Sunday, December 8, 2013

How to Kick IB Language A Paper One's Butt by Analyzing a Poem - Part Three: Criterion C

So the hard part is behind him (see the previous posts here and here, and Mitchell's actual poem, ripped to shreds with the coloured pens of the Nerdvark, here), and Nerdvark is ready to move on to kicking butt in Criterion C: Organization, or in other words, planning.
Criterion C: Organization requires the writer to plan.

Many students read a question, write a bunch of stuff, and then look at their watches and figure out that they have nearly twenty minutes left to nap.
Level-7 students do NOT waste
valuable exam time snoozing! 

WRONG!

Good writers follow the writing process, and in order to get five out of five on "Organization," you def. need to go from step one (pre-writing, or reading the text lots of times and trying to figure out what the heck it means) to step two, planning, before moving on to step three, which is actually writing.

A good organizational structure to use for discussing one piece of text is the five-paragraph essay format.  Here we will have:
1.  an introduction with a thesis statement of some kind which gives an overview of your understanding of the poem.
2. at least three PEE paragraphs (if you forgot how to PEE already, re-read this post here), and finally 
3. a conclusion where you summarize your main ideas and leave the reader saying, "Wow."  

As for coherence, you need to make sure your reader can follow your ideas, by using linking words, like in addition and for example, and good topic sentences.  Use step four of the writing process, REVISING, to make sure you have linking words, topic sentences, and enough details to fully develop each of your ideas.

Now find out how to get top marks in Criterion D, and after that, Nardvark will share a top-secret LEVEL-7 ESSAY on Adrian Mitchell's "I Am Tourist!"  Woo!

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