Poetry from other cultures
and traditions: planning and
introducing your essay
Paper 2: Section A
Worth 15% of the English
Language GCSE
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Poems from the anthology:
cluster 2
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Search for My Tongue
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Unrelated Incidents
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Half-Caste
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Love After Love
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This Room
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Not my Business
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Presents from my Aunts in Pakistan
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Hurricane Hits England
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Essay planning
The experience of examiners and teachers tells us
that essays written with plans are better than essays
written without them.
Some tips about planning
Thinking time is NOT wasting time.
Planning is NOT wasting time.
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It doesn’t matter if you don’t stick to your
plan.
The process is more important than the
product.
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How should you write a plan?
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A spider diagram/ brainstorm is NOT a plan.
Spider diagrams are useful as a way of generating
ideas and getting ideas on paper but they do not help
you to organize your ideas.
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An example of a spider-diagram
type plan
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You are about to see the plan one student began
when asked to describe a park.
How do you think his writing would be structured if
he used this plan?
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swings
trees
slide
flowers
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Students who have created spider-diagrams tend to
deal with each point in the clockwise order in which it
appears on the spider-diagram.
This means that points are not grouped together and
comparisons and connections are missed.
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So

If you do use a spider-diagram you then need
to number your ideas or re-write them into a
structured plan.

You cannot even get a grade D unless your
ideas are organised into paragraphs so your
plan should indicate where you will begin
each new paragraph.
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For example
THE PARK

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Paragraph 1 – where it is
Paragraph 2 – the playground area (includes slide
and swings)
Paragraph 3 – attractive and good for wildlife
(includes trees, flowers, animals)
Paragraph 4 – why I like it
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Planning a response to the question on
poetry from other cultures
When planning an answer to the question on poems from other
cultures do not consider one poem and then another and then try
to make comparisons in your conclusion. You should be comparing
(discussing similarities) and contrasting (considering differences)
the poems throughout your essay.
This will also help you to ANALYSE the poems rather than simply
DESCRIBING them. E.g. You don’t get m(any) marks for saying,
‘there is a metaphor in the first stanza’ but you will get credit
for writing, ‘the poet compares her use of language to a flower
which shows how she feels it is alive and growing’.
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Your plan should be structured so that
your essay ANSWERS THE QUESTION
and EXPLORES KEY WORDS in it rather
than explaining everything you have
learned about about the poems or
describing them line by line.
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An essay plan should look like
this:
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Introduction – outline key similarities and differences
between the poems
Para 1 – discuss how each poem handles the theme
of ……..
Para 2 – consider how the structure affects our
interpretation of each poem
Para 3 – focus on language and key imagery in each
poem
Conclusion – sum up arguments
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And not like this
Introduction – say what I’m going to write about
Para 1 - Write about what happens in poem 1
Para 2 - Write about what poem 2 is about
Conclusion – write about similarities and differences
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You have 5-10 mins to write
your own plan
In ‘Presents from my Aunts in Pakistan’
the speaker of the poem writes about
feeling torn between two cultures.
Compare this poem with another poem
which also deals with this theme.
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Writing an introduction
A good introduction:
 Addresses key words in the question
 Shows an understanding of the texts and
topic that have been selected
 Introduces some key arguments (which will
be developed in the rest of the essay)
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A good introduction does not:

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Repeat the question
Say what you are going to do
List all the poems you are going to write
about.
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Which is better?
A
In this essay I am going to write about how the speaker of
‘Presents From My Aunts in Pakistan’ feels torn between two
cultures. I will also write about ‘Search For My Tongue’,
‘Hurricane Hits England’ and ‘Half-Caste’.
Or…
B
Both ‘Presents from my Aunts’ and ‘Search For My Tongue’ deal
with searching for cultural identity and the conflict this can
create. In ‘Presents’ the search for identity is triggered by
clothes, which represent conforming to or standing out from
British culture, while in ‘Search For My Tongue’ the poet sees
language as as the most important part of her culture.
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Try writing an introduction for
the following question:
Compare the ways in which the poets
use nature in ‘Hurricane Hits England’
and one other poem of your choice.
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