1. Read widely and regularly

One of the best ways to improve your English skills is to read widely and regularly. This means reading a variety of different genres, such as fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and drama. By doing so, you will be exposed to a range of writing styles, techniques, and vocabulary. This will not only help you to become a better writer, but also a more confident and articulate speaker.

2. Understand the exam format

Before you start preparing for your GCSE English exam, it is important to understand the format of the exam. This will help you to structure your revision and make sure that you are covering all the topics that are likely to be covered in the exam. Make sure you understand the structure of the exam, the type of questions that are likely to be asked, and the marking scheme.

3. Analyze texts carefully

GCSE English exams require you to analyze and interpret texts in detail. This means that you need to be able to identify key themes, analyze language and literary devices, and understand the author’s intention. To do this, you should read the text carefully, highlighting important sections, and making notes on the language and literary devices used.

SOGGY BOTTOMS AND EXTENDED METAPHORS

4. Plan your essays carefully

One of the most important skills in GCSE English is essay writing. To get a high grade, it is essential that you plan your essays carefully. This means brainstorming ideas, organizing your thoughts, and creating a clear structure. Make sure your introduction is engaging, your body paragraphs are well-structured and make sense, and your conclusion summarizes your argument effectively.

7 WAYS TO HELP YOUR TEENAGER WITH ENGLISH ESSAYS

5. Use literary devices effectively

When doing the creative writing question, using literary devices, such as metaphors, similes, and personification, can help to make your writing more engaging and memorable. However, it is important to use them effectively and appropriately. Use them sparingly, and make sure they enhance your writing rather than distract from it.

6. Proofread your work

Proofreading is an essential part of getting a high grade in GCSE English. Make sure you proofread your work carefully, checking for errors in spelling, grammar, and punctuation. Read your work out loud to help you catch any mistakes or awkward phrasing. It can also be helpful to ask a friend or family member to read your work and provide feedback.

RAISE THEIR GRADE: 5 STUDY HABITS THAT WILL RAISE YOUR CHILD’S GRADE

7. Practice past papers

Finally, one of the most effective ways to prepare for your GCSE English exam is to practice past papers. This will help you to get familiar with the format of the exam, the types of questions that are likely to be asked, and the level of detail that is required. Make sure you time yourself when you practice, so that you get used to working under pressure.

Here are links to past papers:

AQA

Edexcel IGCSE

Cambridge IGCSE

OCR

In conclusion, getting a high grade in GCSE English is a challenging but achievable goal. By following the strategies outlined above, you can improve your English skills, understand the exam format, and prepare effectively for the exam. Remember, practice makes perfect, so make sure you put in the time and effort required to succeed.

The post How to Get a Higher Grade in English GCSE appeared first on The Tutor Team.

In a recent survey of university and college academic staff, they identified the interrelated skills of writing and critical reasoning as the two most important skills for success in education and the ones most often lacked. Writing and developing your essay writing technique will improve not only your assessment scores but also your ability to research, analyze and evaluate critically. Bearing in mind when you think critically you do not just accept situations and comment at face value. A good essay writer tries to think about why things are the way they are and what other possibilities exist. You will feel more confident to master areas of the syllabus that need extra care but also it will help you in your future career and studies.

HOW TO ANALYSE POEMS USING SMILE

This month, I had the pleasure of observing one of my students go through this process of improving their essay writing skills recently to such an extent they felt confident to enter a prestigious essay competition, and my word, I think they have every chance at winning it. How can you too become a great essay writer?

Here is how:

1. Write like it’s your full-time job!

Going through the process of writing an essay my student started at the endpoint pulling apart the very best essays. How were they structured?

How did they open, the arguments they put forward. If you want to get better at something you put the time in and my student certainly did this. I think it is really useful to have in mind where you are heading. If you know the best essays use Harvard referencing then that’s what we can adopt and use and if you have never used it before we rise to the challenge and practice it.

