Types/Genres of Literature
If you have ever wondered about the differing types of literature then look no further than this diagram, which will be able to show you where your novel or novella that you are currently reading fits into.
Try making a list of all the books in your GCE or GCE A Level course and see where the balance lies.
So now, we get to the end of the Year 11 English exams as you sit this sometimes, very awkward little exam.
The language paper 2 is undoubtedly harder than its counterpart paper 1, due in part to the fact that there are two sources to analyse instead of one and also because the section B task is a lot harder than it seems, but there is good news to be had in this simple little thing you could do well to remember: whether it is a letter, an article or a speech, the language and tone used is the same. The only place where it might differ is when you add “Yours sincerely” after the main body of a letter.
So, to the 2023 exam we go, for June 12th, 2023.
The inserts were those that described the use of trains from a 19th and 20th century extract by Peter Fleming and Fanny Kemble respectively. At least one Twitter user added that she had to giggle when she saw the second name, but we will not go there today. Sometimes, that happens.
Then, the section B task was a speech, arguing whether or not we should use more public transport (trams, trains and buses etc) instead of cars.
Now the question I ask and the statement I am about to make may sound one and the same. Was this a down the middle of the road insert choice for a sixteen year old (most are by now) taking their final English exam?
You would think so, wouldn’t you?
But how many of us are campaigners for the use of fewer cars and increased revenue making it possible to even use trams and buses at sixteen or below? How many of the boys will have looked at these two inserts, being mad on TV programmes like Top Gear and the likes and immediately switched off to the tone of the theme of the exam? One of my students, for example, may have read half way through the first insert and intuitively felt anger at what he was being forced to read and analyse and that is before he has even got to the 40 mark task in section B.
His dream is to work for McLaren in Sheffield!
So, how did we approach this paper? How do you, if you are Year 10 when this paper was taken (or Y9 in a year’s time) undertake something that means writing about something you either know nothing about, or have very little interest in?
The first question is a “shade 4 things in” answer, which are a proven fact and even if they inverted it one year to catch you out, by asking you to shade in the areas that are false, the idea is still the same, to get nervous little you going into the examination. Then you have question 2 and the summary, followed by the rest, which are easy enough if you have read both inserts closely.
Then we get to section B and the singular task of writing a speech, to an audience presumably like the G7 or the G20, whereby you argue one side or the other for greater use of public transport. But when you planned it – please say you planned it – did it follow a logical order or not? In the end, if this subject of air pollution, conservation, easing the burden on the roads and all other things surrounding them, does not get you going, or fire your rockets for you, then there is every chance that you might struggle with this last task of your High School English life.
Now I have not seen the exact wording of the exam yet, but am told by several who took it that the task was to write a speech arguing for greater use of public transport to ease the burden on the roads and infrastructure that already exists.
What would you add into this? What tone would you use? Would you start with a rhetorical question? You are writing to argue, so laying down the guilt trip on your hearer – do not forget it is a speech and speeches are meant to be heard – is vital for success to happen. So you have to do one thing before you begin to write and after you have planned the thing onto the first half a page and that is imagine.
Yes, imagine!
If you are the sort with little imagination, then this will be difficult. If you are a free writer, one who loves to write stories, poems, plays or whatever else there might be, then this will be easier for you. Let’s say that the speech is to the Year 11 about such things, to persuade your peers to persuade their fathers, mothers and carers to do the same. If this is the case, then right now, close your eyes and imagine you are up on that stage or wherever the Head stands when delivering an assembly and you are looking out at your year group. Imagine those faces, some of whom you know and then think about the tone you will use on them.
Forceful? Controlled? Argumentative? Calm? The answer to that will depend on the stance you take in the examination task and the language you use in your speech. If you vehemently disagree with the idea of less cars and cheaper trains and trams, more of which would be allowed to carry you around your town or city for a lot less than a car would, then the tone would be forceful and strong, not quite shouting out things, but definitely getting argumentative and persuasive with your thoughts.
Your words would follow suit.
If this sort of thing makes the active campaigner (like Greta Thunberg) in you come out to play, then you are at an advantage to the student who simply has never thought of such things or cares nothing for the argument, then the chances of your answer being worthy of a level 9 might be slim.
To me, this task suits the higher achieving and not the middle or the low, so I now point to Mr. Sunak and his government, to ask them to think about things like this before they set another exam and switch off so many male students who will no doubt see nothing in today’s examination and not have done very well in section B.
This is because the problem with messing up section B is that you could score a 7 for the paper 1 on the whole and then a 5 in this one, due to the messed up section B. If that happens then your Language grade becomes an averaged 6, when a more carefully prepared insert and bunch of tasks might have meant said child got the 7 he was after. Or higher!
If it was me, then my plan would mention things like:
Now we begin to see a well discussed, but instantly one sided speech that you then have to make personal. So you ask rhetorical questions like what car does your parent drive? You ask for answers and get words like Mercedes, BMW, Lexus, Rolls Royce (only kidding but it could happen) and the likes and you then write down, word for word, what you would say and how you would say it, using brackets for emphasis, or bold type if computing, like above, for added emphasis.
But there is a group of personal words that need to be repeated and they are words like you, your, our and ours. You have to make it personal and make it so that your argument is shared very very clearly to your audience because the one thing this kind of writing needs to be is direct! There can be no doubts with these words you will deliver.
So a lot of imagination, making it up where you need to, has to happen. It can come easy if you practice beforehand. I know because since 1989, I have been a preacher, a man who stands up each weekend and delivers a speech, a sermon if you will, to a group of people, telling them about a bible story, but asking them to consider it for themselves in how they can change and become a better person in this life.
This kind of writing this section B is asking you to create is no different. When I write a new speech/sermon, I close my eyes, imagine my audience and then begin, as I would if I were talking to them normally. It is surprising how the words come so easily after that point, because I am allowing myself to become free in my thinking and this is what you need to do.
So, with the plan in place and your first rhetorical question asked, what comes next? I would suggest the answer to that is a repeated use of something called syntactic parallelisms. These are words and phrases that are repeated at the beginning or middle of paragraphs, to make and continue a point you are making.
