So you now know the poems – but how do you structure your essay?

This clean & simple new guide from Accolade Press will walk you through how to plan and structure essay responses to questions on the Love and Relationships poetry anthology. By working through nine mock questions, these detailed essay plans will show you how to go about building a theme based answer – while the accompanying notes will illustrate not only how to masterfully structure your response, but also how to ensure all AQA's Assessment Objectives are being satisfied.

About the author: Anthony Walker-Cook has a BA (First Class) and MA (Distinction) from Durham University. He is currently finishing a PhD at UCL: his project explores how eighteenth-century women writers were educated in the classics. Alongside his studies, Anthony has taught students up to undergraduate level and he was recently made an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

About the editor: R.P. Davis has a First Class degree in English Literature from UCL, and a Masters in Literature from Cambridge University. Aside from teaching GCSE English (which he's done for nearly a decade now), he has also written a string of bestselling thriller novels.

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Alternatively, you can purchase a PDF edition direct from Accolade (downloadable to your device) via this link.

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Editor's Foreword

In your GCSE English Literature exam, you will be presented with a single poem from the Love and Relationships anthology and a question that invites you to compare and contrast this poem with one other anthology poem of your choosing. Of course, there are many methods one might use to tackle this style of question. However, there is one particular technique which, due to its sophistication, most readily allows students to unlock the highest marks: namely, the thematic method. 

To be clear, this study guide is not intended to walk you through the poems line-by-line: there are many great guides out there that do just that. No, this guide, by sifting through a series of mock exam questions, will demonstrate how to organise a response thematically and thus write a stellar essay: a skill we believe no other study guide adequately covers!

I have encountered students who have structured their essays all sorts of ways: some by writing about one or both of the poems line-by-line, others by identifying various language techniques and giving each its own paragraph. The method I’m advocating, on the other hand, involves picking out three themes that will allow you to holistically answer the question: these three themes will become the three content paragraphs of your essay, cushioned between a brief introduction and conclusion. Ideally, these themes will follow from one to the next to create a flowing argument. Within each of these thematic paragraphs, you can then ensure you are jumping through the mark scheme’s hoops. 

So to break things down further, each thematic paragraph will include various point-scoring components. In each paragraph, you will quote from the poem the exam board have set, offer an analysis of these quotes, then discuss how the specific language techniques you have identified illustrate the theme you’re discussing. In each paragraph, you will then quote from the second poem (the one you’ve chosen to write on), and, while analysing these quotes and remarking on language techniques, also explain not only how the second poem relates to the chosen theme, but also how it does so differently (or not!) from the first poem. 

Don’t worry if this all feels daunting. Throughout this guide Anthony will be illustrating in great detail – by means of examples – how to build an essay of this kind.

The beauty of the thematic approach is that, once you have your themes, you suddenly have a direction and a trajectory, and this makes essay writing a whole lot easier. However, it must also be noted that extracting themes in the first place is something students often find tricky. I have come across many candidates who understand the poems inside out; but when they are presented with a question under exam conditions, and the pressure kicks in, they find it tough to break their response down into themes. The fact of the matter is: the process is a creative one and the best themes require a bit of imagination. 

In this guide, Anthony shall take nine different exam-style questions, and put together nine essay plans that ensure that every poem in the anthology is discussed in depth at least once. These essay plans will also be accompanied by notes illustrating how we will be satisfying the mark scheme’s criteria. Please do keep in mind that, when operating under timed conditions, your plans will necessarily be less detailed than those that appear in this volume.  

* * *

Before I hand you over to Anthony, I believe it’s worthwhile to run through the three Assessment Objectives the exam board want you to cover in your response – if only to demonstrate how effective the thematic response can be. I would argue that the first Assessment Objective (AO1) – the one that wants candidates to ‘read, understand and respond to texts’ and which is worth 12 of the total 30 marks up for grabs – will be wholly satisfied by selecting strong themes, then fleshing them out with quotes. Indeed, when it comes to identifying the top-scoring candidates for AO1, the mark scheme explicitly tells examiners to look for a ‘critical, exploratory, conceptualised response’ that makes ‘judicious use of precise references’ – the word ‘concept’ is a synonym of theme, and ‘judicious references’ simply refers to quotes that appropriately support the theme you’ve chosen.

The second Assessment Objective (AO2) – which is also responsible for 12 marks – asks students to ‘analyse the language, form and structure used by a writer to create meanings and effects, using relevant subject terminology where appropriate.’ As noted, you will already be quoting from the poems as you back up your themes, and it is a natural progression to then analyse the language techniques used. In fact, this is far more effective than simply observing language techniques (personification here, alliteration there), because by discussing how the language techniques relates to and shapes the theme, you will also be demonstrating how the writer ‘create[s] meanings and effects.’ 

