General Feedback
Students should:
- demonstrate engagement with the text and use a strong personal voice in the response
- respond to the question in a conceptual fashion by addressing the bigger ideas of their text
- directly address all parts of the question by explicitly engaging with the key words of the question
- evaluate the extent to which the statement is true of their prescribed text
- demonstrate an understanding of the module informed by a deep knowledge and understanding of the text as literature and evaluate why this gives it enduring relevance/integrity
- demonstrate an understanding of how context, form and language contribute to the critical value of their prescribed text
- support their argument and evaluation with detailed and relevant textual details/references
- demonstrate sustained control of language and ideas
- avoid pre-prepared responses that do not engage properly with the question.
Jane Austen, Emma
In better responses, students were able to:
- explore the questions and answers Austen poses to the reader through an understanding of her satiric purpose
- show understanding of how Austen develops Emma's characterisation to comment on social attitudes of Regency England
- show insights into the contemporary relevance of Austen’s ideas and how this helps readers reflect on universal concepts like influence, power and values in a modern context
- thoughtfully discuss Austen's ability to create and control her satire, situational irony and other distinctive stylistic features.
Areas for students to improve include:
- showing an awareness of the module by moving from literal explanation within the text to the broader critical implications of Austen’s ideas to the modern responder
- understanding how Austen uses language, for example, repetition of ‘indirect discourse’ showing an understanding of what it means, giving an example and evaluating the effect.
Charles Dickens, Great
Expectations
In better responses, students were able to:
- explore how Dickens prompts specific questions regarding social justice, rigid class structures and social responsibilities
- offer specific insights connecting ideas explored in the novel to the question
- link context and purpose to the question in a meaningful way
- explore features of prose writing in a balanced manner and reveal how the analysis contributes to meaning through personal interpretation.
Areas for students to improve include:
- considering the nuances of questions raised in the text and the answers Dickens offers
- moving beyond a reliance on plot and character recount and explanation
- demonstrating a greater awareness of distinctive features of the prose fiction form
- avoiding a general discussion of themes
- addressing the statement ‘to what extent’ was true through evaluative language.
Kazuo
Ishiguro, An Artist of the Floating World
In better responses, students were able to:
- use Postmodernism as a lens through which to explore how objective truth is relevant to the 'asking of questions'
- demonstrate an understanding of the multiple levels of context, both inside and outside the text, which convey a deep understanding of the author’s purpose
- provide a sustained and layered textual evaluation that examines overarching features such as motif, structure and representation
- link Ishiguro's key techniques of unreliable narration / fluid time / multiple perspectives / historical allusion to notions of context and style
- demonstrate an understanding of the contemporary relevance of Ishiguro’s ideas such as Thatcherism and the Americanisation of Japan.
Areas for students to improve include:
- demonstrating understanding beyond a literal text level
- exploring other characters, apart from Ono, to broaden depth of engagement with the novel
- balancing understanding of context, at times there was an over exaggeration of the contemporary context, painting Thatcher as highly extreme, clouding the significance of the Japanese social environment in which the novel is situated
- selecting succinct, relevant and detailed textual examples.
T
S Eliot, T S Eliot: Selected Poems
In better responses, students were able to:
- demonstrate an understanding of Eliot’s Modernist context and its relationship to “forcing us to ask questions and look for answers”, providing meaningful links to the reader’s contemporary context
- explore Modernism as a literary and artistic movement, with discussion of Eliot’s purposeful manipulation of form in expressing his ideas in a Modernist style rather than using the style to only comment on social concerns
- move beyond repetitive references to bleakness, modernity and nihilism
- provide a balanced discussion across multiple poems showing a deep understanding of the relationship between them
- discuss forms and features such as intertextuality, recurring motifs throughout the poems, control of rhyme/pararhyme
- demonstrate a sense of how motifs within and across poems comment on Eliot’s major questions
- explore how Eliot’s ideas and approach engages audiences beyond his own time.
Areas for students to improve include:
- addressing poems in greater depth and detail to avoid superficial commentary. This can be achieved by focusing on no more than three poems
- using detailed textual evidence linked to argument rather than techniques
- discussing Eliot’s stylistic approach beyond techniques to explore distinctive features of form and Modernism
- developing discussion beyond generalised statements and literal meanings of the text
- incorporating links to context to connect the composer’s purpose to the question
- developing an understanding of higher order terminology
- considering the poems as a suite rather than separate entities by identifying similar or contrasting ideas between the poems.
David
Malouf, Earth Hour
In better responses, students were able to:
- demonstrate an understanding of Malouf’s purpose in prompting audiences to consider unique perspectives and re-evaluating assumptions, especially in relation to nature, place, people and ourselves
- demonstrate an appreciation of how Malouf’s style and voice impacts audiences in unexpected ways
- incorporate a detailed, authentic knowledge of the text by linking to personal interpretation and relevance
- identify Malouf’s deep philosophical, metaphysical and spiritual concerns.