See the rather famous example below:
When you look at this text above, you can see the repeated use of “I have a dream” in his words. But note where they are placed. They appear at the beginning, to ram home his point. Did your speech do that today? Did you use any of these?
I have a simple ploy in asking my students to consider using things like these in threes. So if your phrase you dream up is “Trams are our past and future,” then use it three times in three paragraphs, before choosing another. We will let the great Martin Luther King Jr off with his eight or nine times in his now famous speech. After all, his was a subject far greater than today’s exam paper section B, after all.
But note the next example too, from the end of the same speech.
Notice his usage of “let freedom ring” in these final words to end his speech. Notice how he uses them and practice using similar. Think up some scenarios; climate change, pollution, school uniform abolition, better nutrition for kids, get rid of school dinners, let all students have free school meals …. there are so many to choose from and then, practice this use of syntactic parallelisms to this effect above.
When you get this skill mastered and master the use of your imagination, all shall be very well indeed.
Happy hunting.
RJ
With both Literature papers successfully achieved in late May and most students who took them praising the likes of AQA and Edexcel, the students would not be expecting something that could be described as coming out of “left field” in terms of the exam insert or the questions on the paper, but in the end, there always seems to be a howitzer of a task in each year’s exams and I personally think the first language papers did this in 2023 when it used The Life Of Pi as an insert.
Although I’ve not seen the actual questions, the students I teach online now, due to my own disability, tell me that it was the section where the hyena is on the boat, which becomes a bit of an issue if you have never heard of, read or seen the text or film. In that book, each animal he sees represents one person in his life, or another, like his mother. Therefore, the heavy use of metaphor by the writer has to be mentioned.
“Whoa! Wait! Metaphor?” I hear you shouting at the screen. Yes. If you didn’t get that bit in you’ve missed some points because the hyena represents someone in his life when he is abandoned on the ocean.
The Questions…
So the first question would be using lines 1-5 or so, to choose 4 things that are provable fact in those lines. That’s easy enough. Then there’s the second and third questions that ask you to write about Language and then, how the writer structures the writing; word level, sentence level, text level, as shared elsewhere on this site.
Then comes the tricky 4th question, which we can spend some time on later, but with Section A now over, from what I’m told, you would no doubt have felt comfortable, if you mentioned the writer’s use of metaphor and symbolism. What did the hyena represent in the text, why and to what effect?
So far, so good!
Then you get this in Section B.
When I saw it on Twitter on the day, I nearly cried. A typical picture of a beach, or a jungle setting, would have been fine. A picture of a bus on a journey, or a pack of lions, would have sufficed, given that the first section insert was about an animal. Both sections are usually linked somehow, after all.
But this might as well have been a Where’s Wally poster! Oh wait. It was a Where’s Wally poster!
How utterly patronising of AQA.
The style of the picture is the thing that alarms me. A previous exam had a scene of people walking by, like at a beach. A previous one before that had the three ladies on a bus (the Rosabel story) and then this? Were AQA really trying to patronise these fifteen year old students?
If so, it damn well worked!
The point I’m making is simple. Whatever source they give you has to be down the middle of the road. The level 9 students should be able to run with it and fly high. The level 2 and 3 students should be able to look at the picture and get loads of ideas from it to write about and hopefully they’ll get the elusive level 4 at least.
Now this picture is a travesty to see in such an examination. I saw it and the now well known acronym of WTF came out of my mouth. What, I thought, are the students supposed to write about that? A description of a zoo? What if someone has never been? What if your student, possibly the higher achievers, are animal rights active? Firstly it might offend and lastly, it would be aimed far too low on the student scale of This Is Average.
Firstly the choice is a description of a place based on this picture. Did you do the zoo? Did you have a go and think what on earth do I write? Or did you get an ingenious idea and run with it? If you did the latter, my betting is that you’re a level 6 or above so there’ll be no worries re the final grades. But some would see that pic and be forced into the story narrative arc, which asked for a time when an animal meets a human being.
My thoughts are simple here.
I think that the DFE and above them, the national government, dealt a bitter blow to a good chunk of the students taking this exam and the results will dip from last year in August, when the DFE will then say that the grade boundaries are being changed to say what an A or a B (8 and 9) actually are. This could impact the futures of our children so such senseless and constant changes need to stop at government level.
Did you, if you did the story, write about a pet coming into your house? Did you find metaphors in the section A insert and then use them in your Section B? Were you that creative?
It had to be to get the higher grades. If it was me, and this exam will no doubt be the mock exam you take next year by the way, if you are Y10 now, then I’d expect the animal (cat) coming into the home (yours) for the first time. But I’d expect some “colour” into it, like a friend did when he first met his cat.
Notice “how” he has done this….third person narrative…..man meets cat, or on this case, man falls for moggie. (for those not Northern British, a moggie is a slang term for a cat).
The Beginning.
It was a cold morning when he set off, late autumn and the sun was just starting to break the night but the sky was a dirty grey colour full of rain yet to fall.
He had an errand to run but was tired from previous work, he just wanted to get it done and get home to rest.
He climbed in the van, rubbing his hands together to try and keep them warm before turning the key and heading off. As he pulled away from the kerb the rain came, slowly at first then in torrents. He went on hoping the engine would warm soon so he could get some heat in the cab and warm his bones. Music on the radio at least to keep him company.
Thirty miles later he had made his destination and climbed from his van with the drop off he had, a small dog called Freddie to be shipped to his son in Sweden. As he turned he saw cats of all different sizes scatter, feral strays he thought. He approached the building and there was two dishes on the floor with only the remnants of rainwater in them. They come to get fed probably from the workers here but make haste when strangers approached.
Then he saw it, under the bench by the door in with the cigarette stubs discarded by the workforce. Bedraggled and wet, a ginger kitten hadn’t run with the rest but tried to make itself even smaller than it was already, it just looked at him, eyes sore and only partially open, covered in sores and red from inflammation.
