Discursive Essay Writing for Literature

How to get Good Grades

 
Analysis:
Consider how the writer has used all of the literary features at their disposal to create a certain
effect. Make sure that you consider the text on a number of different levels – for example, Krishna is
a frustrated teacher and you will be rewarded for exploring the ways in which Narayan creates the
impression that he is frustrated. However, Krishna’s character is more than just this: on at least one
level he is an autobiographical representation of Narayan himself (he was a teacher, a writer and
his wife died young); he may also be used as a symbol of an India which is divided and uncertain of
itself under the British Raj or he may be modeling a kind of spiritual journey of self-discovery that
the author would like us all to undertake. Don’t just go for the superficial or obvious reading: be
imaginative.
 
Links:
Make links and comparisons between different parts of the poem and show how a range of different
of features from throughout the poem are working together to create a given effect. You should look
out for contrasts, shifts, changes and developments that appear as the poem progresses.
 
Quote:
Use short and precise quotations that pick out the words or other features that are really ‘doing the
work’ i.e. really responsible for creating the effect that you are talking about. Embed these
quotations smoothly into your sentences and make sure that you know the technical terms for the
literary features you are talking about
 
Explain in detail:
Develop your explanations as much as possible: these should be the longest parts of your
paragraphs. Try and develop ideas in detail and depth and come up with original interpretations of
the effect of something or make unexpected connections. Remember, however, not to be too off the
wall. The effect must always be sensibly related to the overall theme or Organising Principle of the
text.
 
Write clearly and coherently:
Make sure that your arguments and explanations are clear and that your paragraphs follow on from
each other logically. This doesn’t mean that there can be no breaks where you suddenly switch to a
new subject; it just means that, when you do this, you have to use a clear linking phrase that signals
this break from the previous paragraph e.g. ‘An alternative interpretation of …’
 
Give a personal response:
This does not mean that you have to fill your essay with phrases like ‘I’ or ‘In my opinion’. If you
write passionately and excitedly about something then it will be clear that your response is personal.
A good trick, however, for writing personally is to comment on what you find most effective or
successful in a poem – judgments like this are necessarily personal because they talk about how
much you have been affected by something.
 
Be careful with your language:
Make sure you get crucial spellings such as the name of the poet or poem correct. Avoid using
slang because it suggests that you don’t know that exams are a situation where you should be
writing formally. Equally avoid clichés because they suggest that you are not capable of coming up
with your own inventive or original thoughts.

 
 
 Step by Step Guide
In the English Literature exam you will have to write FOUR essays. You will roughly have 45
minutes per essay so you must make sure that you use your time well. You must scan through each
section until you come to the questions that are relevant to the texts that you have studied. Here is
what you should do:
 

Planning: 5 mins
1.       Calm down and read both questions a couple of times so that you come to a sensible and
clear decision about which question to answer without jumping the gun.
 
2.       Decide on a question – but don’t just go with your first response. Think carefully about
whether or not you can really write a good, detailed, interesting and original essay about that
question. If the other question seems harder does that actually mean that it will give you a
good opportunity to show off? Be careful though, don’t take too many risks!
 
3.       Plan your answer. This is crucial but you must do it quickly. One good way to plan is to jot
down the POINTS that you will make in response to the question. For example, if you are
writing about how a sense of ‘childhood trauma’ is created in The Barn by Heaney you might
make a number of different POINTS about how this feeling is created, e.g.:
  the child is made to seem small and insignificant
  the world / objects in it are made to seem threatening and unusual
  there is a sense of nightmare, suffocation and ‘no escape’ created
 
4.       A good essay is going to have 5-6 main POINTS that are explored in detail.
These POINTS then become a map of the paragraphs your essay will contain. The first
paragraph after the introduction will be about the child seeming small and insignificant, the
second about the world, etc … This will help you to give a nice clear structure to your essay.
Make sure that you put your most interesting points at the beginning and end of your essay so
you start and end strongly.
 
5.       With a bit of alteration the POINTS can also be used as a TOPIC SENTENCE for each
paragraph. A TOPIC SENTENCE is the first sentence of a paragraph. Its job is to make it
clear what that paragraph is about and how it relates back to the question. So, for example,
paragraph one might start: ‘Heaney creates a sense of childhood trauma in The Barn by
making the child persona in the poem seem small and insignificant.’ This is a great first
sentence because it makes it clear what I will be writing about in this paragraph and how what
I am going to say helps answer the question.
 
6.       You should also briefly jot down some ideas for evidence that you might use to support each
point, e.g.:
  the child is made to seem small and insignificant (objectified as ‘chaff’, insect like verb
‘scuttled’, etc …)
 
7.       Before you move on to writing you should look back over your points and make one last
check that they ANSWER THE QUESTION. There is no point you including the best point in
the world supported by the most beautiful evidence if it is irrelevant to what the question is
asking you about. By the time you get to the exams you will know an awful lot about your
exam texts and unfortunately a lot of what you do know won’t be relevant to the questions that
you are asked. So make sure that you’ve filtered out all the irrelevant bits before you start
 writing so that the only things that end up in your essay are POINTS clearly related to the
question.
 
Writing: 25 mins
1.       The Introduction SHOULD NOT talk about what you are going to do in the essay. You don’t
have much time to impress the examiner and so instead of wasting time talking about what
you are going to do you need to start doing what you are going to do straight away.
Generally speaking essays that start with ‘In this essay I will …’ or ‘This essay will consider …’
can be improved in these possible ways:

TIPS:  Keep it short

 Make sure that you respond directly to the question
 Use a key quotation to make your response clear from the start
 Name the poet /writer and poem / novel / short story / play that you will be
writing about.

EXAMPLES:

Essay question: How does Jane Austen explore the theme of innocence and experience in
“Northanger Abbey”?

