Lockdown Literature 5.2

Hi folks,

Thanks for the flurry of plans I received yesterday. They've given me a clear idea about what I need to focus on in this post. I've sent some of you some individual feedback, but the key ideas are all here.

This has turned into a long blogpost (it's two in the morning and I've just returned to the beginning to tweak!) but it's necessary. I don't usually get to plan my explanations in so much depth. So read carefully.


First, a reminder of the task:


Your task is to answer this Section C question (using Othello in place of Salesman):

Don't spend more than 45 minutes on this question. Because there's a lot of reading here, I'll give you until Thursday.

We'll start The Eve of St Agnes next Thursday.

So, before you finalise your plans and start writing, I want to give you some tips from the AQA's examiner's reports - first, some general tips, and then some specific strategies to tackle Section C. Then I'll end with my advice on this particular question. So please read the whole thing carefully, take your time and ask if you have any queries.


General tips from AQA:

1) Take a look at this doc. These are notes I made after a course run by the lead examiner a few years ago. They're the same messages we've had in every examiner's report since.

2) As we saw in the sample full-mark essay last time, the exam board are looking for relentless focus on the question. That involves making smart choices about what's relevant and what is not; what to include and what to leave out. I've seen potential A grade students score 6 or 7/25 because they wrote about the thing they wanted to write about rather than answering the question they were given. Here's what AQA say every year:

I haven't highlighted it, but look at the bit at the end about subverting questions. That's when you dismiss the question and write about something vaguely related instead. It's a very bad idea. You must stay focused on the key terms throughout.

3) In the most recent 'Feedback on the exams' training, the exam board were very keen to stress the importance of understanding the writer's methods: what they are, what's useful and what is not.

Here's the message:

Writer's methods are anything a writer does to present their ideas. It's much more fruitful to discuss the wider patterns and bigger decisions a writer makes, rather than going into minute detail. For example, they encourage you to discuss dramatic methods in plays (stagecraft, settings, characterisation, entrances and exits, soliloquies and asides etc). More generally, focus on any significant decisions that a writer has made to shape meanings. Motifs and other patterns are significant because they are things that are repeated for a reason. They are part of the fabric of the text. Characterisation is significant: what kind of characters are being juxtaposed? How have they been designed to contrast with each other (e.g. foils)? What values and ideas do they represent? Characters' names are often significant. Settings are always significant. Structural decisions, like how a narrative begins and ends, are always significant. 

Less significant are minute details which occur in isolation. Don't spend ages analysing a single word. Don't devote time to discussing the use of alliteration in a single quotation (they mention this in every examiner's report). These are almost certainly deliberate decisions made by writers, but are they significant compared to some of the methods discussed above?

AQA have created this guide to AO2 (methods) to show that it's much more than commenting on word choices or isolated techniques. (This doc relates to Spec A, not B, but it's just as relevant to our spec.)

You can't write about everything. One of the most important skills you have to show the examiner is your judgement of what is a) relevant, and b) significant. Students who show good judgement get good marks. Often, this good judgement comes down to textual knowledge - as is suggested here:

Section C tips:

As we've already seen, the key words in the question are all-important and you must stay relentlessly focused on them throughout. Here's an important point from the examiner's report:

 
THINK OF THAT! You will only get to write for 20 minutes each on Keats and Salesman. And yet, to do well in Section C, you need to know those texts well enough to make smart choices about what to include - and what to leave out.


Now, have a read of this extract from one of the examiner's reports on Section C:

The key takeaway here (as well as the earlier points about making good judgements and answering the question in all its terms) is that there is a two-part process to answering these questions.

1) IDENTIFY and EXPLORE the 'broad tragic concept' (here, it's villains or pride)
2) ENGAGE with the critical debate 


This is the case in every examiner's report. Look at this one:

 
Identify and explore the tragic concept. Then wrestle with the opinion.  

