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POETRY ESSAY PARAGRAPHING TUTORIAL
So what we’re going to be looking at here is the writing paragraphs for your poetry
response. So I’ve been getting a lot of messages about this, so I think it’s important
to cover.
So there’s the basic way that you’re going to write, which we’re going to look at first
in the unseen and then there’s the comparative way that you write, which we’re going to
touch upon here – just show you the extension then we’ll actually go on from this poem
– and then we’re going to look at it being done in an A* essay in the second video.
So first and foremost, when you’re answering this you remember it’s basic English concept
that you’ve always done – PEE – make your point, give some evidence, give some
explanation or analysis whichever way you want to do it, so just to make it make more
sense you can have an ‘E’ or an ‘A’ there, it’s completely up to you but they’re
the same thing. You explain it or you analysis it, they mean the same thing in this case,
and then you link. So then you keep building it two, three times.
Now for your point what you’re going to do is you’re going to re-phrase the question
as an opening element to a paragraph. So I’ve made up a mock question here, just with this
poem from the anthology ‘Yellow Palm’ and the focus here for us is going to be on
this. ‘How do you think the poet feels about conflict and his experience travelling and
how does the poem present these feelings?’ Every question is going to be set out the
same, OK? ‘How do you think the poet feels about whatever it might be, and then how do
they present it?’ So that’s the two things you’re looking for. You’re looking for
this section here, because in this section we’re looking at conflict and this part
here, it’s looking at presenting these feelings. So we know that presenting our feelings all
comes through SMILE and obviously we’re going to demonstrate that know, sorry in a
minute.
This part here for my point, I’m actually going to use this opening here and then for
my evidence, it’s just going to be a quotation, preferably embedded and then I’m going to
look at analysing it here – that’s going to be this section here – and then I’m
going to be using the links which is this section here.
Now this is for the unseen, but it’s going to be very very similar for the comparative
section. So we’re looking first at section B, then we’re going to look at section A.
So just so I can get this clear to you, I’ll make a ‘P’ there and then we’re going
to have the ‘A’ and then we’re going to have the ‘L’. So let’s see if we
can make this work.
So I’m going to get a paragraph going just under here, just so you can see how you develop
it. So I’ve got my SMILE points and you’ve got them on Facebook if you want to do this,
and I would recommend practising doing it with the notes that are up on Facebook. Please,
please make use of them so you can get as much practice in before the exam.
So we’re looking over here, we’ve got a point. So I’m looking for things about
conflict, OK? So we get a sense of…so the conflict that’s happened, that state of
Baghdad – because obviously that’s to do with conflict in this poem. We get a sense
of the state of Baghdad, so that’s the …… in decay so I don’t copy the whole part. So
that’s from the conflict ‘the writer highlights’, so now I’m going to have my evidence, I
don’t have the poem next to me so I’m not going to be using it but I can take, I
know, any of the images I have here are going to be from evidence so I’m just going to
pretend that I had my evidence there and it’s something to do with blood in a Mosque or
something like that. So I’m going to take this section here in relation to that, OK?
So I’m going to say ‘this indicates’ so I’m building into my analysis, it’s
the start of my analysis now. ‘This indicates that even the places that are supposed to
be peaceful have not been spared in the conflict and has had a huge effect on everyone, as
it has penetrated their most sacred places’.
OK, now that’s my just extension of the analysis. So we get a sense of the state of
Baghdad in decay, there’s blood on the walls of the sanctuary, this indicates that even
the places that are supposed to be peaceful have not been spared in the conflict and this
has had a huge effect on everyone as it has penetrated their most sacred places.
Now to an extent that’s a bit tautology so I’m saying similar things again but I’m
focusing on a slightly different thing. This is in general, I’m saying these peaceful
places have been affected and then I’m actually saying what happens because of that, I’m
saying ‘well this actually has affected the people because it’s damaged their sacred
places’. So first of all I’m saying there’s no peace and secondly I’m saying basically
it’s upsetting people. That’s the two kinds of levels within that. And that’s
just the start of my analysis.