“Hey! What are you doing still here” he said as the kitten tried to back further into the wall behind it.
He stood up to deliver the dog for its onward journey to be with its loving owners. Paperwork done, all the I’s dotted and the T’s crossed and he could be on his way.
He walked out to his van and reached for the door handle. He just stood there holding it, he gave out a deep sigh and his shoulders dropped. He knew he wasn’t going just yet.
He turned and walked back, the kitten was still there, every opportunity to run but it stayed and just looked up at him in its pitiful state.
“So how come you stayed little one?” He sighed once more and headed back into the building to ask the question,
“Can I take it home?”
“If you can catch it then yes but they run off as soon as you get too close” he was told.
He went back out, still there, still looking up, time to see if it would run or not as he reached under the bench. It didn’t, in fact it didn’t do much of anything apart from sit in his hand, small enough to fit in just one, cold, wet, bedraggled and unwell, it simply had no fight left in it.
On the journey home it sat in a crate given to him by the freight company, he kept the van warm and it just curled up asleep.
Probably the warmest it’s been since birth. He wondered what will happen next but no matter what he knew it was better than what it was going to face. A bitter winter was forecast for the whole country this year, a few more weeks we would be in the midst of it and it would never have survived.
“You’re going to meet some new people and new friends” he told it as he drove home, “we have two other cats who are probably going to ignore you for a while but you will be as thick as thieves with one when he gets to know you, we do though have two dogs, one will not have any concern for you, the other though? Well that’s another matter but she’ll settle down in time”
The kitten shifted but continued to sleep on the journey home.
Home, yeah he thought, home, that’s where you are headed now, something you’ve never had, never known, warmth all the time, plenty to eat so no more fighting for scraps in bowls with remnants of rainwater but safe. Yeah, home.
Six months on and he, the kitten, now called Fizzgig, follows the man everywhere he goes, two steps behind, sleeps on his chest or at his side, many visits to the vets to try and get him right but no matter what’s wrong with him his life will be right.
“Sometimes I wonder who saved who?” He said as he carries the cat up to bed as he does each night.
I was asked to relate what happens when you rescue or adopt a pet and bring them home. I chose to do it this way.
(Courtesy: MF Shaw: Facebook)
The point of telling a story is to entertain and Mike’s story does this so well. I’ve left any and all errors in it, because we all make them. The only thing I’ve changed is the beginning of each paragraph, to not miss any lines out, assuming you will be hand writing your exam answer out and I’ve put the speech on its own line.
Can you do better? If you can do (or did) as well as this you will score highly in the exam.
Happy hunting.
RJ
Two students from different schools recently did the same task with me recently. One lives in Sheffield, the other elsewhere.
We discussed a possible English Language Paper 2 example Task and came up with this statement and question to work on as we prepared for the exams.
School uniforms are too problematic to remain sustainable as a way of ensuring student uniformity.
Write a speech for your Year 11 Assembly, stressing what you believe should happen in your school regarding changes in the uniform code in future years.
We then discussed and wrote down ideas about how to do a good section B in Paper 2.
We agreed on the following:
Planning
Planning is always important. The student who plans is the same student who scores higher grades than the one who doesn’t. It has always been the case and always shall be. If you are hunting for a level 9 then you’re a planner.
Conversely, a student with the right skill set can think up a plan in 5 steps and write a brilliant level 9 answer without writing the plan down. A level 4 student however, does not have the same skills or confidence and could go wrong if their plan is not at the beginning of the answer so they can get stuck, refer back to their plan and then carry on.
But the question is what will your plan look like?
Here’s an example written recently…
We discussed the idea that his answer could be that he believes their school uniform should be abolished. But yours could equally be the same as the second student in another school, in that it serves a purpose but could be amended so that all heavy items of clothing like thick wooden or Serge blazers were gotten rid of and replaced with something that is as smart, but a lot easier to wear.
Using this plan (above), as this young male student would, his speech would be pointed in its tonal quality. He loathes the uniform, whereas a student who thinks the uniform code needs merely amending is not saying abolition is the right answer.
The young lad is saying that his first paragraph would be a rhetorical question asking “do you believe that comfort allows people to thrive and prosper?” It’s a perfectly good question too. What does it matter what we wear in class so long as good quality teachers educate with information relevant to the subject and prepare students for their exams at the end of Year 11?
But then, he plans to write a paragraph on the idea that we need to make life easier in school for all students because he believes that “children are the future.”
Now where have you heard that before?
As soon as he said it and wrote it down, I had Whitney Houston’s song in my head.
But the thing is, he had no idea who Whitney was! It was an idea that just came out of his mouth, so we discussed his thoughts and it revolved around the idea that if children are our future, if they are given freedoms to feel and be relaxed, then we will see better results in terms of examination results.
His speech would therefore have a forceful, tonal quality, being brusque by nature and utterly persuasive to the point of heightened tension and possible anger, if delivered right to the assembly, whereas the other student who believes alterations are the way forward, would be less forceful in tone and words but as equally persuasive as the other.
The arguments on this young man’s plan are that if you are relaxed, as uniforms don’t do that for him, then you can enjoy school, thrive in a less stringent classroom environment and be a better student because to him, uniforms are like shackles that restrain students from being themselves and expressing their ultimate, truest freedoms.
Now he attends a school that has recently become an Academy. For those not in the know, when a normal, state aided school like a Community College changes to an Academy, more funding is suddenly available, businesses bring in new buildings, equipment and staff and with those comes new rules. With new rules comes a usually harsh uniform dress code, which both students call Draconian.
These restrictions tie the children down. There have been multiple stories in the press recently about boys and girls being sent home because they are not wearing the agreed shirt or trousers, preferring a blouse to a straight shirt, or a fitted shirt to feel good in. They get sent home and Mum and Dad go to the press. And rightly so, in my humble opinion.
I’ve been a teacher for 26 years and the amount of times I’ve had to enforce a rule I completely disagree with is immense. For too many years I’ve had to chase short ties, trainers instead of shoes, even removing my own son’s trainers when he fell foul of the school laws, which is why I agree with his statement that each non uniform day is a major release of pent up annoyance.