2. Brush Up on the Basics

Write a little plan then revise, revise revise. Before you can start writing incredible content, you’ll need at least to put pen to paper and start with some bullet points. Just write what it is you want to say very briefly. Then we set about our improvements. As you research and gather facts or case studies that interest you, your knowledge and confidence will improve. Before you know it you have the beginning of a first draft. Then you will change, add or improve. Your essay writing journey has started. Believe me, before you know it you have written so much you now need to revise it and cut back some of your work to stick to a word count or to improve the flow and quality.

4. Find a Writing Partner.

If you study at a reasonably sized school or college the chances are pretty good that there is at least one or two other students you get along with and can help each other on the way. Don’t take their honest feedback personally it’s not unknown to go through 8 or 9 versions of your essay each one better than the last.

6.Be argumentative and don’t be afraid to say what you think.

Regurgitating is not going to win you any favours or prizes for that matter. That should not be your focus. In a great essay the writer can cite and bring in case information and points made by writers and researchers but all the while they add their own opinions and ideas. Without being libelous you can say what you think! No one is perfect and that’s the same with writing essays. You are going to make mistakes but you will then improve. An essay done is better than perfect. Don’t delay get it written and handed in!

Here is a link to some of the more prestigious essay competitions:

• https://www.johnlockeinstitute.com/essay-competition
• https://lsesueconsoc.org/economics-essay-competition-2021
• https://www.res.org.uk/education/young-economist-of-the-year.html
• https://marshallsociety.com/essay-competition

A bit about the author, Mark L.

Mark is a PGCE qualified teacher and has taught A-level Business for several years. He is a Business Studies examiner and has published 2 Exam Guide modules for AQA.

Mark keeps abreast of Business Studies development as a subject through training and working as an examiner and has worked in Further Education Colleges and UK Grammar Schools since 2004.

He also teaches Economics and GCSE Mathematics.

Mark has also worked 1 year in the Emirates and 7 years in Germany – he loves the international side of Business. He has also taught maths and aims to take the anxiety out of the mathematical side of the syllabus. Mark would love to develop higher-level skills around analysis and evaluation and aim to make that available to all students.

Client Review for Mark: Mark is fantastic. Very impressed. Charlotte looks forward to the lessons each week and has learned so much more already.

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You’re about to eat a cake that a friend has baked for you. It’s one you’ve never tried before. With the first delicious bite you take in the new flavours – ‘What did you use to give it that tangy flavour?’, ‘How did you make it so soft?’, ‘Is that cinnamon I can taste?’ When encountering new flavours we strive to identify what they are, we liken them to what we’ve tasted before, we describe what we think of them, we pick out the aspects that we find particularly appealing and we ask questions about how it came to be that way. We should do the same when analysing a poem.

HOW TO ANALYSE POEMS USING SMILE

Sit back, relax and enjoy the taste of the poem

First, a poem should be enjoyed as you would a delicious cake. Take your time, savour each syllable and ask questions. Don’t rush in looking for answers or clever things to say about it. Just take in the ‘flavour’. I read Gerard Manley Hopkin’s ‘The Windhover’ with a student recently. If ever there is a poet who is likely to be an utterly new ‘flavour’ for students then Hopkins is the one. My student took a few ‘bites’ and started to reflect – ‘Has he made up these words?’, ‘It’s full of alliteration, isn’t it?’, ‘I like the joy in it – how does he create that?’. Even though she was slightly bewildered by the poem, she was starting to analyse it by asking questions. Hopkin’s does create new ‘compound words’ and his use of alliteration is one of the tools he uses to evoke the intense joy and wonder of the poem.

Compile a list of ingredients used by the poet

After we’ve reflected on the flavour, how it makes us feel, what we can taste in there, we can become a bit more technical in our analysis of the poem. Let’s list the poet’s other key ingredients – the literary techniques that are used to create that flavour. In ‘The Windhover’, my student noticed the compound words and alliteration. Last week I read Lemn Sissay’s ‘Colour Blind’ with a student who noticed that by directly addressing the reader throughout, the poet was giving the poem a simultaneous sense of intimacy and challenge.

