English Literature: Paper 1 & 2

[ClaryBee]

Hey, it's my first year doing the IB prep year and I'm really struggling with English text analysis and essays(paper 1 and 2) since I have no prior experience to composing essays. I was wondering if anyone had any structure/tips they would be kind enough to share? Thanks in advance:)

[rainbowunicorn]

IB English is concerned with HOW. How is a certain effect created? You use literary techniques as your main points for each paragraph and have points and quotes to backup each technique.

Introduction: you start with a general idea then work your way to a more focused idea, then your last sentence should be your thesis statement, which lists your main paragraph's ideas. So for example if I'm doing literary techniques to show characterization my thesis could be "(author) uses techinique A, B and C to show characterization." (Of course this is the way I would say it and you should say it in your own voice).

Then your body paragraphs. One will be on technique A, the next will be on B and the next will be on C.

In paragraph A, you have a topic sentence relating to your thesis like technique A shows characterization by doing this.

You then follow PEA/PEE/PEAL/PEEL.

It stands for point, evidence/example, analysis/explanation, link

So for technique A, you would have a point, then you put a quote that proves that point then you explain and analyze the quote, and you link it back to your thesis and you do that again for every point you have. So paragraph A might have several PEAs all related to your main idea. So a point for every piece of evidence.

Example

(Topic sentence) technique A (let's say diction) shows characterization by showing x character's personality. Then you put a quote supporting that, analyze the quote saying how it shows x's personality and link it to your thesis. Then you move on to another point. Technique A also shows characterization by doing xxx and you put a quote, analyze and link. And repeat for every quote you have that proves how technique A shows characterization. Then you conclude.

Then repeat the above for technique B and C in a separate paragraph each.

Then conclusion:

Reword your thesis, then go over the main ideas of what you wrote.

I believe paper 1 is the unseen commentary and I think in your intro you also talk about the main idea of the passage and then you go on to discuss literary techniques. So you would kind of follow this format. I'm not sure about paper 2 though, we haven't really done anything. And if anyone notices mistakes please correct me!

This is how I think the essays are supposed to be but I don't know for sure if I'm doing it right. I don't really have any solid examples. I'd recommend finding some 7 essays to look at. You can also ask your teacher for tips when you get your papers back or if they have any example papers.

It might seem a little repetitive and robotic but this is just the basic method. Once you have this method down you can add your own style in and it will be more in your voice.

Hope this helps, again, I'm not sure if I'm doing it right but if you do use this method let me know how it goes! And of course you can combine this with other people's methods as well. Good luck!

(Also it's kind of all jumbled up because I just followed my train of thought. When you write your essays, make sure you prewrite and form an outline first so that this doesn't happen )

[susanne]

also make sure that you read really excellent commentary; they help you to see what you are supposed to be doing