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Year 9 English Literature Reading an unseen text: exam preparation

The Task

In the Year 9 English Literature exam you get 45 minutes to write about the

opening to a novel which you may never have seen before.

You will be marked on the following:

o W2 – writing an appropriate text

o W3 – organising a text effectively

o W6 – using a full range of punctuation

o W8 – accurate spelling

o R2 – using quotations

o R3 – inferring layers of meaning

o R4 – analysing structural features

o R5 – analysing features of language

You are expected to write at least one, and no more than 2, sides of A4.

You should divide your time in to the following:

10 minutes – reading and planning (you will receive a planning sheet in the

exam)

30 minutes - writing

5 minutes – proofreading (you can bring in your ‘personalised proofreading

strategy’ for this

PLANNING SHEET

Write an analytical essay, exploring and evaluating how

________________ uses features of language and structure

to create an effective opening.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Introductory Paragraph

Analytical paragraph 1

Analytical paragraph 2

Analytical paragraph 3

Conclusion

PERSONALISED PROOFREADING STRATEGY

Spelling

Punctuation Grammar

W2 – Writing an appropriate text Your argument should focus on the question and be convincing and

persuasive for the reader. Marks 6 and 7 are awarded for originality of argument and individuality of voice.

7 marks Well-judged argument and individual voice sustained throughout

6 marks Convincing argument and individual voice, mostly sustained

5 marks Your purpose and argument are clear and consistently maintained

Appropriate style maintains the reader’s interest

4 marks You are answering the question, but your purpose is not always maintained

Style generally appropriate, though awareness of reader not always sustained

W3 – Organising texts effectively Your essay should be structured with a brief introduction, three analytical

paragraphs and a brief conclusion. You should use connectives and complex sentences to sequence your

argument and guide the reader through your essay. You cannot get higher than 4 marks if you do not use

paragraphs.

8 marks Use of paragraphing provides clearness and cohesion for purpose

7 marks A variety of devices guide and direct the reader

6 marks Material is clearly controlled and sequenced, considering the reader

5 marks Material is structured clearly, with appropriate paragraphs

Clear links between paragraphs direct the text

4 marks

Ideas organised by grouping related points into paragraphs

Ideas are organised simply with a fitting introduction and conclusion

The text is in a logical sequence, but overall direction can be uncertain

W6 – Punctuation and syntax When writing an essay, your basic concern is accuracy of sentence structures,

commas for clauses and punctuation of quotations and titles.

6 marks No mistakes with punctuation or syntax!

5 marks Sentence structures are accurate

Full use of punctuation used accurately— : ; . , ’…’

4 marks

Sentence structures are mostly accurate

Quotations and titles are correctly punctuated

Commas are mostly used accurately

W8 – Accurate spelling Please make sure that proofreading for spelling is a key stage in your proofreading

strategy.

7 marks Correct spelling throughout

6 marks Generally correct spelling throughout, including ambitious and common words

Likely errors occasionally in complex words

5 marks Correct spelling of most words

Likely errors, such as phonetically plausible misspellings

4 marks

Correct spelling of common words (including -ly adverbs, past and present tense verbs,

plurals)

Likely errors with occasional phonetically plausible misspellings

R2 – Making relevant points and using quotations This assessment focus checks how far you understand the

text, and if you can make relevant points and back them up with appropriate quotations. The deeper your

understanding, and the more precise your supporting evidence is, the higher your mark will be.

8 marks Quotations are always concise and precisely support argument

7 marks Uses increasingly precise references to support argument

6 marks Relevant points are clearly identified

Supports points with references/quotations that are suitable (apt)

5 marks The most relevant points are considered across the text

Comments are generally supported by reference/quotations from the text

4 marks Some relevant points are made

Comments are mostly supported with relevant references/quotations

R3 – Inferring layers of meaning This assessment focus requires you to explore layers of meaning in the text.

