Module A - essay

Marker’s Comments

What did ‘A’ responses do?

Convinced me that they have a sophisticated understanding of the ways in which texts reflect their context (this was the essay question).

Sophisticated = original, complex, well-considered, refined, appealing to the intellect of the reader, coherent, logical

• Skilfully compared the two texts in relation to form, themes, purpose, style and/or values

• Include discussion of relevant contextual detail influenced the composition of the text – its form, style, contentContextual detail = events, ideas, intellectual/artistic/religious/philosophical movements, people

• Well-selected and detailed textual references (quotes and/or description of scenes) that support the essay’s argument

• Language is clear, concise and sophisticated (complex vocabulary especially metalanguage specific to each text type; correct spelling of complex words; correct punctuation)

• Nominalisation was employed to draw reader’s attention to the KEY idea of EACH sentence

• Connectives used to show relationships between sentences and/or paragraphs

• Verbs-of-doing used to introduce the purpose and effect of film/dramatic/narrative techniques

• Essay is structured to present a logical argument. Each paragraph opens with a topic sentence (statement) that engages with the student’s response to the essay question. This remains the focus of the paragraph and all evidence is introduced to support this statement.

What did a ‘B’ responses do?

Demonstrated effective understanding of the ways in which texts reflect their context

Effective = fulfils the purpose – the intended result was met, knows what is required and does it but lacks ‘flair’, is too short or has mistakes

• Compares texts through discussion of form, themes, purpose, style or values

• Links each text to its context by mentioning events, ideas, intellectual/artistic/religious/philosophical movements and/or people that influenced the text’s themes or values – very few discuss influence on form or style.

• Sometimes only passing references to context are made.

• Quotes supported argument however were often obvious quotes – not enough in some paragraphs

• Sometimes they simply ran out of time or did not sustain their discussion (sustain = not long enough or not enough support for ideas drawn from texts)

• More frequent errors in spelling, punctuation and grammar.

• Written expression was often too simplistic/descriptive or jumbled/confused

What did a ‘C’ response do?

• Needed to treat texts as a specific form e.g. Bladerunner and Looking For Richard as films – not poems or novels. E.g. look at visual and auditory codes when analysing the texts, not similes, metaphors, alliteration.

• ran out of time – hadn’t practised writing under exam conditions

• analysis of texts was weak – need to show an understanding of HOW the composers uses the structural and language features of their chosen form (drama, novel, film) to communicate ideas and reflect her/his context?

• sentence structure is an issue for most– key nouns must drive a sentencee.g. Throughout both texts there is a challenging of

social norms.BECOMES

A challenging of social norms is central to both texts.

• spelling and punctuation become an issue in these responses– use capital letters and possessive apostrophes

correctly• students didn’t have a clear understanding of

the essay ideas being discussed therefore the essay lacked fluency and clarity

• lack of textual evidence included to support ideas – quotes were incorrect– sometimes only one quote per paragraph

• contextual detail was superficial, missing or incorrect and did not support a discussion of the ways texts reflect their contexts