Remember that we’re working backwards from the flavour here. We want our students not to merely list techniques used by the poet but to be able to link these with their effects: to extend my metaphor, we want our students to be able to say exactly how a particular ingredient contributed to the overall flavour.

7 WAYS TO HELP YOUR CHILD SUCCEED AT ENGLISH

The basics

Of course, the most basic ingredient of all, without which no poem can be written is the words that a poet uses. They are carefully selected (or ‘sourced’!) by a poet who tests them for ripeness and rightness, throwing them back on the pile if they aren’t up to the job. Every student will, of course, at some point cry out in despair and rebellion, ‘But maybe Emily Dickinson just used that word because she couldn’t be bothered thinking of another one, maybe she just found it and chucked it in! Maybe we’re just reading too much into this!’. Ask them to try making a cake by just chucking in a few random ingredients and see what happens. Beautiful poetry only rises with words that are carefully chosen, weighed, balanced and perfectly cooked. Your child’s job when analysing a poem is to explore this process.

Does it remind you of a poem you’ve tasted before?

Our children have been ‘reading’ poetry in different forms for as long as they’ve been eating cakes. OK, maybe they weren’t devouring T.S. Eliot with their baby rusks, but the likelihood is that you were repeating nursery rhymes to them. How many songs could they recite the lyrics for if pushed? So what does the flavour of the poem remind them of? Students say some surprising things but they will often lead to insightful analysis. The same student who I read ‘Colour Blind’ with the thought of Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech, in particular, his reference to the ‘red hills of Georgia’.

Differing contexts

What an interesting path that led us on; Sissay challenges the idea of ‘colour blindness’ while MLK’s focus is on unity and cooperation between black and white people. We looked at the differing contexts and intended audiences of the texts and the difference that this makes to our understanding. Sissay’s reference to the ‘white airtight strike of Nike’s sign’ made my student think of rap artists and the use of consumer culture in poetry. This led us to explore Sissay as a performance artist and the difference between writing for the ear and writing for the page.

3 REASONS WHY PARENTS BOOK PRIVATE TUTORS

First and last bites

Like a terrible poet, I’m pushing my metaphor well beyond its power to please here. But, I’ve started so I’ll finish….

If a student is struggling to get to the heart of a poem then a great rule of thumb is to look at the first and/or last words of each line. These are the emphatic positions. Words at the beginning or end of a line are often the ones the poet wants to work the hardest. I sometimes get my students to write down these words and see what they think when they read them. Let’s take the perennial favourite of GCSE exam boards, Shelley’s ‘Ozymandias’. The final words go like this: land/stone/sand/frown/command/read/things/fed/appear/Kings/despair/decay/bare/away

Analysis of words

The first three words in this list alone reveal a sense of decline (from the solidity of land and stone to the shifting nature of sand). This is further developed in the final five words which describe a movement from grandeur (‘Kings’) to ‘decay’ and absence (‘bare’, ‘away’). Isolating these words also allows us to look a bit closer at Shelley’s use of rhyme; the irony of the ‘command’ being rhymed with the shifting ‘sand’ and of a mighty ‘King’ being rhymed with a ‘thing’!

Eat cake regularly, read poems often

As I mentioned earlier, I don’t think that poetry is as alien to our students as we might think. It’s true, however, that it’s not a form that teenagers might naturally choose to read. So, stick poems in the bathroom, write them in their birthday cards, play them in the car. Take your son or daughter to see a performance poet. Suggest they read one of Sarah Crossan or Jason Reynold’s verse novels. Unlike, cake, poetry will have no harmful impact on your child’s health if consumed abundantly. They may even end up loving it, even perhaps, writing some of their own. Now that would be the icing on the cake.

A bit about the author, Helen C

You can enquire about tutoring with Helen here

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Understand your child’s GCSE, IGCSE or A level

What is SMILE?

