GCSE English Tuition Bolton: Why the English Language Examination should not be Underestimated! (TIP ONE)

Very many congratulations to all my students this year! Last Thursday proved an exceptionally happy day and I was even in tears ( with joy) twice! The new specifications are tough and demand far more of students than ever before. So very well done!

Here’s my tip for anyone now studying for GCSE English in 2020 and beyond. Do not underestimate the English Language examinations.

In the old specification, it was usually the Literature component that proved the most demanding. The language of literary analysis needed to be learned. And then applied with confidence and insight. This has not changed and of course, students now face the added challenge of prescribed 19thC. texts like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde or A Christmas Carol. However, with effort, the new literature specification can be conquered with very pleasing results. You can learn themes and ideas. Commit them to memory-with quotes! After all, there are only so many questions that can be asked of a text at GCSE level. If you study effectively, you should manage your questions successfully.

But the English Language papers are like blind dates. You do not know who or what is going to turn up and you have no idea whether you will ‘click’ with the papers in the prescribed time. You may know the comprehension format but you do not know the literary text under scrutiny nor do you know the writing questions either. So why not arrive at your examinations with ready-made ‘ammunition’ or ‘seeds’ for your tasks.

Let’s start with the Creative Writing or ‘Story’ task.

So here’s my first tip for the Creative Writing task:

Be flexible. Anticipate. Write an opening that generates options for the rest of your story. SEED your opening. Then your story will grow naturally. Even when you are under stress, it will evolve effectively! ( And remember you can rewrite/re-edit old stories before you undertake the exam, so you are bursting with ideas and possible stories when you actually enter the examination room. It’s tough to try and create something on the spot when the clock is ticking. You need to feel prepared!)

Here are two excellent examples of ‘seeding’ an opening:

“Tom glanced behind him and saw the man coming out of the Green Cage, heading his way.”  ( The Talented Mr Ripley by Patricia Highsmith).

“The terror, which would not end for another twenty-eight years–if it ever did end–began, so far as I know or can tell, with a boat made from a sheet of newspaper floating down a gutter swollen with rain.” — Stephen King, IT

Let’s look at Highsmith’s ‘Seeds’…think about the ways the opening generates narrative options….and invites us to join the story.

1. In the Highsmith example, we meet ‘Tom’ who is possibly being followed. His name is immediately real, even ordinary so the reader accepts his existence and actions readily. ‘Tom’ appears possibly vulnerable and the probable protagonist as his name is the first note of the story. Give your protagonist a name early!
2. If Tom is a fugitive or is being furtive, then there must be a ‘backstory’ to explain his current, vulnerable situation. He checks behind him and this must be explained in the rest of the story. What is he frightened of? Or what has he done? Seeds are amply scattered!
3. The anonymous ‘man’ who may or may not be following Tom is linked to the intriguingly named, ‘Green Cage’ which we suspect might be a bar or a club. The name evokes danger and even criminality. The seemingly oxymoronic juxtaposition of ‘green’ with ‘Cage’ hints at some irony! Places need names. Names give connotations!
4. Tom needs to deal with the ‘man’ immediately as he is ‘heading his way.’ The story thus erupts into action immediately and creates suspense and intrigue for the reader. We anticipate an encounter and cannot tell at this point whether we should be sympathetic to ‘Tom’ or the ‘man’ though ‘Tom’ seems more likely as he appears to be the protagonist.
5. We can, of course, subvert these expectations as Tom may be luring the man into an encounter that is damaging or illicit. At this point, we cannot tell who is in charge of the situation. We can imagine the story developing in several directions and this shows how successfully Highsmith has ‘seeded’ her opening.

Now let’s consider how Stephen King ‘seeds’ his opening to It. I am sure many of you have seen the trailer and when you read this opening it is easy to imagine the film. King is a very visual writer, therefore easily translated into cinema. Writing cinematically also involves other senses aside from the visual.

1. The use of the abstract noun ‘terror’ unsettles us immediately. King uses the direct article in order to emphasise the power of the ‘terror’ and to suggest it is a character, an entity in itself. ( Not unlike the mass executions during the French Revolution, also known as The Terror which took on a mythic, infamous status because of the use of Madame Guillotine.)
2. We are listening to a first-person narrator who affects omniscience and then denies knowing everything. Look at the pauses where confidence falters. Make your narrator fallible, even a liar! The conversational narrative reads as if the recollection of the terror continues to haunt, not least because it is unfinished business and cannot be contained by chronology. Time limits are always useful seeds as they generate tension! For example, You have 24 hours to save the world!
3. The image of the newspaper boat underlines an innocence that now seems lost or destroyed. Playfulness and improvisation have entered a world governed by the ‘gutter’. ( Hell/Fallen world) Unsurprisingly innocence now seems subsumed by a fallen world as exemplified by the gutter. Hades or a nightmarish underworld are uncomfortably near! So many stories follow this plot arc: innocence to a fallen world and back again. Or reverse.
4. Look at the effect of the word ‘swollen’. Doesn’t this create unease? The gutter has become disfigured and hints at ugliness. Something has changed the identity of the original place, bloating its reality in a nauseating way, like a cadaver perhaps?
5. King has generated lots of possibilities with his opening and only has to explain what the seeds mean to create a compelling( and disturbing!) narrative.

1. Give yourself options. Seed your opening and then follow-through. Keep a notebook with first lines and scenes. Note down parts of films you found compelling and break them down into moments or beats. Ensure you have ideas and scenes and phrases BEFORE you go into the exam.
2. Polish up old stories so you have resources to refashion according to the titles. You can’t expect to produce a superb story on the hoof! Even J.K.Rowling would struggle!