In each weekly folder there are materials for you to revise missed lectures. There is a link to the lecture recording , and the slides used in the lecture are uploaded to the folder.

In addition you can look at the Library's My Learning Essentials programme which features both online and in-person study skills workshops.

Finally, you can speak to your Academic Advisor, they can help you create an action plan for addressing specific study skills issues.

We also give you 'further reading' suggestions on the preparation page and in the online reading list. For your essay (assessment 2), you will be definitely expected to undertake further reading and research. You are encouraged to do further reading, if you can, on other topics to develop your knowledge - but this is completely optional outside of assessed work.

Take a look at some of the tips on academic reading here.

The university uses a marking scheme expressed in percentages which is as follows:

70-100 First Class

60-69 Second Class (Upper Second) or 2:1

50-59 Second Class (Lower Division) or 2:2

40-49 Third Class

0-39 Fail

• For issues relevant to the day-to-day running of the unit, please contact either your seminar tutor or course unit director at cara.berger@manchester.ac.uk; they can deal with any immediate issues. If you want to raise anything anonymously, you can do so via this page!

• At the end of each unit you will be invited to give feedback via a form. Feedback given in this way will be used to inform planning for future versions of this unit.

• For issues about the programme more widely or about wider University issues you can contact your student representatives who will raise issues during the subject Student Staff Liaison Committee and/or at higher level committees. You can find a list of current student reps on the 'Drama and Film Studies Community Blackboard'

  
  

• spending some extra time on the assigned reading and/or looking at some of the further readings

• asking a friend to share their notes with you

• your seminar leader may be willing to share their slides if they used them. I (Cara) will be gathering my slides here (you will need to be logged in with you University of Manchester account to view)

• Undertake a marking calibration meeting with all markers for each assessment, to ensure we are marking to the same standard.

• The marking and feedback is reviewed by an internal moderator at the end of a unit. This means another member of staff in Drama and Film will sample the marking and ensure consistency. They cannot change individual marks but can recommend that all marks or a portion of marks are changed (up or down). For this reason marks are not confirmed until after the official exam board has taken place.

• An external examiner (a theatre academic from another university) will review samples of marking across the degree before the end-of-year exam board takes place. This is to ensure consistency between units, levels and across the degree as a whole. As above they can recommend all or a portion of marks to be changed.

To support this we have added a new lecture on 'analysing play texts' to support analytical skill development in this area, and have re-developed seminar plans to allow more time for analysis of the plays.

If you suspect you may benefit from a dyslexia assessment, there is support available here.

When we think of FORM, we might consider the way the content is dealt with through genre conventions and plot arrangement. FORM can also relate to the theatre conditions beyond textual features (e.g. the kinds of spaces in which a piece was put on, the kinds of acting/casting conventions of the period, audience expectations etc).

The very best essays will be able to analyse how FORM and CONTENT interact with each other and make meaning together. Generally, we don't recommend that you separate out sections on form and content in your essay plan but discuss elements of both throughout (as ever you won't be able to cover everything, so selecting the elements most relevant to your argument is key here!).

General helps with language and grammar is available here.

If you are struggling with writing grammatically and with spelling in general, you may wish to attend one of the workshops on identifying dyslexia, hosted by the library.

If you suspect you may benefit from a dyslexia assessment, there is support available here.

The main elements of the descriptor are:

• Knowledge and understanding

• Structure and argument

• Use of sources and data

• Style and presentation