In Jane Austen’s “Northanger Abbey” the theme of innocence versus

experience is conveyed in a number of ways ranging from character
description to dialogue and conflict development.

Jane Austen deals with the theme of innocence versus experience in

“Northanger Abbey” by means of character description, dialogue and
conflict development.

“Northanger Abbey” is about a young heroine’s adventures away from

home. It is, in fact, novel about innocence versus experience. Jane Austen
delves into this theme through carácter description, dialogue and conflict
development.

“Northanger Abbey” is a novel which portrays a young heroine’s

adventures away from home. It focuses on the theme of innocence versus
experience. Jane Austen uses character description, dialogue and conflict
developmente to probe into the theme of innocence versus experience
  
2.       The Main Body of your essay should contain a series of 2 to 4 (at the very most) paragraphs,
each of which explores one of the POINTS identified in your plan. Multiple pieces of evidence
should be used to support each point and the evidence used should cover a range of different
literary features, such as: the connotations of words, sound effects, rhyme, rhythm, images,
symbols, etc.
 
3.       The biggest part of a Main Body paragraph however, should be the Explanation section. Here
you need to spend time really exploring in detail what the connotations of words suggest, how
the sounds and repetitions reinforce these ideas, what the structure of the text contributes to
this feeling and so on. All of these points need to clearly relate back to question and one way
to ensure that you are doing this is to keep referring to key words from the question, in this
case ‘childhood trauma’, in your paragraph. However, you have to avoid repeating the same
phrase again and again because this will make your essay sound boring, As such you will
have to find alternative phrases which mean the same thing or ways of implying an obvious
link to ‘childhood trauma’ without actually saying the words, e.g. ‘The child is threatened by
nightmarish creatures such as rats and bats, which would clearly be disturbing.’ The
‘which would be disturbing’ bit is a good example of how you might refer to the idea of
trauma without actually saying the word.
 
4.       The Conclusion is also important. Remember you want to impress the examiner and leave
him thinking ‘Wow!’ Many people are tempted to conclude by summing up the points they
have made in their essay and, while this may seem logical, it’s not exactly the most interesting
way to end. There are a number of ways of trying to increase the impact of your conclusion,
for example: you might end with a quotation that sums up the feel or flavour of your answer; a
bold statement of your point of view; a question left unanswered or an insight into how this
question might relate to another relevant issue. See the page on ‘Conclusions’ for more
information about this.
 
Checking: 10 mins
5.       You will want to keep writing for as long as possible in order to get down everything that you
want to say but it is really worth spending time at the end of each essay reading back over
what you have written and correcting a few quick and obvious mistakes. Very few people get it
perfect first time.

Writing Formally
 
One thing that many students find difficult is writing in an appropriately formal tone. Here are some
tricks to help you achieve a more formal style in your essays:
 
1.       Use linking phrases at the start of paragraphs. These can range from simple one word
connectives such as: ‘Therefore’, ‘Moreover’, ‘However’, ‘Nevertheless’, ‘On the other hand’ and
‘In conclusion’ to more complex phrases that make it clear how the new paragraph follows of
from the one just before, for example: ‘Napoleon is also further vilified in the chapter six, when
…’
 
2.       Vary your linking phrases to come up with more innovative examples such as ‘ultimately’,
‘initially’ and ‘penultimately’.
 
3.       Find alternative verbs to replace ‘shows’ in the phrase ‘This shows that …’. Some obvious
examples might be ‘implies’, ‘demonstrates’, ‘indicates’, ‘suggests’ and ‘creates the impression’.
However, more adventurous examples might include ‘insinuates’, ‘echoes’, ‘caricatures’,
‘satirises’, ‘lampoons’ (look it up!), ‘vilifies’ or ‘ridicules’. Note that with some of these verbs you
 no longer need the ‘that’ in the phrase and you can instead just use ‘This ridicules the animals
on the farm for their …’
 
4.       Remember to use phrases that allow you to show how different aspects of a text work together
to achieve a given effect, for example: ‘enhances’, ‘reinforces’, ‘emphasises’, ‘exaggerates’,
‘exacerbates’ (makes worse) or ‘alleviates’ (makes better).
 
5.       Try to replace big verb phrases in your writing with noun phrases. For example the verb takes
over in ‘When Napoleon takes over the farm it demonstrates …’ can be replaced by the
noun take over as follows: ‘Napoleon’s take over of the farm demonstrates …’ which is a much
nicer, more efficient, more concise sentence.
 
6.       Use appropriate literary terms: novel, persona, narrative voice, foreshadowing,etc.
 
7.       Be as precise with your language as possible – make your points as clearly, cleanly and
quickly.
 
8.       Avoid using conversational phrases such as: ‘like’, ‘basically’, ‘essentially’. Remember that you
don’t want to give the impression that there is anything basic about what you are doing. An
examiner is not going to award an A grade to a candidate who tries to squeeze down the
complexity of a novel, poem or play into one ‘basic’ statement.
 
9.       Avoid using vague phrases such as ‘a variety of features’ (what features?); ‘on a number of
occasions’ (what occasions?). Particularly you should try and avoid the vagueness of just
saying something is positive or negative. Give me some idea of why a word has negative
connotations – is it vicious cruel and heartless, or dull, boring and insipid?
 
10.   Avoid referring to yourself or your essay. Good writers don’t write about themselves and good
essays don’t talk about themselves they just focus on the issue that they are meant to be
concerned with. You might be tempted to use ‘I’ or ‘me’ to introduce a personal opinion and
sometimes that is ok, especially in a conclusion or perhaps introduction, however, if you write a
good essay that really engages with the question and the text then it will be clear to the
examiner that this is your personal response and you won’t need to use ‘I’ to make it obvious.