This lad’s plan is a good one and would possibly bring a high mark if written well. He is expected to get a 6 so we are now hoping for a 7.
No pressure, R.
But so is the young lady’s plan to show how heavier items like thick blazers need to be consigned to the rubbish tip of High School life in favour of something they could actually feel beautiful in and that was not designed with a burly rugger playing yob in mind.
Now, at the end, three things come to mind that need to be written down before you begin, whether it is section B of English Language Paper 1 or Paper 2 and that is AUDIENCE, FORM & PURPOSE. If you check out the plan again you’ll see it there. It’s important to remember.
But there is one important thing that I want to get in your head for these exams and it is this. Your section B choice, whichever one you undertake, is worth 40 marks each time and the whole exam is 80 marks so one foul up and your chance of your predicted grade has gone! So, you have to plan your answer and you need to figure out who the audience are, what form it will take (letter, speech, article) and write it accordingly.
If it’s a letter then layout is important and is being marked.
Top right = your address
2 lines below = date under your address
Left side of paper…
2 lines below that….name and address of person sending to…make them up!!!!
2 lines down again…
Start your letter under the comma after Dear (whoever), and then use that line at the left of the page.
Indent each new paragraph.
Never miss lines out like when typing….it will lose you marks!
Yours sincerely/faithfully
6 line gap (signature)
Your name in capital letters
But take note, that the words you will use in a letter will be the same as if it is an article, or a speech. Think about this for a second and consider this. Will the tone and language change across the three different formats? I think not!
Then think of your purpose; persuade, inform, advise. The exam paper will specify!
Then do it well.
But above all, be brave, be bold and write strongly.
Happy hunting
RJ
Lit Paper 2 – Unseen Poetry (Edexcel)
So, you are preparing for the final literature paper and AQA have decided to settle for two poems, one by a very well known poet and the other by a lesser known one, which is typical. The first has a question, based on a certain thing and the last one in the exam is a compare and contrast to the first. That is typical and you have completed all the other texts in the Lit component and now, you have to do this task which to most students, seems daunting.
I have to ask why this is the case. I really do, for they are nothing but words on a page.
To show you what I mean, have a look at this below.
Warning
Jenny Joseph
When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick flowers in other people’s gardens
And learn to spit.
You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.
But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.
But maybe I ought to practise a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.
Pushing Forty
Alison Fell
Just before winter
we see the trees show
their true colours:
the mad yellow of chestnuts
two maples like blood sisters
the orange beech
braver than lipstick
Pushing forty, we vow
that when the time comes
rather than wither
ladylike and white
we will henna our hair
like Colette, we too
will be gold and red
and go out
in a last wild blaze
At the end of the day, when you stop seeing such as these as a poem, what you see is a bit of writing that shares some ideas about getting older in life. At 62 nearly, I can see how this might appear daunting for the modern fifteen year old man or woman, but as a student, you need to see the words for what they are, mere words with meaning.
Poetry tends to turn students right off for some reason and even though I am a multi published writer and poet, I fail to see why poetry is elevated into such a position as it is.
Try this for me and see what I mean.
Read this text, out loud…
When I am an old woman I shall wear purple, with a red hat which doesn’t go and doesn’t suit me. And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves and satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter. I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tired and gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells and run my stick along the public railings and make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain and pick flowers in other people’s gardens and learn to spit. You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat and eat three pounds of sausages at a go, or only bread and pickle for a week and hoard pens and pencils and beer mats and things in boxes.
But now we must have clothes that keep us dry and pay our rent and not swear in the street and set a good example for the children. We must have friends to dinner and read the papers. But maybe I ought to practice a little now? So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised when suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.
Likewise, try reading this out loud now…
Just before winter we see the trees show their true colours: the mad yellow of chestnuts, two maples like blood sisters, the orange beech, braver than lipstick. Pushing forty, we vow that when the time comes rather than wither, ladylike and white, we will henna our hair like Colette. We too will be gold and red and go out in a last wild blaze.
Nothing has been changed!
In the end, both of these pieces of writing (poems) are simple thoughts written onto a page to make the shape we know to be a poem and that is it, but the examinations ask us to then look at things like meanings and intent of writer and stylistic techniques.
Yawn!
So, what does each one actually mean? What things would you expect to see in the exam answer? Well, the question was based on the idea of how ‘Warning’ presents ideas of growing old.
As a GCSE marker, I would expect the following…
If there was ever anything that a fifteen or sixteen year old should never have to sit an exam in, it is English Literature!
Back in the previous generations that have taken the Literature side of the course, it has always been a coursework assessment. So if you studied Macbeth, as I’m sure you are doing now, then there was a coursework question set. When I did mine, that is how it was, in 1992.
If you read An Inspector Calls back then, there was a second one and so on, including a set question to compare and contrast two very random poems. Your teacher would teach you how to analyse poetry, using his or her preferred method (see Unlocking A Poem on this site) and then you’d be hit by two unseen poems. You would undertake a timed coursework in class and so on.
There was none of this ‘4 exams in English’ but you see, this and previous governments have never trusted either you, or your teachers, who work incredibly hard to get you to the highest grade possible for you. I am proud of the success I’ve had, especially since 2014, where no one has scored below a C grade or a Level 4 at GCSE and A Level English Language and Literature. Everyone has ‘passed.’ Nothing below that!
So when students do well, the government say to themselves (and they’ve not set foot in a classroom in thirty years) that the teachers are cheating, or the exams are getting too easy, or we must increase the grade boundaries (expect that in August 2023) and they make it incredibly hard for you to hit an 8 or a 9, especially in a 2 hour 15 exam (and that’s assuming that you have no learning disabilities. Then you’d add 25% extra time).
I’ll let you do the ‘Math’ on that one, as the Americans say.
But now, you are required to work your butt off and then sit four exams, with the second one being in English Literature and covering the following texts, assuming your teacher chooses the JB Priestley one.
