Tuesday 19th July

Today in my EPQ lesson we got our feedback (P6) on our project proposal (P5) and Kay noted that 'The title itself I (she) believes will be modified once Elouise has read the novels and investigated the questions set out in her proposal - 'to what extent... affected' may be a little vague, and depending on how the research goes a more appropriate title may talk about 'how', with reference to the chosen texts, the portrayal of gay characters has changed and what impact this has had on literature/social attitudes.' Which I thought was very useful in advancing my project because I know what I need to complete over the summer. Kay suggested that 'this project has plenty of scope for both critical analysis of sources and the development of independent thinking, since the comparison of these specific texts has not been undertaken before, as far as we know.' Which I believe was very positive feedback and will help me to make progress on my project over the summer.

Monday 18th July

In English Literature today we were looking at books examining the books in the 1950's and I got a book called 'Modern British Fiction, 1950-2000' by Dominic Head and I found it to be really relevant because it had a section on 'The Swimming Pool Library', one of the books I am reading for my EPQ so I thought it would be useful for my project. Dominic Head is a professor as Cambridge University so is a expert on the subject, so his opinion will be very useful for critical analysis of the text so will be a valuable addition to my project.

Friday 15th July

Today I visited the library and found a book entitled 'Undoing Gender' by Judith Butler which is a book filled with essays about gender and sexuality. I thought this would be useful as it would provide an insight into issue to do with sexuality from a scholar's point of view, meaning my essay can have different viewpoints from people looking at the subject from different areas. Although this book is not specifically written about sexuality in English Literature I thought it would still be relevant because it is an expert's view on how homosexual people are viewed within society.

Thursday 14th July

Today in my EPQ lesson I conducted further research through the Oxford Reference Library and found some useful links that will advance my project.

Wedenesday 13th July

Tonight I started watching ‘The Line of Beauty’ the 2006 BBC adaptation of the novel by Alan Hollinghurst. I found the DVD to be very liberal in the views it portrayed; it had elements of Brideshead Revisited with the exorbitant wealth and lavish luxury. The DVD included an inter racial gay relationship showing that general views of homosexual relationship have moved on a lot since Maurice (1917) where everything is shielded and hushed away, in comparison to this ‘The Line of Beauty’ is very liberal and open-minded about homosexual relationships. Since I have not yet finished reading the novel I cannot yet comment on how it is similar or differs to the DVD. I found the DVD very eye opening showing how the general opinion of homosexual relationships has advanced over the past century.

Tuesday 12th July

Today Kay and I had a discussion about my question about my EPQ question 'To what extent did homosexuality characters affect English Literature in the twentieth century where we discussed where the 'affect' made the question very broad which may be hard to cover as it is a very wide topic. This caused us to brainstorm ideas for questions and come up with some different more narrow and precise ideas which would lead me to become more focused in my research. We came up with two rough ideas;

• To what extent did the portrayal of homosexual characters in English Literature in the twentieth century reflect the opinions of the time (and/or the public) or did the authors through their literature aim to move ideas and public opinion along?



• To what extent were the authors describing shifts that had already happened in society or were they ahead of the trends in excepting homosexuality as a way of life

I found this discussion very useful as it helped me to gain some clearer ideas on what I should do for my EPQ.

Monday 11th July

Today I visited the library and got out 'The Swimming Pool Library' by Alan Hollighurst. At first I was worried because both 'The Swimming Pool Library' and 'The Line of Beauty' are both written by Alan Hollinghurt and this may cause a problem for my EPQ (and my comparative essay) but the novels were written in 1988 and 2004 so were written 16 years apart. It will be an interesting slant on my project to compare how homosexuality is portrayed in both novels and to see if opinions of the general public (reflected through reaction of other characters in the novel) or the attitude novelist changed greatly from the Eighty's to the new Millennium.

Thursday 7th July

In our EQP lesson today we had a group discussion on the usefulness of blogs for our EPQ, we discussed the pro's and con's thoroughly as we agreed that a blog would be a positive addition to our EPQ. I started filling in the P4 Record of Initial Planning and P5 Project Proposal Part A on view point which when completed will form a timeline of the progession of my ideas through the early planning stages until the project is completed. I also started reading The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst which I found very intriguing.

Tuesday 5th July

It was careers day today so we didn't have an EPQ lesson, so instead I visited the the Library to do some independant study. I researched some articles on E magazines where critics and academics critically comment and explain certain texts in literature. I found this source useful because I know that the writers have expertise so their opinions will be more valid than people who are less knowledgable on the subject. On careers day I had some interesting workshops where I learned alot about different careers such as publishing, marketing and event organising but I really found the personal statement workshop the most informative.