8 marks Coherent interpretation of text

Considers very imaginative insights

7 marks

Comments begin to develop an interpretation of the text

Teases out complex meanings

Makes connections between imaginative ideas (insights) and weighs up evidence

6 marks Reveals different layers of meaning, attempting to explore them

5 marks Uses the text to work out hidden meanings (inferences and deductions)

4 marks Inferences are often correct

Comments are not always accurate; sometimes retelling the story

R4 – Exploring the structure of the text This assessment focuses particularly relates to the question of how

the writer has created an effective opening and asks you to consider how the author has used structural

devices for effect.

8 marks Clear appreciation of how the writer has structured the text for theme / purpose and effect

7 marks Some evaluation of how the writer has structured the text for theme / purpose and effect

6 marks Explores in some detail how the writer has structured the text for theme / purpose and effect

5 marks Some explanation of how the writer has structured the text

4 marks Identifies some aspects of the text’s structure

R5 – Use of language

8 marks Evaluation of how the use of language supports the writer’s purpose

7 marks Comments begin to develop precise, perceptive analysis of how language is used

6 marks Uses appropriate terminology when discussing language use

Some understanding of how language choices contribute to the overall effect

5 marks Some explanation of language features in the text

4 marks Simple comments on the writer’s choices of words (language)

Total marks = / 60

I need to

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

One grim winter evening, when it had a kind of unrealness about London, with a fog

sleeping restlessly over the city and the lights showing in the blur as if is not London at all

but some strange place on another planet, Moses Aloetta hop on a number 46 bus at the

corner of Chepstow Road and Westbourne Grove to go to Waterloo to meet a fellar who

was coming from Trinidad on the boat-train. When Moses sit down and pay his fare he take

out a white handkerchief and blow his nose. The handkerchief turn black and Moses watch

it and curse the fog. He wasn’t in a good mood and the fog wasn’t doing anything to help

the situation. He had was to get up from a nice warm bed and dress and come out in this

nasty weather to go and meet a fellar that he didn’t even know. That was the hurtful part of

it – is not as if this fellar is his brother or cousin or even friend; he don’t know the man from

Adam. But he get a letter from a friend in Trinidad who say that this fellar coming by the SS

Hildebrand, and if he could please meet him at the station in London, and help him get

settled. The fellar name Henry Oliver, but the friend tell Moses not to worry that he describe

Moses to Henry, and all he have to do is to be in the station when the boat-train pull in and

this fellar Henry would find him. So for old time sake Moses find himself on the bus going to

Waterloo, vex with himself that his heart so soft that he always doing something for

somebody and nobody ever doing anything for him. Because it look to Moses that he hardly

have time to settle in the old Brit’n before all sorts of fellars start coming straight to his room in the

Water when they land up in London from the West Indies, saying that so and so tell them that

Moses is a good fellar to contact, that he would help them get place to stay and work to do. ‘Jesus

Christ,’ Moses tell Harris, a friend he have, ‘I never see thing so. I don’t know these people at all, yet

they coming to me as if I is some liaison officer, and I catching my arse as it is, how I could help them

out?’ And this sort of thing was happening at a time when the English people starting to make rab

about how too much West Indians coming to the country: this was a time, when any comer you turn,

is ten to one you bound to bounce up a spade. In fact, the boys all over London, it ain’t have a place

where you wouldn’t find them, and big discussion going on in Parliament about the situation, though

the old Brit’n too diplomatic to clamp down on the boys or do anything drastic like stop them from

coming to the Mother Country. But big headlines in the papers every day, and whatever the

newspaper and the radio say in this country, that is the people Bible. Like one time when

newspapers say that the West Indians think that the streets of London paved with gold a Jamaican

fellar went to the income tax office to find out something and first thing the clerk tell him is, ‘You

people think the streets of London are paved with gold?’ Newspaper and radio rule this country.

Write an analytical essay, exploring and evaluating how Samuel Selvon uses

features of language and structure to create an effective opening.

