intention.

The cribs also assume that all readers react in the same way. So they tell us "the audience realises", or "our overwhelming impression is". Sometimes they use terms such as "modern audiences" or "Shakespeare's contemporaries" to suggest that all people in that time respond identically.

In the English syllabus, "context" is defined broadly to include personal, social, cultural, historical and even workplace factors that influence the way a text is created and interpreted.

The cribs distort this concept. The context of the reader is all but ignored. References to context are commonly confined to aspects of the biographies of the author or passing reference to some historical incident (for instance, the Gunpowder Plot might be mentioned in connection with Macbeth).

The new HSC syllabus also requires students to examine how language is used to construct meaning. The cribs fail miserably here, offering superficial statements such as the "first half of the film contrasts with the second half" or "sound effects are used to create a sense of place". In one crib, the section dealing with "image" fails to analyse any visual technique at all.

Why is the NSW crib industry laughing all the way to the bank?

The new English syllabus is more complex and more demanding than the previous ones. The Premier, Bob Carr, trumpeted it as raising standards. And it does.

But the HSC examination instils fear into students, parents and teachers. The cribs have cunningly positioned themselves in the market to cash in on this fear. While each of the three cribs examined in this research project presents a different brand image, their marketing hype tells students that by spending $32.94 they are assured of instant examination "success".

The language of the cribs reinforces this marketing hype. What more do you need than superficially factual statements such as "the main characters die by the end", or "Orwell is skilful in creating a number of settings for the novel" or "suspense is used at the end of a scene or act". Sometimes footnotes are used to make the crib resemble academic writing. (One crib writer even footnotes another crib that he has written.)

But the cribs do not present an academic argument nor even adequate textual analyses. What they offer is largely plot synopses with random commentaries - tangential to the requirements of the syllabus modules and electives. Even overlooking instances of typos and grammatical errors (eg, "Find the one that best clarifying [sic] the idea for you"), much of the writing would attract a Band 3 in the HSC examination. Perhaps this is what makes the cribs accessible to weak students.

The research shows that cribs can disenfranchise students by distorting and misrepresenting the intentions and scope of the new English syllabus.

As one teacher said: "I think cribs give weaker students something to not think about."

Dr Wendy Michaels led the five-member research team that carried out this research in the School of Humanities at the University of Newcastle.