Now I want to aid this further by adding more to it, so this is furthered by – for example
I’m just going to take this one – this is furthered by – so basically you know
the idea you’ve got going on here at the beginning is that of conflict, etc. This is
furthered by…and then I’m going to pick something else. So I’ve answered the question
directly but I want to show my skills etc., so I’m going to pick on this part here – the
references to war – so I’m going to use my evidence. This is furthered by – so imagine
that this is my evidence, whatever reference that I would have picked up from here – just
so you’ve got in your notes, references to war ‘which remind us again and again
that conflict through war is ever present in the poem’. OK? So there I’ve taken
it to another step, I’ve just extended that and now I’m going to do it again. Take this
one. I just have to change the start so further emphasis is added through - and now I’m
going to look at something else. Now this one I wouldn’t actually have to put any
evidence forward because it’s something from structure. So this is further emphasis
added through the rhyme, scheme – it should – so basically the only reason I’m extending
these is because these were my notes, these were my SMILE points here, just notes, so
I’m extending it so it’s in a proper essay format here. ‘Further emphasis is added
through the rhyme scheme and it should feel more cheery but it does not. This is cleverly
designed to create conflict within the poem itself, rather than through its message, giving
us an altogether inescapable feeling of awkwardness and conflict throughout’.
OK. So you see this is all one point and what I’ve done is I’ve actually built on it
two or three times. So let’s look over what I’ve done again. Here we’ve got the opening,
we get a sense of the decay of Baghdad, blood on the walls of sanctuary, my quotation. ‘This
indicates that even the places that are supposed to be peaceful have not been spared in the
conflict and this has a huge effect on everyone and it’s penetrated their most sacred places’.
So if we can get the colours up on this just so we can show you why it is different. So
this is just my analysis, OK, that’s just my analysis. This is further by – and then
I’ve got my quotation and reference to war, which reminds us again and again that conflict
through war is ever present in the poem, OK, so I’ve got that again, I’m linking now
to stretching it. Now I don’t need to analyse that too deeply because I’ve kind of touched
upon what I’m analysing in that one. I’m just showing that I can link to a different
skill here in language.
‘Further emphasis is added through the rhyme scheme, it should feel more cheery but it’s
not. This is cleverly designed to create conflict within the reading poem itself, rather than
through its message given us an altogether inescapable of awkwardness and conflict throughout
the poem’. OK, and I colour that one differently again. So I hope you can see that in that,
what most people would do is they would stop right there after they’d done that one,
or maybe they’d only put one thing here, I’ve put two remember. So hopefully what
you can see is you’re just building in that way.
Now you don’t have to do this for every poem or every point, so this bit here is 123
words, so theoretically this is one quarter, one third of your analysis right there if
it’s the unseen one because you only have to do about a page, a page and half. Or do
as much as you feel you can get but I’m just telling you because you’ve only got
20 minutes to write it so you’re not going to be writing bucket loads or should I say
tree loads. And here you’ve got everything you need to kind of just show a range of understanding,
because if you remember the last video where we actually looked at how it was marked, this
is going to cover virtually all the things that actually you’re being asked about.
So whatever question you get remember, you’re going to always focus on the meaning first
and foremost, which in this the thing we’ve actually looked at is the conflict and the
state of Baghdad, and then you’ve actually got it broken down in different sections,
so that’s how you would build it.
I hope that makes sense. Just remember, PEAL and then link two or three times, however
much you feel comfortable with and however much you feel is strongest. If there’s an
original way of putting something then put it in an original way but just go as safe
as houses at the beginning, you can’t go wrong.
Now the only difference that you would do – and we’ll look at this in an A* video
like I said, in a second – the only thing you would do for the comparison section which
is section A which is 36 marks, is you do as above but within each paragraph swap the
focus of your essay to the other poem, showing how it focuses on something similar or different,
in a way that is similar or different. Now that bits a little bit confusing. So basically
if the first poem is about conflict and the second poem is also about conflict, then that’s
great, you’ve got something similar, OK, in its kind of topic. Now if the first poem’s
about the damage of conflict like this one and the second one say was to do with the positive
messages from conflict, then that would be completely different. So looking at the same
thing in a very different way. Right? So that would be one way you can talk about comparison
and all you’d do is you’d use a switching phrase for the second one, you say, ‘however’.
‘So the first one focuses on …. However, the second one focuses on’ …… Or ‘on
the other hand focuses on …..’ So the first one focuses on something and then the
second aim of the poem focuses on something different. So you can see here all the stock
phrases that you’ve got here will be useful to you.
