Critical Essays – Getting Started
Ian Yule
Critical Essays
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Are worth 40% of your final grade
1 essay in Intermediate 1 (45 mins)
2 essays in Intermediate 2 (90 mins)
2 essays in Higher (90 mins)
Genre
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In Intermediate 1 you can choose your essay
from any genre in which you feel confident
Drama
Prose
Poetry
Film and TV Drama
Language
Intermediate 2 and Higher
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You must write two essays from two different
genres
For example
One essay from prose (eg a short story)
One essay from drama (a play)
Higher
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One difference is that there are two sections
in prose:
Prose Fiction (novels, short stories)
Prose Non Fiction (biographies, travel
writing)
In Int 1 and Int 2 you can write about a non
fiction book in any prose question. In Higher
you must choose from the right section.
1. Choose your questions carefully
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The exam board allows you 5 minutes to
think about your question in the 45 minutes.
Make sure that you think that you know
enough to answer the question. A short plan
writing down your quotations may help.
Better to spend time planning than to be 10
minutes into a question and realise you have
made a mistake.
2. Read your question carefully
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Underline or use a highlighter pen to
emphasise key words in the question.
Make sure that you use these key words in
your answer – it well help your mark by
establishing what we call relevance – that is
you are actually answering the question!
Remember you need to answer both parts of
the question – that is what is in the first
sentence and in the second.
For example
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Choose a poem which described a
childhood experience.
State what the experience was and go on to
show how the poet used poetic techniques
to help make it real to you.
You might choose to highlight:
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Choose a poem which described a
childhood experience.
State what the experience was and go on to
show how the poet used poetic techniques to
help make it real to you.
The key word was HOW
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State what the experience was and go on to
show how the poet used poetic techniques
to help make it real to you.
Your essay is not just a summary of the text
Your essay must comment on techniques
Introductory paragraph
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Use these key words to help you assemble
an introductory paragraph
In ‘Mid Term Break’ Seamus Heaney
describes the childhood experience of his
brother’s death. He helps to make this
experience real to his readers through his
use of ….
Oops what did he use?
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The SQA are not always cruel. They put a
helpful box at the top of each section giving
you ideas you can use in your essay. For
example the Int 2 poetry box says …
Answers in this section should refer to the
text and to such relevant features as: word
choice, tone, imagery, structure, content,
rhythm, theme, sound, ideas …
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That may help you to write paragraphs about
Heaney’s use of structure
Heaney’s use of sound
And so on … you can write about things
which are not in the box providing they form
part of a relevant answer to your question.
On the subject of relevance
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Use topic sentences to form a relevant
structure. One you have used the language
of the question in paragraph one don’t forget
to use it again.
A further way Heaney makes the childhood
experience real to his readers is through his
use of sound.
How many quotations should I use?
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It depends on how much you can write about
them.
It is doubtful that you will be ‘safe’ in your
preparation for a critical essay exam if you
know less than 8 quotations.
YES YOU DO HAVE TO MEMORISE AND
LEARN STUFF FOR ENGLISH EXAMS.
YOU CAN NOT PASS WITHOUT
REVISING.
Things to avoid in your essays
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This is advice for all levels, but especially for
Intermediate 2 and Higher.
Avoid using the word “I” unless it is in a
quotation you plan to write about.
Let us begin …
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In my class we have been studying “Mid
Term Break” by Seamus Heaney. I think it’s a
good poem about a childhood experience
and in this essay I will show how the poet
made it real to me.
Nice answer - if critical essays were personal
essays – but they are not. They are formal
pieces of writing, and formal pieces of writing
have a few rules.
Formal essay rules
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1. Avoid speaking about yourself.
In ‘Mid Term Break’ Seamus Heaney tells
his readers about the personal experience
of his brother’s death. He does this
through his use of structure, sound and
alliteration.
Avoid abbreviations / contractions
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The writer isn’t saying ….
Becomes
The writer is not saying …
(If there are contractions in your quotations
then of course do not change them.)
Use inverted commas
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Your quotations should begin and end with
inverted commas
Seamus Heaney helps the reader to hear the
bells through his use of alliteration: “counting
bells knelling classes to a close.”
Higher and Int 2 students note that the way
to introduce a quotation is with a colon (:)
In conclusion
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You will lose marks if you don’t finish your
essay with a conclusion.
Use the language of conclusion
In conclusion …
Finally …
To sum up …
There’s nothing new in the conclusion
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In conclusion Seamus Heaney successfully
shares the childhood experience of his
brother’s death with his readers. In particular,
his use of alliteration to draw attention to how
young his brother was: “a four foot box, a foot
for every year” helps the reader to
understand how awful the tragedy was and
how sad everyone must have felt.