Post-1914 Prose and Drama: Source-Based Response

The question gives you the text

In this closed-book question you study one post-1914 prose or drama text in class, such as An Inspector Calls, Lord of the Flies or Blood Brothers, and in the exam you are given an extract from it and asked to respond. The good news is that the extract is right there in front of you, so the skill is knowing what to DO with it. A strong response does three things, which examiners label AO1, AO2 and AO4: - respond with evidence from the extract, - analyse the method, how the writer creates an effect, - link to context, the time or society the text came from. Because the real texts are in copyright, this module teaches the skill on a short INVENTED extract, written just for practice. Read it now. *MRS HALE sits very straight, not looking at her son. HALE: You could have told me. Before everyone. MRS HALE: And have you make that face? No. She folds the letter once, twice, into a hard little square. HALE: What face. MRS HALE: That one.*

Words for responding to a text

Five terms you need before you use them. Learn what each one means.

Match the technique to its effect

Responding against analysing

The two skills examiners reward most are different, and a top answer does both. Do not stop at the first.

Read the moment

In the invented extract, Mrs Hale folds the letter once, twice, into a hard little square. What does this action most suggest about her?

• She is holding a strong feeling tightly under control
• She is bored and has nothing to do with her hands
• She is calm and completely content
• It means nothing and is not worth analysing

Spot the tension in the extract

Tap the TWO moments that most reveal tension between the two characters.

• You could have told me. Before everyone
• What face. That one
• MRS HALE sits, and the scene is set in a room
• The stage direction tells us Hale is her son

The move that scores

Every strong point in a source-based response follows the same four-part move, and most answers fall down by stopping too early. Point: make a clear claim about character or theme. Evidence: support it with a SHORT quotation from the extract, a few words is plenty. Analysis: explain HOW the writer creates the effect, zooming in on a word or a staged action. This is the part that earns the higher marks. Link: connect it to the wider text or to the context it came from. ⚠️ A point that names a feeling and quotes it, but never explains the method, has done only half the job. Always reach the analysis.

What a strong response does

Select the TWO features of a strong source-based response.

• It explains how the writer creates an effect, not just what happens
• It supports points with short, well-chosen quotations from the extract
• It retells the whole plot of the text from memory
• It copies out the longest quotation it can find

Order a response paragraph

Put the parts of a single source-based paragraph into the order that scores best.

• Make a point about a character or a theme
• Support it with a short quotation from the extract
• Analyse how the writer creates the effect
• Link it to the wider text or its context

A model paragraph

Here is one paragraph on the invented extract, written the way the mark scheme wants, so you can see the four-part move at work. *The writer presents Mrs Hale as a woman who governs her feelings rather than shows them. As she says a flat No to her son, she folds the letter once, twice, into a hard little square. The careful counting and the word hard turn a small gesture into an act of self-control, so the audience senses a strong emotion being pressed down rather than spoken. In a play written when open feeling between parent and child was often held back, this restraint would have felt familiar to its first audience.* Notice the shape: a point, a short quotation, close attention to particular words, and a link outward. That is the whole skill, and it works on any extract you are given.

Complete the response facts

A meaning a reader works out that a text suggests but does not state is an _____. An instruction in a playscript about how something is staged is a stage _____. Linking a text to the time and society it came from is writing about _____. Because this exam gives you no copy of the text to look at, it is a _____ book exam.

Build the analytical point

Complete a point about the extract, choosing the words that make it an analytical response.

The response run

Five questions on writing a source-based response. Three lives.

Improve the response

Read each case and choose the best answer, then think about why.

• A student writes only that Mrs Hale is angry and quotes the word No. What is missing to reach the higher marks?
• A student wants to bring in context. Which is the strongest way to do it?
• You are told the exam is closed book. What does this change about how you prepare?

Write your own response

Using the invented extract about Mrs Hale and her son, write one paragraph of a source-based response, as if answering the exam question on character.

• Make a clear point about what the extract shows about a character
• Support it with a short quotation from the extract
• Analyse how the writer creates the effect, zooming in on a word or a staged action
• Aim to cover both what happens and how it is shown
• Finish by linking your point to the wider text or to context