What Mrs Wheeler and I learned on our day out in London

By Mr Burn 1. Choose your questions well a. You have to complete three essays in two hours, and each one places different demands on you: i. Part A (odd numbered questions) require you to look closely at how authors craft their stories ii. Part A (even numbered questions) require you to engage in a debate about how a text can be interpreted iii. Part B requires you to write about an aspect of narrative across the other three texts you have studied b. Hence, be careful to choose your questions carefully. Be very attentive to the even numbered questions of Part A, which can catch even good candidates out. Also, make sure that your choice of question for Part B actually allows you to write interestingly about the other texts. Some shuffling may be required! 2. Part A (odd numbers) How does the writer tell the story? a. Start by pinning down the story i. For example: In section three of The Rime of the Ancient
Mariner Coleridge creates the first crisis of the narrative , where the consequences of killing the albatross become clear in the game between Life-in-Death and Deaths mate. The nightmarish mood and terrifying imagery set the tone for the subsequent sections of the Mariners penance.

ii. Do this early on, make sure you keep using the writers name throughout your essay. b. The structure of the story is a good starting-point for your analysis. Think about how the events are organised, how the narrative echoes earlier events or foreshadows later incidents. Its often tempting to go into agonies of analysis over single words, noting archaisms and alliterations, symbolisms and themes in the

tiniest syllable, but unless you make the connection to the story as a whole your efforts will be in vain. c. Think about narrators without one a story simply cannot be told. A poet such as Browning seems to have found the storyteller more interesting than the story itself, and many writers are acutely interested in who tells the story, as part of our response to the narrative as a whole. Dont just say the narrator is a homodiegetic, omniscient narrator and leave it at that explore how the narrative voice is created, and how it functions in the text. 3. Part A (even numbered questions) To what extent do you agree that? a. This question invites you to engage in a debate about how a text can be read. You will be given an interpretation of the text, and your essay should assess the strengths and weaknesses of that interpretation. A clear, focused argument is essential, so spend a bit of time planning one. b. The interpretation offered in the question may be one you strongly disagree with. However, you must spend about half your answer engaging with that interpretation before you start offering your own. i. For example, you might see a question that looks like this: 1. Gatsby is the hero in Fitzgeralds novel. To what extent do you agree? ii. You may think this is the silliest thing ever said of the book, but you must evaluate the evidence in the novel which could be adduced in support of the statement. Then you can offer your interpretation. c. Sometimes a question might invite many different interpretations. You are better off writing about one or two, than trying to cover lots and lots. d. You are assessed on AO4 (context) here, but the board has given this a specific meaning. They do not want bolted-on historical context. The context is set up in the question. i. Lets think about the question above Gatsby is the hero in Fitzgeralds novel it would be easy here to churn out side after side of context about the American Dream, but the context set up in the question is one of heroism, that is, the literary concept of heroism, or the figure of the hero in different types of narrative.

1. So, you could write about Gatsby as a tragic hero, or how Nicks narrative makes Gatsby seem like a romantic hero, or how his selfsacrifice for Daisy is an heroic act. 2. You could also argue that Gatsby is only heroic because Nick presents him that way, or that in the world of The Great Gatsby, heroism is as empty a concept as love, value or any other ideal. 3. You may also consider how he is the hero, but that only goes to show how corrupt Fitzgerald believes America was at the time; ii. As you can see neither of those approaches mentions The American Dream, and it is certainly the case a good answer wouldnt have to. 4. Part B the Big B question a. You must write about the other three texts (dont repeat the text from Part A) i. Make sure that you choose a question and texts that actually allow you to write interestingly for an hour. b. There is no expectation that you should compare the texts in fact, comparisons are often superficial distractions from the real business of analysing texts. c. You dont have to write exactly the same amount about each text you could write up to 50% of your essay on one text, as long as you write in substantial detail on the other two. (It may be the case that there is more to say about one than the other two in which case, say it!) d. The questions will always ask you about some aspect of authorial method, and you need to make sure you answer the whole question. i. If the question is about how characters are created, then you need to write about what the writer does. e. You should aim to write 3-4 sides for this. Dont feel like you have to write a lot.

Final Thoughts: 5. Use quotations 6. Make life easy for the examiner show them you are answering the question 7. Answer the question.