SMILE is a simple, but very effective, acronym that will help your child to analyse poems. Used properly it will help them to get high grades in the poetry exam questions and for GCSE or IGCSE it is the only tool they will need.  Similarly, A level and IB students can still use SMILE as a basis for analysing poems, but they will have to develop each section further and will probably need to add context too. SMILE stands for:

S = Structure and Form
M = Meaning
I = Imagery
L = Language
E = Effect

Each element of SMILE is a component of a poem. Therefore, if we use the acronym we will ensure that every aspect of analysis needed for GCSE and IGCSE is covered

5 ways to help your child raise their grade

Working with SMILE

Whilst it is essential to cover every component of SMILE to analyse poems, it is not necessary to do it in any particular order. In fact, it is usually easier and makes more sense to start with ‘M’ for meaning.  First of all decide what is the meaning of the poem, then the work on imagery, language and structure/form can each be related back to the poem’s meaning. It is very important to keep talking about the ‘E’ for effect – so your child should do this for every point they discuss. Whilst they should get marks for spotting imagery, language and structural devices, they will only score high marks if they talk about the effect this has on the reader.

 PEE paragraphs: why are children taught PEE?

How to use SMILE to analyse poems

Start with ‘M’ for Meaning: your child should ask themselves
• What is this poem about?
• What is the poet’s main message?
• Does the message change?
• What are the main ideas in this poem?

The next step is to understand exactly how the poet gets his/her message and ideas across to the reader. How are they doing it? If there is a change, where and how does it change?

‘L’ for Language:

How is the poet using language choices to get the message and ideas across? They are likely to be using figurative language, so look for
• Simile
• Metaphor
• Lexis
• Semantic or lexical fields
• Personification
• Symbols

What is the effect of this? How does it help shape the meaning of the poem?

Poets play with sound, so look for language that creates sound
• Alliteration
• Plosive
• Sibilance
• Assonance
• Consonance
What is the effect of this? How does it help shape the meaning?

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‘I’ for Imagery:

How is the poet using imagery to get the message and ideas across? It is highly likely that they will be using language to create an image in the reader’s head and that this will relate to the five senses.  Therefore, look for ways the poem relates to the senses

• Visual imagery (sight)
• Auditory imagery (hearing)
• Olfactory imagery (smell)
• Gustatory imagery (taste)
• Tactile imagery (touch)

Here, in the first lines of the poem Preludes by T.S. Eliot he is appealing to our sense of smell to create an image. He is also using sibilance – the repetition of ‘s’ sounds – to enhance the image.

The winter evening settles down
With smell of steaks in passageways.
Six o’clock.
The burnt-out ends of smoky days.

What is the effect of Eliot’s use of imagery?

Preludes by T.S. Eliot is a good example of imagery in poetry. 

‘S’ for structure and form:

The form of the poem should also relate to the meaning.  Therefore your child should analyse the form of the poem and then ask themselves how this relates to the meaning or the imagery. Look for:
Number of stanzas
Enjambment
Rhyme
Rhythm
Caesura
Sonnet
Couplets
Free Verse
Narrative
Dramatic Monologue
Elegy

When you put all the elements of SMILE together your child should have a comprehensive and detailed analysis of the poem, which will get higher marks.  Finally, the technique also fits very well with the analytical PEE structure that children are taught at school.

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Understanding Explicit and Implicit Information

The single most important skill in an English comprehension test is the skill of extracting relevant and accurate information from the text.  This information will be either explicit or implicit in the passage.

Explicit information

This type of information is obvious because the text simply tells you what you need to know.  If the information is explicit there will be no hidden connotations, no misunderstanding (hopefully) and no judgement required from the student.  For example, if the text states that ‘Sam was very angry…’ then we know that Sam was very angry; we cannot interpret this as Sam being happy, joyful or relaxed.  The skill your child needs is to extract the information and quote from the text.  In practice, English comprehension tests tend to start by asking for explicit information, which is the easiest skill.