Now if they focus on something that’s similar but they do something different within it,
or same within it, this is how we’ll write about it. So let’s go back. If a poem focuses
on say, like this one, the state of decay in Baghdad and then another one focuses on
the state of decay somewhere else, let’s just take that as a given. And then we say
‘and they similarly use’ – let’s take a reference from this one – ‘a lot of
references to war’. Now if they use a lot of references to war, again, to remind us
of war throughout, then it’s doing a similar thing in a similar way.
Now look, it can do it another way as well. I might actually write up some examples in
a minute, in another video. Now if it’s focused on something different but then also
they might use something that’s similar, so let’s take colours, so let’s take ‘images
here are used to, for example, make everything very vivid to us’. Now let’s imagine that
we’re looking at a poem and we’re saying ‘these two poems are actually very different.
One is focusing on how bad things become because of conflict and one is focusing on how good
something is because of conflict. However, they’re both similar in that they use colours
to really place the reader there or to make things very vivid in our minds’, etc. etc.
etc. So that’s a way you could actually have something that’s different but that
uses similar technique.
Now the easiest one to look at - or is straightforward and makes probably more sense – is if we
have a different focus and then we have a different way of actually using something.
So again, if we’ve got a different poem – so the first one like we said again – sorry
to keep repeating it – the first one’s about the decay that comes about because of
conflict, the second one’s because of the positive consequences of conflict and they
both use the references of the visitor taking everything in, for example, in an image, but
it would be different in this case, say the first one might be because they’re using
it to see, as in this one, all the kind of the bloodshed and how sad everything is and
how depressed and decrepit the place is, but the visitor in the other one could actually
be a group and they could be seeing how great it was. OK? So that could be used that way.
Or another way it could actually be different is that, you know, you could say that it’s
not a visitor that’s doing it, we’re hearing about it second hand from a character.
I hope that makes sense, it should do but I will go through some examples of it with
real anthology examples as well to make it a clearer to it.
So remember, something can be similar or different in a similar and different way. So it’s
kind of two levels within it. So you’ve got the first level where they went ‘right
is it similar or different in terms of the meaning?’ Yes, that’s actually a good
way of putting it. Imagine this meaning here as level one, OK, that’s the most important
one, that’s the prime level. So similar and different in level 1 is grand. Similar
and different anywhere else is what we’re referring to in this second part here. So
I’m just going to put a 1 next to this if you’ve listened to that bit about 1 and
prime for meaning, and the second one here so that makes some sense. Again I’ll do
some examples that’ll help you. 1, 2, 3, 4 – any of the four areas there, they’re
what’s referenced in area two but similar or different and that’s for section one.
Now all you have to do is add or tag wherever you want, the second element from here. So
let’s say ‘this is furthered by reference to war which reminds us again and again that
conflict through war is ever present in the poem’ and then I’m just going to say an
adding phrase here; ‘so we also see’ and then I reference in there my second poem.
You see? I might not tag into that there, OK, because I wouldn’t really need to. That
would probably be too much, you wouldn’t really switch and then just kind of return
to that first point again, it wouldn’t make sense. So it would make sense to go from poem
A to poem B and then maybe go back to poem A from whatever you’ve written at the end
of poem B, but it wouldn’t make sense for you to just go back to this point here about
conflict unless you’ve linked it to whatever you’re going to write at the end of this
section here.
So you can do that part there and then you can use anything. If it was a switching phrase
– it’s a lame name I’m actually calling him – so imagine it was….instead of this
it was something different and we just look at that…’on the other hand’ and then
we can actually discuss that one. So either way you want to do it, that’s the way to
go about it for the comparison one.
So bear these in mind, they’re the most important ones and bear PEAL in mind as well.
So when you’re looking at the unseen one it’s just PEAL on its own. Point, Evidence,
Analyse and the Link it two or three times to something else from SMILE and with the
other one, with the original one, the one worth more marks - remember to spend more
time on this one – you’ve got to do exactly the same thing because that’s the skill
you’re trying to do, but then also add in the linking section of the paragraphs and
then keep this all one paragraph. And we’re going to look at that now in an A* top band
essay. 6