Task 2 Moderation Materials
GCE English Language/Literature (H474/04)
NEA Task 2 Original Non-Fiction Writing
1Course materials 2016/17
PleasOriginal Non-Fiction Writing A Re is provided as guidance only and does not constitute an indication of endorsed answers or grading.
1Course materials 2016/17
Non-Fiction Genre: Speech
Introduction
Inspired by Anon’s “I am the Secret Footballer” I have written a speech intended to be heard by an audience of my peers. My speech is not political in purpose like those in the Component 01 Anthology but is intended to provoke further thought about social attitudes. I have used rhetorical questions and second person pronouns to involve my[Tk1] listeners. Whilst I do present opinionated views, I have also balanced these with facts and statistical evidence. My use of strong adjectives and exaggeration at times is deliberately intended to provoke further discussion after my speech. I also developed a comparison between the football world and other professions using antithetical syntax, repetition, the rule of three and lists. To engage my listeners I have structured my speech with pauses and questions between more sustained, persuasive arguments and there is some play on words.
Speech The Bountiful Game
Most people know that professional footballers’ salaries are incredibly extravagant: during the 2014-2015 season the average basic pay in the Championship was £324,250 per player per year, before appearance money and bonuses; while it was £69,500 in League One and £40,350 in League Two; but in the Premier League, first-team average salaries were around £1.7 million rising above £2 million with routine bonuses. Before researching into the justifications for professional footballers’ significantly higher earnings, I already thought that they were excessive in regard to what a footballer brings to society. However, I am now more persuaded that these earnings are in some way deserved[Tk2], or at least understandable in the circumstances, but instead have become more perturbed about the repercussions on society of a celebrity culture.
Firstly, footballers’ lavish wages do not mirror their measurable contribution to society when compared with the life changing efforts of the medical, teaching and even the military professions. These are rigorously trained people who dedicate their energies to improving the lives of others or even saving them.
Is an ambulance of more use to society than a sports car[Tk3]?
You form your own judgement.
Moreover, these training professionals earn a fraction of a footballer’s wage: but why? A doctor’s, nurse’s, soldier’s or teacher’s role is critical within the fabric of a fully functioning, healthy and safe community and the quality of our lives depends upon their skills and integrity; we could not exist without them, unlike someone whose role in society is arguably a decorative distraction and who just kicks a ball around for the purpose of entertainment. Take away the game of football and it wouldn’t be such a loss. Especially if it eliminated some the game’s least appealing supporters.
So why do they earn so much?
Arguably a footballer’s salary is justifiable in terms of their specialized skills.
Yes, but other professions require specialized skills.
But should we reward the gifted and talented? Random opportunity and “fortune” also play a part in who earns the most: 99.98% of children who play football are not even watched[Tk4] by scouts, therefore those who do become professional footballers have had a lucky break and have walked through fire to get where they are at the top of their game in a ruthlessly competitive sport and deserve their considerable lettuce also because their years of earning could be limited to their youth. But the commercial success of Brand Beckham counters this point as apparently David Beckham’s earnings multiplied on his retirement from the sport and he’s making a gold mine without any mud besmirching those white boots.
But these perks come at a cost: footballers also compromise their personal lives. They acquire the role of a celebrity, therefore their every movement is scrutinized by the public and the press in all aspects of their daily lives. For footballers are huge role models for the youth of today seeking firm masculine figures to lionize. But how far are footballers appropriate idols for our times? Perhaps it was the case in 1966 but what about today? Nearly every prime time football game contains some form of aggressive behaviour, swearing, foul play or even racism, and that’s just on the pitch. Lurid stories about their rickety or outrageous personal lives are constantly filling magazines and newspapers with scandalous stories of adultery, reckless behaviour and crime. Is this the acceptable behaviour of an icon? Furthermore, they are flashy with money and can be a tad tawdry; I do generalise, I know, sorry. But the exception proves the rule. An idol should[Tk5] surely inspire credible values, good sportsmanship and moral behaviour?
Moreover, are footballers’ wives/girlfriends – the word “wags” says it all – who tag along coruscating with orange tans, hair extensions bobbing, hobbling on high heels, hoping to be photographed, the sort of passive, vacuous role models desirable for future career women and mothers? These post-feminist-refusers seem to focus solely on what they’re wearing, what cosmetic surgery they will next have, and the cost of their next deliberately, unashamedly brash mansion.
