Three Texts, Fifty-Five Minutes, One Judgement
Comparative Study is worth 70 marks and Cian has 55 minutes of Paper 2 for it. He has studied a novel, a play and a film under the theme 'the outsider'. His notes run to thirty-seven pages and are organised text by text: a block on each, with quotations for the novel and play and scene descriptions for the film. The question reads: 'Compare how the three creators explore the experience of being an outsider. Which of the three texts offers the most convincing exploration of this theme? Give reasons for your answer.' Cian's instinct is to write an introduction, then a long paragraph on each text in turn, then a short conclusion saying that all three were effective in different ways. He knows the film least well and is anxious that admitting this will cost him marks. His teacher has said the comparative question rewards 'links and contrasts' and 'a clear line of argument'.
1. What is wrong with 'introduction, one paragraph per text, conclusion' - and what structure should replace it?
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The structure answers a question about one text at a time, but the comparative question is marked on comparison: links, contrasts and a line of argument running across all three texts. A text-by-text essay can contain excellent material and still score modestly, because the examiner is left to do the comparing himself.
Replace it with point-by-point paragraphs. Each paragraph makes one claim about the outsider, then tests it in all three texts:
'In all three texts the outsider is defined by a boundary they cannot cross. In the novel the boundary is class and it is spatial - one community set against another. In the play it is moral and it is verbal - the protagonist's refusal to speak the language of the court. In the film it is institutional and it is literal - the prison wall, and a camera that keeps looking over it at the men inside.'
Then one sentence of synthesis: what the comparison reveals that no single text reveals, such as the way all three grant the outsider a private code the audience is allowed to see.
Practical: three or four such paragraphs - identity and boundary; how sympathy is generated; how form shapes our view of the outsider; the ending - rather than three blocks. His thirty-seven pages do not need rewriting; they need re-sorting into claims.
2. How can Cian make the 'which text is most convincing' judgement defensible rather than a matter of preference?
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Set the criteria before choosing. Three work well:
- Consistency - does the text sustain its treatment of the outsider across the whole work, or only in a few set-pieces?
- Dramatisation rather than statement - does the creator make us feel the outsider's position through scene and form, rather than have a character explain it?
- Use of the medium - how does the form itself produce the outsider's experience? First-person narration that keeps us inside the outsider's head; dramatic irony where the audience sees a character's isolation before he does; the camera isolating a figure in a wide frame.
Then apply them explicitly: 'The film is the most convincing because its medium can show isolation without anyone saying the word - the sequence in which the prisoner stands alone in the yard...' The judgement becomes an argument rather than a taste.
On the film he knows least well: do not pretend. Two accurately described scenes used well beat five recalled vaguely. Naming a limitation - 'the play is the least convincing of the three, because...' - is itself a comparative judgement and earns credit. A conclusion saying all three were equally effective earns almost nothing.
3. Plan the 55 minutes.
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Comparison is the skill being tested, so time goes where the comparing happens.
- 7 minutes planning. Write the four claims at the top of the page; under each, one line per text. This map is what prevents the block essay from reasserting itself at paragraph three.
- 4 minutes introduction. Name the texts and the theme and state the line of argument in two or three sentences. Not a survey of each text.
- 35 minutes body. Four paragraphs at roughly eight to nine minutes each, every one moving across all three texts and ending with a sentence of synthesis.
- 6 minutes judgement. Which text is most convincing and why, plus one sentence on the weakest.
- 3 minutes checking names, titles and quotations.
What not to do: an introduction summarising each text (retelling in triplicate); a paragraph per text (three mini-essays stapled together); or the 'which text' answer tacked on as a single sentence when the question gave it a third of its wording. The judgement should be prepared from the introduction onward so that the conclusion is a payoff rather than a bolt-on.