Yesterday’s post with a full mark answer to Q3 of the June 2017 paper led to a brilliant question from one of my paid subscribers:
Great post...so you don't specifically have to write about loads of structural devices. The change of focus actually is the structural device and then you write about what it makes you think, feel and predict.
The student used semantic field, hyperbole and imperative language as the devices but because she spoke about the foci as the structural element these language techniques would be ok to include?
Thanks so much- your posts really help!
What does the mark scheme say?
Shows detailed and perceptive understanding of structural features:
Analyses the effects of the writer’s choices of structural features
Selects a judicious range of examples
Makes sophisticated and accurate use of subject terminology
What do you notice? There is no explicit link between structural feature and subject terminology. In other words, any relevant terminology will do.
To be relevant to the question, your explanations need to be about structural features - but a change of focus is always a structural feature. You might not need any other words.
It will be natural to use these words in every answer in addition to ‘focus’ and ‘change of focus’:
beginning
end
circular structure
That should be enough.
In marks schemes from 2019, AQA highlights the subject terminology in their answers to guide is. It is always related to structure.
But, the mark scheme doesn’t say that has to be the only terminology
And my list above will be enough to show you are using it.
Here is the Examiner’s Exemplar to the 2017 Question
At the beginning the writer focuses on the private thoughts of Rosabel who is travelling home ‘after a hard day's work in a hat shop’.
Her social situation is immediately established as we learn she would have ‘sacrificed her soul for a good dinner’: she is poor, hungry and lower class. 1 mark.
Time is then used as a structural feature as Rosabel experiences a flashback to ‘all that had happened during the day’, and the focus narrows as she reflects specifically on serving a ‘girl with beautiful red hair’.
The rest of the text involves the reader in the directness of their exchange through dialogue, and we witness Rosabel’s public persona of a subservient shop girl in real time. 1 mark.
Rosabel’s external actions in this section, together with her earlier, more private, internal thoughts, now provide the reader with a fully rounded character. 1 mark.
In the final line, the red-haired girl tells her boyfriend she is going to wear her new hat when ‘I come out to lunch with you,’ which takes us back to the beginning when Rosabel could not afford a decent meal.
This circular structure manipulates the reader into favouring Rosabel, 1 mark
and possibly disliking the redhaired girl for her privilege and wealth. 1 mark.
My Thoughts
This confirms that the need for terminology is covered by my advice.
We might not always find dialogue in the source, and if we do, we won’t be penalised if instead we wrote: ‘the focus on Rosabel’s jealousy is revealed when she says …’ It won’t matter that we haven’t used the word dialogue.
Similarly, we can’t expect the extract to include flashback. But, if it does, and we refer to it as a ‘focus on Rosabel’s memory’ instead, we won’t lose marks.
Finally, let’s consider that this is not a full answer. Now you can see how important it is to write as many explanations as there are marks - because this one had only 7.
You can also see, with my marking, that this answer is very inefficient. Only 5 of the explanations actually answer the question - how does the structure interest the reader? To do that you have to write what it makes us think, feel or predict.
5 to 8 words on the end of each of the non scoring statements would easily turn this into a 8 mark answer.
Why don’t the examiners simply write an 8 mark answer for us? I genuinely don’t know - but I can’t come up with a morally acceptable one.
That’s why I post them for you, and why I write guides full of answers at every grade, with examiner comments. Here is my guide to Question 3.
Thanks for answering my question in depth! When I think of AQA, clarity is not a word that comes to mind...we need your expertise.
I seriously think about this every day- Mr Salles WHERE do you get the time? You're involved in so much and put out so much help for us 😀