Nevertheless, football is not the only career magnetising substantial financial rewards: take acting; take singing; take playing tennis. Meanwhile, a footballer’s pay is determined by market forces and according to how much another club is willing to pay for his services and how much we are willing to pay for merchandise. Entertainment is big business. A capitalist economy operates[Tk6] within the guidelines of supply and demand which dictates that the price of a particular product will settle at a point where its price reflects the customer’s demand for it, so if a footballer makes huge profits, he will be paid accordingly with inflated wages. Who pays to watch a surgeon operate, or teacher teach, or for their nurse’s name to be printed on the back of their t-shirt? The profits made by t-shirt sales alone are eye watering. In contrast, the salaries of occupations within the public sector are funded by taxpayers and therefore limited by inflation and the public purse. Football is a sound business, profits assured - look at who the big buyers have been in recent times - gigantic, regularly drawing in huge ticket sales, merchandise sales, sponsorship deals, which a footballer’s earnings will……….obviously,
logically,
undoubtedly,
replicate.
We pay to watch them “play” – how ironic is the concept of “playing”? There’s nothing “playful” about the bountiful game[Tk7].
So footballers’ earnings symbolize how capitalism creates an uneven spread of wealth, showing that it is not necessarily how important your vocation is or how hard you work that brings you wealth, it is how much more profit can be generated that really counts.
1080 words including Introduction
Task 28% / Assessment Objectives
AO5
6% / Demonstrate expertise and creativity in the use of English to communicate in different ways.
AO2
2% / Analyse ways in which meanings are shaped in texts.
Summative Comment
The learner’s writing throughout was clear, accurate and using varied syntactical devices for rhetorical effects in keeping with the expectations of audience, context and purpose for a speech. There is a high degree of control demonstrated in the use of English to communicate in the non-fiction genre of a speech effectively and with evidence of emerging flair in the development of the argument (AO5).
Knowledge of the chosen topic was informed, with plenty of relevant and aptly selected anecdotal or statistical references carefully structured in an exploratory and critical discussion suitable for the delivery of a convincing speech. An appropriate range of contextual influences including cultural, historical and social factors was interwoven in order to add authenticity to the argument.
Rhetorical devices such as irony, listing, satire, triple emphasis, wordplay, bathos, the use of juxtaposition and antithesis were managed with considerable confidence throughout the ongoing discussion of the topic, demonstrating a detailed and fully developed demonstration of the ways in which meanings can be shaped in a non-fiction text (AO2).
The word count is clearly indicated at the end of the piece and the essay is comfortably under the word count threshold.
The introduction provides a clear statement of stylistic intentions and the writer’s purpose.
Therefore, the assurance with which expertise was demonstrated in addressing both AO5 and AO2 would place this essay in Level 6.
Non-Fiction Genre:Travel Journal
Introduction
My travel journal is based on the notes a cousin took years ago in an A6 feint notebook when he worked in a vineyard whilst on holiday from Art College. My subject is ordinary life unlike Pepys and Scott whose diaries are historical records. The places I have used are authentic but I changed people’s names. My travel journal is written in an anecdotal, gossipy style with a purpose to record interesting, amusing memories. The tone is self-mocking as well as satirical as[Tk8] in Bill Bryson’s “The Lost Continent”. The writing is shaped chronologically but the memories about each day are randomly recalled using a stream of consciousness style and there is a mixture of colloquial lexis, unfinished clauses, racy phrases and reflective comments written in more elaborate syntax echoing the style of Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road”. Clichéd expressions are used in keeping with the social era of the piece.
Stephen’s Travel Journal
September 4th after midnight.
How the trip began.
Pain and discomfort don’t always last.
Wrong scene in the right part of town, obviously. Got stuck temporarily in London, staying with Mark at Rachael’s and slowly getting back to normal, my only slip was carrying less than half a gram and opening a door on a crowded street full of the boys in blue. Spooked at the prospect[Tk9] of getting forty eight hours slammed up in the Kensington nick or risk being hunted to the end of the earth for the rest of my days, I decided there and then to leave town and take up that offer of working in a vineyard. While I was in London I saw how the other half lives as it were, the ones that are supposed to be free because they are rich and can see the poor around them.
Gray’s Inn Residences. It was there I finally found the road opening in front of me. Mark was his usual self with insolvable social problems and not enough bread. He had patched it up with Danny while I was inconvenienced. Had a rest and relax there for a couple of days – and nights – before I went on the road. So saw Julian briefly but left the same day just before Jean Paul arrived whom I didn’t catch, ironically. Looking back, wish I’d stayed twenty five minutes longer but it was all getting too claustrophobic. Took all I had in one rucksack. Left the rest in the closet under the stairs. Told Mark not to poke his nose in it, I expect he will though and then he will find the empty packets, socks and pants I left behind.
But on the last night we finally scored again at the front line no end, though nothing much was available in Gray’s Inn initially except horror stories. But spent the last hours together raising[Tk10] Shiva with some lovable lunatics and I finally split the country on Wednesday 4th with the first available ticket after midnight, minus my backgammon set, shame that.
