CIE English Literature GCSE

Hello,
Is there anyone who teaches or marks the exam board in the title, specifically for the Drama Othello or Purple Hibiscus or The Song of Ourselves poem? I have consistently been getting 15/25 with the occasional 16 or 17/25 and I am so stuck. I have looked at tips and nothing has helped. Honestly, I just came here to ask whether someone would be willing to mark my essays for a decent price and give me some feedback in a message or tell me what I'm doing wrong.
Thank you

Hi, I do Purple Hibiscus and the poetry (songs of ourselves). Poetry is deffo my stronger side. Send any essay on here and I’m more than happy to give you a few tips for free

Hello,
I also do Purple Hibiscus and songs of ourselves poetry, so I think I might post a poetry essay here soon and I would be grateful you would be willing to check. Or should I message you? Would that be easier?
Thank you so much!

Of course, post it wherever works for you and I’ll give you some tips ! Anytime

Hello,
What do you think of this poetry essay? How many marks do you think it would get? I talked about the listener but I didn't really know what to say for my intro and conclusion as there is not much context you can give.

On Finding a Small Fly Crushed in a Book
In what ways does Turner strikingly convey the speaker’s emotions in this poem?
This question is focusing on the emotions of the speaker, namely their feelings of pity towards the fly and disappointment towards humans and their nature and how they are strikingly portrayed to the listener. Throughout the poem, the speaker induces feelings of regret for their actions, compassion towards the ‘blameless’ fly and the realisation of how ignorant humans are. This poem has themes of Death, Afterlife and Our legacy.
One way in which Turner strikingly conveys the speaker’s emotions of pity towards the fly is through the use of archaism throughout the poem. She refers to the fly as ‘thee’ and ‘thou’ and even uses phrases such as ‘Now thou art’ in order to make the poem sound more serious. They also use an apostrophe as, throughout this poem, they are talking to the fly, almost as if begging for forgiveness on the behalf of humanity. This is effectively used to combat how simple and almost insignificant the title may sound; crushing a small fly within a book is quite a generic and overlooked occurrence. It also shows the listener that the speaker means what they are saying and they are saying everything for a reason. It’s to show the listener that she cares about the fly and almost bringing to their attention the suffering of the fly which they vastly overlook. Furthermore, the title uses the indefinite article ‘a’ to describe the fly which emphasises the idea that the fly is introduced in the title as insignificant and is therefore brushed past - it could be any fly so this fly is not special. But it also creates the idea that the speaker pities, not only this one fly, but feels this way towards all flies in general. Finally, there is a volta to the last 6 stanza as they follow a completely different rhyme school of ABABCC, compared to ABBACDDC. This change marks the speaker's shift from talking about the flies' beautiful life into talking about our disappointing lives as humans. Highlighting this fact, could make the listener think back and remember all the times they may have ignored something smaller or less sophisticated than them, such as an insect or maybe even another human and viewed it as insignificant which could lead them to feel a sense of regret and maybe even condolence towards the fly. Overall, Turner uses archaism to combat the unimportant sounding title and a volta to clearly portray the contrast between humans and a fly, in order to illuminate the speaker's pity and love towards the fly.
Another way in which Turner strikingly conveys the speaker’s emotions of compassion towards the fly through the plosive alliteration ‘pages pent’ to describe the fly. The constant ‘p’ creates a more forceful sound within the poem which contrasts the smooth sounding rhymes and archaism within it. This sound is used to highlight the idea that the fly is trapped within these pages and can’t escape. The highlighting of the fly’s difficult situation efficaciously emphasises the fact that the poem cares deeply about it. After that, the speaker displays their vehement grief with an exclamation of “Oh!” which, once again disrupts the flow of the poem and induces a caesura which slows down its pace. This expression would clearly demonstrate to the listener the speaker’s immense distress over the fly and its life which could, in turn, persuade the reader to also feel a sense of sympathy towards the fly. It also sounds quite dramatic which makes further stand out compared to