Extended writing and critical essays

Plan the essay work across both years so that the AS unit prepares the A2 one instead of competing with it.

1. 01Year one, term one — the record

   Build the record of the AS set work: a spine, twelve evidence cards, and, for the literary option, five exactly-learned quotations. All in Irish. No essay writing yet, because there is nothing yet to write from.

2. 02Year one, term two — the paragraph

   Write single paragraphs, not essays. One located episode, described precisely, with a named mechanism and an owned judgement, in six sentences. Twenty of these are worth more than five whole essays, because the paragraph is the unit that either works or does not.

3. 03Year one, term three — the hour

   Now write whole essays under timed conditions, and specifically practise the division of the hour: five minutes planning, thirty-five writing, five concluding, fifteen checking. The checking block is the one candidates cut, and it is the one that recovers AO3 marks.

4. 04Year two, term one — the new record

   Start again on the A2 text with the same four-part record, but deeper, because AO2 rises from 5.6 to 8.4. The method is already known, so the time goes into the text rather than into learning how to study it.

5. 05Year two, term two — the four added skills

   Take the paragraphs you can already write and add, deliberately, the four skills the AS essay did not need: developing an argument with a direction, analysing critically by naming mechanisms, evaluating with an owned judgement, and comparing characters. One skill a fortnight, added to paragraphs you already write well.

6. 06Year two, term three — the question

   Practise interrogating the question. Take past-style open-ended questions, spend two minutes on each identifying the key term and what it could mean, and write only the opening paragraph. Twenty openings in an hour. This is the A2-specific skill and it is the fastest to acquire.

Result: Six terms in which the method is built once at AS — record, paragraph, hour — and then reapplied at A2 with a deeper record, four deliberately added critical skills and one new habit of interrogating the question, so that the A2 preparation is an extension of the AS one rather than a fresh start.

Two open-ended questions appear on your set work. Show exactly what happens in the first five minutes.

1. 01Minute one — read both, mark the key terms

   Underline the evaluative word in each. One asks whether a character is 'realistic', réadúil; the other asks how 'important' a theme is, tábhachtach. Both are terms that can be interrogated, which is what §6.6 wants — but they will need different evidence.

2. 02Minute two — test each against your cards

   For the realism question, do you have located evidence about how the character is presented — dialogue, decisions, inconsistencies? For the theme question, do you have three cards attached to that theme? Whichever question your cards answer is the question to take. This takes one minute if the record was built properly and is impossible if it was not.

3. 03Minute three — interrogate the term

   Write one sentence: Braitheann an freagra ar cad is brí le réadúil — an gciallaíonn sé go bhféadfadh a leithéid tarlú, nó go gcreidimid ann agus muid ag léamh? The answer depends on what realistic means: that such a thing could happen, or that we believe in it as we read. That sentence is your opening.

4. 04Minute four — four claims, with evidence

   Write four lines, each a claim with a card number beside it, in the order you will use them. Weakest to strongest, so the essay develops. Beside the fourth, write 'comparison' if the unit is A2, because comparison is one of the six named skills and it belongs late.

5. 05Minute five — the conclusion, in one line

   Write what the essay will have shown: 'realistic in the second sense but not the first, and the difference is the point'. Now every paragraph can be checked against it, and the conclusion is already written when you reach it with five minutes left.

6. 06What the five minutes bought

   A question chosen on evidence rather than on appeal, a key term interrogated so the essay has a shape, four ordered claims each attached to a card, and a conclusion decided in advance. The remaining fifty-five minutes are now execution, which is a far easier problem than composition under time pressure.

Result: Five minutes producing a question chosen for its evidence, an opening sentence that interrogates the key term, four ordered claims each attached to a specific evidence card with a comparison placed late, and a one-line conclusion decided in advance against which every paragraph can be tested.

Build a single body paragraph on a neutral worked structure, naming which of the four jobs each sentence does.

1. 01Sentence one — the claim

   Léiríonn an saothar go n-athraíonn dearcadh an charachtair de réir a chéile seachas go tobann. The work shows that the character's outlook changes gradually rather than suddenly. A claim with a direction in it — gradual rather than sudden — which is what makes it an argument rather than an observation.

2. 02Sentence two — locate the evidence

   Sa chéad chuid, labhraíonn sé faoin mbaile mar áit a bhfuil sé ag iarraidh éalú uaithi. In the first part, he speaks about home as a place he wants to escape from. Located and precise, and note a bhfuil, the indirect relative with eclipsis, and uaithi, the prepositional pronoun the indirect relative requires.

3. 03Sentence three — the second piece of evidence

   Faoin deireadh, áfach, úsáideann sé an focal céanna faoi áit eile ar fad. By the end, however, he uses the same word about an entirely different place. The two pieces of evidence are what make the claim about gradual change demonstrable; one alone could only show a state.

4. 04Sentence four — the analysis

   Is é an t-athrá sin a chuireann an t-athrú in iúl, gan é a mhíniú riamh go díreach. It is that repetition that conveys the change, without ever explaining it directly. The mechanism is named — repetition — and the copula is used for emphasis, which is on the grammar list.

