Secondary English - The art of navigating textual analysis

What’s your point!?

In a combined GCSE English Language and Literature package which boasts a plethora of ultra-ambitious aims and objectives devoted to the complex task of textual analysis, where do you begin when trying to plot your course? Trying to resolve that particular dilemma is not made any easier by the fact that your options are unreassuringly many and varied.

You might, for example, set sail straight into deep water with a socio-political reading of Shakespeare or Dickens, although do be wary of being left stranded in the doldrums. Or, if you prefer to tack a little more cautiously into the wind, you might embark upon your voyage with a character study based on a much more accessible piece of modern prose.

But with so many directions to choose from, how do you chart a passage that will be both meaningful and memorable for your students? Well, one approach you might consider is to circumnavigate with the assistance of those trusty guiding principles, Point, Evidence and Explanation.

When addressing objectives which require the student to demonstrate an understanding of the numerous aspects of the writer’s craft, why not approach them all under the one umbrella of  PEE? So, for example, when trying to enhance your students’ appreciation of figures of speech, why not structure the lesson by utilising PEE in the very meaningful context of a typical examination question?

Consider, for instance, a lesson intended to explore the crucial objective of how and why writers use imagery.  If exploring Ted Hughes’ poem Wind from the AQA anthology Moon on the Tides, your strategy might be as follows:

TYPICAL EXAMINATION QUESTION:
How does the writer use language to create effects?

POINT 1:
One way in which Hughes uses language to create effects for the reader is through his use of imagery.  The opening line consists of the following metaphor:

EVIDENCE:
“This house has been far out at sea all night ...”

EXPLANATION:
The comparison, which implicitly compares the wind-swept house to a boat, affects the reader in a number of ways. The house has not literally been ‘out at sea’. The metaphor is a powerful expression of what the extreme weather must have felt and sounded like to Hughes from inside the building as the wind raged just beyond. The ship comparison is effective because it encourages the reader to consider the vulnerability of a boat on a rough sea and then to view the house in the same way. It certainly conveys an impression of Hughes’ concern over the ferocity of the storm. The metaphor also has the connotation that the wind has uprooted the house and actually blown it into the sea, again emphasising the strength of the storm. The phrase ‘far out’ further reinforces this idea. Perhaps Hughes has been influenced by the famous scene in the film ‘The Wizard of Oz’ in which Dorothy’s house is literally swept up by a cyclone.

The next POINT could then be introduced and left for students to develop by themselves:

POINT 2:
A second example of the way in which Hughes uses imagery for effect occurs when ...

Admittedly, students might need a few helpful bullet points at this juncture in order to steer them safely into port.

You could then go on to repeat this rigorously systematic PEE approach when introducing the many other features of literary criticism required by the GCSE English Language / English Literature syllabuses. Of course, the above lesson outline does assume that your students already know what a metaphor is!

The value of such a uniform approach to the potentially choppy waters of textual analysis is that you are not only making difficult concepts more memorable by approaching them in the increasingly safe and familiar context of PEE, but you are also regularly reinforcing this essential grade A* - C mode of inquiry.  In addition, you are also encouraging first-rate examination technique. After all, why only teach such a valuable analytical tool a handful of times when you can actually employ it as a vehicle for conveying so many other important ideas? Furthermore, why leave examination practice to the final term when you can make it an integral part of your day to day teaching?

Of course, you might justifiably be concerned about it all becoming a little too ‘samey’. Well, don’t worry. Fortunately for you, the heavily over-loaded English Language / English Literature curriculum will provide you with plenty of other aims and objectives which require an entirely different approach - spelling, punctuation and grammar not being the least of your problems.

So the next time some disaffected kid tries to stir up a mutiny in your classroom by belligerently bellowing, ‘WHAT’S YOUR POINT!?’, calmly direct his or her gaze towards the exquisitely stream-lined plan on the white board. Teach PEE often enough, then that particular question should answer itself... and, with a bit of luck, the rest will all be plain sailing!

Peter Morrisson
English Teacher and author

All Secondary - Improving essay feedback in the classroom!

Anyone who teaches an essay based subject will know how frustrating it is to spend hours writing comments on students’ work, only for them to look at the grade and then crumple the work up in their bag. There it will often stay along with the model answer which they will eventually lose. Although time is limited to get through the specification, I am trying to spend more time on useful essay feedback in class.

I share assessment objectives with my classes and sometimes get the students to peer assess each other’s work based on the mark schemes. However, for the longer essay questions, I find that the mark schemes are rather too vague for students to do this effectively. Instead I have listed below some very simple, but practical techniques which have worked for my students.