Implicit information

This is more difficult to extract from the text and there is much more room for error.  Children can find it hard, because it is a higher-level skill than extracting explicit information.  The information you need will not be so obvious; it will be implied. Your child needs to spot the clues in the text that suggest the information.  For example if the text says ‘Sam strode out of the house and slammed the door loudly behind him.  His face was bright red, his lips tightly compressed and his fists were clenched.  He strode towards his car and threw open the door with a grunt…’ we would use the clues to infer that Sam was angry.  However, the writer has not told us that, but used Sam’s actions and appearance to infer that this is the case.  English comprehension tests usually move on to ask for implicit information and these questions may carry higher marks.

 7 ways to help your teenager with English essays

Understanding Sentence Structure 

Having an understanding of sentence structure can help your child’s understanding of the passage and give them a way to gain marks.  The way that sentences are structured in a passage will have a considerable impact on the way we read it and understand it.  Sentence structure also ensures cohesion by connecting ideas between sentences and through the text.  If your child can understand how ideas link together at sentence level, they will get a sense of how ideas and themes link throughout the whole passage.

For English comprehension tests, your child should be able to recognise four types of English sentence and understand the effects created by each type.

1. Simple Sentences e.g. I kicked the ball.
2. Compound Sentences e.g. I kicked the ball and it hit Tom.
3. Complex Sentences e.g. Tom cried because the ball hit him.
4. Compound – Complex Sentences e.g. Tom cried because the ball hit him and I apologised immediately.

Credit – Grammar Revolution

Sentence structure can be used to create effects in passages such as a change in pace, the creation of tension (suspense) and dramatic effects.

How to Revise: 5 study tips that really work

Understanding Structure

Some English comprehension tests, such as the current AQA GCSE paper 1, require your child to understand the way texts are structured by the writer.  Children often dislike these questions, but they are relatively easy to understand.  Some papers helpfully give your child clues e.g. ‘this text is from the beginning of a novel.’  Look at the way the passage opens.  What techniques has the writer used to gain the interest of the reader?  What is the effect?

Then look for structural changes within the passage.  Does the setting change e.g. move from outside to inside?  Does the passage start in one place but finish in another?  What is the effect of this?   Do the characters change?  Does the focus of the text change?

Finally, your child should look at the ending, especially if the paper tells them the passage is from the end of a story.  How does the writer finish the text?  Have they answered all our questions?  Or have they left us questioning what has happened?  Especially if it is a complete short story, check if it is a circular structure i.e. we end up where we started.

English comprehension is a key element of learning or studying English.  The tips above should give your child a strong starting point and the ability to gain high-grade answers.

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The single most important thing you can do to help your child succeed at English is to encourage them to read.  By the time they get to GCSE/IGCSE they will need pretty advanced reading skills, to be able to understand, analyse and respond to a variety of texts.

For Literature this will include a novel (prose), a drama (play) and poetry.  For Language they will have comprehension passages to decode and analyse.  These passages will have both explicit information (easy to find) and implicit information (much harder to find).

It is amazing to me how many students, particularly for literature, come for tutoring to help them understand and interpret the works, but when I ask them if they have read the book the answer is ‘no’.  To be honest, if your child expects to do well in a literature test, they do actually have to read the book.

Jekyll and Hyde: a free GCSE English Lesson:

Last month I had a student who has just sat his mock on Jekyll and Hyde without having read any of the book besides that I had done with him in tutorials.  Every single week I urged him to read the book, or even the next chapter of the book, so we could work on it.  But it never happened.  I did my best and he got the equivalent of a B grade (which is pretty miraculous) but he would have scored top marks had he actually read the book.  I had taught him the analytical skills, practiced several unseen extracts with him, and taught him the themes, context etc., but he fell down on linking the extract he was given to the wider book.  This was obviously going to happen because he hadn’t read the rest of the book!

Don’t let your child be this student!  Help them get into the habit of reading, and encourage them to explore the world of books.

9 books your teenager should read this summer

Discuss books with them or even films

 To really help them succeed at English, encourage them to talk about the books they are reading.  If you can read it alongside them and get into the habit of discussion, it will be the very best preparation for both English Literature and English Language.  Whilst reading is a great start, it isn’t enough – they are going to have to discuss what they are reading for GCSE/IGCSE and above.

