Gwerthfawrogiad Llenyddiaeth (Appreciation of Literature)

Two questions, one paper, and an AO split of AO2 6.7 and AO3 13.3. Work out what that implies for how the paper is written.

1. 01The two questions are equal in weight

   The specification asks for two answers and does not weight them differently, so the working assumption is that the paper divides in half. Section A is the literary essay and Section B the functional piece, and a candidate who spends two thirds of the paper on the essay because it feels more serious has taken time from a question worth the same.

2. 02Where the AO3 marks actually sit

   AO3 is 13.3% of the A level on this paper against AO2's 6.7. Section B is almost entirely AO3 — it is a writing task with supplied content — so a substantial part of that 13.3 lives there. But Section A is also carrying AO3, because it is an essay written in Welsh, and its style and accuracy are being marked alongside its reading. Neither answer is a pure objective.

3. 03What that means for Section A

   It means the quality of the writing in the appreciation essay matters as much as the quality of the reading. A brilliant insight expressed in shaky Welsh scores less here than the same insight expressed cleanly, and on a paper weighted 2:1 towards AO3 that is not a marginal effect. It also means the last few minutes of Section A are better spent checking the Welsh than adding a paragraph.

4. 04The internal division of Section A

   Of the time you give Section A, roughly a fifth should go to reading and annotating before you write. That feels extravagant under pressure and it is the difference between an essay with an argument and an essay that discovers its argument in the fourth paragraph. The protocol for that reading period is set out in the last section of this topic.

5. 05The check to make at the start of the paper

   Write two times at the top of the answer book: when you will start Section B, and when you will stop writing altogether and check. Both are decisions better made before you have read anything than in the middle of an essay that is going well. On a paper with two equally weighted and completely different questions, the commonest way to lose marks is to run out of time on the second.

Result: Two equally weighted questions, so divide the paper in half and write the changeover time at the top of the book. AO3 at 13.3 against AO2's 6.7 means the writing in the appreciation essay matters as much as the reading, so the final minutes go to checking rather than adding. About a fifth of Section A's time belongs to reading before writing.

You have an extract and no idea who wrote it or when. Establish what is legitimately derivable from the text alone, and what is not.

1. 01Derivable: the register and what it implies

   You can read the register directly. Inflected verb forms and literary negatives point to a formal or older written Welsh; spoken syntax and dialect forms point elsewhere. That is evidence about the text, and it can be stated: “Mae'r darn wedi'i ysgrifennu mewn Cymraeg llenyddol, gyda ffurfiau cryno drwyddo.” What you must not do is convert it into a date, because a modern writer may choose a literary register deliberately.

2. 02Derivable: the form and what it is doing

   Line lengths, stanza shape, whether rhyme is present and regular, whether the prose is paragraphed into long or short units, whether dialogue is present. All observable, all evidence, none requiring any external knowledge. This is the fastest material available in the first minutes and it is the material most candidates skip in order to read for meaning.

3. 03Derivable: the voice and its distance

   Who is speaking, and how close are they to what they describe? First or third person; present or retrospective; are they inside the events or outside them; do they know more than the reader or less? Four questions answerable from the text alone, each producing a claim, and together they give you the basis for almost anything you will want to say about the extract's method.

4. 04NOT derivable: the author's biography or intention

   You do not know who wrote this, and speculation reads badly. Nothing is lost by that: the question asks about the subject and style of the extract, not about its author's life. Where you would have written about intention, write about effect instead — what the text does to a reader is observable, and what its author meant is not, even when you know their name.

5. 05Legitimately inferable, if marked as inference

   Some things can be reasoned to and should be stated as reasoning: “Mae'r cyfeiriadau at… yn awgrymu cefndir gwledig, ac mae'n bosib mai cyfnod cyn i'r peiriannau gyrraedd sydd yma — er nad yw'r darn yn dweud hynny.” The final clause is what makes it honest. Inference marked as inference is scholarship; inference presented as fact, in a subject where the marker may know the text, is a risk taken for nothing.

Result: Derivable from the text alone: register (but not date), form and shape, and the voice's person, tense, position and knowledge. Not derivable: biography and intention — write about effect instead. Anything reasoned to must be marked as inference, with the clause that says the text does not state it.

You have run the checklist and have material under all five aspects. Show how to build an essay out of them without producing five disconnected paragraphs.

1. 01Do not organise the essay by the checklist

   The five aspects are a tool for finding material, not a structure for presenting it. An essay with a paragraph headed themes, one headed metre and one headed figures of speech is a report on a checklist, and it cannot build an argument because each paragraph starts again. The checklist runs during the reading; the essay is organised by the claim.

2. 02Choose the claim from the attitude aspect

   The fifth aspect is the one that can carry a whole essay, because a position towards the material is a claim about the extract as a whole. Start there: what is the writing's attitude to what it describes? Then the essay's job is to demonstrate that attitude from the other four aspects, which turns them from headings into evidence.

3. 03Let each paragraph combine two aspects

   A paragraph that says the extract's short sentences and its refusal of metaphor together produce a flatness that is itself the attitude has combined style, figures of speech and attitude in one argument. Two aspects per paragraph is the rule of thumb: it forces the connection that the checklist's separateness discourages, and it produces three or four paragraphs rather than five.