Now, in my experience, language analysis is the most important element of AO2 – perhaps 8 of the 12 marks will go towards language analysis. You will also notice, however, that AO2 asks students to comment on ‘form and structure.’ Again, the thematic approach has your back – because though simply shoehorning in a point on form or structure will feel jarring, when you bring these points up while discussing a theme, as a means to further a thematic argument, you will again organically be discussing the way it ‘create[s] meanings and effects.’ 

AO3 requires you to ‘show understanding of the relationships between texts and the contexts in which they were written’ and is responsible for a more modest 6 marks in total. These are easy enough to weave into a thematic argument; indeed, the theme gives the student a chance to bring up context in a relevant and fitting way. After all, you don’t want it to look like you’ve just shoehorned a contextual factoid into the mix.

Finally, you have AO4 – known also as “spelling and grammar.” Technically speaking, there are no AO4 marks up for grabs in this particular section of the paper. That said, I would still suggest that you take care on this front. The examiners are human beings, and if you are demonstrating a strong grasp of spelling and grammar, most examiners (whether rightly or wrongly!) will still be more inclined to mark your paper with greater generosity.

* * *

My hope is that this book, by demonstrating how to tease out themes from a pair of poems, will help you feel more confident in doing so yourself. I believe it is also worth mentioning that the themes Anthony has picked out are by no means definitive. Asked the very same question, someone else may pick out different themes, and write an answer that is just as good (if not better– sorry Anthony!). Obviously the exam is not likely to be fun – my memory of them is pretty much the exact opposite. But still, this is one of the very few chances that you will get at GCSE level to actually be creative. And to my mind at least, that was always more enjoyable – if enjoyable is the right word – than simply demonstrating that I had memorised loads of facts.

ESSAY PLAN ONE

‘LOVE’S PHILOSOPHY’ AND ‘WINTER SWANS’

Love’s Philosophy

By Percy Bysshe Shelley

The fountains mingle with the river

And the rivers with the ocean,

The winds of heaven mix for ever

With a sweet emotion;

Nothing in the world is single;

All things by a law divine

In one spirit meet and mingle.

Why not I with thine?—

See the mountains kiss high heaven

And the waves clasp one another;

No sister-flower would be forgiven

If it disdained its brother;

And the sunlight clasps the earth

And the moonbeams kiss the sea:

What is all this sweet work worth

If thou kiss not me?

Compare the ways poets present romantic love in ‘Love’s Philosophy’ and in one other poem from Love and Relationships.

Introduction

Your introduction should neatly outline your second partner poem, your reasons for choosing it and its connection to the prompt poem. In doing so, you’re showing an awareness of both AO3 because you are showing the ways in which texts are connected and AO1 because you’re outlining for your examiner the skeleton structure of your ‘response’. In the June 2018 Examiner Report, it was noted that candidates that provided an explanation of their second poem with a clear description of the themes to be discussed in the essay produced strong responses.1

On this occasion, I have decided to compare Shelley’s poem to Owen Sheers’ ‘Winter Swans’.

“Both ‘Winter Swans’ and ‘Love’s Philosophy’ focus on nature as a way of expressing ideas about romantic love, but where in the former Sheers depicts a couple who are inspired by nature to begin a relationship, Shelley uses the natural world as a way of convincing a potential lover that they should be together. Nonetheless, to read these poems together means to realise the best and worst of romantic love.” 

Theme/Paragraph One: Both poets use nature as a frame for their work, but where Sheers uses nature to express genuine emotion, Shelley uses it to convince his partner to sleep with him.

• Indeed the prospect of romantic love for Sheers results in a natural alignment of the world. When the swans of the title surface from the water, Sheers uses a simile to describe them returning ‘like boats righting in rough weather’, whilst the water around them is described as ‘stilling’ in the fifth stanza. The poem closes with another simile that notes the closing distance between the speaker and his lover as ‘like a pair of wings settling after flight’. Romantic love, ultimately, allows for the world to become calm and uniform. [AO1 for advancing the argument with a judiciously selected quote; AO2 for the close analysis of the language]

• That Sheers’ poem works towards a ‘settling’ as described in the final couplet is noted in the poem’s structure, which uses six tercets with a closing couplet.2 This final pairing implies a reconciliation, with the previous three-lined stanzas suggesting the unevenness of their love until then. [AO2 for discussing how structure shapes meaning] 

• Pivot to comparison: Ironically, Shelley uses a very similar argument in ‘Love’s Philosophy’, but with a very different intention. Shelley’s poem partakes in the carpe diem topos, imploring the target of the poet’s affections to seize the day and kiss him, with other famous examples including Marvell’s ‘To His Coy Mistress’ and Herrick’s ‘Gather Ye Rosebuds’.3 As such, Shelley opens the poem with an account of how fountains are connected to rivers, which are in turn connected to the ocean, with an easy enjambment enacting this process of connection. As such, in line five when Shelley states ‘Nothing in the world is single’, the jarring singularity of the line itself, which is marked at the end by a caesura, emphasises this separation.4 Shelley’s poem thus moves towards completion much like Sheers’, but the former poet’s intention is less sincere than the latter’s. [AO2 for the close analysis of the language; AO3 for placing the poem in its literary context] 

Theme/Paragraph Two: Both poets also present somewhat idealised depictions of love; however, whereas Shelley’s depiction is ultimately self-serving, Sheers’ focuses on the latent power of love to meaningfully bring two people together. 

