Getting ready for AA100

Preparing for AA100 before the course starts

There are lots of things you can do to get ready for the course now.

Study Skills

Start by thinking about your study skills, particularly in relation to using a computer for learning. We recommend that you look at:

• The Skills for OU Study site. This includes essential advice on issues such as writing assignments, use of English for study, study strategies, note taking, and working with others. The site isn’t designed for you to work through sequentially in the way that you would with a printed book. Rather, it presents informative toolkits on study topics you can read and print out as and when you need them. Since all students are different, you’ll have to make your own decisions about which skills you want to focus on at this point. We recommend that you start with the section on developing effective study strategies, because this offers useful advice which will help you in the lead up to the start of the course.
• Connected to Skills for OU Study is the PC4Study site, focused on the use of computers for study. This is a particularly useful and important resource, which gives you tips about what you need to do before the course begins; how to participate in online forums; how to use computers to help with your writing; how to use web searches for study.
• The following books are strongly recommended: Ellie Chambers and Andy Northedge, The Arts Good Study Guide (Open University Worldwide, 2008); Stella Cotrell, The Study Skills Handbook (Palgrave, 2003)

Study skills are covered in detail in the Preparatory Week of the course, when you’ll work through material which will explain some of the key issues you need to be thinking about as you work through the course. As you’ll see, Skills for Study materials apply to all students; there are sections on using maths and statistics which are not relevant to most students of the Arts and Humanities. You’ll get a more detailed sense of study skills in the Arts and Humanities in Week 1.

For the moment, though, focus on a few key issues:

• Are you ready for using a computer in study? If not, see the PC 4 Study website
• Is your written English ready for study a university level course in the Arts and Humanities? If you’re concerned, see this material which includes online diagnostic tests. If you find this material difficult, see the section on difficulties with English language
• Your physical environment for study: have you sorted out where and when you’ll work on AA100? See this website for practical advice.

Set texts

The set texts and DVD for the course are:

Christopher Marlowe, Doctor Faustus: the A-text (1604) (ed. John O’Connor), Longman, £7.99

Paul Muldoon (ed.), The Faber Book of Beasts, Faber, £9.99
If you want to make a start with this set, concentrate on the poems which are studied in detail in the course: Blake’s ‘The Fly’, Donne’s ‘The Flea’, Holub’s ‘The Fly’, and the poems in the volume by D. H. Lawrence.

Seamus Heaney, The Burial at Thebes, Faber, £9.99

Lynda Prescott (ed.), A World of Difference, Palgrave, £9.99

Gurinda Chadha (dir.) Bhaji on the Beach, Channel 4 DVD, £15.99 (This DVD can be bought for £10.99 delivered direct from the Channel4Shop at www.play.com. It is also available at a discount from www.eddington-hook.co.uk and internet and high street retailers.)

You can get ahead with your reading for the course by making a start on the set books, in particular Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, which you study in Week 2. There’s material which is closely adapted from the AA100 chapter on the OU’s OpenLearn website. Working through this material in conjunction with the set text would be ideal preparation for Book 1. Remember, again, that you don’t have to read all the set texts now, and indeed, you may want to buy them as and when you need them, rather than all at one go.

If you buy your set books in advance, you might like to read through Doctor Faustus and The Burial at Thebes. You might also like to read some poems from The Faber Book of Beasts and some stories from A World of Difference, but you shouldn’t try to read all of these books from cover to cover. Good poems to start with are Blake’s ‘The Fly’, Donne’s ‘The Flea’, and Holub’s ‘The Fly’; a good story to begin with is Gordimer’s ‘The Ultimate Safari’.

• There’s also useful material on the Radio 3 production of Doctor Faustus, a copy of which you’ll receive as CDs as part of the course material, on the OU-BBC website.
• You could go to an art gallery, especially if you’re lucky enough to live near one which contains any paintings by Cézanne, whom you’ll study in Book 1. The following links take you to a list of museums and galleries which own paintings by him. View as PDF; view as an RTF file.

You can also get an idea of how the various elements of the course fit together by viewing the course outline.