The Younger Generation v The Older Generation Grade 9 Essay

This resource teaches students how to use
Here is an extract to show you what this resource teaches.

What does the AQA mark scheme say?

1. Convincing
2. Critical analysis
3. Conceptualised
4. Exploration of context to author’s and contemporary readers’ perspectives
5. Give interpretation(s)
6. Response to the whole text
7. Analyse it as a play, and deal with the structure
8. Precise references
9. Analysis of writer’s methods
10. Subject terminology used judiciously
11. Exploration of effects of writer’s methods on reader

They basically mean this:

What you must do

1. Give more than one interpretation of the characters or events.
2. Make sure you write about Priestley’s viewpoint and ideas about his society at the time, in 1945
3. Write about how the society of 1945 would respond to these ideas, characters and events.
4. Write about the ending of the play, to show how characters have or haven’t changed
5. Write about the ending to show Priestley’s viewpoint.

When you do it, make sure you

1. Embed quotations all the time
2. Only use terminology if it helps explain an idea

Better still, go back and look at the words in bold in the short essay. This is subject terminology.

What does “subject terminology” mean?
The words a student of literature at university would use in nearly every literature essay. You could argue that connectives fall under this category as well, if you want.

How do you integrate context?
All the italics in the short essay is context. Sometimes this is the context of the world inside the play, at other times it is Priestley’s viewpoint and history, and at others it is the shared experience or viewpoints of his contemporary audience.
You should notice that it is impossible to write about any author’s purpose or viewpoint without delving into context, which makes it very easy to integrate as part of the evidence for your interpretation.
Now we’ve read the key criteria from Edexcel, you can see that “what you must do”, and “make sure you” work perfectly for this exam board as well. There’s a reason for that, whichever exam board you study: literature essays always demand the same skills.