• Shelley’s title cheekily suggests that the poem has a mantra for love in calling itself a ‘philosophy’, which implies a theorised and mature approach to love that is at odds with the poem’s actual content.5[AO1 for advancing the argument with a judiciously selected quote]

• The Romantic poets, a group that Shelley has retrospectively been assigned to, had a deep appreciation of nature, which supposedly provided them with lessons for life. Yet in ‘Love’s Philosophy’ Shelley, in his desire to show this, almost satirises this tenet of romantic writing, describing how ‘the mountains kiss high heaven / And the waves clasp one another’. The natural world can teach us of love, but only when it suits; this wry tone can be identified at the poem’s close, which, having focused on the world around him, resoundingly ends with ‘me’, implying the true self-serving intention of the speaker’s account of nature. [AO3 for placing the poem in its literary context]

• Pivot to comparison: Sheers’ use of enjambment implies the speaker’s desire for love. Connecting stanzas and lines, the reader continues through the poem in the hope of finding answers or a result. Again the swans provocatively represent this desire through Sheers’ description of them as ‘icebergs of white feather’, implying their stability and their unseen power. Focusing on water allows Sheers, in the penultimate stanza, to note how their hands ‘somehow’ ‘[swam] the distance between [them]’, which gently mirrors his description of how they ‘folded, one over the other’ at the poem’s end. Whereas for Shelly love is self-serving and self-centred, for Sheers it delivers a profound and mutually meaningful union. [AO1 for advancing the argument with a judiciously selected quote; AO2 for the close analysis of language]

Theme/Paragraph Three: In Shelley romantic love is over-optimistically presented as positive, but for Sheers there is an awareness of how it can have darker associations. 

• Shelley was an atheist, but that does not stop him from using religious imagery throughout ‘Love’s Philosophy’ – such as ‘divine’, ‘one spirit meet and mingle’ and ‘high heaven’ – for effect. This almost saccharine usage, one feels, is an almost hollow attempt to imbue his argument with a sense of divine authorship.6 [AO3 for placing the poem in historical context]

• Pivot to comparison: In ‘Winter Swans’, the locale in which this conversation takes place is aptly sombre. Observing how the earth is ‘gulping for breath’ because of too much rain, Sheers suggests the desperation and struggle to find life in such an environment, hence perhaps why the two walk around the lake ‘silent and apart’. [AO1 for advancing the argument with a judiciously selected quote] 

• It is only when the swans come that some optimism is found. Yet, ‘Winter Swans’ belongs to the poetry collection Skirrid Hill, which deals with the themes of disaster and the poet’s relationship with his father and the death of his mother.7 Whilst Sheers’ poem can and should be read positively, there are intimations throughout of the dangers romantic love can face. For example, once the speaker’s partner notes how swans ‘mate for life’, the speaker describes them ‘like porcelain’. Such an image suggests both the beauty and the fragility of these swans and of love more generally. [AO2 for the close analysis of language; AO3 for placing the poem in historical context]

Conclusion

Our conclusion is your last chance to make a lasting impression on your examiner’s mind before they give your essay a grade. Try, therefore, to do something different and don’t, if possible, begin with ‘In conclusion…’ Here I ponder on the themes of the poems and the essay more generally. 

“Though reading ‘Winter Swans’ and ‘Love’s Philosophy’ in dialogue implies the latter’s depiction of romantic love is merely for show, there is a certain amount of enjoyment that can be found in both. In Sheers, this comes from knowing of the natural correction that comes for the speaker now his relationship can begin, which is something Shelley’s speaker can only dream of. Yet, there is an enjoyable cavalier quality to ‘Love’s Philosophy’ that cannot be ignored and maybe Shelley has a point when he asks ‘What is all this sweet work worth / If thou kiss not me?’ Romantic love is nothing if not playful, after all.”8

Footnotes

1 Do make sure that part of your revision (for any exam) is reading as many Examiner’s Reports as are available on the exam board’s website: they often provide a wealth of tips about what students did well and, perhaps even more importantly, where they went wrong!

2 Just to remind you: ‘stanza’ is the name we give to verses generally; a ‘couplet’ refers to a two-line stanza, a ‘tercet’ to a three-line stanza, a ‘quatrain’ to a four-line stanza, a ‘quintet’ to a five-line stanza, and a ‘sestet’ to a six-line stanza.