Sunday 3rd July

Today I went to the beach and finished reading Maurice, it was an amazing book that I feel will add a lot to my project. It is unusual because my research has shown me that all the early novels containing homosexual characters were portrayed as 'evil, villainess characters' reflecting the views of society whereas Maurice seems like a relatable character that the audience could easily emote with. This book was published a lot later (1971) but the view in the novel that homosexuality was just a way of life compared to the earlier views in other novels, this seems a talking point as the book was written very early (1917) . Although a maybe more extremist view the view was still around that homosexuality was just a way of life.

Thursday 30th June

We didn't have an EPQ lesson today, so I went to the library where I rented the 2005 BBC adaptation of 'The Line of Beauty.' I have not completed reading the book but plan to watch the programme alongside reading the book. This will help me a lot with my project because it will show me how the novel have been interpreted for a mainstream audience to be shown on the BBC and it will show how the novel has impacted on society. As Alan Hollinghurst has just released a new novel he is in the news a lot which means that there is a lot of information readily available about him and his previous novels.

Tuesday 28th June

In our EPQ lesson today we discussed for and against points of both the Vancouver and Harvard citing systems and which best would suit us and our project. We also discussed how to select relevant information to use in our project and different ways of doing this, for example through spider diagrams and mind maps. We also learned how to efficiently skim read articles and that it may help us to allocate a rough word count for each section of our projects. We learned the difference between citing an article and plagiarism which I found very useful. I have also now thought of a working title for my essay ‘To what extent did Homosexual characters affect English Literature in the Twentieth Century?’

Monday 27th June

Today I met with my English teacher and she helped me finalise the ideas for my project, instead of comparing two books as I originally intended she suggested that I compare 4 books spanning the whole of the 20th Century. She suggest that Maurice by E.M. Forster and The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst were both good starting points, but she pointed out that one was written at the start of the century (1913-14) and the other was written at the end of the period (2004) so I should include some books from the middle of the period. The other two books that I want to include in my project are Radcliffe by David Storey (1963) and The Swimming Pool Library also by Alan Hollinghurst (1988) which would mean that I have 4 books that span the whole period. I visited the library to get the two new books and although they had Radcliffe, they didn’t have The Swimming Pool Library, so they are going to but me a copy by the end of next week.

Sunday 26th June

Started reading Maurice and found the book to be engaging, thought provoking and very modern considering when it was written (1913-14 but not published until 1971). I have been researching E.M. Forster and found a lot of information on him, so I think it will be easy to find information of him for later in the project.

Thursday 23rd June

Today we had our second EPQ lesson where the Library gave a talk in which they gave us information about where to find book and information on our chosen subject. They informed us about inter-library loans which will prove very useful because there are fewer resources on my chosen topic in print form. I can now borrow up to 12 books at a time. I also got an Athens password that means that I can access many online journals from home meaning that not only will my research be easier, I also don’t have to worry about whether the sources are credible because they are by reputable professionals in that area of study.

Wednesday 22nd June

Today I had a meeting with my tutor and we discussed my intention to explore some aspect of the representation of homosexuality in English Literature (and/or American). We discussed the merits of dealing with one author or comparing two texts from different historical periods or from two different cultures. I am looking at Maurice by E. M. Forster, Oscar Wilde, and Alan Hollinghurst’s The Line of Beauty (all of which are included in the English reading list). We agreed that taking a 'compare and contrast' approach to two texts would provide clearer options for independent evaluation than a single author approach, so I am going to find out a bit more about these texts before deciding on an angle/title. So I went to the library and got the books out.

Tuesday 21st June

Today in our lesson we learned about credibility and how to access sources to make sure that they come from a reputable source so the information inside of them will be credible and useful to my project. We also learned how to check whether sources were written by a reputable person therefore whether it contained bias or a vested interest and that would contribute to how reliable the source was. We were given five easy steps to access whether a source would be useful to us and we did this using the RAVEN method of; reliability, ability to see, vested interest, expertise and neutrality. We were also told to look out for what the purpose of the material was, who is responsible for it, when it was produced, where it was produced, selective evidence and the URL address for websites. I think this will be vital when writing my essay as the research I use will need to be reliable and this will help me to ensure that the research I use is both credible and reliable.

Monday 20th June

Today I had my first EPQ lesson where we discussed what the EPQ involved and our teacher showed us an overview of what the project involved. I found this lesson very informative, learning that interviews, websites and books could all help contribute to the research for my project. My topic of English Literature was very broad so I decided to narrow my ideas. Firstly I decided to concentrate on Literature post World War 1. Although I initially thought that I would compare an English and American novel I decided that this may become too complicated so decided to just focus on English Literature. For my question I was thinking about what would be suitable; for my media project last year I focused on the topic of homosexuality and I found this very engaging so I decided to focus my initial research on that topic area. During the next week I will need to research what books will be suitable to include in my project and talk to my English teacher about whether this is a suitable project idea.