👋🏽 Hi, I’m Kerry. I teach CSEC English B at Arc School: live classes each week, lesson resources, exam practice and personalised coaching for your final exams. In this lesson, pay attention to how each discussion paragraph is structured and the job each of its parts does. Then write your own essay in your own words. Just don’t copy my sentences into your exam answer. Your answer has to show what you think.
When a question asks you to discuss a character, it’s easy to pick a side early and stay on it. Malvolio is a proud killjoy, so whatever happens to him is funny. A paragraph like that is quick to write, and it shows only half of what you know.
The harder part is showing the other side and still saying what you think, while you keep answering the question you were asked. So that’s what we’ll work on today.
By the end of this lesson, you will be able to:
explain exactly what the discuss part of a question asks about
look at it from more than one side
back each side with exact evidence from the text
say where you stand, and give your reason
keep your view apart from what the text actually says
In the full lesson, we’ll take one real question and put a one-sided paragraph about Malvolio beside a balanced one. Then we’ll weigh up a moment in Animal Farm, and you’ll try it yourself on a new question.
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Grab a pen. Here’s the question.