3 Cavalier poetry was a popular seventeenth-century movement that focused on joyful and simple lyrics. Central to their poetry was a mentality of carpe diem, which is Latin for ‘seize the day.’

A topos is basically a literary topic.

4 Caesura is when a poet inserts punctuation midway through a line of poetry, thereby creating a pause.

5 Don’t forget that titles, as with the poems themselves, are generally constructs and can be commented on. Be aware, however, that some titles are just the first line of the poem, for example Armitage’s ‘Mother, any distance.’

6 If something is saccharine, it means it is overly sweet.

7 Do spend a little bit of time researching the poetry collections from which the individual poems you study come from – they can tell you a lot about the overarching themes and the poet themselves.

Proceeding Chapters:

Essay Plan Two: Compare the ways poets present desire in ‘Porphyria’s Lover’ and in one other poem from Love and Relationships (Poems covered: Robert Browning's, ‘Porphyria’s Lover’ & Charlotte Mew's ‘The Farmer’s Bride’)

Essay Plan Three: Compare the ways poets present distance in ‘Neutral Tones’ and in one other poem from Love and Relationships. (Poems covered: Thomas Hardy's ‘Neutral Tones’ & Maura Dooley's ‘Letters from Yorkshire’)

Essay Plan Four: Compare the ways in which the parent-child relationship is presented in ‘Walking Away’ and in one other poem from Love and Relationships. (Poems covered: Cecil Day-Lewis' ‘Walking Away’ & Caron Ann Duffy's ‘Before You Were Mine’)

Essay Plan Five: Compare the ways in which independence is presented in ‘Mother, any distance’ and in one other poem from Love and Relationships. (Poems covered: Simon Armitage's ‘Mother, any distance’ & Daljit Nagra's ‘Singh Song’)

Essay Plan Six: Compare the ways in which memories are presented in ‘Follower’ and in one other poem from Love and Relationships. (Poems covered: Seamus Heaney's ‘Follower’ & Charles Causley's ‘Eden Rock’)

Essay Plan Seven: Compare the ways in which admiration is presented in ‘Before You Were Mine’ and in one other poem from Love and Relationships. (Poems covered: Daljit Nagra's ‘Singh Song’ & Carol Ann Duffy's ‘Before You Were Mine’)

Essay Plan Eight: Compare the ways poets use nature to talk about relationships in ‘Sonnet 29’ and in one other poem from Love and Relationships. (Poems covered: Elizabeth Barrett Browning's ‘Sonnet 29’ & Andrew Waterhouse's ‘Climbing my Grandfather’)

Essay Plan Nine: Compare the ways in which loss is presented in ‘When We Two Parted’ and in one other poem from Love and Relationships. (Poems covered: Lord Byron's ‘When We Two Parted’ & Cecil Day Lewis' ‘Walking Away’)

Alternatively, you can purchase a PDF edition direct from Accolade (downloadable to your device) via this link.

Customer Reviews

What Anthony does particularly well, is show students how to compare using concepts. I agree that students who can discuss the themes emanating from the poems have a better chance of attaining a higher grade. I also think that it is easier to suggest an argument if you consider theme....

A fantastic opportunity for students to think about essay design and organisation. I have tried on numerous occasions in class to teach essay structure and I would definitely use this guide to show students examples. I love the way in which Anthony is talking to everyman, his use of ‘latter’ and extended vocabulary seamlessly pivoting from one poet to another could be read in any class at key stage four. This is one of the best essay writing guides I have seen on the market today and I would wholeheartedly recommend it to students and teachers.

This is a great guide for parents and students. It is unlike other revision guides and goes very well with the AQA Poetry Anthology book that students receive from school where they annotate each poem with their own notes. This guide then helps them to understand how to begin answering the question and gives brilliant examples of essay answers. It is also very helpful for students to understand how each part of the essay meets the exam criteria.

The guide is really helpful to students who really want to understand how to write the poetry essay for their GCSE exam. Rather than going through the poems line by line, it gives the student ways in which to compare one poem to another through the themes explored in each poem, which is what the GCSE exam requires. It will be incredible useful for students to extend their knowledge and enable them to get better grades. Thank you.

This guide offers an additional resource to those studying these poems. It has clear advice on what the examiners are looking for and how best to pick up maximum marks. It is easy to follow, gives clear information on themes and how to quote from the text. Great, supportive material.

I am a tutor and often tutor girls from my local grammar school. I would recommend this to any student looking to gain extra advice and revision support when preparing for AQA English Literature GCSE exams. It advises how to structure exam responses thematically and carefully explains how this essay structure meets the exam marking and assessment works. The analyses provide lots of ideas for students to consider. 

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