5. 05Sentence five — the judgement

   Dar liom, is é sin an chuid is láidre den tsaothar, mar go n-iarrtar ar an léitheoir an obair a dhéanamh. In my view that is the strongest part of the work, because the reader is asked to do the work. Owned, specific, and the autonomous n-iarrtar avoids naming who does the asking, which is right.

6. 06Sentence six — the qualification, optional

   Ach d'fhéadfaí a rá nach athrú atá ann ar chor ar bith ach cuimhne. But one could say it is not a change at all but a memory. One sentence, and the paragraph now offers a second reading — one of the six critical skills the A2 unit names, and a free upgrade at AS.

Result: A six-sentence paragraph doing four jobs in order — claim with a direction, two located pieces of evidence, analysis naming repetition as the mechanism, an owned judgement, and an optional second reading — and carrying an indirect relative with eclipsis, a prepositional pronoun, an emphatic copula, an autonomous verb and a conditional autonomous.

The essay is written and fifteen minutes remain. Show the five passes and what each one is for.

1. 01Pass one, four minutes — mutations

   Read only initial letters. At every mutated word, name the trigger. At every unmutated word following a possessive, a preposition, an article, a numeral or a verbal particle, ask why it was not mutated. Fast, mechanical, and it typically finds three to six errors because you are not reading for meaning.

2. 02Pass two, three minutes — verbs

   Read only the verbs. Is every tense the one intended? After ní, an, go, nach, dá, mura and sula, is the dependent form used where one exists? Is every regular past verb lenited, and does every vowel-initial or f-initial past verb carry d'? Is the autonomous used where you meant it?

3. 03Pass three, three minutes — nouns and adjectives

   Read only the nouns. Is each in the right case — genitive after another noun, after a compound preposition, after chun or timpeall? Does each adjective agree in number, and is it lenited after a feminine singular noun? This pass catches the errors that make an essay look like a learner's.

4. 04Pass four, two minutes — fadas and titles

   Read for accents only. Check every title of the set work and every proper name. A missing fada is a different word and a misquoted title is the first thing an examiner sees. Two minutes, and it is the highest-value-per-second pass of the five.

5. 05Pass five, three minutes — the question

   Read the question again, then your first and last paragraphs. Does the essay answer the question printed? Does the conclusion say something the introduction did not? If not, rewrite the final sentence, which is the cheapest improvement available with three minutes left.

6. 06Why the order is fixed

   Mechanical passes first, judgement passes last, because mechanical errors are found by NOT thinking and judgement errors are found by thinking. Reversed, you get absorbed in the meaning on pass one and never do the mutation sweep — which is precisely what happens to candidates who plan to 'read it through at the end'.

Result: Five passes in fifteen minutes — mutations, verbs, nouns and adjectives, fadas and titles, then the question — each hunting exactly one class of error, with the mechanical passes deliberately placed first so that they actually happen.

A grammatically correct but flat paragraph says the right things in the wrong register. Rewrite it using the critical vocabulary and the Appendix 5 furniture, without changing what it claims.

1. 01The flat version

   Tá an carachtar brónach. Tá sé brónach ag tús an scéil agus ag an deireadh. Ceapaim go bhfuil sin tábhachtach. The character is sad. He is sad at the beginning of the story and at the end. I think that is important. Correct Irish, three sentences, and it demonstrates almost nothing.

2. 02Fix the claim with a critical verb

   Léiríonn an t-údar carachtar nach n-athraíonn, agus is é sin croílár an scéil. The author shows a character who does not change, and that is the heart of the story. Léiríonn instead of tá, a relative clause with the negative, and the copula for emphasis. The claim is now about the work rather than about the character.

3. 03Locate the evidence properly

   Ag tús an scéil tá sé ina thost i measc daoine; ag an deireadh tá sé ina thost arís, cé go bhfuil gach rud eile athraithe. At the beginning he is silent among people; at the end he is silent again, although everything else has changed. Located, specific, and the contrast does the work.

4. 04Name the mechanism

   Baineann an t-údar úsáid as an athrá seo le béim a chur ar an éagsúlacht idir an duine agus an saol thart air. The author uses this repetition to emphasise the difference between the person and the world around him. Two items from the critical vocabulary — baineann úsáid as, athrá — and the mechanism is named.

5. 05Own the judgement, and add one middler

   Dar liom, áfach, ní laige atá ann ach neart: is é an easpa athraithe a chuireann an brón in iúl. In my view, however, it is not a weakness but a strength: it is the absence of change that conveys the sadness. One middler, one owned judgement, and an emphatic copula.

6. 06Count what changed

   Three flat sentences became five. The claims are identical. What was added: four critical verbs and nouns, one located contrast, one named mechanism, one middler, one emphatic copula, one relative clause. None of it required knowing anything new about the text — only having the register available.

Result: Three flat sentences rewritten into five that make exactly the same claims, upgraded by four items of critical vocabulary, one located contrast, one named mechanism, one Appendix 5 middler and one emphatic copula — with no new knowledge of the text required.