AQA English

Crapping it.

Basically my weakest point is the poems, or more my tendency to over elaborate on certain things. What kind of structure should i follow to gain the marks for an A over a 1 hour perioid. Im referring to section B of the paper where you have to compare and contrast the poems, and need a good idea of how to right e.g.

paragraph 1 - structure
paragraph 2- language

etc etc

Also the short stories im having a little trouble with, again with the structure. Am i right in the fact that you definitly need to talk about, verse form, language, characters+themes and then write up a conclusion for an A

:confused:

Reply 1

vioxx

Are you talking about comparing two poems or four?

Reply 2

trance addict

the lit paper, with seamus heany and gillian clarke

Reply 3

vioxx

CGP suggests:

Intro
Structure
Language
Attitudes and Feelings
Conc inc. a personal response.

But I think with that structure, you will really have to hit the nail on the head to get A/A*.

Reply 4

mobile_geek

I wouldn't have a separate paragraph for structure and language, just try and include everything as and when you can. I wouldn't follow such a rigid structure either. Just make sure you do Intro, Compare named poem 1 with poems 2,3,4 and a conclusion with a personal response. That's what we have been told.

Reply 5

trance addict

I know what im doing, i just screw up and over elaborate things.. basically what im lacking is 'exam technique'

Reply 6

mobile_geek

I don't think you need any 'technique' to do well in English Lit. Our teacher showed us responses which had been written in an awful way, ie. you couldn't even comprehend what the sentences meant, but because they had lots of analysis and covered lots of ground they achieved an A*. Furthermore, it didn't even have an introduction!