Essay Plan for “Describe what you managed to learn in the first week of lessons".

Written by Thomas Mercer

• Introduction – Summary of what I intend to say in this essay.
• Buzan Method – How I learned about it and its practical application.
• Homework – Consequences of late work, where to hand it in and what types of homework I am likely to be given.
• LawsBlog – Its uses and how to find what I need for my AS Law classes.
• Library exercise – Learning how to get the material I need in order to study AS Law.
• Precis – What it is and the importance of it as a skill.
• Class rules – What is expected of me in class and what I can expect of the teacher.
• Contact details for my Law teacher and the Dept. head.
• Essay technique and what needs to be included with essays I am told to do (appraisement sheet from LawsBlog).
• Exams – When I will be taking the exams for the course, their content and what I am required to do for them.
• What is expected of me regularly – regular essays, newspaper clippings on the subject of law (weekly).
• What I need for the class – Notebooks, textbooks, ring binders and folders.
• Conclusion – Overview of what I’ve said in the essay – Shouldn’t be too long and do not introduce new statements

Describe what you managed to learn in the first week of lessons.

Written by Thomas Mercer

Introduction.

In this essay I will outline what I have learnt in my first week of AS Law and offer my own thoughts and opinions on what I have learnt. This will range from simple classroom rules to important points I learnt regarding the course itself.

Conduct rules.

One of the very first things I was told at the start of my AS Law course was what was expected of me in class, in terms of my behaviour. This included a set of rules of conduct inside lessons such as making sure to turn off mobile phones whilst in class and not taking textbooks from the classroom without asking my Law teacher, but also included requirements which extend outside the actual lessons such as expecting us to arrive early for class. I found none of the set rules to be unfair or unreasonable since most of them just outlined what I felt to be common sense. Although I did note down the need to fill out an absence slip which I would have show to my Law teacher if I knew I was going to miss a class in advance since that was something that I had not considered the need for previously.

Homework rules.

Continuing on to this were the rules and expectations regarding homework, which specifically outlined the Departmental policy of setting out additional work for people who miss a lesson or fail to hand in a homework. I found this policy to be entirely reasonable, since the stated intent was to make sure that students do not fall behind with their work since AS Law can be a challenging course rather than it being intended as purely disciplinary action.
Since I already assumed that work was expected to be handed in before deadlines nothing else that I was told regarding to homework held much of a surprise. In addition to homework I was also told that I would need to bring in a newspaper clipping each week so that I could discuss it and eventually collect a variety of clippings for a scrapbook.
I made a particular note of the stated need for the inclusion of an evaluation sheet with any essay that I am required to do for AS Law since it seemed to me like something I could possibly forget if I did not pay close attention.

Key study skills.

During the course of the introduction week it was continually impressed upon me that I would need several key skills for succeeding in AS Law, chief among these was the read and précis skill. The skill itself involves reading a text and being able to summarize the text’s key features in your own words, and so therefore I understood the relevance of the skill to succeeding in AS Law since it seemed like the skill would allow me to gain a greater grasp of the material than if I simply just read the text on my own without noting any of it down.
Admittedly it did sound time-consuming the first time I heard it, but as it was further explained I did learn how it would presumably be very important to me if I want to achieve a good grade in the examinations.
In addition to the précis skill I was also introduced to the Buzan Method, which is a very handy method of reading and note-taking in that it promotes the effective learning and memorizing of a subject. Although slightly daunting due to the amount of reviews it entails, over certain time periods though, it seems to be an intriguing and useful method of effectively revising especially since it seems applicable to most subjects I am currently studying and as such I am glad that I have now learnt of it.
When these study skills were introduced, and also from reading the introductory handouts I was given, I learnt that I will receive support from my Law teacher in gaining these at the relevant time. This was a key point for me to learn of since I was not entirely sure that the skills necessary for studying AS Law would necessarily come easily for me. 

Contact and Resource location details.

Along with the contact details for my Law teacher and the Head of the Department I was also introduced to the LawsBlog website and was given an outline of what was I was expected to use it for. For my first homework aside from this essay itself I was told to do an assessment activity to make sure I could find all the resources I would need for the course on LawsBlog, I had no real difficulties with this as the links were all very clearly labelled and as a result I learned of where to find what I would need quite easily overall.
           
The Library exercise.

This exploratory activity was complimented by a library exercise that I took part in which tasked me with finding definitions from various books and generally testing my ability to find where the relevant materials were in the library. This was all very straightforward since the books were all clearly ordered according to the Dewey Decimal System and as such I was able to learn of where I could find various different categories of Law textbooks without much difficulty. However I did encounter one question which I could not answer since the referenced listing was not clearly present as far as I saw, however this did enable me to get to know the library better as my group had to query a member of the library staff on the matter.

Examination dates and miscellaneous details.

Other course details such as examination dates and what I was required to bring to a lesson were clearly set out for me to properly understand, as a result there was no confusion in that respect.
The only point of this that threw me slightly was learning that I will be sitting an examination in January that counts for 40% of my examination grade and is the hardest of the papers, by this I mean that although I was anticipating a challenging course I wasn’t necessarily expecting a relatively hard exam so early. But I doubt that I will face any major issues for this is if I buckle down and get to grips with the course.

Essay technique tutorial.

During my first week I was also given a PowerPoint presentation along with an accompanying Podcast on the subject of essay structure which hopefully will complement what I already know about writing essays as well as reinforcing areas of essay writing that I am less confident in. 

Conclusion.

In conclusion, I have learnt over the course of my first week of AS Law that the subject is a challenging one and requires a lot of skills in order to succeed, but I also learnt that what was expected of me was reasonable from both a work and conduct perspective. I learnt that I have the support of my teachers and that I can succeed in the course if I follow several methods which help me get to grips with the course and make full use of the resources provided to me by the College.