What method would you suggest for structuring an A Level English Literature essay effectively?

At A level, I found the best method for structuring essays to be to scan through your text, finding and writing down quotes that link in any way to the topic of the question. Then, group quotes together in categories that fit best with the question. So, for example, if the question involves a quote relating to women being presented as prosperous, your three categories could be quotes that support women being presented in this way, quotes against, and then quotes that in a sense resolve this tension. This provides you with your essay structure. To choose which quotes to use (you'll have found many throughout the text), choose the ones that enable you to meet the assessment objectives that come with A Level most effectively. One quote, for example, may enable you to comment on the Elizabethan worldview if studying a Shakespeare play, fulfilling Assessment Objective 4 - Context.

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Answered by Mollie C. English Literature tutor

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