1. When I give out model answers (either written by myself or a student) I ask the students to use different colour pens to highlight names; concepts and evaluation points. Sometimes I get the students to do this on their own or a classmate’s essay.
   
   
2. While model answers can be very useful, they put too much focus on the teacher doing the work not the student. I will therefore often give out a model answer with an introduction, conclusion or paragraph missing, which the students then have to write themselves.
   
   
3. Sometimes I give out excellent student essays to whole classes. I only do this with the student’s permission. It can give them a confidence boost, but otherwise I feel that they don’t get much in return for their hard work. In classes where there are only a small number of students working on the highest grades, I photocopy their essays and swap them with students on a similar level. This enables those on the top grades to learn from each other.
   
   
4. While marking essays, I note down examples of students who have written good points and ask those students to read the relevant section of the essay out in whole class feedback. This works particularly well when a student has not been happy with their overall essay mark, but has done a very good introduction, conclusion, evaluative comment etc. I try to include a range of different students when doing this.
   
   
5. When I hand back students' essays I ask them to read what they have written again, not just my comments. Often they spot mistakes quickly for themselves and it becomes apparent that they are reading the essay for the first time! I then reinforce the suggestion that they get someone else to read their essay before they hand it in, (preferably somebody who is not studying the subject). They need to hide the question from the reader. If the reader can more or less guess the wording of the question, they can feel confident that they have answered it. If the reader knows only the topic area, the student needs to look at their essay again before submitting it. 

Emily Painter
Sociology Teacher, Cadbury Sixth Form College

Secondary Geography - A Level Essays

Tackling 'A' level Essay Writing

The start of Year 13 for me always begins with trying to teach A Level students how to write a successful essay. We do AQA and there is a lot of emphasis in terms of marks on the one essay they have to write for the Geog3 paper. Although students are usually used to writing essays in other subjects, I find that they often struggle to ‘get going’ on writing that first geography essay and the resulting quality is often poor.  

Last year I decided to have a department focus on essay writing. The marks on the essays that summer had been quite low and there were no Level 4 marks despite there being several A grade students. I spent one lesson going through examples of Level 4 essays and the mark schemes. In order to boost their confidence and get them working together as a team I decided to do the first essay as a whole class exercise. I chose a title that covered the work we had been doing in the first few weeks on plate tectonics – “Compare and contrast two plate margins and evaluate which is the most hazardous”. I felt that this covered three command words which we could explore and also covered the concept of ‘hazard’. The powerpoint I used through the lesson is attached here.

We began the exercise by using thinking maps (we are a thinking school and students are familiar with using them in lessons). We used a double bubble map to compare and contrast two margins (as a class the students chose Mid Atlantic Ridge and the North American subduction zone). This allowed them to focus on 'compare and contrast' and to develop their initial thoughts. 

We then used the circle map to define ‘hazard’ in terms of the two margins. A class discussion took place to plan out the structure of the essay. 6 paragraphs were then agreed on. As they were going to complete the conclusion at a later stage I took this out and then randomly selected five groups (I use Super Teacher Tools for random group making) and gave each group a large piece of sugar paper and some resources. Each piece had one of the paragraphs written as a heading. A café style exercise then took place – each group was given 3 minutes to write their ideas for the paragraph before moving onto the next table. In this manner every student had the chance to contribute an idea to each paragraph. 

Each group was then given one of the pieces of sugar paper to review. They crossed out ideas that they thought they wouldn’t use – I visited each group and asked them to justify their decision. A class discussion then ensued to ensure continuity and establish successful use of examples. Following this they were then given the task of writing the paragraph for the essay in their groups. They did this on laptops so that they could email me the finished version. Each group had a ‘runner’ who visited other groups to check that there was continuity between the paragraphs and each group had a check list of what to include in a successful paragraph (attached here). 

The resulting paragraphs were of a very high standard. I collated them together and they then wrote their conclusion as an individual homework. These then allowed me assess their individual progress but it also demonstrated the importance of reading through your essay before you write the conclusion to ensure that you are supporting the essay as a whole. It also allowed them to explore the concept of ‘hazard’ and be synoptic in their approach.

The whole exercise was a huge success - student feedback indicated that they enjoyed the lessons (it took 2 lessons to complete in total) and it gave them confidence. The next essay I gave them to write individually was of a much higher standard than I had seen the previous year. I also had one third of students achieve Level 4 in the essay question in the summer exams.