If you can’t think of any good questions to ask them you will find them on the internet as questions for book clubs

 If all else fails and you really can’t get them to read the books, then a last resort is to watch the film (if available) and discuss that instead.  I cannot say strongly enough that this is no real substitute for reading.  The script is very likely to differ from the book and the literary devices that a student needs to know for exams are just not there on the screen.  But if you are really stuck and they are clearly not going to read the book, go for the film in the short term.

Free GCSE English Lesson: Frankenstein

Develop narrative writing with visual prompts

 Narrative writing is another important skill to develop.  It is a key skill in English and is taught from a relatively young age in school.  Narrative writing is the ability to write stories, or a creative piece of work.  Key elements are setting, character, atmosphere and plot.  If you can get your child writing creatively, you will give them a real chance to succeed at English.

However, it can be pretty difficult to just sit down and write a story.  Some students will also find it harder than others if they do not have the strongest imaginations.  So, help them get started by using visual prompts i.e. pictures.

When I start this skill with GCSE and younger students, I often help them make a simple visual prompt on BitPaper.

We start with some images.  We then brainstorm words and phrases they can use to describe the setting, we add in characters, then we work out the plot.  By the time we finish a simple board such as this will be covered in the student’s notes and they will be ready to write their story.  It is amazingly effective.  Try it with your family.

How to get high grades in English Literature

To succeed at English, develop narrative writing with story starters

 Another way to develop narrative writing skills with your child is to use story starters.  These are more difficult than pictures, so I suggest you move onto these after your child has got used to writing with pictures.

What is a story starter?  Here are some examples for you to use

Story Starters

 You can make this into a game for younger children or older ones who lack confidence.  To do this you write out your story starters on paper, cut them out, fold them over so they can’t be read and mix them up.  Put them in a pot/bowl/box – raffle ticket style – and ask your child to choose one without looking.  Whatever they pull out of the box, that’s their story beginning.

Encourage them to invent characters for their stories

Once your child is writing stories, they will need to develop characters.  You can help them here too by giving them prompts.  What does the character look like?  Sound like?  How old are they? How do they move?  What is their personality like?  What nationality or culture are they? Is their anything unusual about the character?

Remember that a character doesn’t have to be human. There is a very popular series of books aimed at children/younger teens where the characters are cats.

 The writer Asimov used robots.  I often use this Asimov short story with older students to teach writing from a perspective.  The narrative voice here is the computer and the human characters are viewed through the perspective of the computer.

Asimov Short Story – True Love

I also frequently use robots when I am teaching characters.  You can try this too.  I have a PowerPoint I have created, but you can just collect images of different types of robot to acheive the same result.  If you put ‘robot’ into Google Images, you will have hundreds from which to choose.  Also put in ‘friendly robot’, ‘helper robot’ and ‘scary robot’ to see what comes up.

The idea is to have different types of robots, from friendly-looking cartoon characters, to helper robots, to scary robots with evil intent.  Obviously, if your child is young, you might want to go easy on the scary robots as we don’t want to give them nightmares.  Show them to your child one at a time and ask them what characteristics the robots have.   I have used this lesson many, many times and what is interesting is that every child has exactly the same idea about the robots’ characteristics.

Next, try to identify why they think this way.  What has the robot designer done to give the robot these characteristics?  Is it the colours used?  Do they have facial expressions?  Big eyes?  Bared teeth? Why do we react to these characters the way we do?

Next, ask them to write a story about a robot.  They can choose one of your pictures as a visual prompt or make up their own robot character.  It is amazing how many students will opt to make up their own character at this stage.  If your child chooses this option, they have gained in confidence as a writer and your hard work is paying off.

Creative Writing: Anyone Can Do It!

