Cambridge International Catalogue 2024 - Final - Flipbook - Page 67
CAMBRIDGE IGCSETM AND O LEVEL LITERATURE IN ENGLISH
Look inside
6.4 Writing practice
ii Now that you have worked out what the key words in the question are, copy
out and complete the following grid in order to help you plan your essay.
Your earlier work in 6.3 Finding evidence will help you with this grid. Spend
about 15 minutes on this grid.
Essay planning grid
TIP
Always make sure
you plan your essays
by picking out the
key words from the
question. Then you can
use a grid to plan your
use of quotations and
your comments.
Strong feeling
Language
Comment on how the language choice creates
the strong feeling
Exercise 5
The following paragraphs are taken from the middle of student answers to the
essay question:
TIP
Remember that
responses to English
Literature questions like
this should focus on
a showing understanding
of the poem and
b being able to answer
a question in a focused
and relevant way.
How does Hughes’s language create strong feelings about war in ‘Thistles’?
a In pairs, read all three partial responses and agree which you think is the best
and which you think needs the most improvement. Number them 1, 2 and 3
(where 1 is the best and 3 is the weakest).
b Write down one thing that is good about each response and one thing that
could be improved.
c Share your thoughts about the responses with a bigger group or the whole
class.
Student response A
This poem uses metaphors like ‘splintered weapons’. This is a metaphor because
it is comparing the prickles of a thistle to a weapon without using the words ‘as’
or ‘like’. This causes strong feelings about war because metaphors are better than
similes. I liked the way Ted Hughes compared them to Vikings in the poem. He
did this because there are dead Vikings buried where he used to live in Yorkshire.
Student response B
The poem makes me feel sad about war because people die in violent ways. The
‘plume of blood’ makes me think of blood coming out of a warrior’s head and
‘mown down’ makes me think of a lot of people just all killed at once. It’s like
they were all just killed in the way we chop down grass. There are other images
that make me feel sad like ‘rubber tongues’ because I think of the thistles
prickling the soft tongues of the cows.
11
Return to the contents page
READY TO ORDER?
hoddereducation ⸀com/igcse-literature
education@hachette ⸀co ⸀uk
65
