Writing model answers for GCSE students: some thoughts.
We all know that modelling exam technique and essay writing is an extremely powerful teaching method, but there's a particular current of poor practice that I seem to see quite often.
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We all know that modelling exam technique and essay writing is an extremely powerful teaching method, but there's a particular current of poor practice that I seem to see quite often.
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I see teachers sharing / tweeting / uploading work as a "Grade 9 answer", and it often contains sentences such as this:
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"The Macbeths' stichomythic dialogue foreshadows the inevitable intertwining of their fates, the recursive sibilance in "a sorry sight" producing an anaphoric reference to the motif of "sight" that Shakespeare cleverly deploys through the play's rising action."
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And so on for 2 whole pages of size 12 Times New Roman.
Now, such an answer may well earn high marks if a student produced it in an exam, but as a teaching method this approach has several flaws.
I humbly present my DOs and DON'Ts of model answers.
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Now, such an answer may well earn high marks if a student produced it in an exam, but as a teaching method this approach has several flaws.
I humbly present my DOs and DON'Ts of model answers.
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1. DON'T tell your students you've writing a "Grade 9" answer. The only thing that can be awarded a grade is a total mark for all 6 Literature questions done in timed, exam conditions.
Use "top band" if you must but try not to.
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Use "top band" if you must but try not to.
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2. DO produce your model answers in exam conditions, and also DO give yourself a serious time handicap.
50% time for GCSE and 75% for A-Level seems about right.
Write your Macbeth models in 25 minutes maximum. That's the only way to recreate the pressure of the exam.
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50% time for GCSE and 75% for A-Level seems about right.
Write your Macbeth models in 25 minutes maximum. That's the only way to recreate the pressure of the exam.
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When you have serious time pressure you'll have to do the thing students need to: quickly organise and articulate a coherent, intelligent, complete response to the question and the text. You won't be tempted to produce a word salad of terminology or 400 words on every quote.
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DO write by hand, assuming that most of your students will be writing by hand. You can type up later.
DON'T look at the text if it's a closed book exam.
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DON'T look at the text if it's a closed book exam.
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DON'T produce material that no student could ever produce in an exam.
The example I gave above was clever in its way, but that isn't how student will write in timed conditions. They simply can't do that type of thinking fast enough.
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The example I gave above was clever in its way, but that isn't how student will write in timed conditions. They simply can't do that type of thinking fast enough.
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DO concentrate your energy on a precise, thoughtful introduction to the character or theme at hand, and then use your textual knowledge to pick precise, linked details that you can comment on with judicious terminology.
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In conclusion: you're not trying to provide a "perfect" answer. No such thing exists. You're trying to show your students how someone with fluent writing and strong textual knowledge would tackle the exam. Well worth doing. Good luck.
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