An Inspector Calls
Power & Conflict Poems x 16
2 Unseen Poems
It has, in the past, affected the mental health of our children, including mine. I remember them both taking it and hating it and you know the one thing that results from this? They both now loathe reading. It just goes to show that we are killing the desire to read for fun in our classrooms and it has to stop!
So with that in mind, until this government comes to its senses, how would you tackle this exam? Below is a rough representation of each question set in June 2023. They may not be exact because I’ve not seen the present paper as a “past paper” yet. But roughly, these were the questions.
I shall now go through each one, to share a few ideas of the things I would expect my students to mention. They will be bullet pointed ideas.
An Inspector Calls
“How does Priestley present life for women in an Inspector Calls?”
How are women presented in the play?
I’d expect all of those and possibly some more based on the student’s take on the play and the task. There are other things you can mention, like how Eva wants to better herself, itself a sign of Capitalism at work (the American audience would call that the American Dream)
How does Priestley present the differences between older and younger generations’ in their responses to the Inspector?”
Maybe as well, you could add things like the history of the Suffrage movement, the rights of women at the time, the way Eva is an antagonist working for better working rights. There’s all sorts of things a young reader could add in.
Don’t forget, I am nearly 62, so have seen a lot more in life so know about these things so if your teacher hasn’t taught you the historical aspect to this text, then shame on them!
This is where I add in a disclaimer for you. If you took the 2023 exam and are looking at this and thinking Jeez but I didn’t get half of that into my answer, then do not worry. I’m sure you will do well.
Then we get to this bit of the exam…
Power & Conflict Poems
In the 2023 exam, the question was based on your reading of the poem, My Last Duchess, focussing on how power is presented. You were then asked to compare one other poem of the sixteen to it.
The first thing is to choose the right poem to compare it to. Students across Twitter shared after the exam how they compared it to certain poems, all laced with elements of power. Exposure. Charge of the Light Brigade. Ozymandias. Plus others. The thing to remember is that any and all of those poems are linked to each other through the twin themes of power and conflict, both of which can be seen in many different ways.
Conflict does not have to be warfare based. It can be a conflict of interests, a conflict in a relationship, a conflict with life and death. It can be linked into the My Last Duchess poem.
So do not worry. You will have done well.
The thing with poems is that students hate them in general, as with any form of literature. I’m not sure why they loathe or fear them. They are, after all, just words on a page.
The only text I’ve taught in the last 26 years that students have adored is Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird! So the thing to do is follow a plan when writing about a poem.
Which is better for that last one? I think that this is a good poem because….or This is a good poem because…..?
The answer is the latter, to be sure, because it sounds more like a Y11 essay, not like a basic Y7 first effort. This is what we are expecting, after all.
Then, we get to the final section, but take note. The first poem is worth 24 marks (25 minutes to write) and the final one only 8 marks, (so only ten minutes max).
In the June 2023 exam, it was these two poems below:
Unseen Poetry
Scaffolding
Masons, when they start upon a building,
Are careful to test out the scaffolding;
Make sure that planks won’t slip at busy points,
Secure all ladders, tighten bolted joints.
And yet all this comes down when the job’s done
Showing off walls of sure and solid stone.
So if, my dear, there sometimes seem to be
Old bridges breaking between you and me
Never fear. We may let the scaffolds fall
Confident that we have built our wall.
Yours
I am yours as the summer air at evening is
Possessed by the scent of linden blossoms,
As the snowcap gleams with light
Lent it by the brimming moon.
Without you I’d be an unleafed tree
Blasted in a bleakness with no Spring.
Your love is the weather of my being.
What is an island without the sea?
****
I am purposely not going to analyse them here, because that would be wrong. But students who sat the exam came out and hit their Twitter buttons and said things like “I love who wrote this paper.” They were thankful for it being easier than expected.
Personally, I’d see the final poem and think okay, not so bad, but the first one, the Heaney one, would confuse the students of lower ability. It’s what I’d call a “ringer” of a poem to use. Normally, the poet they use is not famously known. Little Joe Bloggs wrote a poem and we like it so here it is, etc. But to use Seamus Heaney was a tad cheeky in my humble and honest opinion as an educator.
So, if you’re reading this after taking the 2023 exam, how do you think you did?
If you have the exam next year and are in Y10 now, then expect this for your Mock exam. That is what teachers usually do.
But above all, try not to take it too seriously, because the last thing a member of my profession wants is for you to begin or continue to hate reading.
Readers become Leaders, after all.
RJ
What a lovely brace of questions that came up in the exam this morning for my tutees, assuming that you did Macbeth and A Christmas Carol.
If you did then this might help you.
Macbeth
How does Shakespeare describe Macbeth as a male character that changes?
The scene was where Macbeth finds out that the English Army are marching towards Dunsinane.
As a tutor and semi retired (through disability) teacher of English who has taught GCSE for 20 years, covering everything from KS2 Y5 English, through the SATS at Y9, to Degree Level English tasks and exams, when I saw this on Twitter today, I rejoiced.
My students were taught specifically to take a task where there is a section of text to analyse, to do it in a certain way. First, you analyse the given text. Then you start at the beginning of the story and work your way through the text, adding quotes in to prove your points, right through to the end.
With points and evidence given, you then have to explain (using those lovely PEE chains) but a lot of students stop there. They make a point. They back it up with evidence.. They explain it…just the once.
That is where the marks go down because the examiner and marker are expecting a development of your critical thinking to get you up in the higher grades.
If a student is taught to use a PEED chain, then it becomes a point, then evidence, then explanation and then, two more things it could mean.
How to do this will be covered in the next section.
A Christmas Carol (Dickens)
How does Dickens describe the effect of greed?
The Christmas Carol extract was when Belle breaks off the engagement with Scrooge.
Again, what a wonderful text to choose. Bravo to whoever chose that one as it is the one scene in the entire thing that really shows the extent of what happens when greed overrules life and love and nothing bust nastiness, in the character and epitome of Scrooge, results in someone that is cold and brutal to all that he meets.
