There are lots of ways in which the Covid 19 ‘experience’ (he said euphemistically) is relevant to the Pol Soc Specification. I wouldn’t be advising students to write a WHOLE essay about Covid-19, but I do think that a well-sourced and well-supported paragraph about how Covid-19 illustrates aspects of the course could fit comfortably into lots of different types of essay. The readings will make that clearer, I hope!

I’ve ‘appropriated‘ (i.e. stolen) some of @NorthMonPolSoc‘s great resources (if you’re not already following Jon, you should be…!) and provided my own workable reading list of articles about, or by some of the Key Thinkers or key themes from the specification. Some of the articles are quite short, so you could try engaging with one a day for the next fortnight. It’d serve are really valuable Key Thinker revision too!

I’ve also included a link to my TLDR handout that is designed to help students keep notes on the articles that they have read. Alternatively, you could download the google doc and add the key data, or 1-2 key quotes from each article underneath the link so you have a useable set of qualitative and quantitative data-sets that are ‘exam ready‘.

Download the google doc here: Covid-19 and the Pol Soc Spec

There’s still lots of uncertainty around what’s happening with the Leaving Cert, but I hope that the lack of clarity isn’t getting students too down… (sad-face emoji…)

And for the record, Jon is more than happy for me to be sharing his great resources! (I always check!)

Best,

JD 7/5/2020