Dear Mr Salles,
I sat my GCSEs this August and achieved a grade 9 (150/160) in English Literature all thanks to you. You were my only revision source - I would watch your videos and make notes.
I found your character / theme prediction videos the most useful and my Jekyll and Hyde essay was almost entirely taken from the 2023 prediction video.
I wanted to give you my scripts for paper 1 where I got 30/30 in R&J and 29/30 in J&H so that you can use them for teaching purposes or videos if you wish. I have blocked out any sensitive info.
Thanks,
Declan :)
Regular readers will recognise this approach: the Entrepreneur. When I asked hundreds of grade 9 students how they achieved their grades I was expecting many more of them to work hard and love the subject.
What took me by surprise were the number of students who did the bare minimum - I don’t mean that in a lazy way. I mean they were single minded in doing only high value revision. Stuff that adds grades like steroids build muscle or Instagram creates eating disorders - no, both of these are too negative - like puppies generate love.
You can find out this ‘lazy’ way to revise here:
These are not AI generated versions of my kids. My kids are way better looking. No one has reviewed this guide yet, you could be the first.
Declan’s Essay
I’m going to show you the whole of Declan’s essay, before we dive into my commentary.
He’s messy, but not so messy that I can’t read all but a couple of words. This is perfect top grade handwriting.
Declan knows he needs to write as fast as possible, to make as many points as possible, to write a convincing argument.
Only grade 9 students reported practising their hand writing speed!
My Commentary on Declan’s Essay
There it is, the 3 part thesis. And, the word that nearly always predicts a grade 9 essay, PATRIARCHAL.
Declan knows this will allow him to write about Shakespeare’s ideas at a high level.
The examiner is like, ‘wait, what, this is kinda unusual, I’m not going to annotate anything yet, because there’s no way Romeo and Juliet is about patriarchal society. Or is there?’
Declan starts at the beginning of the play, rather than with the extract.
This is what I tell you is easiest to do, because it means you can write an argument. This is the easiest way to be ‘convincing’ for Level 6.
The examiner writes no notes here, because they’re like, ‘what, Rosaline? She’s not in the extract. What’s going on? This is not the way I teach my students. This can’t be right.’
It has great context, but because that is not yet linked, in the examiner’s mind, to Declan’s argument, the examiner makes no AO3 comment yet.
But you’ll see how, despite this examiner being very unfamiliar with this approach, they are going to give it full marks anyway.
The analysis of Mercutio’s language is at least Level 5 AO2. But the examiner is like, ‘wait, what, Romeo’s love for Juliet might not be real, he’s just after sex, not pure love? No way, this is not what I teach my class. Leonardo Di Caprio is beautiful, Romeo is beautiful, their love is beautiful,’ and so they just ignore this analysis.
Or maybe they think, ‘I can see AO2 is going to be a strength in this essay, so I’ll just see how high I can go with AO3’.
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