1. Planning and writing your assessed essay: section b
The Tempest is primarily a play about the lengths to which men will go to secure power for themselves.
By exploring Shakespeare’s presentation of power, evaluate this view of The Tempest.

2. What do you need to get a top band?

3. AO1: (50%)
Excellent and consistently detailed understanding of text and question.
Consistently fluent and accurate writing in appropriate register.
Critical concepts and terminology used accurately and consistently.
Well structured, coherent and detailed argument consistently developed.
Argument
Accurate
Detailed/developed

4. Your introduction: how do you push the ao1 from the first few sentences?
Re-phrase the question/ use words from the question to show that you have understood it (and are answering it)!
Make your argument clear and focused with key words that you will keep coming back to.
Keep your sentences short and precise. No long, ‘clever’ sentences.
If you can, refer to context immediately/cite a critic who supports your argument/ embed a quotation.

5. Example: explore the themes of control and manipulation in ‘the tempest’
What is good about this introduction? Could anything be better?

6. Now…
In no more than 50 words, write the introduction to your essay.

7. Ao1 in the rest of your essay:
Use topic sentences to start each point. Keep these clear, simple and short (again, no long sentences).
Develop all of your points. You should probably be making no more than 3-4 detailed points in your essay. If you make more than this it is likely that your ideas will be underdeveloped.
Keep coming back to the key words/ ideas in your introduction. Underline them, if this helps.
Keep your paragraphs to less than half a side. Slightly new point/idea = new paragraph.

8. Proof-read. Read every paragraph back to yourself to check that it makes sense.
Conclude your essay, reiterating what your argument is and using words from the question to prove that you have answered it!

9. Topic sentences: Examples:
Are these sufficiently clear and simple?
Is it obvious what each paragraph is going to be about?
Does each answer the question?
Caliban is shown to be one of the characters most oppressed by Prospero.
Alternatively, the relationship between Caliban and Prospero can be perceived as that of a colonist overlord and a slave.
Prospero’s manipulation and control is shown to be extended to Miranda is order to further his own social status.

10. Ao5: (50%)
Using critics’ ideas as springboards to develop and argue your own ideas.
Exploration of the ways in which different audiences at different times would have responded to the text.
Consideration of different stage/ film interpretations.
Try to put these in conversation with one another and with your argument.

11. example
Read the example (about 2/3 of a whole essay) answer and find examples of:
Where the student uses critical interpretations as a springboard for their own argument
Where the student gives examples from the play to support their own argument
Where the student develops their own argument
Where the student considers how views have changed over time
Is there anything that could be better?
Where would you place this on the markscheme?

12. Plan the following questions, thinking about how you could use about 4 critical interpretations to support and develop your own argument:

13. Example: explore the themes of control and manipulation in ‘the tempest’
‘Indeed, at the time of writing, the Bermuda trafficking was a topic of great interest and controversy and the storm which wrecked one of the slave ships was said to be of significance when influencing Shakespeare to write ‘The Tempest.’ Therefore, Prospero’s relentless physical and degrading abuse can be said to merely his control and manipulation of others.’

14. Now… See if you can add contextual detail(s) to one of your points.
You can either write about the social/historical/cultural conditions of the 17th century or how the text has been received by audiences in the 18th, 19th, 20th or 21st centuries (the latter is you) and why (in what conditions)?

15. Using a range of critical interpretations to support your argument.
Ao5: (20%)
• Judgement consistently informed by exploration of different interpretations of the text.
• Judgement consistently informed by changing critical views of the text over time.
Using a range of critical interpretations to support your argument.
Giving evidence that your interpretation has been informed by others’ critical interpretations.

16. Writing your essay
The most important thing you must remember when writing in an essay is to explore ideas in detail and develop points and arguments.
What else have you learnt today that you will use when writing your first assessed essay?