GCSE English LiteraturePower and Conflict Poetry
Summative Assessment
Review of the Assessment
The best answers had several common features: No (or very few) spelling, punctuation and grammar errors Effect:
Accuracy Paragraphs were accurately used Effect: Accuracy Handwriting was neat Effect: Pride and effort
signified Literary terminology was correctly used Effect: Clarity
and precision Key words from each of the questions were used Effect: Focused
writing Short quotations were embedded Effect:
Supported points A clear point of view was established Effect: Clarity Responses were focused Effect: Content
to reward Responses were developed (roughly two pages) Effect: Enough
content to reward
Some of the best points on Bayonet Charge are listed below: There are clear examples of alliteration that help to vividly illustrate the chaos and
violence of the battlefield The solider is clearly disorientated and seems confused Hughes employs a range of evocative images Hughes conveys the heavy physicality of combat in the first stanza through the use of
bodily images There is a clear sense that the soldier is experiencing mental trauma and distress The soldier is motivated by a primal desire to stay alive and not by a yearning to gain
recognition for being patriotic
The clearest links were made with three poems in particular: Charge of the Light Brigade, by Alfred Tennyson Link:
Catastrophic effects of war Remains, by Simon Armitage Link: Confusion of
battlefield Exposure, by Wilfred Owen Link: Mental anguish
of war
Link: Reality of frontline conflict
An example of a carefully crafted point: