Writing Unseen Commentaries: A Student Help Book (Teaching Copy)

This 209-page resource is designed to support senior students and their teachers working towards a final written examination in which (as in AP and IB) there is a close textual analysis component. In effect it is a full two-year course in reading, dissecting and commenting on poems and short prose extracts candidates have seen before. It includes some passages from past IB and AP exams. The main body of the resource works by offering students a set of short writing tasks on each passage. The Teaching Copy (this edition) has suggested responses built into the resource; in the Student Edition (available separately) the suggested responses have been relocated to a separate Answers Booklet (included in the purchase) which teachers can withhold from students if they wish, or dispense on an ongoing basis so that students can follow a process of self-assessment. It is possible to deliver the course ‘straight from the book’; but students can safely be allowed to work through the resource by themselves, in whole or in part, and there is much opportunity within it for paired, group and whole-class discussion.