Encourage them to read, understand and critique newspaper articles

It isn’t just fiction that your child also needs to have a good understanding of various non-fiction text.  A rich resource to practice with is newspaper or magazine articles.  You can use these as comprehensions to check understanding and to practice extracting information from the text.  They will need to be able to find and understand both explicit information (obvious in the text) and implicit information (less obvious and needs a deeper understanding to extract.

You can ask: is the text objective or subjective?  What is the purpose of the text e.g. to inform, to persuade, to entertain etc?  Who is the likely audience for the article?  How effective is the headline?

Help them succeed at English by understanding writing to persuade

A key skill that your child will need to know is writing to persuade or argue.  These skills are not just useful for studying English; they are useful and important life skills.  The ability to make an effective complaint when we haven’t had the service we should have received, when we want to change something important, or when we want the other party to agree with us – all this is the art of persuasion or argument.

As well as the ability to craft an argument, there are also well-known language devices used in persuasive writing and one of the best places to see/hear this in operation is in political speeches.  A political speech is a carefully-crafted piece of writing usually designed to persuade and full of devices such as repetition, emotive language, rhetorical questions and the rule of three.  All of these are recognized persuasive devices.  Listen to this famous speech – can you spot the devices?

Obama Yes we can speech   (go to 9:48 minutes for the relevant section)

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Use the correct terminology to get high grades

Whilst there is no short cut to suddenly producing top-grade essays (it takes practice and hard work) there are certainly techniques that can really help you to raise your grade.  In this article we will look at the first of the techniques; use the correct terminology.  English Literature has a range of specialist terms to describe, explain and analyse literary texts.

If you are in the second year of your course you will probably already know most of the terminology.  It will be written in your text books and your teacher will also have been using it.  You should be using it too.  There is a very good reason for this – critical analysis of literature is extremely difficult and the specialist terms allow you to talk about it intelligently and more easily.  The big question is, are you actually using the terminology in your essays?  

What do I mean by this?

In order to get high grades, you need to consider how you are talking about words in your essays.  Essentially literature is words on a page, so you will undoubtedly be referring to specific words and phrases in your analysis.  But are you just calling them words?  Or are you referring to lexis, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, conjunctions etc.?  Are you grouping them into semantic fields and discussing the connotations of and connections between the words? What is the writer trying to tell you by using this particular lexis in this particular way?

 7 Ways to help your teenager with English essays

Framing your analysis 

You should start to get high grades when you frame your analysis with the correct terminology.  Let’s look at an example from Thomas Hardy’s poem, The Ruined Maid 

e.g. Hardy’s choice of lexis to describe the young woman serves to highlight the extreme changes that have occurred in her appearance. She wears ‘gay bracelets’, ‘bright feathers’ and ‘little gloves’ which have connotations of prosperity, attractiveness and femininity.  However, we learn that she was once ‘in tatters’ and the animalistic simile ‘hands were like paws’ contrasts sharply with ‘little gloves’ to emphasize just how much her appearance has changed.

Explore the adjectives   

If you wanted to, you could now go on to explore the adjectives ‘gay’, ‘bright’ and ‘little’ in more detail, whilst the ‘hands were like paws’ simile could lead you into a discussion on imagery.  Because this example is from a poem, you could also think about discussing poetic voice. 

Analyse a novel: part 1

Use literary language to get high grades

Do you know some of the literary terms in the glossary?  To get good grades you must know enough of them to be able to discuss your literary texts analytically.  You probably know many of them, although you certainly won’t need them all.   I’m not suggesting you have to learn the glossary!  However, you need enough terminology to enable you to write about a text clearly, precisely and intelligently.  Without it, you will struggle to analyse literature effectively.  

If you check online you should be able to find a good glossary of literary terms.

Find an essay where you got a lower mark than you expected to and check it for literary terminology.  Highlight each term you have used.  Are there many of them? Could you have used more of them to frame your answer?  The terminology of literature should be there throughout your essay, multiple times and in every paragraph of analysis.  If it is not, then you are probably dropping marks.  Try working on this one aspect initially and see if your grade starts to rise.   

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