the calm, more regretful atmosphere of this lament. Next, the speaker also goes on to describe the fly’s wings which are a perhaps motif of freedom within this poem as he describes them as ‘Pure relics of a blameless life’ with the metaphor ‘relics’ used to illustrate how valuable the fly’s wings are. However, it could be metaphorically used to show how significant freedom is and possibly how it was something ancient and of the past as the noun ‘relics’ has connotations of something that is precious and abandoned, but still has beauty in the present. The adjectives ‘pure’ and ‘blameless’ accompanied with the motif of the wings as freedom could also lead us towards the idea that the fly is in a better place now - maybe even in a place similar to heaven. In the end this strikingly conveys the speaker's emotions as it shows that the speaker had pity towards the fly and its overlooked life on earth, but believes it is in a better place and maybe even sees its death as a positive or merciful thing, yet still has feelings of regret towards how it was treated despite its lack of wrongdoings.
A final way in which Turner strikingly conveys the speaker’s emotions of disappointment towards humans, specifically the last six stanzas as they begin by highlighting how looming death as ‘peril is beside us’ with the noun ‘peril’, which possible represents death or the ‘grim reaper’, personified. This personification creates the idea of the ‘peril’ as a mind of its own and could, therefore, kill us at any moment which illuminates the fact that life is unpredictable - we would die tomorrow. Many people view this as an intimidating idea, however the speaker describes shockingly our death in the sense that we ‘soar away/Upon the summer-airs’. The use of euphemism to describe death creates the idea that maybe we shouldn’t be afraid of it, especially since it is inevitable. For the listener, this positive note on death could create a sense of eeriness as they are shocked by the speaker's unorthodox view. As said by the speaker, we will ‘soar away’ which creates imagery of us all going to heaven no matter how our life. The use of the verb ‘soar’ could also link back to the motif of the wings of the fly and illustrate how, as humans, we can fly away into the sky upon our death, converse to how we could only walk and run on earth. Yet, the fly was also able to fly even before its death which could possibly link to the morals of the creature - flies live ‘blameless’ lives so can already fly, while human lives full of sin and regret and are only released from this (by God) when they pass away. This also effectively shows the speaker’s feelings of dissatisfaction towards humans and our lives. However, notably, the speaker refers to humans using the collective terms ‘us’ and ‘our’ which tells us that they have accepted the proposal that they themselves are a disappointment and they are fine with that. Before the final line, the speaker describes breath as ‘vital’ which is not needed, but could possibly emphasise the idea that breathing is what keeps us alive which could highlight how vulnerable we actually are as a species. We rely entirely on oxygen and if you take that away, we die. In the final line, the speaker explains how we leave nothing on our ‘page of death’ which symbolises our legacy and how we leave no light behind us like the fly and its wings which ‘gleam’. Many people have left inventions or theories after their death, but no human has left something as beautiful as the fly. This may be because of our original sin and how we are never going to be as lovely as the fly, so there is nothing we can do about it - the innocent fly will always leave more of a spectacle. Altogether, Turner shockingly conveys the speaker's emotions of disappointment towards humans through the mention of the sins we willingly commit yet are mercifully saved from, how vulnerable we are as a species and how we will never leave anything that is ‘half as lovely’ as the fly.
In conclusion, Turner strikingly conveys the speaker’s emotions of pity towards the fly and disappointment towards humanity by making it sounds like a letter of apology towards that fly yet also a lament where they express their sorrow for the fly and make their regrets evident.
Thank you

Hello! This is great, I have a few WWW’s (what went well) and EBI’s (even better if’s!) I’d say this is a grade 8 but I am no examiner! Just literally 1-2 tweaks that I would make!
WWW:

EBI:

I would personally say 17/18 out of 25 tho, so a grade 8/9. Implement these few more suggestions and you’re well on your way to a grade 9!
ALSO, NOTE:
when talking about a prose/ poem, talk about the READER
When talking about a play, talk about the AUDIENCE
best of luck for Monday, you will do great