To show you what I mean, think of the text for a moment. You make a point. Scrooge loves money more than Belle. You use the bit where he says he is doing it for her and then you explain, saying how he cannot put her first in his relationship. But to add the extra two to develop your critical thinking, you could think what others in your class might possibly think.
So 5 things are done. Not 3.
Point, evidence, explain, explain again and then add a final thought in, before you go to your next point. So, Scrooge loves money more than Belle. The text is where he says he’s doing it for her. Your thought is that he cannot put her first. Then, the other two ideas might be that his love for money is meant to make the reader think am I the same? (reader theory) and how this scene is a metaphor for how selfishness can destroy love in all aspects of life, if we let it.
Suddenly, the depth of your paragraph and answer is so much better, has more depth and if you do this all the way through the essay, it also becomes twice as long as it would be, if you are using the famed and well taught ‘PEE approach.’
I always tell my students when doing this to imagine me holding three fingers up and smiling, as if to say “make sure you’ve got your three explanations in there.”
I’m not typing this to make you think oh my God. I did it wrong. Entirely the opposite actually, for I am sure your answer will be fine and great how you did it, but for future GCSE students, this could be a way forwards.
Let’s see what happens in late August, shall we?
But let me leave you with this, to see if any emotions of this went into your Christmas Carol essay earlier.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbawsayImds&ab_channel=Shaun
RJ
The usual form of revision is to revise (however you revise) until the exam, but this only tends to confuse students even further.
So how can a student resolve the issue of confusion on exam day?
The answer to this is to plan accordingly and take a bold step by doing nothing at all to do with your studies the day before the exam and that includes the morning of the exam.
How can you do this?
The answer is simple. You plan when you see your examination timetable. (see below)
So, looking at the English timetable for 2023, including the dates of other exams, we see 4 dates for the English exams.
17th May……… Lit Paper 1
24th May……… Lit Paper 2
5th June………. Lang Paper 1
12th June…….. Lang Paper 2
This then, is what I propose and it is a tried and tested model for revision.
15th May – DAY OF TOTAL REST
16th May – Bio exam 9am
16th May – TOTAL REST AFTER!
17th May – English Lit Paper 1
22nd May – DAY OF TOTAL REST
23rd May – English Lit Paper 2
4th June – DAY OF TOTAL REST
5th June – English Lang Paper 1
11th June – DAY OF TOTAL REST
12th June – English Lang Paper 2
REST DAYS = NO REVISION, GO TO ALTON TOWERS, THE CINEMA, SKATING; WHATEVER YOU WISH BUT NOTHING TO DO WITH STUDIES. TOTAL REST.
In 27 years as a teacher I have always taught this technique and I have used an analogy to explain it which involves the household task of ‘dusting.’
Yes, dusting!
When parents dust a room, if you look at the air as the light comes through the window, you see the dust particles in the air, floating before they settle. Gravity does the rest and it takes time to settle.
Revising is the same.
The dust is the subject information, whatever the subject. You revise how you revise and it needs time as information, to settle into your memory.
By having that DAY OF TOTAL REST the day before the exam and leaving revision books at home on the morning of the exam, you’ll be ready to sit the exam.
If you have revised fully, it will almost feel, when you begin to write, that you want to be sick with the information inside you. It simply needs to come out of you.
Try it. It improves scores by at least a single grade, assuming you have revised fully.
Please consider this method of timing your revision and do it.
So here we go again. June is nearly upon us, here come the Lit exams and then the Language ones, beginning on June 5th I believe. Now that is not long to go.
Paper 1 and Paper 2 of the Language Papers cover 80 marks each so “let’s do the Math,” as the Americans love to say. 2 forty minute sittings where 2 things are written can lose you the best part of 80 marks if they are not handled correctly. That’s the difference between a 9 and a 4 most likely. The whole concept is utterly terrifying!
Section A of each exam is 4 or 5 tasks tasks long. AQA and the likes can change one task into two parts. It has been done before. That is worth 40 marks for all that. Then you get a single thing to write for 45 minutes or so and on Paper 1, there is usually a picture to use as a springboard for your ideas, which is why we teacher loons use spring boarding techniques from Year 7. Ever wondered why you read the last chapter of Skellig and the teacher hated it so he asked you to write your own final chapter, for display?
My lot did just that once!
But the 2nd task asked for, should you choose it, is not a description, but a descriptive account of something happening. How easy is that?
For a lot of you, you will see it and think Oh My God! How do I do that? Your teacher should have practiced this with you and if they haven’t then have a gripe at them, but assuming they have, you should be able to do what I am about to ask you to do.
Task
Read through the following story (written by me and taking 45 minutes to type up) which uses a TV programme as a springboard (see previous post about BBC Ghosts) and make a list of as many things you notice in it.
Eg. (1) Start far left) (2) Indent next paragraph. (3) Speech on its own line….and so on as you go. There are a good dozen things in this account/story that you could say “if this is how it is done, then this is how I have to do it in the exam.”
And that, you see, is the whole point.
Read and create the list as you go.
Happy hunting.
Survival Issues
Frances Eleanor Button was once again walking around the gardens of her home after just spending some time in the graveyard she had made for her pets when she silently came across Mike and Alison in the garden, preparing the ground for their seasonal vegetable planting.
This was her usual daily walk, as she admired the beauty of God’s nature around her in such glorious grounds as Button House. As she saw them both, she came to a stop and introduced herself.
“Ahem,” she muttered, “Good afternoon Alison.”
“Oh, hello Fanny,” replied Alison, but before she could continue, Fanny continued.
“I remember when we had gardeners do such things as this. We used to grow lots of vegetables that were eaten in the house. They were hard times for all of us.”
“They are now, as the energy prices and food prices have just gone through the roof. We thought….”
Fanny had a habit of interrupting anyone as she still saw herself as the Lady of the House. She was about to do just that when Alison gave her a look as if to ask her to stop. Mike just looked up from his onion rows and knew they would be in conversation for some time. As he carried on, Alison changed tack.
“Actually Fanny, there was something I meant to ask you after our conversation the other day.”