'NOW, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are

wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds

of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the

principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle on which I bring up

these children. Stick to Facts, sir!'

The scene was a plain, bare, monotonous vault of a school-room, and the speaker's square

forefinger emphasized his observations by underscoring every sentence with a line on the

schoolmaster's sleeve. The emphasis was helped by the speaker's square wall of a forehead,

which had his eyebrows for its base, while his eyes found commodious cellarage in two dark

caves, overshadowed by the wall. The emphasis was helped by the speaker's mouth, which

was wide, thin, and hard set. The emphasis was helped by the speaker's voice, which was

inflexible, dry, and dictatorial. The emphasis was helped by the speaker's hair, which bristled

on the skirts of his bald head, a plantation of firs to keep the wind from its shining surface,

all covered with knobs, like the crust of a plum pie, as if the head had scarcely warehouse-

room for the hard facts stored inside. The speaker's obstinate carriage, square coat, square

legs, square shoulders, - nay, his very neckcloth, trained to take him by the throat with an

unaccommodating grasp, like a stubborn fact, as it was, - all helped the emphasis.

'In this life, we want nothing but Facts, sir; nothing but Facts!'

The speaker, and the schoolmaster, and the third grown personpresent, all backed a little,

and swept with their eyes theinclined plane of little vessels then and there arranged in

order,ready to have imperial gallons of facts poured into them until theywere full to the

brim.

Write an analytical essay, exploring and evaluating how Charles Dickens uses

features of language and structure to create an effective opening.

There was no possibility of taking a walk that day. We had been wandering, indeed, in the leafless shrubbery an hour in the morning; but since dinner (Mrs. Reed, when there was no company, dined early) the cold winter wind had brought with it clouds so sombre, and a rain so penetrating, that further out-door exercise was now out of the question.

I was glad of it: I never liked long walks, especially on chilly afternoons: dreadful to me was the coming home in the raw twilight, with nipped fingers and toes, and a heart saddened by the chidings of Bessie, the nurse, and humbled by the consciousness of my physical inferiority to Eliza, John, and Georgiana Reed.

The said Eliza, John, and Georgiana were now clustered round their mama in the drawing-room: she lay reclined on a sofa by the fireside, and with her darlings about her (for the time neither quarrelling nor crying) looked perfectly happy. Me, she had dispensed from joining the group; saying, "She regretted to be under the necessity of keeping me at a distance; but that until she heard from Bessie, and could discover by her own observation, that I was endeavouring in good earnest to acquire a more sociable and childlike disposition, a more attractive and sprightly manner-- something lighter, franker, more natural, as it were--she really must exclude me from privileges intended only for contented, happy, little children."

"What does Bessie say I have done?" I asked.

"Jane, I don't like cavillers or questioners; besides, there is something truly forbidding in a child taking up her elders in that manner. Be seated somewhere; and until you can speak pleasantly, remain silent."

A breakfast-room adjoined the drawing-room, I slipped in there. It contained a bookcase: I soon possessed myself of a volume, taking care that it should be one stored with pictures. I mounted into the window-seat: gathering up my feet, I sat cross-legged, like a Turk; and, having drawn the red moreen curtain nearly close, I was shrined in double retirement.

Folds of scarlet drapery shut in my view to the right hand; to the left were the clear panes of glass, protecting, but not separating me from the drear November day. At intervals, while turning over the leaves of my book, I studied the aspect of that winter afternoon. Afar, it offered a pale blank of mist and cloud; near a scene of wet lawn and storm-beat shrub, with ceaseless rain sweeping away wildly before a long and lamentable blast.

Write an analytical essay, exploring and evaluating how Charlotte Brontë

uses features of language and structure to create an effective opening.

True! - nervous - very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses - not destroyed - not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily - how calmly I can tell you the whole story.

