AS LITERATURE - 1000 WORD ESSAY - SOME NOTES ON PLANNING AND WRITING THE ESSAY

Once you have chosen your essay title and the poem you are going to write about you should read the essay title over several times and consider what it is asking you to do. You should pay special attention to key words and phrases in the essay title and define these words and phrases for yourself. You should also jot down words associated or linked to these words. Consider such words as ‘relationships’, ‘setting’, ‘presentation’, ‘character and ‘conflict’ – or whatever words are used in your title.

Secondly you should be reading and re-reading the poem and the extract you have chosen. Read it slowly with a pencil in your hand and note down any observations, thoughts ideas that you consider relevant to your understanding of the poem / extract. Read it aloud. Whisper it! Read it to friends, parents, siblings. Each time you read the poem / extract imagine it is the first time you have read it. Each time you read it imagine it is the one hundredth time you have read it. What meanings does it offer you? Note them down.

To help you do this work, refer back to the questions and the handout attached to the anthology. And all the annotations and notes you have already made.

Try and do this work in one or two extended sittings when you are comfortable, have plenty of time, are not tired, not hungry and not stressed – especially about time or deadlines. You should do this now rather than later.

Thirdly as you read the poem / extract you should allow the essay title and all your ideas connected to it fill your mind. Think about how the different parts of the poem can be used to link to the different parts of the essay title. Annotate a clean copy of the poem; underlining words and phrases and jot down notes identifying a literary feature and the effect on you as a reader. Also consider other poems we have studied and note how they are similar or different to the poem you have chosen.

Fourthly - the plan this is an opportunity for you to write all the ideas you are going to include in your essay in a logical and coherent text. By doing this you will be able to concentrate on the craft of writing rather than having to think of new things to include. On a separate sheet of paper draw up a list of bullet points. Each bullet point will eventually become a paragraph. Each bullet point should include a main point, a brief quotation – no more than a word or a phrase – and a series of comments specifically about the quotation and how it links to the essay title. Most comments should include a language/literary feature* and its effect on a reader. Comment on the attitudes toward the subject of the poem, definitions and connotations, links to other similar poems studied and the context of the quotation.

"Craft of writing" means - focus on your choice of lexis, sentence structure and general writing style.

Write the bullet points in the order of how they appear in the poem. Do not think about word limits. Be as open as you can to the poem.

Try and do this work in one or two extended sittings when you are comfortable, have plenty of time, are not tired, not hungry and not stressed – especially about time or deadlines.

Fifthly when you have gone through the whole poem and made perhaps fifteen or twenty bullet points you will have a unique overview of the poem. You can see at a glance the whole poem and all your thoughts about it. Now is the time to write an introduction. This will include a short statement about the poem and how it relates to the essay title you are writing on.  You could briefly list some of the main poetic techniques Hughes uses to present the topic of your essay. You could refer to one or two other poems by Hughes that we have studied to show how similar of different these poems are to your essay poem.

There should be no quotations in your introduction.

Sixthly you are now ready to write the main body of the essay. One way to structure the essay is to write up a paragraph in the order you have written them in your notes. Another way is by writing the paragraphs in the order you think is most important. Put the most important point first and the second most important point last. As you write each paragraph cross out the bullet point linked to it. Another way could be to divide the title up into sections and structure your essay around each section of the title.

Remember you are not saying anything new. You have written everything you want to write in your bullet point plan.

Make a real effort to express your ideas as simply, concisely and as clearly as you can.

If you write a paragraph for every bullet point you have made the chances are your essay will be over 2000 words long. Therefore you should be selective. Choose the most important bullet points to write about.

Write a brief concluding statement. It could be an interesting insight about the poem that might not be strictly relevant to the essay title but you find interesting, or a summary of what Hughes has tried to do in the poem.  Or link it back to the essay title.

Therefore you should select only the most important bullet points to write up. But have one or two paragraphs spared in case you need them later.

Seventh - you must write your essay using a formal academic register. That means write words out in full - no contractions or abbreviations, write full sentences and complete all paragraphs. These should be blocked paragraphs. Like this post.Use technical terms - use the table of literary / poetic features elsewhere on this blog. Don't write cliches, don't use slang or colloquial expressions, don't use metaphorical language, don't write hackneyed expressions. Don't refer to "me" or "I" instead refer to "the reader", "we" or "our".

Finally you must edit the essay. Try and make each paragraph link to the one before it and the one after it. I expect your essay will be far too long. So read it over again and again. Make it concise, cut out secondary points, avoid repetitions and make sure sentences and paragraphs are accurate. Do they make sense and are they grammatical, spelt correctly, use relevant and appropriate terminology? Do they use a formal academic register?

Try and do this work in one or two extended sittings when you are comfortable, not tired, not hungry and not stressed – especially about time or deadlines.

When you have done all that then you are ready to hand in your first draft. Remember I will be arranging one to one interviews with each of you. You can arrange a meeting with me after college and you can email paragraphs for me to check before you hand in the first draft.

All the best with it

David [david[dot]loffman[at]rutc[dot]ac[dot]uk]

Make sure your draft includes your name, title of the essay, list any books or Internet resources you have used to write your essay, the word count including quotations and the word count excluding quotations.