If beginnings feel tricky (until you read this, naturally), then signing off an essay can feel just as daunting, and it’s equally important. Faced with the time pressure of writing an additional half paragraph of analysis only to finish mid-
-sentence, or writing a strong conclusion, I know which one I’d choose every time.
It’s that time of year again.
OCR A Level English Literature (paper 1): Thursday, 23 May, 13:30hrs
AQA GCSE English Literature (paper 1): Wednesday, 15 May, 13:30hrs
as well as mocks for Y10 and Y12 students … and the most daunting thing of all is starting your answer. (For tips on how to end your essay, click here)
“Do I need an introduction? Why? What should be in it?”
“Don’t tell them, SHOW them.”
Last week, as an interesting experiment (interesting to me as much as to anyone else), I set my two KS4 classes the same question, to see how they fared with a little competition.
Anything other than modern ‘exclusivity’ could mean demotion and starvation at best, or – more likely – imprisonment, exile, or execution.
CLASSROOM BASED ASSESSMENT: In Edward II, love is invariably possessive. Discuss.
Weightings: AO1 (25%); AO3 (50%); AO5 (25%)
God, I hate this question.
One of the things that I got from my teacher training, back in the day, was that if you asked a poor/stupid/inaccessible question, you only had yourself to blame for crap answers. This is an OCR question – at least the students get a choice of six to answer for their final exams. But for reasons beyond my ken, or immediate power to change, it is our first CBA on Edward II. It also comes too early in the course for people who were in school uniform less than 6 months ago to be asked to deal with AO5, if you ask me. They were being constantly drilled in AO2, and for this essay, it’s not required …
But enough whinging. In the spirit of never asking people to do something you wouldn’t do yourself, here’s a model answer for my class to play with. I tried to do this in the same conditions they were asked to do it in, without any ‘cheating’ on my part.
IF THIS IS THE FIRST TIME YOU’VE HAD A LOOK AT ONE OF MY ESSAYS, PLEASE CLICK HERE FOR THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW.
If this is the first time you’ve read an essay here, please take a look at this post before proceeding.
MY CLASS WILL BE TAKING THEIR GCSE PAPER ON THE TEMPEST THIS MONDAY. I WISH THEM THE VERY BEST OF LUCK!
It is this lack of intelligence, or of understanding, that propels him towards making the same offers to Stephano as he did to Prospero twelve years earlier – a move which led to his enslavement. Sections of the audience would approve of the ways in which Caliban is easily taken advantage of. John Hawkins started the slave trade with his first voyage in 1562, just two years before Shakespeare was born. For many Europeans, blacks were simply slaves.
GCSE MODEL Essay based on AQA specimen question paper, and marked as follows:
If this is the first time you’ve read an essay here, please take a look at this post before proceeding.
Now that he has everyone in his power, we might expect him to use his magic spitefully and violently. Interestingly, this scene acts as a kind of volta in the plot: the conversation changing Prospero’s philosophy and actions forever.
GCSE Essay based on AQA specimen question paper, and marked as follows:
Continue reading “The Tempest: GCSE Model Essay for my Y11s”
Abstract for the busy: this paradigm crystallises or articulates my recent thinking about kingship/leadership as it applies in Shakespeare’s plays and, I increasingly suspect, beyond. It gained critical mass after teaching Richard III at Key Stage 5 (Age 16-17) in Autumn 2016, where I found myself returning again and again to questions of Legitimacy, Authority and Dynasty, in plotting not just Richard’s journey and motives, but Richmond’s and, in fact, Queen Elizabeth’s.
If this is the first time you’ve read an essay here, please take a look at this post before proceeding.
Without superstition, Richard III would have been reduced to a relatively mundane and propaganda-tinged retelling of the familiar Tudor ascent to power. Shakespeare’s skilful exploitation of the complex Elizabethan mix of secular and religious beliefs, via Margaret, transforms the play into compelling drama for contemporary and modern audiences.
Question:
“The population of Renaissance England was, by modern standards, fervently religious. ‘Atheist’ was an insult too extreme and too ludicrous to be taken seriously.” (Lisa Hopkins and Matthew Steggle: Renaissance Literature and Culture, 2006)
Despite an unwavering belief in the Christian God, the early modern period was remarkably superstitious. Explore how and why Shakespeare uses superstition in the early parts of Richard III (Acts 1-2) Indicative length: 1,000 words.
Success Criteria:
AO1: Personal Response (30%)
AO2: Analysis of Writer’s Methods (40%)
AO3: Understanding of the role of and influence of Context (10%)
AO5: Exploring different interpretations of the text (20%)
If this is the first time you’ve read an essay here, please take a look at this post before proceeding.
This essay was set as the first assignment for my KS5 class this year – on the OCR specification. Student submissions were therefore marked on the following criteria:
Richard’s unscrupulous ambition and misogyny is balanced, in Act 1 scenes 1 and 2, by his facility with words and mischievous, almost devilish sense of humour.
AO1: Personal Response (30%)
AO2: Analysis of Writer’s Methods (40%)
AO3: Understanding of the role and influence of Context (10%)
AO5: Exploring different interpretations of the text (20%)
“There is as much to admire as there is to loathe about Richard.”
How far and in what ways do you agree with this statement? [Act 1, scenes 1/2: 1,000 words]
It’s almost impossible for me to set an assignment on Shakespeare without producing some kind of model answer … it’s a compulsion rather than a chore.
So this blog will increasingly be a place to find:
The Boar's Head, Eastcheap 