Holiday work (an oxymoron, surely?!)

Hi all,

Hope you had a wonderful time at Easter and are not too gorged on chocolate! I'm sorry I haven't managed to clarify your work on here yet - thanks to Sasha for pointing that out! In the lesson on Friday, we agreed to aim for 4 mini-essays to be completed over the break. They were:

- 2 Question 1a responses. This means: How does Ian McEwan tell the story in Chapters .... and .... . We agreed that you could choose your own chapters for this task if you wish; I would suggest choosing two from 19, 20, 1, 13, 14.

- 2 Question 1b responses. I'm struggling to remember the title that we agreed for this - could anyone perhaps post it as a comment on here please? Otherwise, try this one: "The unreliabilty of memory is the central theme of the novel": how far do you agree with this statement?

This might seem a lot, but remember that these questions only require 30 mins each, so it's not really. Also keep in mind the following:

- Question 1a is assessed on AO2 only. This requires you to focus on language, structure and form, but you must write explicitly about narrative. Remember the 6 elements of narrative that we've focused on-

Scenes and places (i.e. narrative setting)
Time and sequence (i.e. narrative structure)
Characters and characterisation
Voice (i.e. narrator, dialogue, etc.)
Point of view (i.e. narrative perspective)
Destination (i.e. overall significances)

Your job, therefore, is to identify which of the above is most interesting or relevant in the light of the chapter that you are considering, and write about them in a convincing, confident and analytical way. You don't have to write about them all, obviously, but do focus on at least two. Targets from our writing in the past have included focus on topic/concluding sentences as being important as a tool to structure our responses clearly and helping us to keep on track, and the principles of PEE+ apply here also.

Question 1b is assessed on AO 1, 3 and 4. Key phrases from the mark scheme include: "appropriate critical vocabulary, sharp focus on task" for AO1, "perceptive consideration of different interpretations" for AO3 (this is why it's important to weigh up both sides of an argument before coming to a conclusion) and "understanding of links to context) for AO4. I was talking to an AQA examiner over the hols, and she said they've been told not to focus too much on context, but some consideration is needed - we could mention, for example, the recent explosion in scientific development and understanding alongside a general decline in religious feeling, alongside a rise in religious fundamentalism for example. It has to be relevant to the task though, not just a bolt-on.

Anyway, see how you get on. In my view, whilst it's important to have an awareness of the assessment criteria, the main thing is to think carefully and creatively about the question and show the fundamentals of good analytical writing - be clear, be concise, stick to the question, use evidence, and try to develop your analysis of evidence fully.

Here's a link to the specimen mark scheme which we studied in class - probably as useful for giving you an idea of the types of questions that are likely to come up as for the actual marking criteria itself. http://store.aqa.org.uk/qual/gce/pdf/AQA-LITB1-W-SMS-07.PDF

See you on Monday!

Mr Boulter