I am aiming for excellence and in the marking schedule it says to add things such as: - is organised and develops a perceptive case or
argument; structure and expression
Hi Charlotte
This is a good question and great to see you are using the criteria to inform what you are doing!
Letâs have a look at it.
For Excellence.
A response that shows perceptive understanding makes clear points which are
relevant to the topic being addressed and will show some insight or originality in
thought or interpretation. These points are developed and integrated.
What is being looked for is first of all coherence in the response. This means having a clear argument or justification for your ideas and having the points you make building together in support. It is not just a random collection of ideas with evidence.
The âinsightâ is in showing a deeper understanding of the significance of the ideas, not just in the context of the text itself but in a wider context. This doesnât mean just tacking on a comment at the end of each paragraph mentioning some world wide connection but rather developing your appreciation of what it means, showing you have understood the wider impact. This is where the originality comes in. The flair is in the response as a whole.
That all sounds rather wordy, but hope it is clear.
How about you try writing one and I will comment on it specifically.
Cheers
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Hi again
I am assuming you are looking then at atonement being the important idea.
So 'become aware of the crucial notion of atonement. â Here you state that he has understood how important it is but think how you could go a little further. Is it important for him to feel better? To assuage his guilt? Maybe it helps her parents who have been stressed by it all? This is the development of the insight.
You are certainly there later on â This would require a lot of support from Ryan so we can learn from this that he is willing to go to any length to assist her recovery, as he is remorseful." This is insightful, you have realised that his remorse, or any remorse, can make people go to extraordinary lengths to help things.
Think about what you could add here when you say " Likewise, atonement is an important concept that is relevant to todayâs teenagers since they must learn to accept responsibility for their actions like Ryan did." You could go a little further here, explaining why it is in the nature of teenagers to maybe find it difficult to accept the implications of their actions and take responsibility for them.
This is again certainly insightful " This is significant for teens today because to atone, they must be able to understand things from the perspective of others to have a beneficial influence on both the individuals affected in terms of learning to forgive and apologise through our actions. Therefore, we learn from Ryanâs character that accepting responsibility not only helps us atone for our actions, it is an admirable personality trait."
Can you see how the depth of response is the wider context?
So this paragraph is certainly Excellence. If the other paragraphs continue to develop the notion of atonement in this way you are doing well.
As for analysing - To analyse you are providing comment on how something is said so maybe a few more quotes and a comment on the way it is shown. Eg Ryanâs introspection, the way he articulates his thoughts allows us to understand his feelings.
Hope this makes it a bit clearer. You are doing well.
JD
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Hi Charlotte - not the same person but I thought I could weigh in here.
To strengthen your topic sentence - two things that could help are to use the key words from the question and to use the authorâs name(or words âthe authorâ FOR EXAMPLE âHill continues to develop the important idea of _____ through the way thatâŚâ or âthe author reinforces the idea that⌠when he highlightsâŚâ- this clearly signposts what your paragraph will be about, and that you are answering the question and shows development. This would be a small addition to what you already have
In terms of your âlink to wider societyâ - it does not have to be at the end of the paragraph, and as Jdewar has said above - you are already doing this as a part of your analysis - âThis is significant for teens today because to atone, they must be able to understand things from the perspective of others to have a beneficial influence on both the individuals affected in terms of learning to forgive and apologise through our actionsâ - can you see that this already is making clear links to the relevance of this idea in society? This is actually stronger than just tacking it on at the end, and shows more insight 
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