“Oh, which conversation was that?”
“The one where you mentioned the trip on the Titanic. I meant to ask…”
“Oh, that!” replied Fanny, before Alison could finish. I would rather forget about all of that if you don’t mind.”
“Yeah, I know, but I had an idea I wanted to talk to you about.”
By this time, Fanny was intrigued at what would come next, so the two of them agreed to go and sit on the garden bench nearby, so they could talk. When they got there, they both took a seat and Fanny waited, which for her, was not the normal thing she would do. Her bombasticity would usually mean she dictated the pace in conversations.
“Well, “ said Alison, “the thing is……” She was thinking of how to word it, because it was a delicate subject. Then she had the idea.
“I wondered if you felt anything at all about not going on that journey.” she watched as Fanny exploded like a small and badly placed bomb.
“Not going? I was glad not to go when I found out the truth of the whole sordid…” She was beginning to get agitated, so it was Alison’s chance to interrupt.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you Fanny,” said Alison. “It’s just that sometimes, people feel guilty about such things as this; things out of their control. Modern psychologists call it ‘Survivor’s Guilt, because had you been on the journey….” She paused, waiting for Fanny to catch up.
Fanny just stared at Alison, making contortions with her face as she tried to sort this news in her busy mind. It seemed, to her anyway, that the longer and older she got, even in death, the more difficult it became to understand such things and the more intransigent she became.
Alison continued.
“If you want to discuss it, you know where I am,” she uttered and gave Fanny a look that meant a hug was intended but could never be given. She could see the pain in the face of her secret, favourite Aunt. As she rose and walked slowly away, she hoped that soon, Fanny would reach out to her. Fanny was left to contemplate what had just happened.
***
As the days passed, whenever Alison and Fanny met, or passed each other in the great house, there was a sense of unease in the both of them. But each time, deep down, Fanny felt as if she needed to unburden herself of her guilt at being the survivor, only to fall at the hands of her lecherous husband when he pushed her out of that window all those years ago!
Survivor’s Guilt is a powerfully felt emotion! It is a response to an event in which someone else experiences loss but you do not and is often very dangerous if left unchecked, which is why Fanny was struggling so much in recent weeks. She had lost so much in her life that in her death, things only seemed to get worse, which is why she was struggling so much in recent days towards her husband of so many years ago.
Just as her mother had seen her father lose everything, so too could she remember the way her mother’s mind melted at the embarrassment of a father who was so dangerous in his spending, something that the Mathematician in her could never abide.
She could see the mistakes and felt bitter towards both her parents as a result, which is why she was as crusty as she was to most people she came into contact with, whether dead or alive. She knew she needed to share with someone and on one cold winter’s morn, she decided that enough was enough and she would finally ask Alison to sit down with her to sort her mess out.
The day came all too quickly for both ladies and Alison made sure the others were busy so that when Mike went to do the supermarket shopping, she and Fanny could spend some time in the lounge, going through her dilemma.
The two of them met at lunch time and it began rather awkwardly, for both!
Alison began.
“So, Fanny, you said to me that you wanted to share something?”
“Yes,” replied the fidgety lady of the Manor House. “It all began when I was a young woman. My father lost everything. My mother blamed herself forever, till her death and quite possibly beyond, but she passed to heaven, or wherever people go.”
“How did you feel about the whole thing?” enquired Alison.
Fanny explained further.
“You see, mothers had no control over fathers. Women did not have the equality you have with your husband now. We women suffered abysmally at the hands of people like my….” She paused.
“My husband!”
Pushing that last word out was difficult for her, for she loathed the man for what he did, to her and to the rest of the staff in the house. Alison had heard the story from Julian, who gloried in the knowledge of it. Fanny continued.
“In the end, there was nothing we could do, as women in those times. But the blame still rested squarely on us, for not being able to find a way to make things right.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” said Alison, not waiting for the reaction. “When you married, you made vows, yes?” Fanny nodded.
“Who broke those vows?”
Fanny’s face changed at such a thought! She had never thought of such things or that it could be different than she envisaged. But she could now see the logic in Alison’s thinking. Why should she blame herself? She was thinking just that when Alison spoke again.
“So in the end, you should only feel sorrow for those things you know that you did wrong!”
There was a pregnant pause as the words settled into Fanny’s mind, as something began to change in her. She felt it like a hand had been placed on her right shoulder, but when she looked around, half expecting to see the captain, or Thomas, she saw no one. It was like some invisible, divine hand had touched her very soul!
As they parted, Alison wondered just how much her words had helped Fanny to understand that her loss of life, as well as property, health and identity were important to her, but they were minor in the larger scheme of life!
Little did she know how much a change this meeting would bring. It took just one evening for things to change! When they all awoke the following morning, they did so to the sounds of birds singing their morning songs in the branches of the trees in the grounds of the great house? But it took the Captain to make the observation, as he exclaimed at breakfast, the words he never expected to say!
“I say, Fanny,” he began, “You didn’t do it this morning. Are you feeling okay?” he asked. He wasn’t sure, but he asked, more for clarity than anything else and received the clarification he yearned for.
“Yes,” said Fanny. “No more leaping from bedroom windows for me!”
The rest of the people present did not understand the complexity of her words, choosing to react differently. Robin asked what she meant. Thomas stared in silence. Pat tried to make a joke of it all, as was his way. Humphrey’s head even chimed in to make mention of how quiet it was that morning!
By then, as he said it, the Captain realised that there was one moment still to come if Fanny had dropped her demons and had ceased to be the terror of the household. She seemed much more at ease and that worried him greatly, as he thought of Mary before she ascended and of Kitty and how the glow shone around her when she too was taken.
When would it be for Fanny? The very thought of losing her concerned him more than ever!
How many did you find?
So, here come the next few months in quick succession and before you know it, the 17th May will soon be with us and you will be sitting the first of 4 exams in English which are designed (by an ever increasingly nasty government) to put you to the test in your reading, comprehension and creativity.
