Essay Questions
The essay is where A/L Literature is won and lost. Almost everything depends on the ten minutes before you write.
Reading the question
Identify the claim inside the question
Most A/L questions contain a proposition, often in a quotation. Rewrite it as a plain statement. "Tragedy in this play arises from character, not circumstance." Discuss. becomes: the tragedy is caused by character rather than circumstance — how far is that true?
Notice the loaded word
Merely, primarily, always, never, only. These are the questions' hinges. A question saying tragedy arises only from character can be answered by finding one clear instance where it does not.
Decide where you stand — including partly
The best A/L answers usually agree in part. This is true of the first three acts but not of the fourth is a stronger thesis than wholesale agreement or wholesale rejection.
Check the scope
Is the question about the whole work, one character, one relationship, one act? An answer that ranges beyond its scope loses focus and marks.
The thesis
A thesis is a sentence that could be disagreed with by an intelligent reader who knows the text. If nobody could disagree with your opening claim, you do not have a thesis; you have a topic.
Not a thesis: There are many aspects of pride in this novel.
A thesis: Pride in this novel is presented as a defence built in a particular situation, which outlives that situation and hardens into the silence that destroys the family.
Write the thesis before you write anything else. It goes at the end of your introduction, and every paragraph should be answerable to it.
Structuring the argument
A strong A/L essay moves. Each of these shapes moves; a list of points does not.
The qualification shape
- Para 1: the case for the proposition, put fairly and strongly.
- Para 2: where it holds, with evidence.
- Para 3: where it does not hold — the complication.
- Para 4: the resolution — a more precise version of the proposition.
- Best for: how far do you agree questions.
The development shape
- Para 1: how the matter stands early in the work.
- Para 2: what changes it.
- Para 3: how it stands at the end.
- Para 4: what the change means.
- Best for: questions about a character, a theme or a relationship over a whole work.
The competing readings shape
- Para 1: the conventional reading, stated fairly.
- Para 2: the evidence that supports it.
- Para 3: the evidence it cannot accommodate.
- Para 4: your reading, and why it accounts for more.
- Best for: questions quoting a critical opinion.
Using critical views without name-dropping
Referring to critics helps only if you do something with the reference. Critic X says the play is about ambition adds nothing.
Do this instead: It has often been argued that the play is essentially about ambition. That reading accounts well for the first three acts, but it struggles with the fourth, where the protagonist continues after ambition has ceased to be possible.
You do not need a name to do this. It has often been argued is perfectly acceptable, and safer than attributing a view to a critic you may be misremembering. Never invent a critic or a quotation.
Before you hand in an A/L essay
- Does my introduction contain a thesis that could be disagreed with?
- Does every paragraph begin with a claim, not with an event?
- Does every paragraph contain evidence — short quotation or precise reference?
- Have I explained how the writing works, not only what it says?
- Have I stated the effect on the reader or audience?
- Have I met the strongest objection to my case?
- Is there at least one structural observation — about placing, order or form?
- Does my conclusion decide something the introduction did not already say?
- Have I stayed within the scope of the question?
- Have I used the present tense for what happens in the text?
- Have I avoided inventing any quotation, date or critical opinion?