Mrs Lee cover work 8th Nov B10
Y11 period 3/4 and 9/10 GCSE prep
Read this example of a D grade student essay carefully. Read the comments the teacher has included to help you consider the problem areas and what you might have written instead.
World war 1 was known as the Great War mostly because 9 million people died that’s 6.046 people a day.
The war started in 1914 and ended 1918
The war started because Archduke Franz Ferdinand aged 51 was assassinated by Gavrilo princip. Gavrilo Princip was born 1894 died 1918 from TB he joined the secret Black Hand society. He was arrested for shooting Ferdinand
There were poems during the war that were published and they showed some of the attitudes to war. One poet was Rupert Brooke; he wrote famous poems that people still read and study today.
Rupert Brooke was born 1887 and died 1915 on a ship.
Rupert Brooke was a soldier in the First World War; he wrote poems that shows he was religious and. he wrote the poem ‘Peace’ one year before he died.
In the poem ‘Peace’ Rupert Brooke talks about his time in the war and about God. He thanks god and this sounds like a prayer in the first line
“God be thanked who has matched us with His hour
And caught our youth, and wakened us from sleeping”.
In this poem he sounds like he is waiting to die, he says in the second verse “we, who have known shame, we have found release there,”
It seems that he is ashamed that he has killed people during the war he is asking god for forgiveness. This show as he writes, “Where there’s no ill, no grief but sleep has mending” suggesting that when he dies he believes that he will go to Heaven. Although Brooke is writing about death his attitudes are strong and positive. That is unusual for someone facing death; he obviously thinks he is useless on Earth.
In Heaven “this body, lost but breath” will be at “peace”
However the last two lines show he has to go through pain to get there.
“But only agony and that has ending”
The poem “Anthem for Doomed Youth” was written by Wilfred Edward Salter Owen who was born 18 March 1893. He was English and welsh poet. He was made Rank Lieutenant in the army the day after his death. The sonnet used the English rhyme scheme; it was set out in the same way as Brooke’s as an Octet and a Sestet.
However this poem is aggressive compared to “Peace” because it exposes the “anger of the guns” not a calm picture like Brooke’s poem.
The message seems to talk about death fighting and destruction. Owen talks about the “the shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells”
This means that the war was very loud and uncomfortable with the sound of gunfire and bombs. It hurts your ears even when you think about it.
Someone who wrote poems that weren’t like Owen’s or Brooke’s was Jessie Pope. She was a journalist she wrote to encourage men to go to war she made her poem ‘who’s for the game’ sound like a game she says “who’s for the game the biggest that’s played”. she makes it sound like a game of rugby “who’ll grip and tackle the job unafraid” the imagery from the words “grip and tackle” is strong it makes me imagine a scrum.
She says it might be a picnic “who knows it might be a picnic”
I have learned in these poems men didn’t have a choice to go to war and war wasn’t a picnic.
Wilfred Owen said in one of his letters:
“I suppose I can endure cold, and fatigue, and the face to face death, as well as another; but extra for me is the universal pervasion of Ugliness”
By the end of the war this shows he has changed his attitude because at the start he was positive. We learn stuff from these poems like that the government made men go to war and there were 15 million people permanently blinded. Also other things happened during the war time,
20 million men died from the global Spanish flu
This all tells us that we shouldn’t forget the First World War and the poetry because it will tell every one in the future about the First World War and what the people suffered.
TASK------Answer in your books in full sentences the following questions:
· What do you think needs to be done to improve this essay?
· If the essay was supposed to focus on comparing language in a range of poems, where might this student have gone wrong?
· Highlight (with a pen)where the formula PEE is being used in the essay and see if the student completes the system fully—answer how many times the student manages this and where he doesn’t?
· Pick the weakest paragraph and explain what the student needs to do to improve the standard of it.
Now look at one of your poems you have studied so far.
Make a large/full page table in your books like below to show the various types of language the poet uses:
Verbs(actions) / Adjectives(describing
the noun) / Noun (the subject) / Copy the phrase that includes:
descriptive linguistic devices such as simile, metaphor, assonance, onomatopoeia, personification
drowning / green / sea / Like a devil--simile
Keep / adding more rows to / your table / as this is just a basic version!!
Task 3—write a detailed discussion that really shows what you know about the language in your lead poem(the one you chose to focus on) and what it reveals to the reader, (include your findings from the table and more from the poem, your own opinions/ knowledge etc).
· Try to formulate several PEE responses that follow your chosen poem in chronological order, discussing the language and themes as you go. Make sure you “quote” from each stanza/verse and explain what appears to be happening, what is revealed etc
· Link your ideas to the idea that the type of language the poet chooses is crucial to our understanding of events, emotions and the impact of war.
BASICALLY THIS IS A PRACTICE ESSAY AND IT SHOULD BE YOUR BEST WORK— I will mark at GCSE level to show you where you are at in terms of a grade before your assessment.
THANKYOU, Mrs. Lee