One more:

In the example above, students who deal with one part of the question (the critical opinion) but don't stay sharply focused on the tragic concept (pride) are singled out for criticism. This is what it means to answer the question in all of its terms.  


In defence of introductions:

Some people (not naming names!) don't like introductions. They seem like a waste of vital minutes. But the exam board do like them. And the reason for this is that a good introduction helps to sharpen focus on the question, define the terms of the debate and set up the direction of your argument. 

Here's the proof. See what an examiner said about this intro on Twelfth Night (an Othello Section B alternative on the Comedy paper):

As you can see, the examiner is already making judgements on the quality of this essay based on the student's approach to the argument - before any specific details have been explored!

Now have a look at this Section C intro:

There's no mention of the texts yet (we're zoomed right out) and the focus is on tragedy, the key tragic concept (villains) and framing the debate. This essay went on to get full marks.

But the real benefit of a short, sharp intro is to get to grips with the two-part nature of the question that we discussed earlier. We have to:

• IDENTIFY the tragic concept(s) we need to explore
• ENGAGE in the critical debate and answer the question.

That's why it's important not to answer the question in the intro. You can't do the engaging without first identifying and exploring.

So, finally, let's apply all this to our question. It's not quite as easy as the others:

• IDENTIFY the tragic concept(s): emptiness/disillusion = loss
• ENGAGE in the critical debate: tragic effect on the audience (at the end of the play)

It's important to note that this question is about loss:

• Emptiness: something important or good has been lost
• Disillusion: a key idea or belief has been lost or discredited

So, this question can't just focus on endings. First, we need to identify what has been lost.

Wrestling with these ideas is what the intro is for. Here's a suggestion:

INTRO: Establish that what links these key terms is loss.  

Link this to tragedy: loss of identity, loss of something admirable which was present at the start of the tragedy, loss of an ideal.

Consider the implication of the word disillusion: we associate it with despair or a loss of faith, but it can also be seen in a positive sense - to be disillusioned is to have your illusions destroyed, or to have your infancy 'schooled'. This leads us to the ideas of anagnorisis and learning/moral growth and the didactic element of tragedy.

I once wrote an intro to this question in class. It got seriously bloated, but here it is:
 

This is way too long. But I'm doing the right things. I'm identifying the tragic elements in the debate and establishing a standpoint with reference to my two texts. From here, I can launch into exploring the key details before answering the question.

What's next?

If it were me, I wouldn't simply skip to the endings. How can you evaluate the endings without first addressing what has led up to them?

Here's how you might go about it:

Paragraph 2: Identify what has been lost in Othello (his heroic stature, his composure, his self-respect, his status, his romantic love-story). How does Shakespeare make the protagonist appealing - and what sense do we get of the fragility or illusory nature of this tragic magnificence?

Paragraph 3: What gets lost in Keats? (youth, heroism, love, sensual pleasure, idealism). Again, to what extent are these things fragile or illusory?

Paragraph 4: Discuss the end of Othello in the light of what has been lost (emptiness/disillusion): is there any cause for optimism in the audience? Are there any consolations? Anagnorisis? Catharsis?

Paragraph 5: Discuss endings in Keats. Is there anything to be learnt? Or is our fate inevitable? What consolations are offered? How do the endings make us feel?

Conclusion: How do the tragic stories of Shakespeare and Keats compare/contrast in terms of their effects on the audience/reader? Disillusionment? Emptiness?  (In my Salesman/Keats essay, I was able to say that Miller is offering optimism and answers/solutions, whereas Keats only offers consolations). 

You don't have to structure it like this, but I think it's necessary to identify what has been lost (both for the protagonist and the reader) before you evaluate the endings. This could still be done without going between the texts as I have in the plan above.

Well, this blogpost got long. I hope it makes sense. 

You've now got a week to digest these ideas, finalise your plan and write the thing.

I'll get back in touch on Monday (maybe with an intro of my own) and add anything else that occurs. Then we'll carry on with Keats next Thursday.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Mr M