Contextual Research
Exam Criteria
Here’s an overview of the criteria I will use to assess your essay:
English GCSE
You are required to demonstrate their ability to:
- Read with insight and engagement
- Make appropriate references to texts
- Develop and sustain your interpretations of a text
- Understand and evaluate how writers use linguistic, structural and presentational devices to achieve their effects
English Literature GCSE
Candidates are required to demonstrate their ability to:
- Respond to texts critically, sensitively and in detail
- Select appropriate ways to convey their response
- Use textual evidence to support your ideas
- Explore how language, structure and form contribute to the meanings of texts
- Consider different approaches to and alternative interpretations for texts
- Show analytical and interpretative skills when evaluating the social and historical setting of the text – Context!
Therefore, you need to demonstrate a secure understanding of relevant contextual detail and an ability to analyse it closely.
Areas of context to research:
- Jonathan Swift’s life and work
- Irish society in 18th century
- Poverty in 18th century Ireland (particularly child poverty)
- Religion in 18th century Ireland
- Politics in 18th century Ireland
- How England controlled Irish policy in the 18th century
- Pamphlets (what they were, their publication,...
