Literary essay skills, Year 10: Paper 1, tracing a theme and learning quotations

105

HintIt is half an hour shorter than Paper 2.

The whyThat is 1 hour 45 minutes for two essays, so a little over 50 minutes each including reading the extract and planning.

64

HintTwo equal essays, plus a few marks for accurate writing on the first.

The whySection A (Shakespeare) is 30 marks plus 4 for accurate writing; Section B (the nineteenth-century novel) is 30.

40; 60

HintThe second paper is longer and has three sections, so it carries more.

The whyPaper 1 has two essays; Paper 2 has an essay, a poetry comparison and two unseen poetry answers.

A Shakespeare play and a nineteenth-century novel

HintOne text is drama, the other prose fiction.

The whyYou answer one question on each: the play your school chose in Section A and the novel it chose in Section B.

The text as a whole

HintThe extract is a starting point, not the limit.

The whyA balanced answer analyses the printed lines closely and then links them to other moments in the play or novel, from memory.

No: both papers are closed book

HintThink about what is printed on the exam paper for you.

The whyEverything beyond the extract has to come from memory, which is why learning short quotations and key moments matters.

A theme

HintIt is what the text is about underneath the plot.

The whyA theme is not the same as the story. The story is what happens; a theme is an idea the events keep raising.

The beginning, the middle and the end

HintSpread them out so that a change can be seen.

The whyThree well-spaced moments let you show how the idea develops. Three moments from the same chapter or scene can only show how it stands at one point.

What the writer shows or suggests about it

HintFinish the thought: power is presented as…

The why“This play is about power” gives the examiner nothing to assess. “The play presents power taken by force as impossible to enjoy” is a view you can prove.

Link the extract to an earlier or later moment and say what has changed

HintUse a phrase that points to another stage of the text.

The whyDevelopment means difference over time: a character's view hardens, an image comes back with a new meaning, a hope turns out false.

A motif

HintA five-letter term borrowed from French; music and design use it too.

The whyFollowing a motif is a practical way to trace a theme: you note each time the image returns and what is different about it.

They are easier to remember accurately and easier to work into your own sentence

HintThink about memory, and about how the finished writing will read.

The whyA short quotation also pushes you to comment on particular words, which is where the analysis marks are.

An embedded quotation

HintThe first word of the term also describes something fixed firmly inside something else.

The whyFor example: The narrator calls the house “a tomb with windows”, which makes it sound lifeless. The quoted words are part of the sentence, not parked after it.

Refer precisely to the moment in your own words

HintThe assessment objective speaks of references as well as quotations.

The whyA precise reference says who does what, and where in the text. It counts as evidence. Never make up a quotation: an invented one is worse than an accurate reference.

Ones that fit more than one character or theme

HintYou do not know what the question will be.

The whyA line that shows a character, a theme and a method at once can be used whatever the question asks. Sort your list by theme and by character to test this.

B

HintIn one of them the quoted words are part of the student's own sentence.

The whyIn A the quotation is dropped in and left unexplained. In B it is embedded and followed by a comment on what the image suggests.