Original post
by Hfdsujio
To some extent - your teachers are right it does depend. How I did them (for reference got 93/100 on WotH) was:
10 markers: pick 4 or 5 short quotes from the text that you think are interesting and write a six line paragraph about each one. This is basically an English Literature GCSE question, you're not trying to contextualise it at all you're just saying something like Homer creates emotion through this metaphor here's what's emotional about it. If the questions asks something like "how effectively..." then do a single line conclusion saying super duper effectively or really *****ily (same thing goes for pots)
20 markers: These could do with a very brief introduction - literally no more than two sentences, explain ur initial initial thoughts, like "throughout the Aeneid, the Trojans are often shown as suffering in order to enhance our view of Aeneas as a great leader. However, Virgil ocassionally demonstrates that these characters can feel joy, or find community in their sorrows." (That's not great but you get the idea). Then four paragraphs, each on either a different theme/relationship or a specific moment. I enjoyed the theme/relationships bc i think it means you can make it much broader - the question abt the Trojans could have the Trojans in Troy, then the constant stream of help from the gods (and whether or not that's a positive), the extensive loss of citizens on their journey (and the split in book 5 i think), and then the destruction of the peace that they think they've found in book 7. Again these are fundamentally literature based - you don't need to quote but you need to be able to make incredibly close reference, and so you should be analysing things like the contents of metaphors here, linking semantic fields, and trying to write a really good GCSE English Literature essay. These also need a conclusion, but probably not more than a couple of sentences.
30 markers: there's a lot of debate but the best advice I got was - write an introduction that doesn't contain your conclusion. You can imply it but they expect you to make up your mind as you go and they'd rather you write a vague intro than end up with a conclusion that you've disproved or an introduction that disagrees with the conclusion. Besides that, try to base each (of again, 4 or 5) paragraph around a scholar's opinion. Don't panic if you can't - just write an extended version of your 20 marker paragraphs, but starting with a scholar's opinion and then proving that they're right (or actually not) is going to be the easiest way to do this. Again, close reference to the text and solid literary analysis, as well as an inclusion of how it would've landed at the time and relevant social factors are the fundamentals of your writing here. Normally, 30 marker questions are made of two parts, eg "No women, no goddesses: no story". This is intentional, they're trying to give you two halves to argue for or against and it's a really solid idea to structure this essay by arguing for no women no story, against it, and then the same for goddesses. If it feels like a paragraph is getting too long, you probably don't have enough time to keep writing, but if you do then put in paragraph breaks bc they get annoyed.
The most important thing in all this though is that the examiners don't have a "recommended" way of structuring them and that's intentional. They genuinely just want to watch you argue out the debate (in a well-reasoned and evidenced manner) and come to your own conclusion, so it's not like a lot of other a level essay subjects where you can find templates. The best way to learn truly is by writing out essays about the parts of the spec that interest you until you figure out what works and gets done in the time. Good luck!