Tania Grigg

Head of Humanities at Clyst Vale Community College and Senior Examiner for AQA (GCSE and A level)

Secondary History - How to argue at A Level

Can you negotiate your hostage’s path to freedom?

‘But it’s really hard, it’s a big step up Miss’.

This was the slightly hysterical cry of one of my not-quite-so-new Year 12 students last week. Indeed when they come back after the enviably long post-GCSE summer break, students often enter into a very different learning environment (complete with very different uniform!) from whence they left. Whilst I will never lower the expectations I have of what my students can achieve, I sometimes wonder if I need to pay a little more attention to this transitional phase. Not only is there a big step up in the level of historical detail we expect them to master at the beginning of AS, but the pressure to get the course started, mould anywhere between 10 and 20 disparate individuals into a cohesive ‘class’and just get them to talk to each other, all seems to conspire against the relaxed and gentle entry into AS for which the majority of them are begging by the end of week one.

One month in, and still I am faced with a wall of foot-shuffling silence when I try and lead my class of ever-so-slightly more cohesive students towards a discussion. So this year I decided to take definitive discourse-inducing action. Inspired by an episode of The Philosopher’s Arms on Radio 4, I thought about the skills required by a hostage negotiator and how they could be deployed by the argumentative historian.

What we are asking students to do at AS level is to build an analytical argument, sustain it, support it with evidence, and draw it to a close in a substantiated conclusion. The hostage negotiator at the Philosopher’s Arms spoke of how she needed to create and support her argument, and the importance of being able to defend it against attack. Whilst there are many obvious differences between the negotiator and the historian, this focus on presentation of opinion, use of supportive evidence and negotiation towards a successful conclusion gave me an idea…

The Year 12 class were working on an argument in answer to the question:
‘The revolutions of the 1820s and 1830s failed primarily due to Austrian intervention.’ How far do you agree with this statement?

Students had already decided on four key factors, including the titled statement, which they felt explained the failure of the revolutions. The consequent negotiating activity worked as follows:

1. Divide the class into teams of 3 (or 5 in a larger class – just as long as they are an uneven number)
2. Each group then decides which of the agreed factors they consider to be the most significant (e.g. their pro-argument) and begin to gather evidence to support their statement.
3. They also gather evidence to support the remaining three factors (the counter argument).
4. At the end of preparation time (I allowed 14 minutes – I never work in multiples of 5!) you pitch two teams against each other. If you have an uneven number of teams you could go for a triad formation.
5. One team in the pair opts/is chosen to go first, and to select one member of their opposing team to take hostage. Often I found students made a hostage of the one they considered to be the most able negotiator. I both commended their sneakiness and was pleased that shyer or less forward students would therefore be induced to argue.
6. It is now the role of the hostage’s remaining team-mates to secure his/her release by arguing against the hostage-takers. The hostage’s team are therefore able to state the argument they’ve built around their chosen most significant factor (see step 2) whilst the hostage-taking team are forced to use their arguments for the remaining three factors.
7. (The hostage is free to be as irritating as they like, bearing in mind their captors could metaphorically silence them at any point…)
8. At the end of an agreed period of negotiation (I chose 6 minutes but a shorter time span might be appropriate for younger students) the hostage takers must make a decision: if they consider the argument put forward by the hostage’s team to be adequate, they are duty bound to release the hostage. If they consider it inadequate, the hostage forms part of their team (reluctantly or otherwise!).
9. The next round then begins with teams smaller, larger or unchanged. Should a team that began as 3 fail to negotiate the successful release of their second hostage they cease to exist. Depending on the size of your class, the depth of argument to be made or the number of factors available you can run this either until you have one enormous team left, are simply hearing the same argument on loop, or the bell rings.

My negotiation situations were based on the failure of the 1820s and 1830s revolutions in pre-unification Italy, but since then I have applied them to the February Revolution of 1917, the downfall of the Weimar Republic, and the contribution of President Gorbachev to the end of the Cold War. I've also discovered Year 10 can create arguments to rival Year 12!

My year 12 students all said they really enjoyed this activity. The quality of argument I heard listening in to various negotiating teams was far more advanced than I have seen at this stage in the year before, and the consequent essay plans they turned in showed the interlinking of factors and maintained a clear focus on the question. Most importantly for me, every single student made a contribution and showed they could both create and defend an historical argument. And all hostages were eventually safely returned to their teams!

Charlotte Grove
History Teacher, Dame Alice Owen's School