Areas for students to improve include:
- demonstrating an awareness of Malouf’s central concerns and an understanding of Malouf’s poetic approach
- incorporating context and purpose to move beyond a thematic approach
- providing detailed textual evidence linked to the ideas presented in the response.
Henrik
Ibsen, A Doll’s House
In better responses, students were able to:
- focus on an evaluation of how Ibsen uses particular dramatic techniques to further his social commentary, making connections to how questions of class, gender equality and repression still resonate or require “answers” today
- demonstrate an understanding of a variety of dramatic features of 'A Doll's House' reflected in the costuming, setting and stage directions, and look beyond an analysis of dialogue.
Areas for students to improve include:
- explaining the roles of characters and key events in the plot rather than relying on descriptive recount
- focusing on language features, rather than exploring dramatic techniques
- providing an exploration of Ibsen’s context and examining the complexity of the main relationship.
Dylan
Thomas, Under Milk Wood
In better responses, students were able to:
- convey an understanding of Thomas’s Welsh context with insight into the era and the nature of Welsh community life, including discussion of dreams, temporal spaces, death and community
- demonstrate an awareness of the relationship between context and Thomas’s purpose, including how the play asks audiences to question what is important in a post-war, post-atomic bomb world
- describe Thomas’s distinct style of auditory poetry, his unique characterisation and account for the differences in character traits
- incorporate the use of distinctive features of the radio play form, linking to the impact on the audience.
Areas for students to improve include:
- explaining the roles of characters and events in the plot, rather than relying on descriptive recount
- connecting to the social and cultural context
- using detailed, specific textual references, rather than relying on a study of themes or character
- relying on language features rather than the dramatic features of a radio play.
Edmund
de Waal, The Hare with Amber Eyes
In better responses, students were able to:
- integrate contextual analysis of the Viennese historical setting and anti-Semitism in 19th Century France
- evaluate the extent to which his memoir explores questions and answers, with an assessment of the implications in a modern context
- explore the significance of connecting art, history and family across time and how these “answer” questions today
- analyse features specific to the hybridised memoir form with well-selected textual support.
Areas for students to improve include:
- understanding the features and nature of the memoir form
- incorporating detailed and specific textual evidence, including analysis of the symbolic meaning of the ‘netsuke’, and how they link the past to the present
- avoiding formulaic responses.
Vladimir
Nabokov, Speak, Memory
In better responses, students were able to: n/a
Areas for students to improve include: n/a
George
Clooney, Good Night, and Good Luck
In better responses, students were able to:
- demonstrate an understanding of Clooney’s multi-level use of textual form, including documentary, drama and film noir, to portray the dysfunction of the media and politics
- demonstrate an understanding of how the dual context of the 1950s and the 21st Century reinforces the idea that unanswered questions of the past continue to be of concern by discussing elements of the contemporary world, such as social media misinformation, Trumpian post-truth and media ethics
- analyse the docu-drama form and its pseudo-realism with a choice of key scenes.
Areas for students to improve include:
- broadening their focus beyond concerns of the role of media, “TV” and fear of political control within the context of the 1950s
- using quotes or simple scenes to drive the argument
- providing textual analysis that develops an understanding of the distinctive characteristics of the docu-drama form
- a greater understanding of context
- expanding ideas beyond an explanation of character.
Gillian
Armstrong, Unfolding Florence
In better responses, students were able to:
- understand Armstrong’s purpose in exploring and celebrating Broadhurst as an individual challenging the values of her context
- analyse how Armstrong innovatively uses features of the documentary form to represent her ideas
- provide insights into how questioning the status quo can lead to philosophical answers about being “true” to ourselves, both within and beyond Broadhurst’s context.
Areas for students to improve include:
- using textual support specific to the media form
- demonstrating an awareness of the module by moving from literal explanation within the text to broader critical implications of Armstrong’s ideas in her context and the 21st century.
William
Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part 1
In better responses, students were able to:
- show an understanding of Shakespeare’s world, audience, political structure and personal agenda and how it influences characterisation, and how the characters of Hal, Hotspur, King Henry IV and Falstaff represent honour and leadership
- demonstrate an understanding of the contemporary relevance and significance of Shakespeare’s exploration of leadership, honour and rebellion
- show an understanding of how Shakespeare’s concerns are universal ideas with enduring relevance
- analyse how dramatic techniques and theatrical metalanguage relevant to Shakespearean theatre, as well as Shakespeare’s construction of characterisation, is used to provide comments on Elizabethan society.
Areas for students to improve include:
- understanding the revisionist history holistically, rather than focusing on only leadership or honour
- using contextual references, rather than stating historical facts
- avoiding integration of quotes into sentences, for example, “the line says”, “the quote says”
- understanding the complexity of Shakespeare’s characterisation
- selecting detailed, textual support in a logical and cohesive order
- avoiding memorised responses.