4. 04Keep the quotation short and frequent

   The specification says candidates should be taught to quote, and in an unseen the quotation is doing the work of proving that the claim is about THIS text. Three or four words at a time, several times per paragraph, is far better than one long quotation. Long quotation in an unseen answer is nearly always a candidate buying time.

5. 05End on the personal response, having earned it

   The objective asks for a personal response, and the honest place for it is the end, after the evidence: “Yr hyn sy'n aros efo fi ydy nad ydy'r darn byth yn gadael i'r darllenydd deimlo'n gyfforddus am y peth — ac mae hynny'n ddewis, nid yn ddiffyg.” A personal response at the start is an impression; at the end, supported, it is a judgement, and judgement is what the word appreciation means.

Result: The five aspects find the material; the claim organises the essay. Take the claim from the attitude aspect, combine two aspects per paragraph so the connections are forced, quote three or four words at a time and often, and place the personal response at the end where the evidence has earned it.

Build a stock of connections that will fit almost any unseen, and show what deploying one looks like in the essay.

1. 01Why portable clauses work

   A connection prepared as 'my Unit 4 novel is about X' is only usable if the extract is also about X, which is unlikely. A connection prepared as 'my Unit 4 novel narrates a community from inside it, and the dialect is how' is usable whenever the extract does anything with voice and position — which is most of the time. The portability comes from stating the connection as a METHOD the text uses, at a level of abstraction one step above its subject.

2. 02The six that cover most ground

   A text that withholds a motive the reader wants. A text using a constrained form against unruly material. A text narrating from inside a community rather than about it. A text refusing consolation. A text whose style contradicts its content. A text that ends without resolving. Assign each to a work you know properly, and you have six clauses that between them will meet almost any extract.

3. 03Deploying one — the sentence

   “Mae'r un dewis i'w weld yn y chwedl ganoloesol a astudiwyd gen i, lle mae'r cymhelliad yn cael ei ddal yn ôl er mwyn i'r darllenydd orfod penderfynu — ac mae'r darn yma'n gwneud yr un peth heb yr un ymdrech.” The extract is the main clause; the studied text is the comparison; the connection is on method; and the final clause is a judgement about the extract, which is where the essay must return.

4. 04Where in the essay it belongs

   Not in the introduction, where it has nothing to connect to yet, and not in the conclusion, where the essay has no room to use it. The right place is the paragraph where the method it names is being discussed — so that the connection illuminates the point being made rather than announcing that a requirement has been met.

5. 05The accuracy rule, again

   Everything you say about the studied text must be true. A marker of this paper is a teacher of this specification and knows Branwen, the twelve poems and the four novels. An inaccurate connection is worse than none, because it casts doubt on the reading of the extract too, and the extract is the part of the answer you cannot have got wrong in advance.

Result: Prepare connections as methods rather than subjects — six portable clauses covering withholding, constraint, voice-from-inside, refused consolation, style against content, and unresolved endings. Deploy one in the paragraph discussing that method, with the extract in the main clause. Everything said about the studied text must be true; the marker teaches it.

Run the protocol on an extract, then write the opening paragraph of the essay. Show what each of the ten minutes produces.

1. 01Minutes one to three — two readings

   First reading at normal speed for sense, with the pen down. Second reading with the pen, marking anything that is odd rather than anything that is beautiful: a repeated word, a sentence that is much shorter than its neighbours, a shift you cannot immediately account for. Oddness is where the analysis will be, and beauty is where the paraphrase will be.

2. 02Minutes four and five — form, shape and the turn

   Three words in the margin for form: what kind of text, how regular, what breaks the regularity. Then find the turn and mark it with a line across the page. If there is more than one candidate, choose the one that divides the extract most unequally, because an asymmetric division nearly always means the shorter part is doing something the longer part was preparing for.

3. 03Minutes six and seven — three devices and the position

   Circle three devices, each with the words it operates on, and write the Welsh term beside each. Then write one sentence stating the attitude the writing takes towards its material. That sentence is the essay's claim, and if it cannot be disputed it is not yet a claim — rewrite it until somebody could disagree.

4. 04Minutes eight to ten — the connection and the plan

   Choose one of your six prepared method connections and note which paragraph it will go in. Then write a four-line plan: the claim; two paragraphs each combining two aspects with the evidence for each; and a closing personal judgement. Four lines. The essay is now determined and the remaining time is writing rather than deciding.

5. 05The opening paragraph

   “Dydy'r darn yma ddim yn ceisio gwneud ei bwnc yn haws i'w oddef, ac mae'r dewisiadau ffurfiol — y brawddegau byrion, y gwrthod delweddu — yn rhan o'r penderfyniad hwnnw yn hytrach nag yn arddull sy'n digwydd ei gario. Nid disgrifio profiad y mae, ond gwrthod ei esbonio.” Two sentences: a disputable claim, its formal evidence named, and a distinction drawn. No summary of the extract, which the marker has printed, and no announcement of what the essay will discuss.

Result: Two readings — the second marking oddness rather than beauty; three words on form and a line across the turn; three circled devices with Welsh terms; one disputable sentence stating the attitude; one prepared connection and a four-line plan. The opening is then two sentences: the claim, its formal evidence, and a distinction — no summary and no announcement.