So much for the big smoke.
September 7th
Don’t remember much about the actual trip, bused it all the way, arrived in Villepassans about one, more or less walked from St Chinian and arrived here, Combebelle Le Haut. A motley mixture of farm buildings and run down cottages set on a hill, terraced against rock and cascading pines, criss-crossed by vines. Strange, stale sometimes musty air, rosemary scented.
By evening I had the work scene sorted out, I didn’t arrive too late after all, what’s happened to my karma? I hope the worst of it was paid back in London town. So using pidgin Spanish and French and gestures, helped by other itinerants, I began work after much ado with the boss and his femme de ménage.
Completed first day in the vineyard, blimey, a bit back breaking. Serge the padrone pushes us through the vines - click - click - click - with the secateurs, at our backs, the -click – click – click - of the cicadas. One half an hour siesta, fed lavishly by the indomitable wife-housekeeper[Tk11], then stumbling, gasping back to the fields. It’s not romantic nor all it’s cracked up to be but I can see why Cezanne became mesmerised by the unblinking light and unshifting shapes. The sunlight is sharp and the hillsides steep but once you get used to the rhythm of the day and make sure that your basket is not too loaded, the job has its pleasures.
At present I’m the sole human occupant of the bunks in the farthest barn, sharing with a rascal of a harlequin kitten, quite the beggar. We broke bread together today over a tin of sardines, after which he went off merrily to torture the field mice. Numerous moths, spiders and a large bat with a left leaning whirl reside also in the barn. No sign of Sid and Rod yet.
Serge lives, meanwhile, in decayed splendour with a rotund, dumpy wife and three children up at the manoir. Probably does a bit of wine tasting in the evenings no doubt, quality control.
Sid was first to arrive, who’d been cycling through Spain and had run out of money. Rod, his usual bland self, also rolled up having had a bust up with Sid about a woman. The others arrived. Pasquale, a sort of Breton cowboy and lover rode up on his dusty palomino Mateo from the Pyrenees. Eddie, from Le Mans, is the lovable actor of the troupe always showing off his body, brown, but never sunburned, a fast learner, catching the bunches of grapes as they[Tk12] with acrobatic grace. There’s an aunt and (apparently) her nephew from Algeria, a strange combination: ZuZu is rather sweet with jet black curly hair and bird’s wings eyebrows but Ali is rather a dull melancholy type – all talk and not much action. Finally, there’s perky, very pretty, Pepper who upset Sid on the first outing to the local Fest in Bize by rejecting his advances, don’t blame her. The Spaniards, who hail from Catalonia, like to party by starlight every night. If you wanted to sleep, you couldn’t. Anyway, they like to do their washing up religiously at 3.20 am after the party is over.
The first Saturday night we returned from the Fest stoned out of our socks but made it back through the dawn dimness to the barns. Then there was a yelp and a thud in the distance. Pepper found Sid in her room minus his jeans – a mistake on his part, he said indignantly. Not sure what the thud was. Sid didn’t want to talk about it the next morning.
Believe it or not, I can’t get through to D-----. Just as well, splitting up just increases my latent sorrows[Tk13]. I have been too tired to chase women though it had occurred to me that Pepper may be interested, perhaps. After all, I’m better looking than Sid, have played it up to now like nitrogen and have much more charm. Oh well.
1168 words including Introduction
Task 28% / Assessment Objectives
AO5
6% / Demonstrate expertise and creativity in the use of English to communicate in different ways.
AO2
2% / Analyse ways in which meanings are shaped in texts.
Summative Comment
The learner’s writing throughout was clear, accurate and using syntactical variations skilfully written from a first person perspective in a confessional and confidential tone in keeping with the expectations of audience, context and purpose for a travel journal. There is a high degree of control demonstrated in the use of English to communicate in the non-fiction genre of a journal effectively and with evidence of emerging flair in the development of the descriptions of place, people and situations as well as self-reflections (AO5).
Knowledge of the chosen topic was informed, with plenty of relevant and aptly selected anecdotal or geographical references to convey time and place convincingly as well as echoes of the Beat style of impressionistic writing. An appropriate range of cultural and social details as well as jargon were interwoven in order to add authenticity to the life writing.
This response demonstrates that to some extent with the life writing genre candidates place themselves imaginatively into a non-fiction
context and with diary or journal writing there has to be some autobiographical or biographical starting point that is credible after which literary techniques such as figurative language are used for effect. There is a droll, self-deprecating, humorous tone used in this journal, as well as devices such as irony, satire, bathos, hyperbole all managed with flair demonstrating a detailed and fully developed demonstration of the ways in which meanings can be shaped in a non-fiction text (AO2).