It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night. Object there was none. Passion there was none. I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire. I think it was his eye! yes, it was this! He had the eye of a vulture - a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees - very gradually - I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever.

Now this is the point. You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded - with what caution - with what foresight - with what dissimulation I went to work! I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week before I killed him. And every night, about midnight, I turned the latch of his door and opened it - oh so gently! And then, when I had made an opening sufficient for my head, I put in a dark lantern, all closed, closed, so that no light shone out, and then I thrust in my head. Oh, you would have laughed to see how cunningly I thrust it in! I moved it slowly - very, very slowly, so that I might not disturb the old man's sleep. It took me an hour to place my whole head within the opening so far that I could see him as he lay upon his bed. Ha! - would a madman have been so wise ass this? And then, when my head was well in the room, I undid the lantern cautiously - oh, so cautiously - cautiously (for the hinges creaked) - I undid it just so much that a single thin ray fell upon the vulture eye. And this I did for seven long nights - very night just at midnight - but I found the eye always closed; and so it was impossible to do the work; for it was not the old man who vexed me, but his Evil Eye. And every morning, when the day broke, I went boldly into the chamber, and spike courageously to him, calling him by name in a hearty tone, and inquiring how he had passed the night. So you see he would have been a very profound old man, indeed, to suspect that every night, just at twelve, I looked upon him while he slept.

Write an analytical essay, exploring and evaluating how Edgar Allen Poe uses

features of language and structure to create an effective opening.

There are police everywhere. From a distance it is the first thing he sees. Even before he hears the

noise of sirens, the screams. Even before the BBC team appears. Acid-green jackets move grimly

about, directing the traffic, securing blue-and-white tape, herding people away. That’s what he sees.

A red, double-decker bus stands parked at an off angle, black smoke pouring out of its windows.

There is glass everywhere. His feet crunch on it and he notices shards glinting dangerously in the

light. His first thought is, Someone might cut themselves; his second is, There must have been a fire.

‘Move along, please, clear the path,’ the policeman shouts, roughly.

He pushes several people back with the palms of his hands. Then he speaks into his radio. There is a

smell of sweat and rubber. And explosives.

‘We need another ambulance over at checkpoint four,’ the policeman says. ‘Quickly. They’re

bringing more out. Have all the hospitals been alerted?’

‘We need the reinforcements, now!’

‘Yes. They’re on their way.’

‘What happened?’ Simon asks, urgently. ‘Was it a fire?’

His voice is hoarse; his throat has tightened up. There is an even tighter constriction across his chest.

He has been running. Al lth way over Lambeth Bridge, along Horseferry Road, up Park Lane towards

Edgeware Road. He wanted to go in the opposite direction, towards the Oval and the house Brixton

Beach. For a moment he had wavered, wanting to call at the house, knock on its blue-fronted doow,

but then he had carried on running. There are no taxis to be had. The traffic is gridlocked. It will be

gridlocked for hours. He should be at work, he should be at this post, standing by waiting for the

admissions, triaging the flood of casualties, but he has fled, unthinkingly. Never in the whole of his

professional career has he behaved in this irresponsible way. Panic chokes his voice; fear grips his

limbs as he scans the faces in front of him.

‘Clear the path, please.’

The noise of yet another ambulance siren deafens him. He isn’t used to hearing the sirens from the

outside. He is used to the calm of the operating theatre, the controlled energy of work. Scalpels

placed where they are always placed, nurses ready to second-guess his moves. He is not used to

chaos.

‘Oh my God! Oh God! Look! Look!’ a woman screams.

Her voice goes on and on screaming, making sounds but no sense.

It is only then Simon glances up and sees the bus. Its top has been completely blown off. Roof, seats,

windows, people. Half a bus really, standing motionless save for the thin wisps of smoke sailing lazily

out, upwards like a kite; into a startling blue.

Write an analytical essay, exploring and evaluating how Roma Tearne uses

features of language and structure to create an effective opening.