The exam dates are as follows this year:
17th May – Literature Paper 1
24th May – Literature Paper 2
And then…
5th June – Language Paper 1
12th June – Language Paper 2
The Literature papers are what they are; combinations of the three texts you studied, such as Macbeth for the Shakespeare, A Christmas Carol for the 19th Century text and An Inspector Calls, for the modern text (play). You may have your own variations and as long as you answer the questions, keeping to the question, then all shall be well, but be careful.
I have used an analogy a lot in my teaching, which I will share later and since 2014, not one single student I have taught it to, either in a classroom, or at their home through tuition, or online in the same fashion, has ever gone below a C grade, when that was the way, or a Level 5, which we now consider to be a good C grade of old, or at least colleges and employers do.
So, all you can do is learn and revise the important quotes from each text that you think fit the bill. Don’t let anyone tell you that your quotes are rubbish. You think they are worthy of learning and they will stay with you whether you get the chance to use them or not, so believe me when I say this, the text questions that ask you to look at a chunk of text and then analyse the rest of the book mean just that. Write about the text in front of you, then what went before it and then what happens after it to the end of the text.
If it is a 5 act play, learn 4 good quotes from each act, like “is this a dagger I see before me?” Learn what it means, where it fits into the story (context) and learn how to use and develop that lovely thinking mind you have. In essence, with literature, there is no wrong answer, so long as your point can be backed up with evidence from the text. So, when you say Scrooge is a miser (notice the present tense there, on purpose) use the infamous quote of “he was a hard fisted, hand to the grindstone, Scrooge, a squeezing, grasping, clutching, covetous old sinner.”
I love it when Rizzo does the line in the movie!
Then you have the poetry to do as well, which your teacher should have prepared you for, but with each poem in the Power and Conflict section covered on this website, give them a read and take a few notes. You may not always agree with me, but that is the joy of poetry. I respond as I do because I am nearly 62 and have seen so much more life and experienced so much more love and joy, as well as pain.
I’ve also been in so many incarnations, re my work. I was not always a teacher, but a miner, driver, chef, tour guide abroad, so when I read a poem like Charge of the Light Brigade, because I was 3 years a soldier, it makes me respond in a certain manner.
With those exams done – I purposely do not mention the unseen poems here because I have dealt with them elsewhere on this site – you then have the 2 language exams. Now if your teacher has been any good (and many are not, sadly) then s/he will have set you up and prepared you, but ask this; where is the chance for many marks to be lost?
The answer, of course, is found in Section B of both exams.
80 marks across 2 exams!
That is only my opinion, of course, but so many things go wrong with creative writing in exams.
Let me tell you a true story. Sarah was one of my students. She worried like mad at the beginning of the year. She was an adult student. She had not got that elusive C grade but was so good at analysis of a text so Section A of both exams were relatively okay for her, but this teacher unlocked something in her creative side, encouraging her to go for it in such writing and she found she loved it, but the description/story in Lang Paper 1 and the article in Lang Paper 2 threw her completely.
So I shared the analogy I mentioned earlier, of a train journey. Writing a story or a description or an article, is like taking a train from one place to the other, say from Grantham to London, or A to B. If you stay on the train, you will get off in London and will achieve success.
Writing these 40 point beasts is the same.
If, however, you get from A and half way to B and have what we might call a Brainwave, an idea that seems so good and you ‘go with it’ then you may just end up at C, or Ipswich, even though there is nothing wrong with Ipswich! Your story then does not resemble the task, only in the first half, so the maximum a marker would give you, even if brilliant, would be 20 marks out of 40.
There goes your level 5 down the river! Or a 9 becomes a 7 so quickly because you have lost so many marks by making that error.
Then, when you get to the article, you do the same thing; share a great idea about how to argue against the opinion shared – always that format now with AQA – and you realise that there are three or four words in the title that you ignored totally. Thus, you only did half a job.
Look at a paper 2 article question from AQA and see what I mean.
But that article is important, so how do you write a measured article for a website, or press paper etc? Here is a link for you to see. You may recognize it.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/zv7fqp3/articles/z6n6gwx#z7gxm395
BBC Bitesize can appear a little patronizing at times, but this one is so good so you need to look at it to get this right, for what they say here is excellent for this last exam of the English Language side of things.
The one that I looked at earlier today with my students asked you as students to consider the idea that we have become “obsessed with travelling long distances,” whilst at the same time saying that such things were bad for the planet. How much did we agree with that statement?
I asked for a plan and one student did a fabulous one, which I am pointedly not sharing here, but it was only one sided, when according to the link above, it needs to hit both sides of the argument based on the words in the title. He had made the same error Sarah did.
This was the question/task
“People have become obsessed with travelling even further and faster. However, travel is expensive, dangerous, damaging and a foolish waste of time.”
Then it asked “Write an article for a news website, in which you argue your point of view on this subject.” It offered 24 marks for content and the other 16 for the old devil called SPAG – Spelling, Punctuation And Grammar.
Note also that it said to plan the thing for 5 minutes, which the student did, but it did not mention the 4 words or think about arguing both sides of each one – expense, danger, damage or foolishness.
So, how do we do it?
The answer is to split the page into two with a vertical line in the middle and then split the page into 4 rectangles. One for each word above.
That’s 8 rectangles!
You then need to figure out why people think these things and why you disagree, assuming that you know why these things even go through someone’s mind. Add your thoughts into each rectangle.
Then you need to write a balanced argument using words like on one hand and with all things being equal, assessing both sides of the argument asked for, before you then write down what you truly believe at the end. Then, you have a balanced argument worthy of a 9 mark and grade and will simply blow the mind away of your markers.
Is this what you wish to happen when they read your exam script? I certainly want it for every single student who reads these thoughts. If you do not or are not bothered by what you get, then you are half way to failure, which is a great pity, for we teachers only want the very best for you in late August.
So go for it and blow us all away with your thoughts and writing. That’s the point of exams in the first place, to be a place where you get your chance to show off your skills.
HAPPY HUNTING!
THE GCSE & GCE ENGLISH PORTAL 
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